Poetry of the Week: The Road Goes Ever On

The first epic of my childhood, following a clever, trickster hero through a long and winding path to danger and back again, was the Hobbit, not the Odyssey. And in addition to writing the two most well known epics of the modern age and inventing languages for fun, J. R. R. Tolkien, like many brilliant people in love with language, wrote poetry.  It's perhaps not surprising that much of it suits the wandering paths and uncertain future that named this blog. To quote one hobbit quoting another: "It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out of your door[...] You step onto the Road, and if you don't keep your feet, there is no knowing where you might be swept off to."

What's particularly fascinating, and what I've never spent enough time on, is tracing the refrains of his songs throughout his work and notes, as they shift and change to suit the scene. "The Road Goes Ever On" is a song written by Bilbo, rewritten by him as the occasion suits, and remembered (and again modified) by Frodo as he begins his own journey. Other poems and refrains shift similarly, and it feels similar to examining different drafts. Where other poets shift their words back and forth in an attempt to settle on a single "finished" version, however, folding the poems into the lifeblood of his worlds and stories means that all the different versions and their different meanings are equally complete and true.

But you came here for poetry:

(At Bilbo's return to the Shire)
Roads go ever ever on,
    Over rock and under tree,
By caves where never sun has shone,
    By streams that never find the sea;
Over snow by winter sown,
    And through the merry flowers of June,
Over grass and over stone,
    And under mountains in the moon.

Roads go ever ever on
    Under cloud and under star,
Yet feet that wandering have gone
    Turn at last to home afar.
Eyes that fire and sword have seen
    And horror in the halls of stone
Look at last on meadows green
    And trees and hills they long have known.

(Bilbo's departure at the beginning of The Fellowship)
The Road goes ever on and on
    Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
    And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
    Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet.
    And whither then? I cannot say.

(Frodo's own departure from the Shire)
The Road goes ever on and on
    Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
    And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with weary feet,
    Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet.
    And whither then? I cannot say.

(Bilbo, cozy by the fire, at Rivendell toward the end of Return of the King)
The Road goes ever on and on 
    Out from the door where it began. 
Now far ahead the Road has gone, 
    Let others follow it who can! 
Let them a journey new begin, 
    But I at last with weary feet 
Will turn towards the lighted inn, 
    My evening-rest and sleep to meet.


And it's past time for me to turn in as well, though only for the night. I hope your days go well, and your journeys are rewarding if not always easy. 

"Home is behind, the world ahead, and there are many paths to tread"

Tea Highlight: Smokey Teas

I don't remember when, exactly, I started drinking tea. There was a jump somewhere from hot toddies to brewing a pot in my family's china tea pot every afternoon. (In retrospect, I'm baffled that this was allowed, but I guess my parents preferred it get used than sit in the cabinet looking pretty.) Usually green tea, but occasionally a breakfast blend or whatever loose leaf I'd picked up from the local coffee shop that week. I tried to make it a habit to grab something new or unfamiliar on a regular basis, and I highly recommend this as a way of figuring out what you like in pretty much any food genre.

When I finally encountered Russian Caravan, I thought I'd encountered a lifelong favorite. Russian Caravan is a delicious and malty black tea blend that's lightly smoked, mimicking the flavor of teas arriving in Russia from China back when caravans were the actual means of transport. The stories go that because it was a long trip and the wagons would circle the fire at night, the tea arrived faintly smoked, and so that flavor is what people began to expect and appreciate. These days the tea is smoked deliberately, often including a blend of smoked and unsmoked to keep the flavor on the subtle end. It goes well with a hint of sweetness, in my experience, and a friend of mine once found some rum infused Russian Caravan that was absolutely wonderful.

