Bilingual Anecdote
By Daniel de Culla
Spanish:
Sol en Neblina
Un romero traía un gran zurrón y, parado en las plazas y paseos, anunciaba que le haría cantar por sacar mucho con la invención y poder costearse su estancia y viaje, y era que llevaba dentro un muchacho que cantaba diciéndole esto: -Canta zurrón, canta, si no te daré un coscorrón.
Él se ponía a tararear: “Country Sunshine” de Dottie West.
Estando en esto, se le acercó una señora con una botella en la que, según ella, había cogido la niebla del día, rogándole que, por favor, la examinara pues ella quería saber si esta niebla era como la de antes, cuando vivían sus padres; con lo que rieron mucho todos los presentes, al abrir el romero botella y disiparse la niebla neciamente.
English:
Sunshine in the Fog
A pilgrim, carrying a large pouch, stopping in squares and promenades, announced that he would sing for drawing much with the invention of being able to pay for his stay and travel, and that was that he had a boy singing, saying:
"Sing, if I will not give you a bump on the head!"
He was humming: "Country Sunshine" by Dottie West.
A lady approached him with a bottle in which, according to her, she had caught the fog of the day, begging him to please examine her, since she wanted to know if this mist was like the one before. Her parents; with whom everyone present laughed a great deal, had opened the first bottle and dissipated the fog foolishly, just a foot away.
Would the world have seen
a difference without me?
By Alexandra Rodrigues
This question can only be answered in connections with our beliefs. In the vastness of time it seems presumptuous to single oneself out as an influence on mankind. However, just like a stone thrown into water, makes rings, small ones, then bigger and bigger, maybe small happenings in my life caused changes and sent ripples into the universe. Following situations come to mind.
Karen, a friend of mine since grammar school went thru the agony of a broken heart at the age of 22. Her boyfriend left her after a four-month engagement, her mother died the same year, and she had lost her job. She spoke of suicide and I was afraid she truly contemplated it. I succeeded in getting her into therapy and listened hours at end to her woes. She found herself again and today is the matriarch of a happy family. She never forgets to call me her Fairy Godmother.
After World War II, I got acquainted with a very romantic man by the name of Albert. He courted me and one day invited me to a sleigh ride in the woods at the outskirts of our hometown Berlin. I had just finished some Russian novels, where sleigh rides were mentioned and the idea intrigued me. Albert was older than me and not my type. He was petite with fine bones and carried the aura of an emancipated prince. However he was the only person I knew who owned a sled pulled by two horses. The sled won and I accepted his invitation. It was a scenic day with light snow falling. The trees were wearing their wintery outfits, and cozy blankets kept us warm. Albert called me “Princessa” and confessed his great love for me stating that life without me would be unbearable. I let him hold my hand, flirted a little, but I was glad when we got back to town and parted with a lip kiss. This was more than he had ever gotten from me and I did not like it. All the before and after is a story in itself. Anyhow I made myself inaccessible to him after this ride. Left his approaches by phone and his sentimental letters unanswered. Then it all stopped. He had committed suicide. Had something else in his life happened or was it because of me? I do not wish to know.
Another time I attended a dance at a local pub. Alcohol was flowing plentiful which was common practice in those days. I had danced and flirted a lot with a good looking guy named Walter, about my age, and all was well. But he drank too much and wanted me to take off with him on his motorcycle. I declined and he left insulted and tipsy. Shortly afterward I got a lift home from somebody else. Only a few blocks down the road we spotted the motorcycle on its side, a body next to it. It was Walter. We put him into the car and sped to the nearest hospital. Walter was badly hurt and I remember sitting next to him in the back of the car holding his head in a way so he could breathe and praying that he may survive. He did. Often I think what
could have happened, had I been on the back of the motor cycle. Would all have been fine? Or would I have been thrown onto the hard pavement? Maybe gotten killed? Also, what would have happened had I not opted to refuse his offer? Would Walter have bled to death on the road? What a difference a day, an hour, a minute can make!
We are like flowers. At times, we are ignored by some, bringing joy to others. Once I rescued 50 velvety, dark red roses from the overhead rack of a Pan Am plane. They had been given to opera star Maria Callas by shipowner Aristotle Onassis in Rome. As Flight Attendant, I had been assigned to serve First Class and Maria Callas. So when she got ready to leave the plane in Teheran I took the roses down and intended to hand them to her. She motioned with her bejeweled hand that she did not want them. We had a layover in Teheran too, so I took the roses and while the sun was setting on the mountains near my hotel, I looked at the flowers, wondered about the idiosyncrasies of celebrities and enjoyed the mellow fragrance of the flowers. As to what makes the world turn, I found no answer then and I have no answer now.
Comment by author and poet
Thaddeus Hutyra:
“We are like flowers. Ignored by some, bringing joy to others.” Life is exactly like that, in the Sun’s rays and during the storm, all situations possible. The story is written with intense artistic flavor, very interesting and with a fast track. Re choices done in one’s life should never apologize to himself/herself, assuming that we all are responsible for ourselves. Another rule applies to stable and long term relationships, such as mother and father – child, wife -- husband, and so on. There are many people asking themselves questions such as: “Would the World have seen a difference without me?” The answer is one never knows. Albert Einstein, for example had a superb influence on the humanity with his Theory of Relativity but who was his mother? Perhaps she was a simple woman who never ever dared even to think about her importance to the fates of many people. If she were not around there wouldn’t also be that kid called Albert who later in his life would turn into a world renowned scientist. Many parents of famous people were simple villagers who know nothing about the world but their offspring fought upon change. So…anything is possible. Enigmatic story, indeed, with philosophical inclination…😊
Thinking of Food
By Alexandra H. Rodrigues
An excerpt from Emotion in Motion: Tales of a Stewardess (2016)
Going through my Pan Am memorabilia, I came across several menus from our Lunch and Dinner Services in First Class. It was then that I realized how blasé I had become through the years. From nearly starving through the War years and being thrilled with dandelion salad and greasy, grimy leftovers from Russian soldiers’ canteen food (when a slice of toasted cornbread with fatty bacon was a delicacy exclusively for holidays), I have risen to become part of the top of culinary consumers.
