If you’re local, you probably saw the news article on the guy who currently rents the Sam Spade apartment in 891 Post that appeared April 29 — those of you scattered across the globe can follow the link and read all about it.
I missed it, because that day I was in LA hanging out with Jo Hammett. Always a pleasure. Again, her book Dashiell Hammett: A Daughter Remembers is one of the essential items for anyone who considers him or herself to be a bigtime Hammett fan. Worth it just for the photo of Hammett in a crew of head-busters in a railroad yard.
But Mike Humbert keeps up with all that stuff and had copied me in on it by the time I got back to the burg. I guess the new era for the apartment is kind of a Nick Charles/Thin Man/slicked-up incarnation. Me, I guess I prefer the nearly twenty years Bill Arney put in as Keeper of the Shrine, a rough and tumble/Continental Op/vigorous pulp-style period. A Golden Age — and one of the things you can say for me is that I recognise a Golden Age when I’m in it.
(I ran a photo of me and Bill and Mike in a post last year, standing in front of the folded-up Murphy bed in the apartment — click here.)
