28 CHICAGO READER | JANUARY 6, 2006 | SECTION ONE Books continued from page 27 for Granta, the Guardian Cohn’s in his element when a kind of memorial. Certain contains not one reference to each other. Bounce’s rules are Weekend magazine, and he’s looking closely at hip-hop’s passages have an eerie pre- Katrina. He had no interest in inflexible, and Cohn’s ideas British GQ , and its seams allure, especially how and monitory tone, as when the pursuing new subject matter, simply don’t match up with his occasionally show—the why it titillates white audi- mother of once bounce pro- he recently told the New York artists’. Cohn wants an ode to chronology is scrambled, and ences. He’s conflicted about ducer describes the decay of Times. “When I get behind the independent women and single the stories of many characters gangsta rap and devotes her neighborhood: “Now there mike, I got a whole ’nother mothers, but Choppa just are confined to a single chap- numerous pages to his love- was nothing left, just wicked- mind frame,” he said. “I rap wants another remix of his ter. But the book has a com- hate relationship with it, but ness and crime, and God was about what they wanna hear.” familiar hit, “Choppa Style.” pelling theme in Cohn’s rela- for Cohn the hedonism of mocked ....But he would not Master P recently addressed Cohn leaves a voice mail for tionship to New Orleans as bounce accurately reflects a be mocked forever, no, God the disaster by releasing producer Supa Dave suggest- well as his constant grappling very New Orleans worldview: always had the last word.” Hurricane Katrina—We Gon’ ing a change to a bass line, and with race, particularly race in “Fantasy, braggadocio, myth— Katrina also reveals just Bounce Back (Gutter Music), an the message gets played in the pop music from the earliest these weren’t just fancy words how difficult a task Cohn cre- album by bounce supergroup studio to riotous laughter. days of rock ’n’ roll to the pres- for lying, but a sort of ated for himself: even the the 504 Boyz, but most of the Choppa nicknames Cohn ent. He worries that his obses- art....That was how I came to hurricane couldn’t rewrite the tracks wouldn’t sound out of “Triksta” during a pot-fueled sion with black musicians has think of New Orleans: my city rules of New Orleans hip-hop. place on any of No Limit’s late- studio session, after first call- “some taint of idealization, of beautiful lies.” Rapper and Cash Money 90s releases. Resilience is at ing him “Nik da Trik.” Neither the flip side of condescension,” Triksta was written and Records president Lil’ Wayne, the heart of bounce—Triksta name is exactly affectionate. and that sort of candor keeps printed before Hurricane who was raised in New Orleans, ends when Cohn gives up the Triksta is constructed in Triksta from becoming a work Katrina, and it’s hard to read recently released Tha Carter II rap game, but the game keeps part from pieces Cohn wrote of unintentional comedy. it now as anything other than (Cash Money/Universal), which right on going. v CHICAGO READER | JANUARY 6, 2006 | SECTION ONE 29 Books THE RIDDLE OF THE TRAVELING SKULL HARRY STEPHEN KEELER (MCSWEENEY’S BOOKS) The Case of the Lost Logorrheic McSweeney’s brings local mystery stylist Harry Stephen Keeler back into print. By John Marr etween 1924 and 1953 Cracksman. Articles celebrating sive poetess, Abigail Sprigee; nor Keeler’s beloved “London of the Chicago native Harry his demented aesthetic began to of the Great Simon, with his 2163 West”—a thoroughly skewed B Stephen Keeler published appear in publications ranging pearl buttons; nor, of—in short, I Chicago. One memorable about 50 of the most exuberantly from the Journal of Popular then knew quite nothing about sequence finds him hunting for odd mysteries ever written. Set in Culture to the New Republic, and anything or anybody involved in clues in a cemetery dedicated to a seemingly alternate universe his fame started to grow. This the affair of which I now became a circus freaks. He finally deter- thick with eccentrics—and excla- winter McSweeney’s Books for- part, unless perchance it were my mines that the skull belongs to a mation points—Keeler’s novels mally launches a Keeler revival Nemesis, Sophie Kratzenschnei- man Pelton murdered 20 years feature a dozen or more disparate with its reprint of The Riddle of derwumpel or ‘Suing Sophie!’” ago. The skull contains incontro- plot strands woven together the Traveling Skull, originally This is the sort of prose that vertible evidence of Pelton’s guilt through an