Megan Abbott, marking the birthday of Raymond Chandler on this date in 1888, directs attention to the following paragraph from The Long Goodbye:
"I like bars just after they open for the evening. When the air inside is still cool and clean and everything is shiny and the barkeep is giving himself that last look in the mirror to see if his tie is straight and his hair is smooth. I like the neat bottles on the bar back and the lovely shining glasses and the anticipation. I like to watch the man mix the first one of the evening and put it down on a crisp mat and put the little folded napkin beside it. I like to taste it slowly. The first quiet drink of the evening in a quiet bar—that's wonderful."
A man who likes it that much probably should have left after just one. The Wikipedia article on Chandler includes this bit of biography:
Cissy Chandler [his wife] died in 1954, after a long illness. Heartbroken and drunk, Chandler neglected to inter her cremated remains, and they sat for 57 years in a storage locker in the basement of Cypress View Mausoleum.
Nothing gold can stay.
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