Orange blossoms (Champagne and freshly squeezed orange juice) for breakfast or a Bloody Mary (vodka and tomato juice spiced with horseradish and decorated with a slice of fresh lemon) after a night of walking up and down the aisles of a transatlantic jet serving passengers was commonplace when arriving at a crew hotel for a 24-hour layover.
Lunch was often taken at airport restaurants anywhere from New York to Zurich to Rome, Beirut, Tehran, Karachi, Hong Kong, Dakar, Johannesburg to Dar es Salaam, Tanzania (where the blue Tanzanite gem comes from).The tanzanite has become quite a gemstone of choice demanding a high price now. I could have picked it up cheap, but I did not do so. Another opportunity missed.
Memories of bratwurst in Germany, curry dishes in New Delhi, and Calderada, a soup made with at least six different kinds of fish, in Portugal still today make my taste buds tingle. While we were indulging on those local tidbits, the aircraft was provisioned by the station’s commissary with superb specialties of the respective country and the ever-standard juicy prime rib of beef which we cooked and served rare, medium or well done to those passengers unwilling to indulge in unfamiliar fare.
Menu cover celebrating the anniversary of the Statue of Liberty
A Dinner menu consisted of cocktails, hors d'oeuvres, fish, a main entrée of choice, cheeses from all over the world and dessert of irresistible quality, like Cherries Jubilee or vanilla ice cream with a thick chocolate sauce. All this was followed by cordials.
French wine, Brut Champagne and beer were available without limitations – in First Class that is! I became an expert in popping Champagne corks and am still admired for my dexterity in it. Here are a few dishes I will never forget. Russian caviar, served with chopped egg and lemon slices, accompanied by Stolichnaya Vodka. Lobster Thermidor. Quail with grapes. Cornish Hen. Veal chops with Calvados sauce. Pâté foie gras and truffles. Not to forget the Cherries Jubilee: Sour cherries slightly heated, and, served over heart-melting vanilla ice cream. Well, I am getting carried away and hungry. A good espresso for digestion to end the feast in style.
On international layovers of several days in the 1960s and 1970s, I made it a habit to sample the native delicacies: Kippers for breakfast in Scotland, avocado and eel in Mexico, chorizo and eggs in Portugal, venison with lingonberries in Sweden, sushi in Japan. Different roasts from the carving board in England, Kobe beef in Guam, turtle soup, goulash and a multitude more. Today I would settle for oysters and Eggs Benedict. I guess you can understand that my taste has been spoiled, confused and quite unconventional during the years.
I am thinking about world-renowned chefs! My husband could have joined their ranks. He loved to cook. He had worked as a butler for several mega-rich families where the old ladies loved him as he was very handsome.
Only the best chefs worked for those families. My husband had plenty of opportunity to mingle and taste the Pheasant Under Glass, the Beef Wellington and more. From there Pan Am got hold of him, and they sent him to become acquainted with the services of superb dining at Maxim’s in Paris. He was not to learn to cook, but to excel in the elegant ways of serving food. All through my marriage I profited from those experiences.
Above: Studio press photo of baritone, actor and author Herbert Eyre Moulton
and his wife Gun Kronzell, editor-in-chief Charles E.J. Moulton's parents,
during their successful years as "The Singing Couple".
Here seen with their dog Fred, whom Herb rescued from loneliness in Ireland back in 1963.
RIGHT! WE'LL HAVE A PARTY!
from the autobiography "DAMN THE DEPRESSION, ANYWAY!"
Written by my father the late great
Herbert Eyre Moulton (1927 - 2005)
Herb worked as MCA-Record’s Show-Star Herbert Moore. He also conducted the Camp Gordon Chapel Choir during the Korean War, toured with his wife, the operatic mezzo-soprano Gun Kronzell, around the world as “The Singing Couple”. This true story takes place in the posh, spiritually rich but financially poor 1930’s. The picture here to the right is of my father many years later, during a party in the 1960’s (how fitting), drinking wine, chatting with his good friend, the famous Swedish opera tenor Nicolai Gedda.
Now, fasten your seatbelts. Step into the time machine. Get ready to visit the culturally endowed relatives living the posh life back in the Illinois that was, sometime in the 1930’s.
As long as anyone can remember, our home had always been THE HOUSE OF HOSPITALITY. Through thick or thin, palmy days or the Depths of the Depression - between the extremes of my father Big Herb's practicality and Nell's "To Hell with Poverty - we'll sell the pig!" liberality, we always managed to make every visitor feel happily at home.
Most of the regulars at this snug little oasis of ours were survivors of a picturesque world that, since the Stockmarket Crash of 1929, had evaporated fast. Their families had once held sway in a score or more of vast old turreted wooden-frame mansions which still ornamented the town, left over from the Gilded 1880's, a few of which still stand to this day, plaqued (as they say) as Historical Landmarks.
One of these - Eastbourne - had from the mid 1890's been my Dad's family home, last occupied by my Uncle Harper and his peripetitic family - three sons and his great billowing Southern Belle of a spouse, Clara by name, but known to all and sundry (all except us, that is) as 'Honey". They blowsily occupied the old manse until late in the 1930's, when it was unfortunately demolished. To this day it forms a marvelously gloomy, House-of-Usher background for a lot of my earliest memories - fifteen huge, high-ceiling rooms, many with fireplaces. Of these, the room I remember best was the library, a museum really, cluttered as it was with bayonets, shell-casings, dress-swords with sashes, handguns, even spiked officer's helmets from the old German Imperial Army, just the thing for our boyhood extravaganzas inspired by the historical movies we saw on Saturday afternoons. These were souveniers of the time in France in 1917-18 by my Dad Herbert Lewis Moulton and his two younger brothers, Wes and Harp.