The true king of smoked teas, however, and a frequent component of Russian Caravan blends, is lapsang souchong. Lapsang souchong has always been deliberately smoked over pine wood fires, and the moment I encountered it Russian Caravan lost its position as my favorite tea. I even remember my first cup of it. I was at a local ice cream and coffee shop on one of my spare wandering afternoons, and I noticed that their tea selection that day included a type I'd never heard of before. By this point that wasn't something that happened often, so I immediately ordered it. (Alongside an apple crumble a la mode, because this place made amazing ones.) It arrived in a giant glass mug, as all of their tea did, and as it darkened and reddened it smelled like nothing more or less than campfire smoke and summer evenings in the woods. I probably curled my hands around it and smelled it for longer than it took to drink it. And I was pleasantly surprised that though the smoke was absolutely present in the tea itself, it had all the depth and maltiness of my favorite oolong and black tea blends. It smelled like fire and tasted like fall.

Since then I've heard people refer to lapsang souchong as everything from "that bacon tea" to "that one that smells like road tar?" and I've concerned more than one coworker who mistook my morning caffeine intake with the office being on fire. It's not to everyone's taste, but I recommend it to anyone and everyone who enjoys tea, because if you like it at all you'll have a favorite tea for life.

Poetry of the Week: The Shelleys

Did you know that Mary Shelley, author of Frankenstein, wrote poetry? I didn't. She doesn't seem to have published many, admittedly, and I was only able to find one in full version on my usual poetry sites, but now I'm inclined to go searching.

Her husband, Percy, is the poet of the pair, with a prolific portfolio of Romantic verse inspiring many poets who followed him. He brought us Ozymandias and "Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!" while Mary invented science fiction as a genre.

The Shelleys and Byron are a fascinating trio, for their literary contributions, their politics, and what we know of their lives, and one day I'd like to spend a good amount of time digging into their works and history.  But for now, enjoy the one poem I could find from Mary, and the oldest poem known for Percy (which reminds of nothing more than my cat's pitiable yowling whenever he feels his food bowl is in need of attention).


Stanzas - Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
Oh, come to me in dreams, my love! 
I will not ask a dearer bliss; 
Come with the starry beams, my love, 
And press mine eyelids with thy kiss. 

’Twas thus, as ancient fables tell, 
Love visited a Grecian maid, 
Till she disturbed the sacred spell, 
And woke to find her hopes betrayed. 

But gentle sleep shall veil my sight, 
And Psyche’s lamp shall darkling be, 
When, in the visions of the night, 
Thou dost renew thy vows to me. 

Then come to me in dreams, my love, 
I will not ask a dearer bliss; 
Come with the starry beams, my love, 
And press mine eyelids with thy kiss.


Verses on a Cat - Percy Bysshe Shelley 
I. 
A cat in distress, 
Nothing more, nor less; 
Good folks, I must faithfully tell ye, 
As I am a sinner, 
It waits for some dinner  
To stuff out its own little belly.

II. 
You would not easily guess 
All the modes of distress 
Which torture the tenants of earth; 
And the various evils,  
Which like so many devils, 
Attend the poor souls from their birth.

III. 
Some a living require, 
And others desire 
An old fellow out of the way;  
And which is the best 
I leave to be guessed, 
For I cannot pretend to say.

IV. 
One wants society, 
Another variety,  
Others a tranquil life; 
Some want food, 
Others, as good, 
Only want a wife.

V. 
But this poor little cat  
Only wanted a rat, 
To stuff out its own little maw;
And it were as good 
SOME people had such food, 
To make them HOLD THEIR JAW!

Poetry of the Week: Emily Dickinson

Poetry is something to celebrate with, to sooth and relax and wake up the dreaming part of the brain that mundane troubles force dormant, but it's also a friend to turn to in troubled times. "Hope is the thing with feathers" was my first favorite poem, and the notebooks of my childhood have it scattered through them like leaves.

I forgot about Emily Dickinson for too long after that. But here are a few of her words to start to make up for it.

Love is anterior to life
Love is anterior to life,  
Posterior to death,
Initial of creation, and  
The exponent of breath.

Each life converges to some centre
Each life converges to some centre
Expressed or still;
Exists in every human nature
A goal,  

Admitted scarcely to itself, it may be,        
Too fair
For credibility’s temerity
To dare.  

