honest q:
what is the purpose of ledges (beyond being decorative)?
I’ve seen it maybe five times, so I don’t think it really fits here, like so many.
In my late teens, I was involved in emptying the apartment of an elderly relative who had died in the living room floor and wasn’t found until decomposition had done a number on the corpse.
The smell in the apartment was something I’ll never forget (and I’ve done plenty of dirty jobs since, being a tanner, hunter etc.). It felt like the extremely intense wall of death stench would literally go through you, standing in the hallway.
Squeeze the nastiest hangover dump and peek into the bowl, or take a deep breath over a large dumpster broiling in midsummer heat, and they are NOTHING compared to the semi-sealed death stench off a decomposing human.
Ordinary people committing first-degree premeditated murder for one reason or another and then calmly going on with their lives as though nothing has happened. (Until they slip up in front of someone like Columbo, of course.)
I’ve often wondered what is the ratio of fictional to real-life murders, at least the kind that require clever detective work to solve.
Columbo-type murder mysteries are somewhat of a special case, though, being a sort of a formulaic whodunnit play where realism is obviously even less of a goal than in many other genres.
… Which is why they’re on TV.
Just saw it again today: someone has to identify a dead body (well, they only show the head) and although they are visibly moved because they’re close, they say : never seen that person in my life.
Back when large buildings had openable windows (mostly pre-WWII construction), ledges allowed the occupants to open the windows a little for ventilation without worrying about rain coming in. Not open all the way, and not in a heavy or wind-driven rain. Ledges also provide some shade at certain times of day when you don’t want the sun glaring into your eyes.
When I was a kid we once took a two week vacation in the summer. My mom checked everything…or so she thought. She’d forgotten the potatoes stored under the kitchen sink. There was a heat wave while we were gone, and, man, that smelled close to rotten corpse.
I was visiting a friend in my old neighborhood, and the sign on the school had a notice that neighborhood Christmas displays would be judged the next night. Quite a change from 20 years ago, when we strung some lights along the eaves, put a wreath on the door, and called it good!
Rex Stout had Nero Wolfe and Inspector cramer say it best- 9 murders out of ten are best solved by Cramer and police procedures.
Police procedures, outside of gang killings-
- Look at the spouse or significant other.
- Who benefits?
- Collect evidence
Most murders the police have a pretty good idea of who did it to start (well, sometimes it is “some rival drug gang” but exactly who is often at doubt then).
Dead seals on a beach have about the same stench. Oddly rotting herbivores dont smell as nasty- altho certainly it is really bad smell.
Prisons are full of ordinary people who decided to murder their wife/ parent/ business partner for money, or revenge, or because it’s simpler than a divorce. It isn’t all that rare.
Fascist and Communist countries are full of security police, who will happily chat with you about art and literature, then put a bullet in the back of your head, then go home to hug their wives and play with their children. The idea that homicide is unconditionally evil is an artifact of modern culture.
It isn’t that murders are uncommon, it’s that the murderers themselves are affected so little. The real-life murderers shown on, e.g., Forensic Files are almost always free of remorse. No matter how much they claim to be innocent, the thing that bothers them most is that they got caught.
I don’t expect career criminals to feel guilt, but the average Joe or Josephine who schemes to whack someone? I can’t help wondering what goes on in their mind.
If I murdered someone in cold blood, it would haunt me the rest of my life regardless of how much I detested them. No way could I embark on a new life like that accountant who murdered his entire family and then went on the run to create a whole new identity.
Well, that’s because you’re not a sociopath.
It’s fun to daydream and come up with elaborate plans to get away with different crimes. But then I realize that I just don’t have that sociopathic streak that would allow me to look innocent by going about my life.
“Look, Mommy, that man walking down the street is crying, and hitting his head on the buildings…”
“Oh, Billy, don’t worry about him. He probably just murdered a criminal with a Rube Goldberg device that’ll never lead back to him… now come along, Billy, and don’t stare. It’s rude.”
People do it all the time in TV shows and movies, that’s the point. Far more than in real life, I would hope.
Just tonight I just had someone do that while they were jaywalking in front of my car while stuck in traffic leaving Leavenworth, WA. Or, rather, they failed twice before kinda succeeding the third time. I think they had been drinking.