The rest of this spacious old mansion contained family and servants' quarters, hotel-sized kitchen and laundry facilities - Eastbourne had been a popular cross-country inn until my Grandfather bought it to house his lady-wife and brood of six children, plus servants that included at least one live-in nanny. One of them was a wonderful black Mammy, Maisie - pardon the lapse! - with her daughter Rachel, my first experience with folk of other colors, and a delightful one or was, too. (Rachel, grown to young womanhood, was my baby-sitter when I was a nipper.)
Further amenities included a billiard room, a glazed-in conservatory (south side, of course), and a large lofty attic filled with memorabilia of untold splendor, a porte cochere, and two pillared porches, which Honey in that booming Texan foghorn used to call Galleries, much to Nell’s unconcealed disgust: “Haw-puh! Frank! Leeeeeeeeeeee! What yawl doin’ on that gall’reh?”
On the sloping, wooded lawns were the remains of a croquet- and a tennis-court, outbuildings where the cows and the horses were billeted (named Chummy and Princess, and Duke and Lightning, respectively) and by the time we began playing in it, a slightly ramschackle summer house.
People can talk all the like about the delight about the ante-bellum Southland, but its post-bellum northern counterpart, based, not on slavery, but on industry and commerce, had a no-nonsense charm of its own. It was in settings such as these that was played out on that long, in retrospect lovely American twilight up to the start of the first World War, which is celebrated in plays such as O’Neill’s “Ah, Wilderness!” – tea-dances, ice-cream socials, masquerades, and amateur family theatricals, with house-music provided by all five of the Moulton boys, with sister Minnie at the piano. After the war, the twilight lingered on spasmodically until the grand old memory-drenched house was sold off and demolished. Even then, in the late 1930’s, we’d gather a carload of friends and drive over on a summer evening to pick basketfuls of the fragrant lillies-of-thze-valley which still flourished in a corner of the original garden.
It was the dispossessed heirs of these once proud dynasties, the greying sheiks of yesteryear with nicknames like “Babe” and “Bunny” and “Wop”, with their ex-flapper Shebas, all raucous voices, middle-age spread, and clouds of perfume with names like Mitsouki or Emeraud, who used to crowd our little dining room on Saturday evenings (the table top decked in an old army blanket) for intense penny-ante poker sessions, sometimes using matchsticks for chips, laughing at off-color jokes way above my head and puffing their Old Golds and home-rolled “coffin nails”, while the Budweiser flowed and soda crackers got crumbled into bowls of Big Herb’s special chili-con-carne, to the accompaniament of Paul Whiteman records or Your Hit Parade on the radio-phonograph hard by in the living-room.
I loved these gatherings in my parents’ cronies – Big Herb’s out-of-work business colleagues or American Legion (Forty-and-Eight) buddies and their wives or lady-friends. Many of them had been the blithe and breezy Charleston-dancing, hipflask toting young marrieds, who (I was told); used to switch partners on weekend treasure-hunts, and in that still infamous Crash had lost everything but their social stature (whatever that amounted to) and their sense of humor. Thus had John Held, Jr. given wa to the late Scott Fitzgerald.
To me these people were as fascinating as visitors from another galaxy, caught in what today would called a time-warp. Authemntic “Twenties-Types” (if one thinks about them now) and I couldn’t get my fill looking at them – everything they did shone with enough of the glamour of lost wealth which set them apart from everyone else we knew (God, was I that much of a snob at the age of nine or ten?).
Special fun were those evenings which suddenly turned musical, like the time when a lady with hennaed hair unloosed one of Delilah’s arias from “Samson” in a rich boozy contralto, then huddled at the keyboard with a lady friend to harmonize “Sing to Me, My Little Gypsy Sweetheart”. (Nell later reported that they were both sharing the same “beau”, who happened to be our family dentist. (What a sensation that was!)
So the poker sessions rolled merrily along, spiced now and then with one of the men getting sobbing drunk and passing out on the livingroom couch, or one of the married couples indulging in a strident battle which mesmerized me even while being hustled out to my bedroom by one or the other of my parents. Boy, it was as good as having a movie-show right in our own living room. Besides which, they were all exceedingly nice to me, slipping me a shiny new dime now and then or taking time out to show me card tricks or draw pictures, or sometimes work with me on my pappet theater or Erector Set. One of our occasional guests was the cartoonist Dick Calkins – Lt. Dick Calkins, as he signed his Buck Rogers in the 25th century newspaper strip. One Saturday eveing, though half-sozzled, he spent a good hour painstakingly drawing cartoons of Buck and his girlfriend Wilma Deering on facing pages of my autograph book and dedicated to me alone. (Naturally, treasures such as these eventually disappeared – gone, alas, like our youth too soon.)
Thee smoky, sometimes emotion-charged pow-wows weren’t quite the proper fodder for the local newspapers, but there were plenty of other tidbits lovingly provided by Nell at the drop of a phone-call.
and his wife Gun Kronzell, editor-in-chief Charles E.J. Moulton's parents,
during their successful years as "The Singing Couple".
Here seen with their dog Fred, whom Herb rescued from loneliness in Ireland back in 1963.
RIGHT! WE'LL HAVE A PARTY!
from the autobiography "DAMN THE DEPRESSION, ANYWAY!"