Adored with caution, as a brittle heaven,
To reach   
Were hopeless as the rainbow’s raiment
To touch,  

Yet persevered toward, surer for the distance;
How high
Unto the saints’ slow diligence        
The sky!  

Ungained, it may be, by a life’s low venture,
But then,
Eternity enables the endeavoring
Again.

Hope is the thing with feathers
Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,  

And sweetest in the gale is heard;        
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.  

I've heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;     
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.

A wounded deer leaps highest
A wounded deer leaps highest,
I've heard the hunter tell;
’T is but the ecstasy of death,
And then the brake is still.  

The smitten rock that gushes,       
The trampled steel that springs:
A cheek is always redder
Just where the hectic stings!  

Mirth is the mail of anguish,
In which it caution arm,        
Lest anybody spy the blood
And “You ’re hurt” exclaim!

Interlude: The Problem of Focus

Focus is a concept that's at once difficult for me and all too easy.  If I make the mistake of starting a new book, and I enjoy it, my focus is guaranteed for the next handful of hours until I've completed it. I can put it down and work on other tasks, but I'll be at least somewhat distracted if I do, and given how quickly I read it's usually more efficient to just buckle down and get through it.

My projects can be like that, as well, all jostling for attention. I've started likening focus and task management to walking a pack of dogs. Some, like a good book, grab me and start dragging me down whatever path they want, and have to be wrangled back into order. Others want my attention, but meander unproductively down side roads. "Oh, you want to work on your short story? Absolutely! Let's research tangential but fascinating details for the next three hours without writing a single sentence." Like real dogs, they can be trained to some degree, but it seems to be on a dog by dog or project by project basis, and it's not a quick process. Enough work on a specific task or thought will allow me to properly pace and channel my enthusiasm and inspiration. I can trust that letting it sit on the back burner while I deal with other priorities won't result in losing it forever, and I can dredge up some momentum when it's finally time to get to work. But very few of my projects reach that level of maturity.

Today, in what free time I can scrounge between work and scheduled obligations, I could do any of the following: pick which poem I'm posting tomorrow, make plans for my trip to NYC in a few days, brainstorm and write up details for two upcoming LARP characters, work on my short story, see if I can make progress on my next tattoo, set up a second blog for SCA-related thoughts and make a post there, sort out logistics for the next several months, or make progress toward either getting a vocal teacher or at least researching some exercises I can do at home. Instead I'm writing this, because it's been nagging at me off and on for days, and I'd like to wrap it up and see what conclusions I can draw. (I'd also like to avoid the twenty minute rumination I ran into earlier this week where I tried to figure out what dog breed my various projects must be.)

Before I'm deep into a task, I can be easily distracted by other thoughts and priorities, leading to a very flighty and honestly somewhat uncomfortable state where my mind flits from shiny to shiny until I pick something or drown out the noise with forced quiet. Usually this involves chaining my mind to something engaging enough to carry me along, but self-contained enough not to spawn further jostling thought threads. Fencing can be good for this. Netflix is less healthy for me, but similarly useful. A quick 20 minute sitcom is sometimes all I need to reset all the pending threads and reassert control. The act of definitively finishing something, whatever that something may be, is usually helpful. Alcohol usually dampens most of my excessive brain energy (hooray for lowered anxiety!), but doesn't encourage single-minded focus, so it's better for relaxing than productivity.

But once I've started moving and gotten deep into something, I don't context switch well. Turning around and switching to an entirely new task takes time. I've taken efforts to minimize this in my work environment, but I only recently realized that I need to worry about it for my personal productivity as well. As it stands, on a good day I'm home for five hours before I need to turn in. A significant chunk of that is taken up with cooking, eating, and cleaning up after dinner, leaving me with even fewer usable, consecutive hours in the day. And yet I have this strange notion that I'll do a little fencing and a little writing and a little guitar and a little research and a few small improvements and maybe those pending e-mail tasks and... And shockingly, that hasn't been working out well for me. I can't research in dribs and drabs any more than I can set a new novel down before I've finished it. And I really can't write that way. I can plan! I can outline and brainstorm and let the threads run wherever they may, but the hard work of sitting and typing and forcing words to happen takes at least a half an hour before it clicks and starts moving properly.

