More on Oswald's Ghost | Art&Seek | Arts, Music, Culture for North Texas

A couple of days ago, my colleague, Gini Mascorro, posted a notice about The Sixth Floor Museum’s screening of the PBS documentary, Oswald’s Ghost that took place yesterday at the renovated Texas Theater in Oak Cliff. No doubt great promotion was the big card played by having it at the movie theater where Oswald was captured, but it still took courage to do it. Good for the Sixth Floor for pushing ahead.

There’s a review in today’s Dallas Morning News, which you should check out. Although the reviewer decries the lack of the film’s theatrical release in Dallas, I need to remind that it will be broadcast by KERA 13 on January 14 at 9 p.m. So all you have to do is tune in.

Aside from reviews, you can also access Liane Hansen’s interview with the director, Robert Stone on NPR’s Weekend Edition Sunday.

And while I’m speaking of promotion, KERA13’s broadcast of Oswald’s Ghost will be followed by KERA’s production of JFK:Breaking the News at 10:30 p.m. Krys Boyd, who does a fantastic job of hosting KERA’s Think, produced the documentary along with others on staff.

Click and Clack may have their department of shameless commerce at Car Talk, but I have one of shameless KERA promotion and it resides in my heart.

Robert Paige

I’ve been asking this for some time, but just wondering if anyone else has ever read “Sherlock Holmes in Dallas”, by “Edmund Aubrey” (pen name of British Political Scientist Edmund S. Ions) ?
Jerome Weeks

I’m afraid I can’t say I’ve ever read it — to be honest, I didn’t know it even existed until your comment. Went to Bookfinder.com, though, and found quite a few copies of the 1980 first edition, and some others under the title “The Case of the Murdered President.” That seems to be the only novel Ions ever wrote and the only book with the Aubrey pseudonym, although Ions did write a study of “The Politics of JFK.” His novel is a rare enough book, apparently, that the Wikipedia entry for “JFK assassination in popular culture” mentions it but can’t link to anything definite about it, while “The Conspiratologists’ Book List” (vol. 1.1) — which seems pretty damned thorough — lists the book with several question marks after it. It also pops up on the occasional Holmesiana website but with absolutely no information beyond the obvious: Holmes tries to solve the assassination “mystery” based on the Warren Report, and that Holmes would have been a rather spry 115 years old at the time. You might try contacting the Amazon reader who commented on Loren Estleman’s novel, “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Holmes,” that it’s “every bit as good as Sherlock Holmes in Dallas,” a remark geared to impress the true cognoscenti among assassination and Sherlock buffs, it would seem.
Robert Paige

I am also the person who made the comment on Loren Estleman’s novel “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Holmes” as (my quote) “Being every bit as good as ‘Sherlock Holmes in Dallas’ is bad” (unquote).
In Mr. Ion’s book (Edmund Aubrey is a pen name) he desribes Dallas as (quotes from the book) “A strange and restless city whose very atmosphere seemed to breathe some menace.” Holmes and Watson apparently travel to Oak Cliff to the scene of the Tippit murder and describe it as “The drab suburban streets where walked, the nondescript rooming houses the grimy shops and liquor stores….” in “dry” Oak Clff ?!
Fifth Street in Irving, the locale of the residence of Michael and Ruth Paine as “A tedious thoroughare” and one which Holmes says to Watson, “Watson, I fear these mean surroundings provide a motive of sorts for a man to kill a rich and successful President with a beautiful wife.” Finally about the area around Dealey Plaza “I walked down Elm Street and ascended the grassy knoll above the curve of the road where the President met his end. It was the ordinariness, indeed the architectural mediocrity of this place that bore most urgently on my senses. Surely, one pondered , that vigorous young tribune should not have died amidst this tasteless facade of concrete, these mundane office blocks and ugly edifices.”

I have exchanged several letters with Mr. Ions and he seems quite rational in these except he types his letters an old manual typewriter with many strikeovers and additons in pen and ink and disdains “the infernal machine and the disembodied e-mail.’ He claims to have visited Dallas in connection with a BBC programme some time ago.

I’m afraid all the uproar about the “lone assassin” and “conspiracy” buffs is a bit out of my line but to be honest, I was intrigued by the title and also it was on sale for $1.99 at the old B. Dalton book store in Irving Mall.

Both the Irving and Dallas Public Libraries have copies of the book, but I checked into this and apparently they look as if no one had ever read them.

Any comments or feedback for further exchange would be interesting.

I am a Charter Member of the Old Red Museum of Dallas County History and Culture and have been doing duties as a volunteer docent and tour guide and a past member of the Dallas Historical Society where I also did tour guide duties at The Hall of State. I’m afraid my historical interests are more in the lines of “Richardsonian Romanesque” and “Art Deco” architecture, The 1936 Texas Centennial Exposition and like subjects.

Best regards……after watching “The Inspector Lynley Mysteries” this evening, I belatedly came across your website. …. If you might know where I could find information on the miniature railroad which showed up in the episode on Sunday, August 23 at 9:00 PM, this would be appreciated.

Robert Paige
Irving, TX

Ma
Robert Paige

Should have the 24th , of course as regard “The Inspector Lynley Mysteries” episode mentioned above.
Robert Paige

Incidentally, I have also read Mr. Ions’ books on “The Politics of Woodrow Wilson” and “The Politics of JFK” and they , too, are also as good as “Sherlock Holmes in Dallas” is bad….IMHO.