Written by my father the late great
Herbert Eyre Moulton (1927 - 2005)
Herb worked as MCA-Record’s Show-Star Herbert Moore. He also conducted the Camp Gordon Chapel Choir during the Korean War, toured with his wife, the operatic mezzo-soprano Gun Kronzell, around the world as “The Singing Couple”. This true story takes place in the posh, spiritually rich but financially poor 1930’s. The picture here to the right is of my father many years later, during a party in the 1960’s (how fitting), drinking wine, chatting with his good friend, the famous Swedish opera tenor Nicolai Gedda.
Now, fasten your seatbelts. Step into the time machine. Get ready to visit the culturally endowed relatives living the posh life back in the Illinois that was, sometime in the 1930’s.
As long as anyone can remember, our home had always been THE HOUSE OF HOSPITALITY. Through thick or thin, palmy days or the Depths of the Depression - between the extremes of my father Big Herb's practicality and Nell's "To Hell with Poverty - we'll sell the pig!" liberality, we always managed to make every visitor feel happily at home.
Most of the regulars at this snug little oasis of ours were survivors of a picturesque world that, since the Stockmarket Crash of 1929, had evaporated fast. Their families had once held sway in a score or more of vast old turreted wooden-frame mansions which still ornamented the town, left over from the Gilded 1880's, a few of which still stand to this day, plaqued (as they say) as Historical Landmarks.
One of these - Eastbourne - had from the mid 1890's been my Dad's family home, last occupied by my Uncle Harper and his peripetitic family - three sons and his great billowing Southern Belle of a spouse, Clara by name, but known to all and sundry (all except us, that is) as 'Honey". They blowsily occupied the old manse until late in the 1930's, when it was unfortunately demolished. To this day it forms a marvelously gloomy, House-of-Usher background for a lot of my earliest memories - fifteen huge, high-ceiling rooms, many with fireplaces. Of these, the room I remember best was the library, a museum really, cluttered as it was with bayonets, shell-casings, dress-swords with sashes, handguns, even spiked officer's helmets from the old German Imperial Army, just the thing for our boyhood extravaganzas inspired by the historical movies we saw on Saturday afternoons. These were souveniers of the time in France in 1917-18 by my Dad Herbert Lewis Moulton and his two younger brothers, Wes and Harp.
The rest of this spacious old mansion contained family and servants' quarters, hotel-sized kitchen and laundry facilities - Eastbourne had been a popular cross-country inn until my Grandfather bought it to house his lady-wife and brood of six children, plus servants that included at least one live-in nanny. One of them was a wonderful black Mammy, Maisie - pardon the lapse! - with her daughter Rachel, my first experience with folk of other colors, and a delightful one or was, too. (Rachel, grown to young womanhood, was my baby-sitter when I was a nipper.)
Further amenities included a billiard room, a glazed-in conservatory (south side, of course), and a large lofty attic filled with memorabilia of untold splendor, a porte cochere, and two pillared porches, which Honey in that booming Texan foghorn used to call Galleries, much to Nell’s unconcealed disgust: “Haw-puh! Frank! Leeeeeeeeeeee! What yawl doin’ on that gall’reh?”
On the sloping, wooded lawns were the remains of a croquet- and a tennis-court, outbuildings where the cows and the horses were billeted (named Chummy and Princess, and Duke and Lightning, respectively) and by the time we began playing in it, a slightly ramschackle summer house.
People can talk all the like about the delight about the ante-bellum Southland, but its post-bellum northern counterpart, based, not on slavery, but on industry and commerce, had a no-nonsense charm of its own. It was in settings such as these that was played out on that long, in retrospect lovely American twilight up to the start of the first World War, which is celebrated in plays such as O’Neill’s “Ah, Wilderness!” – tea-dances, ice-cream socials, masquerades, and amateur family theatricals, with house-music provided by all five of the Moulton boys, with sister Minnie at the piano. After the war, the twilight lingered on spasmodically until the grand old memory-drenched house was sold off and demolished. Even then, in the late 1930’s, we’d gather a carload of friends and drive over on a summer evening to pick basketfuls of the fragrant lillies-of-thze-valley which still flourished in a corner of the original garden.
It was the dispossessed heirs of these once proud dynasties, the greying sheiks of yesteryear with nicknames like “Babe” and “Bunny” and “Wop”, with their ex-flapper Shebas, all raucous voices, middle-age spread, and clouds of perfume with names like Mitsouki or Emeraud, who used to crowd our little dining room on Saturday evenings (the table top decked in an old army blanket) for intense penny-ante poker sessions, sometimes using matchsticks for chips, laughing at off-color jokes way above my head and puffing their Old Golds and home-rolled “coffin nails”, while the Budweiser flowed and soda crackers got crumbled into bowls of Big Herb’s special chili-con-carne, to the accompaniament of Paul Whiteman records or Your Hit Parade on the radio-phonograph hard by in the living-room.
I loved these gatherings in my parents’ cronies – Big Herb’s out-of-work business colleagues or American Legion (Forty-and-Eight) buddies and their wives or lady-friends. Many of them had been the blithe and breezy Charleston-dancing, hipflask toting young marrieds, who (I was told); used to switch partners on weekend treasure-hunts, and in that still infamous Crash had lost everything but their social stature (whatever that amounted to) and their sense of humor. Thus had John Held, Jr. given wa to the late Scott Fitzgerald.
To me these people were as fascinating as visitors from another galaxy, caught in what today would called a time-warp. Authemntic “Twenties-Types” (if one thinks about them now) and I couldn’t get my fill looking at them – everything they did shone with enough of the glamour of lost wealth which set them apart from everyone else we knew (God, was I that much of a snob at the age of nine or ten?).
Special fun were those evenings which suddenly turned musical, like the time when a lady with hennaed hair unloosed one of Delilah’s arias from “Samson” in a rich boozy contralto, then huddled at the keyboard with a lady friend to harmonize “Sing to Me, My Little Gypsy Sweetheart”. (Nell later reported that they were both sharing the same “beau”, who happened to be our family dentist. (What a sensation that was!)