This blog has been helpful. Arbitrary, self-imposed deadlines aren't particularly useful to me, but ones that are visible to other people are. That added bit of urgency helps me get through whatever it is I'm needing to work on. (See also: my entire academic career) Which is why I'm likely to start an SCA blog once I find the time to properly devote to it. And beyond that, I think I'm going to go back over my plans and schedules and cut out all the "spend a half hour on this regularly" thoughts, replacing them in as many places as I can with larger chunks of time spread further apart. That won't work for everything, of course, but it might help with a couple of my projects that have stalled out.

Tea Blends: A Proper Hot Toddy

We interrupt your regularly scheduled LARP tea series to bring important information about that most well-known of tea cocktails, the hot toddy. The hot toddy is, fairly universally, a hot honey-tea-and-alcohol cocktail that's good for fighting off damp, chilly weather and the effects of the common cold. But exactly what goes in a hot toddy varies wildly by person and region. Some add cinnamon or cloves. Slices of orange or lemon are common. The alcohol changes, though I've encountered whiskeys more often than not. And to my dismay, the tea is not infrequently replaced with plain hot water.

Growing up, a hot toddy meant Bigelow's Constant Comment tea with honey and bourbon, in my case made "virgin" to simply be honey and tea. My earliest memories of tea all involve late night coughing fits interrupted by my parents' showing up with a warm mug for me to drink to soothe my throat and help me sleep. That might partially explain why tea is my go to when I want to help or comfort my friends. The Constant Comment certainly explains my insistence on adding cinnamon and orange to 90% of all tea blends.

Years later, I still drank honey tea when sick, but had mostly forgotten the concept of turning it into a cocktail until I went to a tea tasting hosted by Cynthia Gold. She re-introduced the hot toddy, recommending a more careful pairing of tea and alcohol than I'd previously bothered with: lapsang souchong, that delicious woodfire smoke tea, paired with a smokey, peaty scotch, married together with honey. (Hers I believe also had orange rind, but I admit to being too lazy to add that at home.) It's absolutely delicious, and the best drink to help you get through a long, snowy winter.

I can't give exact ratios, unfortunately, since you should really adjust alcohol based on your own preferences, but I do recommend adding more honey than you think you need, particularly if you're like me and tend to be stingy with sweet things. The tea and the scotch can more than stand up to the honey, and it helps them blend.

This version of the hot toddy is still a comfort drink for me, but less so a drink to fight illness. Instead our house eschews alcohol and tea entirely for that, and makes hot water with honey, lemon juice, and a cinnamon stick. Easier to make by the mug when most of your tea is loose leaf, with all the requisite cold fighting/comforting properties.

Poetry of the Week: Goblin Fruit and Foxes

Somewhat belatedly this week, an offering of a couple resources for more modern poetry (and other fiction), and a recommendation for one poem in particular.

The first resource isn't actually a poetry resource, but it does contain poetry along with other writings along a particular genre and theme. Specifically, foxes! STORYFOX is a database for, as it says "Vulpine Science Fiction and Fantasy." Jenn Grunigen started it a little over a year ago, and my friend Lise brought it to my attention, knowing she has plenty of fox-inclined friends. The database includes information on fiction ranging from poems to novels, and I haven't come near close to exploring it fully. I love the idea, though, and wish I knew more such collections for other topics.

Searching through it for poetry one day brought me, in turn, to Goblin Fruit, a seasonal poetry journal that specializes in poetry that they describe as having a "fantastical" nature, of whatever flavor that may be. This, too, I haven't read much of, but they've had at least one fox-related poem in the past, hence running into them.

If you've got a few minutes today, and particularly if you like foxes and/or fantasy, I highly recommend poking around in one or both of those sites!

