A very clever conclusion to The Closer last night. They had people confessing left, right and center, and the DA thought for a moment that the real confession was going to be inadmissible because the suspect (a rather eleventh hour addition to the roster of suspects, truth be told) wasn’t advised of her rights. However, as it turned out, Brenda hadn’t asked her any questions, merely made statements that led the suspect to make a statement of her own, which is admissible. It was a nice twist on the conceit that the DA had rushed to judgment in the first place and hadn’t asked any questions about the case once they had a viable suspect and a confession. The parallels between the oddball statements made by the schizophrenic boy and Brenda’s cousin Charlie’s situation were nicely done, too. They didn’t hammer us over the head with them. Poor Libby (from Lost) — can’t get a break.
Speaking of admissible — why are some words “ible” and others “able”? (I spelled the word wrong twice in a single paragraph.) And when do you use “-ence” and when is it “-ance”? There need to be rules, damn it. Rules. The best source of rules lately is the NY Times weekly column After Deadline. Good stuff.
I’m reading How I Became a Famous Novelist by Steve Hely on my Kindle. It’s about a rather lazy guy (he works for a company that polishes up university application essays mostly for foreign students) who decides that he wants to become a NY Times Bestseller, mostly to spite his ex-girlfriend and so he’ll have something to show for himself when he attends her wedding in a year’s time. He haunts bookstores and scrutinizes the bestseller list to identify the ingredients that go into popular books. He’s not looking for literary recognition, just to sell a bunch of books. Some of his observations about the list are pretty funny. His only concession to literary style is that he decides his book has to end on a sad note, but that readers should be confused as to why they are sad. Apparently the book gets even funnier once he makes the list, so I’m looking forward to seeing where it goes. His writing samples are pretty ponderous, but that’s part of the book’s charm.
If I don’t receive the 1000-page novel today, I’m going back to my Ashes to Ashes marathon. I’m about 1/4 of the way into the third episode of season two. The vivisectionists are throwing bombs at people.
