Connections

Hercule Poirot always attributed his flashes of insight in solving crimes to "the little gray cells". I'm sure he knew the color of brains not because he was well versed in anatomy, although he probably was, but because he had eaten enough of them to know the gray pudding that resides within the bony confines of a skull. He was a connoisseur -- of people as well as food.

One of my favorite Agatha Christie mysteries where Hercule is played by Peter Ustinov is Evil Under the Sun. One of the suspects declares that no one saw him during the time of the murder, confident in his belief and fairly arrogant about the insertion. However, someone did see him. He just didn't know it because he did not see them.

When I recently wrote about Michael Bergin's autobiography I mentioned that several people belied his reasons for writing and publishing the book. I found his story honest but it didn't strike me until my mind, doing its usual sifting, collating and matching, hit me with the finished results of its meanderings. There is proof that at least some of what he wrote is true. It's in his book and has been fictionalized in print and in Sex and the City.

Candace Bushnell, author of the columns and the book that became the HBO series, wrote about an underwear model who was managed by a close friend (in the series it was Stanford Blatch) and was called The Bone. The model was straight and his manager gay and in definite lust with the model and Carried took him home one night. They slept together -- but they only slept. The Bone was homesick and a little lost in New York and he and Carrie had some drinks and some talk and some sleep. I remember the episode vividly.

In his book, Bergin mentions spending the night with Candace talking, drinking and sleeping. He also talks about being nicknamed "The Bone" by a friend and that his is his manager's only client, who is gay. Beginning to see the picture? I certainly am, but my little gray cells saw it first.

Bottom line? It's connections. Those little brief encounters with information that don't make an impression at first until the little gray cells beginning sifting, collating and matching information with information and coming up with connections.

What does it matter? It doesn't really. It's just one of those jaunts my mind takes me on from time to time to prove to me that even when I think there are no connections I'm wrong. I may not have initially made the connection but some part of me is still working and will make the connection for me.

Of course, if I wasn't such a big fan of Sex and the City and hadn't read Bergin's book...

But I did.