And to be sure I actually give you a poem this week, the poem I found in STORYFOX that brought me to Goblin Fruit, and is now serving as one of many tidbits of inspiration for a character of mine (for better or worse): The Fox Smiled, Famished by Mike Allen

Tea Blends: Wizard's Tea

Wizard is possibly the weirdest tea blend I've put together. Not because it involves any unusual ingredients, in fact many of these ingredients show up in most of my blends, but because it's spicy.  I've added pepper to blends before for a tiny bit of kick, but this is drink slowly or suffer territory. This makes it less of an all day every day kind of tea, but it's great when you're in the mood.

Wizard's Tea (a breakfast/lapsang blend)

Where There's Smoke, There's Fire

The blend:
For every teaspoon of breakfast blend (in this case, an Irish Breakfast tea), 

 - 1/4 teaspoon lapsang souchong
 - 1/4 teaspoon whole peppercorns
 - 1/4 teaspoon candied ginger

 - 1/8 teaspoon red pepper flakes

 - 1/8 teaspoon of orange rind

 - 1/4 stick of cinnamon
Dial the two peppers up or down to meet your spice tolerance. This is currently set to mine. The red pepper flakes give it that immediate "Ow! My tongue's burning! Why is this happening?" flavor, while the peppercorns contribute to the more back of the tongue slow burning spice.

Steep at boiling for ~5 minutes. It won't oversteep easily, but the pepper will keep making it spicier, and if spicy tea is weird, spicy lukewarm tea is even weirder. 3/10 do not recommend.

Notes on ingredients:
 - The Irish Breakfast tea is from Upton Tea Imports, my all time favorite online shop, particularly for ordering several small batches of different types of tea to see which you prefer. It focuses more on selections of tea leaves, locations, and qualities than on making its own fruit and flower blends, which is helpful for my purposes.

 - The lapsang souchong is from MEM Tea Imports.

 - Everything else is cobbled together from spice sections.

Notes on design:
I don't actually remember when I decided to make the Wizard tea spicy. I knew I wanted it to be highly caffeinated, for late night wizard research sessions, but I was trying to tie it in to Sun and Moon, and for the longest time I didn't have Moon finalized. I think I expected this to become a breakfast blend with some lapsang and lavender, which sounds far less interesting. Instead, fire became the primary theme for this drink, the title "Where There's Smoke, There's Fire" came to mind, and everything went downhill from there. It's smokey, spicy, and highly caffeinated, with the orange and cinnamon (of which I am, perhaps, overly fond) pulling it back into something a bit richer than a two note flavor profile. My one regret is that I still haven't figured out a good way to get ginger's full bite into the drink.

Handle with care! I'm not yet certain what's going to happen with Wonder, and I'll probably have to poke at the kuding again for experiment's sake, but one way or another there will be a tea update in seven days. See you then!

Themes and Tropes: Con-artist heroes

"It's called a hustle, sweetheart."

I joke sometimes that the second archetype I ever bonded with was the con-artist, so when Disney released an adorable animated movie with a fox con-artist who shares my name, I of course had to go see it. Zootopia is adorable and surprisingly well done, and though it falls more squarely into the buddy cop genre than anything, it got me thinking again on one of my old favorite tropes. Con-artists, grifters, swindlers, snake oil salesmen and all the rest make for fascinating side-characters and villains, flavorful and troublesome obstacles in a more straight-forward hero's way, but what is it that we're looking for when we make them the hero of the story?

Part of it is the thrill of watching someone who is very good at what they do. The same competence porn enjoyment you get out of watching the many Sherlock adaptations or any heist movie ever. The odds are arrayed against our heroes, but instead of asking whether or not they'll succeed, our question becomes how and with what clever solution. Some slight of hand? A plausible lie and smile to the right person? Con-artists take the social contract and manipulate it into working for their own purposes, and written well it's artful to watch. And it helps that their success and competence relies heavily on charm, such that these protagonists are almost by definition smooth, suave, and against all better judgment, likable. You find yourself rooting for them in part because that's their job.