So the poker sessions rolled merrily along, spiced now and then with one of the men getting sobbing drunk and passing out on the livingroom couch, or one of the married couples indulging in a strident battle which mesmerized me even while being hustled out to my bedroom by one or the other of my parents. Boy, it was as good as having a movie-show right in our own living room. Besides which, they were all exceedingly nice to me, slipping me a shiny new dime now and then or taking time out to show me card tricks or draw pictures, or sometimes work with me on my pappet theater or Erector Set. One of our occasional guests was the cartoonist Dick Calkins – Lt. Dick Calkins, as he signed his Buck Rogers in the 25th century newspaper strip. One Saturday eveing, though half-sozzled, he spent a good hour painstakingly drawing cartoons of Buck and his girlfriend Wilma Deering on facing pages of my autograph book and dedicated to me alone. (Naturally, treasures such as these eventually disappeared – gone, alas, like our youth too soon.)
Thee smoky, sometimes emotion-charged pow-wows weren’t quite the proper fodder for the local newspapers, but there were plenty of other tidbits lovingly provided by Nell at the drop of a phone-call.
Kate In Heat
By Katherine Brittain
“Is this your novia, me ijo?” asks Pancho’s Padrino while gazing at me. “Are you sure you are wise to marry a blond-haired, blue-eyed Anglo woman? Have you not already fought off other suitors? How much training will you need to keep the life lessons?”
Pancho answers his Godfather with a solemn air. “As much training as the Master gives me.” A pause of silence, and both break their solemn gaze and break out in raucous laughter.
“Accompany me to the trono in the consultorio. Orita!”
“What’s consultorio?” I whisper, putting my lips up against Pancho’s ear.
“Spiritual consultation room.”
“What’s trono?”
“Throne.” Pancho shimmies at the kiss of my breath.
“What’s orita?”
“NOW!” Pancho laughs from his belly.
When El Padrino walks inside to advise his wife of our departure from the house to the consultorio, I anxiously try to drag Pancho to the car. “We’re leaving! Next thing you know, we’ll be playing with a Ouija Board!”
Pancho places both hands on my shoulders and kisses my forehead. “Don’t back out on me now, Kate,” he warns. “You promised you would do this.”
Sure I promised—after he slipped the ring on my finger last night, and kissed me. I was in the throes of Deseo, for God’s sake. But I’m an Episcopalian. And an anthropologist. I am not sure at all that Pancho’s proposal warrants this conditional step into what Dr. Quintanilla in his lectures calls Mexican Folk Culture.
Still, I realize it is obviously Pancho’s Mexican folk culture as well, though I would have never known it. Pancho’s parents take us to the country club for Sunday brunch. He’s been reading The Web Developer’s Life Manual in our bed before sleep. And he looks like Antonio Banderas.
≈≈≈
The consultorio is a lean-to situated in the middle of a forest of low-slung, spring-green mesquites. The dirt under the trees looks swept. A shepherd-mix dog lies in the dappled shade outside a door that is hand-labeled above the jamb, “EL TRONO.”
Once we’re inside, Pancho unwraps a foil covered log of self-igniting charcoal, sets two of the poker chip-sized discs in a sooty brazier poorly welded to a long handle, and lights them with a long-barreled lighter. He grabs a pinch of something out of a filmy plastic bag from what I presume is an altar. When the flame settles into a steady burn, Pancho drops a pinch of tiny opaque rocks on top of the glowing coal. An unfamiliar smell is wafted on the smoke tendrils, filling the small room with the smell of copal.
El Padrino is . . .
. . . oh my god, slipping on a leather vest. He puts on a sombrero retrieved from what is, apparently, El Trono, and nods at Pancho who steps into the veil of smoke,
and carefully moves the hot brazier close to the right side of El Trono so that the smoke is mysteriously interacting with El Padrino.
El Padrino slumps and rests his hands on his knees, palms turned upward. He takes a profoundly deep breath with his eyes closed. Pancho, who is like somebody I no longer recognize, extends his upturned palms gently towards his Godfather in a beckoning-to-receive fashion, and begins to chant in Spanish.
The chair back by the wall looks safer than standing so close to this seemingly cultish ritual, so I back up to sit. I cross my arms, and sling my right leg over my left thigh, holding on tight as the waves of unintelligible words crescendo. El Padrino’s arms slowly rise, reaching towards the heavens. His head then lolls between his shoulders, Richard Nixon-style. When his whole body begins to shimmy and shudder, my own body responds in a similar manner as a wave of horror rushes through me. Then his arms come down from the heavens, and his torso straightens. Pancho tapers off his prayers and takes a step back.
El Padrino turns his head toward me. I dig my nails into my skin and hold myself rigid when he opens his eyes and they’re rolled back in his head so that only the whites are showing. I feel I am about to pass out when he leans forward and speaks to me in a rough, commanding voice, “Bienvenidos, Catarina. Venga aqu!” I feel he has possessed me, just like that. I swoon.
He reaches down beside his throne and brings up to his lips a tequila bottle for a healthy swig. Saying nothing, but grinning over his beer belly, he leans to bring to burning life the moist tip of a stubby, gnawed cigar.
How can he see through the whites of his eyes? My own eyes are threatened by pulsing blackout. He’s a medium! And I desire him! “Pancho! My love, save me!”
Pancho grabs my hand and drags me into the cloak of smoke. Godfather takes another swig of tequila. Studying me, he nods, “Muy bonita, Pancho.” He smiles a lewd smile and yanks me down onto his lap and squeezes both my breasts. He then puts a restraining arm around my waist. “All women love this General,” he switches to English. “And you, Kate?”
“I love all Generals,” I say deliriously.
