Outline of the Case

Outline of the Case

It is a measure of the decline of our entertainment options that you can search your memory for the last time you saw a chalk outline of a body on a detective show and not come up with a single example within the last decade or more.

It is years since I have seen such a thing on a crime episode, though they used to be thick as buffalo upon the Great Plains before the coming of the European settlers.

Most fine restaurants, dockside speakeasies, national monuments and parks, neighborhood grocery stores, penthouse apartments, subway station platforms, country club swimming pools, and cleared spaces atop metropolitan rooftops, if we are to believe the television shows, sported several chalk outlines a week and didn’t consider themselves going concerns unless they had an assortment to choose from.

People grew anxious when they did not see one in the lobby or on the sidewalk outside, and wondered if the business wasn’t quite as popular as it once was.

You could not get to the first set of commercials without seeing at least one such piece of artistry sketched on the ground, with some men standing over it talking over clues or discussing exactly what is it with the redhead and was she really out of town when she said she was and what’s with the way her purse always seems to be weighted down?

The fellow in question, who himself has been carted away but has left behind this interesting representation, almost always is shown to be in one of only a few positions, and we are left to gain knowledge of his character, indeed, his guilt or innocence, based upon a few quick scratches of chalk.

These fine people, or at least their chalk outline, usually, as though attending to the traditions of the matter, assume a face down position, with one arm, the left, flung up, somewhat over-dramatically the crime show connoisseur is wont to think, and the right straight at his side.

It is an attractive pose and shows them at their best. You don’t see it every day in family pictures, but it is fresh and draws the viewer in.

Since the vast majority of these fine people operate on the wrong side of the law and may not be known for their classical good looks, it might even be the best artistic ‘take’ on their distinct look that they have had since their 1st grade class picture.

It beats hands down the grainy head shot on the wall at the U.S. Post Office and the few times they have shown up in the paper, usually with the caption “seen leaving the scene of the crime at a high rate of speed.”

As regards these Post Office wall portraits, these fellows are in the same position as all of us.

You know how it is with an ordinary photo session. They never seem to listen when you tell them which side is your good side, and the lighting is often harsh.

It is not unusual when you see the proofs for your picture in the church directory that you look like a counterfeiter from Beloit who has cheated his mother’s entire bridge club out of their life savings and has been on the lam ever since. This is not the ‘vibe’ you wish to give off in a church membership directory. 

It is pleasing to know that it works the other way too.

While you may look quite a bit worse in the church directory than you think the state of your soul deserves, this other fellow, the chalk outline fellow, gets rounded up a few notches and comes off as close to respectable as he is ever likely to get.

His best work to date had been by a police sketch artist and he only had witnesses’ memories to work with. His mother when she saw it complained that it made his chin too long and didn’t capture his gentle philosophical manner.

This outline however has taken a full belt notch off his middle, and given him the extra two inches in height that he had always longed for in life.

Before I forget, there is another character in these shows that appears as dependably as the sun rises in the east.

In the ordinary course of events there is always a fellow with a big camera with a flash apparatus the size of one of those radar dishes that seeks to pick up signals of intelligent life from outer space.

I have a special feeling for this fellow, this photographer, since it seems to me that he must rack up less screen time than anyone else in the industry.

His job is essentially to be seen taking the picture of the deceased or his chalk outline just as the main characters walk into the room.

That’s it.

That is about all you see of this guy until the next body shows up, most usually on an entirely other show and often on an entirely other network.

This does not give the aspiring actor much to sink his teeth into. Macbeth it is not. Death of a Salesman it is not. Long Day’s Journey Into Night it is not.

Point, shoot, and be blocked from the audience’s view by the stars who hog the camera time. It is hard to put a resume together from such slim pickings, particularly when all anyone ever sees of him is his back.

Tell you the truth, I think of that fellow quite a bit; it makes you consider the essential injustice of the world. We’ve all been that crime photographer at some point in our lives, have we not?

Now – I’m back to the chalk outline guy – this isn’t portraiture as you might see coming out of one of the finest national academies of art, it won’t compare to the staid likenesses of queens and country gentlemen that you see adorning the hallways of famous museums.

That’s not the point! Can’t you see that this is an entirely different thing? Get with it, man, and try to engage with the times you were born into, not this useless longing for the past you’ll never know.

Some reactionaries might say that this “Outline Art” as I have decided to call it, preparatory to opening a small gallery somewhere in New York City where they love to eat this kind of nonsense up, bumps up against, even crosses over into, modern art.

Well, what of it? Aren’t TV crimes shows allowed to keep up with the times and track the doings in the art world?

It was not hard to become a knowledgeable collector of such images in the heyday of chalk outlines, it was the rare show that didn’t feature three or four per episode.

In certain eras they outnumbered the living cast members and the question must have arisen whether or not their chalk outlines ought to be compensated at some reasonable fraction of the actor’s salary before his character was slain in such an interesting way. It is a fine point of the law and well worth a few dozen lawsuits it seems like.

The rest of the cast certainly adjusted to them I have to say, casually stepping over them on their way to the kitchen to get a coke, treating them in a welcoming manner and as members of the family.

Today’s crime scene experts run at a much lower temperature, measuring this and weighing that, prying spent bullets out of the pillars in the grand hall, running various samples through the spectroscope they parked out back, and, for all that the viewer knows, taking a depth reading and sending out sonar signals in order to get the complete picture. They save most of their passion for their off hours when they all seem to be in love with each other and at the same time.

It is surprising to this observer that the practice in its prime never expanded outside the crime business.

Anyone who has ever watched an Olympics can see the value of a chalk outline showing exactly the configuration of the figure skater or the ski jumper at the moment of impact where he fell, though for some of the former you would have an ice rink more or less littered with the outlines.

And there are dangers too to the average person, who would not welcome a series of chalk outlines documenting his personal history, as he tumbled down the library steps clutching an armful of soon-to-be-scattered books and landing at the foot of the last step, or even some representation of his own fool self when a joke has gone flat, or when he has made some fabulously ghastly comment to a new acquaintance hoping to impress her.

These moments too deserve their own memorials among the pantheon of disasters.

 

The Quality Being Monitored May Be Your Own

The Quality Being Monitored May Be Your Own

Our Robotic Overlords Sneak In Via The Utility Closet

Our Robotic Overlords Sneak In Via The Utility Closet