But there are a few more conflicted themes tangled up into the archetype of the con-artist as protagonist, and those are where most of my particular fondness lies. Questions of masks and identity, the need to constantly be an outsider, traveling and alone, and all the grey issues of morality they carry with them. Grifter archetypes in America are particularly tied in to the traveling salesman trope, but bandits and highwaymen parallels show up from time to time. They have to be the outsider and the new face, because once their face is known, their scheme is bust. But how long can anyone live like that? Is the thrill and reward worth it? What happens if and when you get attached to someone or something and find yourself unable to move on? Sometimes the conclusion of a con-artist story is a kind of redemption, the finding of home or love or belonging, but sometimes the draw of the road and the next great scheme is unavoidable and they end up right back where they started.

And by virtue of being a protagonist, and usually likable, con-artist heroes tend to find themselves burdened with hearts of at least fool's gold, which conflicts interestingly with a life of swindling people. Maybe their redemption arc ends with the realization that they've done wrong, but it's just as likely that their moral flexibility allows them to engineer revenge and justice stories that other heroes might consider beneath them, conning and humiliating people who very much deserve it. Personally I'm a sucker for a good revenge story, so give me a shady hero with a grudge any day.

A good con-artist story touches on most of these threads, and I haven't encountered nearly as many of those as I think the archetype deserves. But there are definitely good ones out there, and if it's a subject that interests you I recommend all the media below:

Movies

The Music Man
"For the first time in my life, I got my foot caught in the door."

Almost certainly the start of my con-artist obsession, The Music Man is a classic example of the con who gets too close to his mark. "Professor" Harold Hill rolls into town as our aforementioned traveling salesman, quite literally fast talks the town into believing their community is crumbling and in need of his services, side-steps the authorities by tricking them into becoming a barbershop quartet, and only screws up by finding his heart and falling in love. As a kid I don't think I could have told you which of the two protagonists I wanted to be more: the quick and clever Hill or his love interest Marian, a librarian and misanthropic outcast bookworm, yearning for romance.

I grew up on live shows and the 1962 Robert Preston edition; I can't say anything about the more modern Matthew Broderick version.

Paper Moon
"I got scruples too, you know. You know what that is? Scruples?"
"No, I don't know what it is, but if you got 'em, it's a sure bet they belong to somebody else!"

Paper Moon is a surprisingly heart-warming movie about a con man in the Great Depression who finds himself entrusted with the guardianship of a young girl who may or may not be his daughter. He uses her in his schemes, but it quickly becomes clear that she's the more terrifying of the two, and the movie covers their travels, tribulations, and rocky relationship. It's not a tale of redemption, exactly, but it covers heart and home fairly well.

The Brothers Bloom
"The perfect con is one where everyone involved gets just what they wanted."

The Brothers Bloom is the stylized and artsy tale of two brothers who've built their lives and reputations around running vast and elaborate cons. Stephen, the eldest, plots everything out "the way dead Russians write novels, with thematic arcs and embedded symbolism and shit", always with his younger brother Bloom in the starring role. But by the start of the movie Bloom is exhausted and cynical from a life of lies, and wants nothing more than to find out who he really is and to fall in love off script for once. Stephen helps in the only way he knows how to, by arranging one final con. Enter their mark, the sheltered, eccentric, and infinitely talented Penelope, whose main desire is to finally see and experience the world and all its wonders and dangers.

I can't fully express my love for this movie. It's a story about stories, which is kind of my jam, and folded up in that are messages about the stories we tell ourselves and what does an authentic life mean, anyway? If I could get away with it I would quote every third line in this movie on a regular basis, and have strongly considered scattering a few of them around my house for inspiration and reminders. It's gorgeous, cleverly put together from start to finish, with every element and repeated refrain carefully considered, and I haven't even mentioned Bang Bang, the actual best character. Go watch the trailer and be instantly charmed.

O Brother Where Art Thou
"I detect, like me, you're endowed with the gift of gab."