“Ha hah! Good!” Grabbing my chin, he plows my lips through his black bushy mustache. He pushes me off his lap.
“Who do you think you are!” I yell from the hard-packed dirt.
“He takes another swig of tequila before returning the cigar to his mouth. He walks over to Pancho upon whose head he places the sombrero. “Someday my namesake will take my place in this consultorio!”
I allow a comprehending smile, then whoop, “Thank God! I love this General!” I rush into Pancho’s arms and kiss him passionately.
“Good, Catarina..” El Padrino takes the sombrero from off Pancho’s head and places it on mine. He takes another swig of tequila.
“Receive my blessing,” speaks the spirit of the lusty General Pancho Villa.
The WASP’s First Bus Trip
Adapted from The WASP AND EL CURANDERO
~Katherine Brittain~
Although he is senior professor of Anthropology at Pan American University, I’m coming to imagine Dr. Yusuf Benici as a 16th century Royal Ottoman Turk, charging at me from atop his black Arabian horse, brandishing his yataghan sword. (I think I saw that in Lawrence of Arabia.) Damn him! He uses his students to stack his internationally recognized Mexican-American Folklore Archives in order to promote his professional reputation.
As part of our grade, Benici requires us to produce ten interviews for each and every one of his classes we sign up for, and I’ve now had him for three classes straight. Thank god, this Mexican American Folklore class is my last class with him. I’m sure if Benici believed in God, he would thank him, too, for Benici doesn’t like me. I don’t fit the Hispanic college student profile. I’m 43 years old. I’m wealthy. And he hates my jokes.
My offerings to the Archives are some of the few in English. Surely, one can imagine I might have a hard time with this assignment. I do not speak Spanish, not even Tex-Mex. I took Latin in high school. I’m a WASP.
WASP is a social distinction I have learned, namely that W.A.S.P. equals White Anglo Saxon Protestant equals the WASP women who have Sunday brunch at the country club, who shop for clothes at Sylvia’s, who have elegant manners, whose children attend private school, and who drive white Suburbans. That’s just my perspective. In my particular case you can add blond hair and blue eyes.
Ma’lena is my neighbor and the only English speaking Mexican folklore story-teller I know. Today, I have been plying Ma’lena for more of her stories as she sits regally in her lawn chair with her green garden hose, squirting the surrounding plants, and sometimes accidentally on purpose, me and my folklore collection forms.
“Please tell me. Who is Reynaldo?” I ask for the third time after Ma’lena obliquely mentions the titillating name and then plays out the line on which she has me hooked. Finally, she leans towards me, searching my eyes long and hard before saying, “I’m taking you to meet Reynaldo on Monday. You must not say no. It’s not for me to say here, but he has more stories than you will ever be able to write down. And he’s a Healer.”
I gather up my damp collection forms, all of them alarmingly blank. Ma’lena appears to be fresh out of stories. I have scooped the bottom of the well of my finest and final English-speaking ethnographic source.
But Monday a miracle happens when Ma’lena introduces me to her cousin, Reynaldo. I mean, its hell being a bored middle-aged wife and homeroom mother. So what better salvation than to research a curandero like Reynaldo? (WASPs would call him a witchdoctor.) And now, surely, Benici will respect my academic effort towards a thesis.
Thursday, 19 October 2000
I’m skipping Benici’s class, and leaving today on my First Trip into the Field. I am no longer an armchair anthropologist, I reassure myself, since I am about to become an international traveller to Espinazo, N.L., Mexico. There we will join Reynaldo for the Mexican folk saint, El Niño Fidencio’s October Fiesta. There Reynaldo will channel the spirit of El Niño. There I will officially begin my ethnographic field research up close and personal.
I get up at 4:00 a.m. to wash and roll my hair. If I don’t roll my hair right after washing and drying, it falls flat. And I would not be caught dead outside the house with flat hair; so washing, then drying, then rolling is daily protocol. Hairspray is antithetical to the desired natural look so, even following protocol, it is only a matter of time before my hair falls flat. But not as flat as if I hadn’t rolled it at all.
I gather together on the bathroom counter top the hot rollers, curling iron, blow dryer, makeup bag, the two-gallon Ziploc with all the toiletries, and pinch-hit wipees I bought last night at Walmart. These I place in the lightweight (some might say flimsy) leopard skin tote I bought yesterday at my hair dresser’s. I feel this to be a practical purchase because this elegant tote also has functional wheels and a slide-out handle. I’ve never ridden a bus before, but I’m sure rolling luggage is a must for all forms of travel.
The tote is the final piece of luggage I pack with my personal grooming items.
Last night I packed the two suitcases with clothes—one for the warm days and one for the cold nights—as Reynaldo described the Espinazo high desert climate. (I’ll tell you here I fall in love with Reynaldo, but that’s another story that doesn’t figure into this one.) I filled a large lawn bag with bedding, including my pink puffy pillow I can’t sleep without. Thank God, Rosie, my housekeeper, was here yesterday
to wash and iron everything.
Four days in Espinazo is a long enough stay I thought it warranted packing three pairs of shoes, besides the sandals-with-just-a-little-heel I’m wearing today on the bus. Each pair of shoes Reynaldo matches at least two outfits. The sandals-with-just-a-little-heel match the denim-colored, silk-blend skirt and blouse I bought last Tuesday at Sylvia’s: casual, yet cosmopolitan, with a delicate Indio motif braid all over, and a swingy fringe around the hems of the blouse and the skirt. I am satisfied with my choice of travel-wear. First impressions are so important. This outfit is a cultural affirmation of the Indios, the poorest class in Mexico, who will be attending the October Fiesta commemorating the death of El Niño Fidencio.
I roll the leopard skin tote to the back door with the other luggage that I will soon carry across the street to Ma’lena’s driveway. Mike, Ma’lena’s husband, is driving us to the bus station at 6:00 a.m.
