The Raymond Chandler

A dark and stormy is a drink with dark rum. With light rum, which is what happened to be in the freezer, the drink becomes something else. It looks like a day with enough shade to cool a flea.

Let's call it The Raymond Chandler. 

The "the" here is important. Not enough cocktails with articles, if you ask me. 

Side note: Some people think that Raymond Chandler's cocktail is the Gin Gimlet, due to its prevalence and precise recipe in The Long Goodbye. Gimlet is also the name of the media company that produces my new favorite podcast Mystery Show. Anyone who has read The Long Goodbye or listened to Mystery Show knows well that this is no coincidence (not because there seems to be much in common between the two, but because there are no coincidences).

It is difficult for me to believe it ever rains in Los Angeles. Or to imagine what the city would look like should it do so. Despite my own limitations, I have it on good authority that it has rained (at least once) here as there's plenty of it in The Big Sleep. I don't think Mr. Chandler would mess up such a relevant detail as that.

While I read The Big Sleep several years ago, I returned to Raymond Chandler in earnest during a long plane ride to and from Paris via Prague. Depending on how you look at things, the novels either soothed or aggravated my distress over delayed flights and possible missed connections. They didn't not keep me up at night. And I gained a new found appreciation for metaphors.

I don't know if I would recommend The Raymond Chandler (dark rum is probably more delicious), but I would recommend Farewell, My Lovely. It's the only one I read with a female character worth a damn. She ends up with Philip Marlowe in the end. They all do.

Raymond Chandler has a lot of experience drinking drinks and he doesn't seem too picky. So I invited him round for a round of his new namesake. He drank it. 

I spoke to Raymond Chandler about food, since he clearly had an appreciation. Especially for the breakfast staples: coffee, eggs, toast. I noted that sometimes Philip Marlowe drank coffee black and sometimes with milk and sugar. Surprisingly, Raymond Chandler did not comment on my astuteness and suggest I would make a good private eye. Some people aren't too particular about how they take their coffee.

Raymond Chandler and I sat in the breakfast nook, a nook not unlike the one in The Long Goodbye. I didn't tell Raymond Chandler that I had actually enjoyed the end of the movie version with Eli Gould more than the book. Instead we played chess. I know Raymond Chandler isn't Philip Marlowe, but you wouldn't include such precise chess vocabulary without some appreciation of the game. After not too long I lost. 

I thanked Raymond Chandler for stopping by. He thanked me for the drink and welcomed me to my new city. I thanked him for introducing it to me. We were both very cordial.

If you're interested (and I am), there's a Raymond Chandler map of LA. It's almost like having Raymond Chandler over for a drink in your breakfast nook. Almost.