What can I say about O Brother Where Art Thou? It's a bluegrass rendition of that oldest and most beloved con-artist's tale, The Odyssey. (And if you don't think Odysseus counts as a con-artist, I have a wooden horse built by No One I'd like to send you.) In this case, Ulysses Everett McGill escapes from a chain gang with his two accomplices, Pete and Delmar, and proceeds to travel across rural Mississippi, encountering beautiful sirens, a blind prophet, and (arguably) the devil himself. The soundtrack alone is worth the watch, perfectly accompanying the shenanigans that are Ulysses's linguistic acrobatics and the trio's bizarre and borderline supernatural adventures.

The Road To El Dorado
"We need a miracle."
"No, we need to cheat!"

The Road To El Dorado is one of those movies I'm shocked more people haven't seen, but possibly due to the Dreamworks curse it seems to have been consistently overlooked. Which is a shame, because it's amazing. Miguel and Tulio are two low-level cheats and grifters in Seville, Spain, who wind up with a map to El Dorado and a trip as accidental stowaways on one of Cortés's ships to the New World. Quickly escaping from the terrifying Cortés, they eventually stumble their way through the forest to the city of gold, where they wind up trapped in the role of gods. It's a subject matter that could have easily gone wrong, but Miguel and Tulio are mostly thrown around by the whims of fate and scrambling to catch up, while the natives of El Dorado use them as figures in their own internal politics. It's a cheerful buddy comedy that knows where the dark and serious beats should be, and it builds a cast of characters who are easy to adore. It's also the source of some of the most useful gifs on the internet!

Really, all you need to see to find out if you'll like this movie is this opening scene:

 

Catch Me If You Can
"People only know what you tell them, Carl."  

I'd be remiss if I presented a round up of con-artist media without including Catch Me If You Can. The movie is a dramatization of the actual story of Frank Abagnale, one of the most famous forgers and con-artists in history, who impersonated pilots and committed massive bank and check fraud all before he turned 18. The movie focuses on those years and crimes, and the struggles of the FBI agent trying to find him, as well as a growing almost friendship between the two characters. It's a clever and stylized movie, and apparently it eventually spawned a Broadway musical, though that I have not seen.

As for the actual Frank Abagnale, after his eventual capture and imprisonment, he was released early under the condition that he help the government investigate other cases of fraud. These days he works as a security consultant. He's a fascinating person to read up on, and some of the things he's said about fraud and identity theft in the era of modern technology are unsurprisingly frightening.

TV Shows

Leverage
"Right now, you're suffering under an enormous weight. We provide…leverage." 

The premise of Leverage is summed up in a line from the first season: "Sometimes bad guys are the only good guys you get." Essentially, four thieves with different specialties - a grifter, a hitter, a hacker, and a straight up second-story artist slash pickpocket thief - team up with an ex-insurance agent and start running cons on bad guys to get justice for their victims. You want competence porn? Leverage has got you covered. Revenge? Absolutely, though usually not for the thieves themselves. Navigating hazy morals and redemption arcs? All there.  Technically only one member of the crew is a con-artist, but nearly every plot is at least partially a con, and the mastermind and the grifter toss around named scheme ideas with glee.

I could go on and on about everything amazing about Leverage: all the characters are lovable, it's so impeccably quotable, there's an actual rule that every con has to end with the team "gloat" where the mark can see... I recently pitched it to a friend as the best TV show I know, and I stand by that statement. It's not my favorite, because I have horrible, nostalgic 90's taste, but it's five seasons of a found family of thieves Robin Hood-ing corrupt governments and businessfolk complete with heist-level suspense and some of the most well-done character arcs I've ever seen. If you haven't already watched all five seasons, I recommend you do so at your earliest convenience. It's all on Netflix, and if you make it through the pilot without falling in love, you're made of stronger stuff than me.

White Collar
Elizabeth Burke: Good luck with your little con.
Peter Burke: It's not a con. 
Neal Caffrey: Technically it is a con. 
Peter Burke: It's a sting. 
Neal Caffrey: But sting's another word for a - 
[Peter glares.] 
Neal Caffrey: Okay, let's start the sting. 