While waiting, I check the box of groceries, which, out of habit, pretty much contains the same stuff I take to the beach to keep the kids snack happy: Ruffles and ranch dip, Fritos and bean dip, Doritos, Hot Cheetos, Oreos, beef jerky, chewing gum, and coffee necessaries. At Reynaldo’s request I bring water, I fill Ben’s ice chest, the one he uses for his Lone Star beer when he’s barbequing, with one twelve pack of Dr. Pepper, one of Sprite, and one of Diet Coke. Then I also put in the 32-count pack of bottled water. I hold off putting in ice because I figure I can buy it in Espinazo.
Finally, since it is still dark, I pour my third cup of coffee in my favorite Mackenzie Child mug, and sit down at the kitchen table to make sure I have my most important act together: my flowered book bag. It’s such a pretty book bag—I bought it at the McAllen Butterfly Festival. In it I stick research journal, box of pens, academic reading (Mircea Iliad, Shamans), leisure reading (a psychoanalytic treatment of Dante’s Inferno), needlepoint project (boredom is unbearable), six rolls of film, camera, three VHS tapes, video camera, charger, six micro cassettes, lecture recorder, and a pack of AA batteries. The bag is over-stuffed and heavy, but the things I can’t live without are all together in my direct possession.
I hear Ben, The Protector, getting into the shower. He believes the stories about tourists being kidnapped right off the highway to Monterrey, the route we will be taking to Espinazo. He’s being very
accepting about all this. Why? Because I made such a strong case for the importance of my thesis? Because Ma’lena’s going and she’ll tell him everything that happens? (Ma’lena is the master whisperer in our neighborhood, and Reynaldo’s her cousin.)
Dissing Ben’s fear, I rally round the consummate delight of going on My First Trip into the Field, which is certainly a milestone in my sheltered White Anglo Saxon Protestant (WASP) life. The furthest into Mexico I’ve ever gone, is just across the border to Reynosa where the night-life is cheap, and Ben protects me from lewd looks.
Reynaldo left for Espinazo yesterday to prepare for the Fiesta. His departure left his wife, Lucy, alone, so Ma’lena and her sister, Linda, and I went to check on Lucy before we three left, too. I ended up taking the four of us to Luby’s for dinner. Talk turned to Espinazo.
“I wish you were going, Lucy,” I had said.
“I wish I could go, too. I used to go all the time when we went in a car. I tried taking the bus three years ago, and it was so hard on me, the rough ride, the bus fumes. Aye yai yai! It took me a week to recover. But you shoulda seen me, Katherine. I could run up and down Bell Hill because the healing energy is ’specially strong there.”
“Will I see Bell Hill?” I asked thinking of the so-called vortexes in Sedona where Ben had run up and down a mountain with the kids without getting out of breath. Perhaps the philosophy of placebos is universal, including those related to New Age whimsies. I like to read about it, but I don’t believe.
“You betcha. Bring me back a fresh rock from there. I’ll sleep with it under my pillow. Maybe my headaches will go away.”
“You are going to be blown away by Espinazo, Katherine!” Ma’lena startled me with her exuberance. “We won’t tell you too much now because we want to see the expression on your
face when you experience it firsthand. But you’ll be Blown. A. Way.” Ma’lena, who knows me well, looked devilish.
“You can ask me one question, now,” Linda offered kindly, “and I’ll answer to the best of my ability.”
I chewed thoughtfully on a bite of liver dipped in Heinz 57. “There is one thing that has been bothering me a lot. In the first place, I’m going to be far from home in a foreign country. In the second place, I don’t know the customs of Mexico, much less Espinazo. So in the third place I am very afraid of making a fool of myself. Please tell me what I need to know so I don’t embarrass myself.”
“That’s about fifty questions you’re asking right there!” Ma’lena said indignantly.
“No!” Lucy squealed. “There is one thing she must do to avoid embarrassment: You must wach yur cheechee, Katherine!” The three who are familiar with Espinazo customs whooped and hollered in recognition of a good joke and slapped their knees until they got themselves worked up. I just sat there because I didn’t know what a cheechee is. The three laughed even harder, but now because I don’t know what a cheechee is. Customers at other tables turned to disapprovingly look at us.
“She doesn’t know what a cheechee is!” Ma’lena choked out.
I felt irritated. “So what is it?”
“You know! You know! Yur curlies!” Lucy screamed.
“Do what? Your curlies? What are curlies?”
Lucy screamed again with her mouth wide open and eyes bugged when I said ‘curlies.’ “You know. Down there. You gotta take baby wipes to wach yur cheechee.” (A fresh wave of hilarity, napkins pressed against streaming eyes) “Everyone in Espinazo knows when you
haven’t wached yur cheechee!”
I had never been so embarrassed in my life. “Can’t I take a shower?” I whispered, leaning forward into the center of the table, hoping they’d take a hint and tone down.
“Chur you can take a chower. Aa-h-h-h-hah-hah-hah.”
“Ya’ll are embarrassing me. Is there a shower or not!”
The three now held their sides to keep them from splitting.
I left the table to pay the bill and went to wait for them in the car. Thank God I bought wipes. There’d better be a shower. What if there’s not a shower? Four days of flat hair… the horror.
≈≈≈
The familiar sound of the Castillo’s garage door rising on its motorized chain announces it’s time to go. I go into each of my two children’s rooms to kiss them good-bye in their sleep, feeling that soft sweetness I feel when the responsibility of getting them up and to school lies not with me. In each room, I stroke the side of a face, brushing hair back away from the eyes, and bend to whisper in an ear: “Mommy loves you.” I say this even to the sixteen year-old, my oldest son.
In the den, Ben takes a bag from me and pulls me to him. “I want you to have a good trip. Don’t worry about anything here. And, Katherine? I love you. So be careful in Mexico.”
