About raptnrent: I got the name from my keys - R Apt and R Ent for the back door to my apartment and the back door to the house. I liked that they were also words: Rapt, meaning enthralled, riveted, captivated, and Rent, meaning torn asunder, violently wrenched. I thought it made for an interesting juxtaposition, open to all kinds of interpretations.
Tag Archives: true crime
Go Stagger Lee
I was going to do murder ballads for this week’s crime time, since that’s what’s coming up in the true crime course. But instead I’m just going to stick with one: Stagger Lee. It’s the story of one pimp shooting … Continue reading
Anticipating awesomeness
So we have a game show with a highway robber, and a president with a mistress(?). A number of people seem quite excited about the video project, and they’re having fun with it, so I think we’ll end up with … Continue reading
“I’m sorry, the government you have elected is inoperative”
This week the truecrimers looked at political corruption and crime. It’s a bit of a gray area sometimes, because things that are unethical aren’t always illegal. But as the saying goes, abuse of power comes as no surprise. “Politician,” a … Continue reading
Power, crime and corruption
Chelsea brings up the power of the media, and also touches on state power by bringing up the prison system. Foucault talked about power and the state, that power is negotiated between governments and the governed, and knowledge and power. … Continue reading
Then and now
Brilliant photographer Arleen Hodge shared a link to a great collection of crime scene photos from New York City. Press photographer Marc Hermann puts these together using the NY Daily News archive and contemporary scenes. I think it ties in to what … Continue reading
Confess!
There was something going on in the Lincoln reading, and I have to confes that I didn’t even pick it up until I found a related reading. He writes in a lawyerly just-the-facts manner, in comparison to Bierce, that it … Continue reading
Crime Galleries
So one thing led to another and I ended up on Paul Dodd’s website, featuring his Models from Crime Page series. Maybe those pictures were based on the Crime Stoppers flyer, which apparently also has its own on-demand cable channel. … Continue reading
Mapping ideas
One cool tool I like using sometimes is VUE (Visual Understanding Environment). It’s good for mind mapping/concept mapping, organizing thoughts, and whatever else you want to do with it. And it’s free. So here’s a quick map I started on … Continue reading
Nat Turner special
I thought I’d try to do a Nat Turner special on Crime Time Radio. I remembered hearing his in some lyrics – I thought maybe Public Enemy, but I couldn’t remember which song. A quick Google brought up a whole … Continue reading
What a turn-off
The use of that expression, “turned off,” in these narratives had been puzzling me. As a metaphor, it makes perfect sense. It’s just like turning off a light switch. But these stories come from the days before electricity. How did … Continue reading