MEMORIAL
---

White-knuckled in D.C. -- business traveler fresh from a defiantly decadent meal (for a bunch of journalists and PR types) and posted up half asleep on his rented bed when protestors in New Orleans fill the screen.

Such was my predicament, that of a character in one of my stories stuck in the moment at which drunken fuzziness rolls over into mania. Hurricane Katrina always gets the mind spinning, raging. "Filmmaker Helen Hill" wasn't a name and title I necessarily recognized in the context of late-night cable news. Nor could I remember in my lousy state the name of the silver-haired and often overearnest commentator.

But the protesters were protesting specifically the death of the filmmaker by pistol or shotgun and the overall violence of their wrecked and stumbling city. After the silver-haired commentator's story unfolded, though -- a narrative of grisly scene and story -- after the identity of Helen Hill revealed itself to me, it was another long moment before I could move to anything.

People, Helen was one of the most kind-hearted people I've met in my days, however briefly I knew her -- her husband Paul still is. If you don't know them, skip the news media and visit the small memorial to Helen Canadian gent Jim Munroe's posted here, which details the couple's wonderful personalities and commitment to others.

Hill was a native of my home state, South Carolina, the Columbia area, and she and Paul, native of Nova Scotia, though our paths crossed briefly a couple times afterward, had been very kind to me in the fall of 2001. It felt like summer in New Orleans, and Munroe and I and his then-girlfriend (now betrothed) Susan were fresh from the Spartanburg county jail, where we laid over for a day on account of my own ugly stupidity, nuff said -- three days in New Orleans later I felt like I'd been succored by gods of goodwill, including one in the form of Helen and Paul's pig Rosie, who can be seen sniffing and grunting famously in the small vid on Munroe's memorial page (as can I, a shadowy figure reading a book on the front stoop at the very beginning of the shotgun house tour -- oh ! how very aloof ! the exact opposite of our wonderful hosts, bless them).

Our thoughts here at THE2NDHAND South HQ are with you, Paul, and Helen's family.

011207

PAST WING & FLY:
*WEEK OF HANKS
*CITY MAN
*STENCIL PIRATES
*FUCK ME
*HARVEY WASSERMAN AND THE STOLEN ELECTION
*DAVE ZIRIN'S EDGE OF SPORTS
*RIVERBEND
*TOTH
*WHALE
*X
*Z
*SMOKE
*NEXIUM
*EUREKA
*MENO
*HAMMOND
*PILSEN
*CANADA
*DAYTONA
*WESTERN AVENUE
*ZOO

e-mail

Todd Dills is the editor and publisher of THE2NDHAND, which brings you this neat sort of "editor's corner" or "letter from the..." or what have you, winged mightily by Mr. Dills -- who most certainly loves you, and love being the product of communication, maybe... -- and launched every other week, we hope, for your reading pleasure. E-mail Dills at will by clicking on that word, yes, back there. He loves to hear from you.

Books by Todd Dills:

Sons of the Rapture, a novel, Featherproof Books, 2006. Order here or here.

In Chicago Noir, the third in Akashic Books' acclaimed series of noir anthologies, Dills's "Arcadia" is featured.

ALL HANDS ON: A THE2NDHAND READER
edited by Todd Dills
w/ an Introduction by Jim Munroe
$12

Like placing your ear beside some kind of magical, future radio and listening to the shocking world of the strange and new.... ALL HANDS ON, an anthology of new work and old, features the best of the magazine and a look at what may stand as the underground lit world's most interesting contemporary writing. --Punk Planet

THE2NDHAND has been the most exciting literary vessel in Chicago, opening a comfortably padded room for the anecdotal fiction writers and the experimental tale-spinners to play together where no one will get hurt. Read through this collection of four years worth of stories, and you'll see the line between the two isn't as clear as all that. And in the way the strongest species survive, it would seem the cross-pollination that happened over the years has strengthened both sides. --PopMatters.com

Or mail a check for $12, made out to Elephant Rock Books, to THE2NDHAND, P.O. Box 479045, Chicago, IL 60647.

FOR WEEKS ABOVE THE UMBRELLA
2002, by Todd Dills
70 pages, saddle-stapled, $7

To order, mail a check made out to Todd Dills or carefully concealed cash to:

THE2NDHAND
c/o Todd Dills
P.O. Box 479045
Chicago, IL 60647

Or buy now using any major credit card via PayPal (allow a few weeks for delivery):