Recently reading Truman Capote's *In Cold Blood* and there was Belligham as a significant place for Perry Smith, one of the two ciminals and allegedly the murder of all 4 Klutters. Throw in the DC sniper duo and The Ham starts to look much spookier than it ever did on my daily lovely walks from Fairhaven Creek Apartments on the woodsy trail down to Village Books.
Besides Gary Snyder's poetry, have any of you come across other Ham references in the Lit/Cinema world? I'd love to know for future planning of a Ham unit in a literary places of the PNW I'll teach in the future and on which I'd be interested in a collaborative construction of the syllabus.
7 comments:
Andrew, I don't have specific lit references, but there must be some out there: Ted Bundy was a regular at the waterfront pub for a while...The Ham: launching pad for serial killers...I know there's more than just Bundy...let me check around and get back to you. x, L
Ok, there've got to be film references to this: Kenny Bianchi lived in the Ham too...(one of the hillside stranglers) in fact, I think he was a Capt. for Whatcom Security!
Does Don's stalker student from Britain count?
KJ
I'm told the Hillside Strangler was caught at the Shangri-La on Holly St. and used to work at the Fred Meyer on Lakeway.
Also the book Friday by Robert Heinlien mentiones Bellingham, as does City of Glass by Douglas Coupland (it's not literature necessarily, it's a portrait of Vancouver, BC, however, Bellingham was referred to as Sin City for the lower mainlanders).
Oh, and that the stand-alone bar (can't think of the name of it) near Jalapeno's and across the street from Marine Heritage Park and the ReStore was a hangout place for both Bundy and the Hillside Strangler at one point.
That's the Waterfront Bar, E. ;)
Does anyone smell a collaborative collection in the works?
Kate already has that stellar piece from Brenda's class, though technically not Bham.
I'm sure we could get the Bham Chamber of Commerce to sponsor us;)
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