astonishing agglom- published in 1934. It’s the first led one reviewer to accuse him of and is now in the hands of a eration of weird wills, lunatic Keeler to see print in America in writing in Choctaw. But if you blackmailer intent on his ruin. laws, crackpot contracts, idiotic more than 50 years. can see a certain loopy beauty in But after spotting the oaths, and some of the most out- Even the staunchest fan will the ornate syntax and rampant “Sherlockholmsian” hat and a rageously beautiful, layered coin- admit that Keeler is not for semicolons; if you can sense the er when Clay opens his bag and ventriloquist’s dummy outfitted cidences ever put to paper. The everyone. Consider this typical touch of a genius in the creation finds inside, instead of his toi- as a cockney costermonger in New York Times could but mar- sentence, from the first chapter of Legga the Human Spider and letries, a trepanned skull. Pelton’s butler’s room, Clay is pre- vel, of one forgotten title, “You of The Riddle: the Great Simon; or if you’re just He quickly deduces that he pared to unmask the blackmailer. cannot possibly dream of any- “For it must be remembered wondering how the hell it can all must have switched bags with a At this point, two-thirds of the thing half so bizarre as the yarn that at the time I knew quite come together coherently, Keeler clergyman on a Broadway street- way through the book, the pub- Mr. Keeler has strung together.” nothing, naturally, concerning is a sublime pleasure. car. However, this is no ordinary lisher issues a “Challenge to the Although he enjoyed moderate Milo Payne, the mysterious The Riddle of the Traveling trepanned skull—and in short Reader.” An insert announces, commercial success early in his Cockney talking Englishman with Skull opens with narrator Clay order Clay is mugged and “Stop! At this point all the neces- career—one of his books was the the checkered long-beaked Sher- Calthorpe returning home to relieved of the object by a myste- sary clues have been presented to basis for a Bela Lugosi film, The lockholmsian cap; nor of the Chicago from a business trip to rious Chinese man, inexplicably make it possible for you to deter- Mysterious Mr. Wong—Keeler latter’s ‘Barr Bag’ which was as like Asia. He’s worried about a poten- jilted by his fiancee, and inadver- mine the identity of the black- was long out of print when he my own bag as one Milwaukee tial entanglement with “Suing tently involved in blackmail mailer. CAN YOU DO IT?” died in 1967. But after his death, wienerwurst is like another; nor of Sophie,” a middle-aged mission- directed against his employer Blanks are helpfully provided a small cult began scouring used- Legga, the Human Spider, with ary who files breach-of-promise and potential father-in-law, for the reader to write down a book stores for titles like The her four legs and six arms; nor of suits against every man who Roger Pelton. guess, but the answer is: of Skull of the Waltzing Clown and Ichabod Chang, ex-convict, and crosses her path. However, she’s To untangle the mystery, Clay course not. The solution to a The Mystery of the Fiddling son of Don Chang; nor of the elu- soon relegated to the back burn- sets out on an odyssey through continued on page 31 Q 30 CHICAGO READER | JANUARY 6, 2006 | SECTION ONE Letters continued on from page 3 sources who have an online rev- political commentator is deter- uct is distributed in is a little dif- Professor Allen for so patiently cial comic section. It will be enue model). Is there original mined by the individual reader, ferent. The Internet is also a sharing his e-business expert- popular in comics and cartoon- journalistic content online? Of not the editor, and certainly much more inclusive and robust ise, particularly in the area of ing circles, and the only ad rev- course. Check out not by whether the commenta- distribution system. advertising, a subject we know enue there is if there’s an Chicagoist.com. While they link tor’s words are on paper or I hope Mr. Lenehan can quit very little about. I fear, howev- arrangement with the holders to some print-originated mate- a screen. It is freedom of what wailing like an infant with er, that my humble attempt at of the print advertising on the rial, they do plenty of original you want to read. soiled diapers and learn about humor has eluded him in a page of ads included in the work in areas print publications Newspapers and magazines the different types of ways to variety of ways, of which I’d like block to shell out a little extra gloss over.