All last night I kept speaking in this archaic language, because I had been reading Poe and thinking about him. I read 'The Murders in the Rue Morgue' which is supposedly the first detective story. Who dun it? I wondered. It turns out an orangutan was the murderer. It looks to me like the detective story genre got off to a pretty ridiculous start. I used to visit Poe's house in the Bronx. I used to think, God, Poe must have been a midget. Everything is so small. Poe died in Baltimore and I can see why. In Baltimore, all the people are very big and sincere. During dinner last night, I told Doug and Susan about 'Murders in the Rue Morgue.' I said I hadn't finished it yet, but it looked like the murderer was going to turn out to be an orangutan, unless the plot took a surprising new twist. Then Doug suggested that he and I collaborate on a series of detective stories in which the murderer is always an orangutan.