White Collar isn't technically based on Frank Abagnale's story, but it draws on the idea of a forger and con-artist working with the agent who caught him to catch other white collar crimes. The main emotional plot revolves around the growing friendship and buddy cop romance between Neal Caffrey, the dapper, cocky forger, and Peter Burke, the frumpy, workaholic agent who caught him. It hits all the beats: a dapper, charming protagonist, the conflict of being trapped between a confining life on the straight and narrow and your old, exciting life of crime, with loyal friends on both sides, love, loss, mysteries, a thriving fanfic community.... Plus Burke's wife, Elizabeth, is one of the strongest characters in the show, and it's surprisingly nice to see a loving, established couple as cornerstone cast members without love plots and misunderstandings thrown in for added "drama."

Plus it's Matt Bomer in suit porn. You're welcome.


Honorable Mention:

The Pretender
There are pretenders among us, geniuses with the ability to become anyone they want to be... In 1963, a Corporation known as the Centre, isolated a young pretender named Jarod, and exploited his genius for their research. Then one day, their pretender ran away..

Speaking of terrible 90's taste, the Pretender is...pretty much what it says in the quote. Jarod runs away from the evil organization known as the Centre and runs their teams a merry chase around the country, pretending to be a doctor or a lawyer or pretty much anything, in order to find out who he really is and experience real life for the first time. (Most episodes have him discovering something like ice cream with childlike delight.) Meanwhile he encounters various injustices both in the lives of the people around him and within the secrets of the Centre that he keeps digging up, and he arranges Count of Monte Cristo-esque poetic vengeance on the various petty villains who cross his path. It's cheesy and ridiculous, but surprisingly fun. Jarod and the team ostensibly attempting to catch him are all endearing, and you end up more invested in the secrets of this ridiculous organization than you really should be. I'm counting this as an honorable mention because he's not a con-artist, exactly. He's pretending to be people he isn't, but he's not actually trying to scam anyone, and through mystic genius pretender skills, can actually do everything he says he can.

Books

Lies of Locke Lamora
“To us — richer and cleverer than everyone else!”

Oh, Locke. Locke is the definition of too clever for his own good. He's the head thief and often mastermind of the Gentleman Bastards, a small gang of thieves in the notoriously corrupt city of Camorr. The Bastards, against all the laws of the underworld, spend their time conning the nobility out of their undeserved riches, and conning their fellow crooks and gangs into thinking they're just another set of passingly competent burglars. This book and this series are everything you might want from caper heists set in a grittier than standard fantasy world: twists and turns, irreverence and humor in the face of bloody danger, fantastic characters, emotional stab wounds, and a background of fascinating world-building. And this line, which won't make sense until you read it: "I just have to keep you here until Jean shows up.” I'm really not doing it anything near like justice, but suffice to say that if I picked a list of ten books you should read this year, it would be on the list.

Going Postal
“Steal five dollars and you're a common thief. Steal thousands and you're either the government or a hero.”

Sir Terry Pratchett spent decades writing about life and humanity in a seemingly farcical fantasy world called Discworld, and I'm firmly of the opinion that everyone could benefit from reading at least a few books in the series. Discworld is a number of scattered tales, some stand-alone, others following different characters in this world, and it by no means needs to be read in chronological order. Going Postal is the introduction of Moist von Lipwig, a classic traveling swindler and student of humanity's foibles, who opens the book on death row for his crimes. Fortunately, the Patrician, the terrifyingly effective tyrant of the great city of Ankh-Morpork, offers him a deal: run the decrepit and barely functioning Post Office and bring it back into order. Technically there's a second choice there, as Ventinari is a stickler for choices, but Moist doesn't find it quite as appealing. He spends the book running the Post Office like a con, trying to escape, and maybe accidentally starting to get invested in everything he's building. Commentary on human nature and the nature of governments abounds.



And there you have a range of some of the best con-artist protagonists I know. That should keep you busy for a while! Definitely let me know your thoughts on any of the above, I rarely get tired of talking about them, and if you have any other suggestions for similar media, I'm always on the lookout for more.