In The Heat Of The Night - John Ball

 IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT - JOHN BALL

The book upon which the film starring Sidney Poitier and Rod Steiger was based of course, and it's good - very good, in fact. But then could it be otherwise? The premise of the story, particularly for America in 1965 when it was first published was a pertinent and provocative one. A man is found dead in the road late one night in a small town in South Carolina. He's been murdered, and on heading down to the train station to check that the murderer isn't trying to escape by train, police find a black man there on the platform who is immediately arrested on suspicion of murder. It turns out he's a policeman himself, a detective just passing through the town on his way home to California.

Racism and segregation in the town are engrained, everyday facts of life that are suddenly confronted by the presence of this well-heeled, educated black man whose detective skills are second to none and who turns out to the chagrin of some to be the town's only hope in catching the killer.

1965 was the year in which Malcolm X was assassinated and the year of the Watts Riots. It was the year in which the subject of civil rights in America had come to the fore, and so come the publication of In The Heat Of The Night it was immediately put into a bracket of being culturally and politically significant. Apparently, author John Ball had to deal with considerable pressure from his editor when Ball insisted his detective be a black man, which just goes to show how deep racism ran back then. His editor's point of view was no doubt based on his belief that it wouldn't be commercially viable but he was of course proved wrong. And there's a lesson in that. Perhaps a few years prior to Ball writing his book the editor might have been right but by 1965 the times they were-a-changing and in its own small way In The Heat Of The Night aligned itself with and abetted that change.

The character of the detective, going by the name of Virgil Tibbs, is an interesting one and in many ways reminiscent of Clint Eastwood's laconic Man With No Name. He's very cool, calm, and collected, displaying an obvious self-confidence. It's very apparent as soon as he enters the storyline in fact that he is far smarter, better educated, and a far better person than every other person in the town including the chief of police (as played by Rod Steiger in the movie). On coming into contact with the detective, whether they like it or not everyone realises this as well. Because of his skin colour, however, it's the detective who is discriminated against be it through blatant prejudice on the part of the locals, through segregation and being barred from whites only places and areas, and through sheer ignorance. 

The similarity between the Tibbs character and the characters Clint Eastwood became world-famous for playing is actually almost too close to be a coincidence and begs the questions of influence and even plagiarism. Did Clint Eastwood ever read In The Heat Of The Night? The way the Man With No Name character is played you might think so but even more so with Eastwood's later film Coogan's Bluff, where he plays a Texan detective transposed to New York City where he is suddenly - like Virgil Tibbs - the stranger in a strange land.

There is also the question of the power and impact of one-liners that Eastwood, of course, became a master of. In The Heat Of The Night contains a classic and near-iconic one where the chief of police asks the detective about his name: '"Incidentally, Virgil is a pretty fancy name for a black boy like you. What do they call you around home where you come from?"

"They call me Mr. Tibbs," Virgil answered.'

Classic stuff indeed. A classic movie and even more so, a classic book.

John Serpico

A Book Of Days - Patti Smith

 A BOOK OF DAYS - PATTI SMITH

I must admit, I was quite a latecomer to social media. I'd had a micro-presence on the Internet for years but that was mainly on specific news websites that would come up if my name was googled. I had opened up a Facebook account years ago but I never went on it, never used it. I never really understood the point of it and could never quite understand what it was for. What I did see, rather, was that it was a time-consuming activity where people seemed to be carving out an online identity that was often the complete opposite of their real life self. Online they presented and depicted themselves as all laughs and jokes and isn't life wonderful when in reality they were miserable buggers who never spoke to anyone, least of all me. Or they would post constant selfies of themselves, or pictures of their pets or of what they've had for dinner, and well, I just couldn't see the point.

In hindsight, I started using social media on moving to a relatively isolated location where my immediate social circle was a lot less than what it had been. I still don't really understand what it's meant to be for though. I haven't got anything to promote (not least myself), I haven't got anything to sell and I'm not interested in creating a social media profile or 'identity'. Admittedly, I can be quite active on there at times but I still don't see any benefits to be gained from it, in fact quite the opposite: I can see the disadvantages of it as in time spent when that time could be put to better use. What I think keeps me on social media nowadays is that I do it mainly for myself, as a way of noting things such as films watched, books read, and of jotting down thoughts or sounding off. I don't really care about numbers of followers and friends and how many 'likes' anything gets. It's not important and in fact is actually quite meaningless.

Which brings us to Patti Smith and her latest book, entitled A Book Of Days. Of all people already in the public eye, Patti is one of the last who might have any need of social media. Her profile is already well-established and her reach already global. It was Patti's daughter who first suggested she should open an Instagram account so as to counter the fraudulent ones posting in Patti's name but more importantly because she thought the medium would suit her. Patti's daughter was right. Her first post was a photo of her hand, with her daughter being her first follower which has now grown to over a million followers.

A Book Of Days is a collection of 366 of Patti's Instagram posts, representing a leap year. Each post is a photograph accompanied by a short caption and is a prime and fine example of social media being put to good use and of it being of some benefit. The benefit it derives is that of inspiration. There are photos of pictures of Patti's heroes such as William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, Baudelaire, Gogol, Joan Didion, Jean Luc Godard, Elvis Presley, Jerry Garcia, Jackson Pollock and so on. There are photos of her home, her desk, her books, even her old boots. There are snapshots from her travels, of gravestones, of her family, and of herself. Selfies. There are even pictures of her cat.

'Social media,' Patti writes in her introduction 'in its twisting of democracy, sometimes courts cruelty, reactionary commentary, misinformation and nationalism, but it can also serve us. It's in our hands.'

In Patti's hands she has shown social media can be life affirming and an albeit limited force for good. Who would have thought? Who would have ever guessed? Who would ever have imagined?

John Serpico