I want to push him away and start some sort of fight. How can I leave for Espinazo as the Field Research Ethnographer with Ben’s affectionate words competing for space in my heart, the same heart I must admit has also been captivated by Anthropology for six months? With lowered eyes, I just say, “Thank-you” before grabbing a luggage handle and heading out the door.
Together, we cross the two pieces of luggage, ice chest, grocery box, leopard tote, and bedding sack to the Lopez’s driveway where Ben makes jokes about Mike having to drive three women with all this luggage. Mike looks at my luggage piled beside his truck. “To tell you the truth, Ben, Ma’lena only has one bag.”
Ma’lena walks out of the garage in shorts and t-shirt, easily carrying a large sports bag, and with a fanny pack riding in the crevice between her stomach and pelvis. She stops short when she sees my pile. “Are you planning on staying a month? Good God, Katherine, what all did you bring?”
Well, now, everybody knows WASPS are nothing if not prepared for any circumstance, but I don’t expect Ma’lena to understand this. “Must be the wipees taking up all the room. I’m prepared!” I feel triumphant when Ma’lena shoots a glance in the men’s direction.
“That’s fine, but remember: On the trip, it’s every woman for herself,” She throws her bag into the bed of Mike’s crew cab with an easy arch that belies an overtaxed body. Ma’lena may be large, but she doesn’t jiggle that much. “In other words, don’t expect me to help you carry all that.”
“Oh, come on, surely there are luggage carts,” I say with disdain for the ignorant un-traveled Ma’lena represents. Ben and Mike, grunt together as they lift the ice chest up into the bed of the truck.
“Yeah, right,” Ma’lena snorts with disdain for the spoiled brats I represent.
Linda drives up in her maroon Rodeo. When she gets out, I notice she, too, has on shorts and a t-shirt. She has two bags, a fanny pack around her waist (I would not be caught dead with a fanny pack), and some sort of book bag in the form of a large Kirkland’s shopping sack. When she’s done throwing her own stuff in the back, she throws in the last of my pile—the flimsy
leopard skin tote—as if it’s the most natural thing to help. The bed of the truck is now full.
Mike and Ma’lena sit in the front, and Linda and I crowd into the back of the cab. I free a hand to wave ‘bye to Ben. A jolt of guilt and foreboding hits me in the chest. Ah, well, if I die they’ll remember me as a great adventurer. They’ll tell tales to my grandchildren of their Grandmother, the Anthropologist, who was like one of the Wild Thornberries, nine-year-old Julieanne’s favorite cartoon show. Mother and daughter don’t miss an episode.
I lay my head on the lofty book bag in my lap to compress my pounding heart as we move toward the exit of the good ol’ neighborhood. Linda strokes my hair for a moment. “Are you okay, sweetie?”
“Yes. I’m really excited, but I got up so early this morning,” I say into my book bag. Then I spring upright. “How does my hair look? Is it flat? Is there a shower in Espinazo? Don’t they have luggage carts at the bus terminal?”
“Honey, I don’t know. I’ve never brought more than I can carry myself. But don’t worry, I’ll help you. And your hair looks fine.”
Ma’lena humphs without turning around.
≈≈≈
Mike drops us off in front of the doors of the McAllen bus terminal, its perimeter described by tall palm trees. I am mesmerized by this international element of McAllen which has been happening without my knowledge. I have no problem finding a bell cap to help me with my luggage. Ma’lena had purchased our tickets earlier in the week, so today, Thursday, we move quickly through check-in and then head straight to our bus; thank goodness, for the early morning terminal is a frantic milling of semi-conscious Spanish-speaking people, with very little
regard for the personal space of others.
When I see the Noreste bus, I breathe more easily. The open cargo doors reveal ample room. The bell cap, who can almost stand upright inside the cargo hull transfers my luggage from the cart to the bus while Ma’lena and Linda watch with mistrust, counting the bags. I tip him five dollars, turning to be sure Ma’lena sees how well this all worked out. Ma’lena stares straight past me.
The bus itself is new and luxurious, with plush seats, lots of legroom, and a TV to every three seats. “Better than an airplane!” I exclaim in wonder as I sit in a seat next to the window. Ma’lena takes the aisle seat beside me. Linda has the two seats in front of us to herself. The bus is only half full when the driver checks his list of passengers. I carefully hold on to my ticket stub until I can stick it in my journal and write: Thursday, 19 October 2000. My Frst Trip into the Field. I look over at Ma’lena as the bus drives out of the terminal onto Sixteenth Street, and with a big grin, nod my head with exuberance.
Ma’lena laughs. “We still have to go through customs. You’re not home free yet, dear. If we hit a red light at Mexican customs, we have to get off and get our luggage checked. I’d hate to be you if that happens. We could be there all day, and I’d have to kill ya!”
Linda hoists herself around on her knees to face us. She scrounges around in her Kirkland bag beside her and pulls out a homemade necklace—a black stretchy cord with a pendant of two miniature santos, saint pictures, glued back-to-back, no more than an inch tall, of Niño de Praga on one side and Niño Fidencio on the other. “This is a protection pendent,” she says, and hands it to me.
I smile. “Oh, thank you, so much.” I stick it in my purse. I wouldn’t be caught dead wearing it.
As we approach the light at Mexican customs, I “think” it green. The bus driver drives right on through to the Mexican side. When the bus stops, an official comes on board, walks to the rear, peering at each passenger as he
U.S. Border Patrol Inspection for Buses
goes, then walks back to the front and exits the bus.
Linda again positions herself to speak over the top of the seats, and says to me, “Niño Fidencio is taking care of you today. They didn’t even ask for our visas.”
I notice the “you” instead of the “us” being protected, and am reminded I am the outsider. I pull the pendent out of my purse, put it around my neck, and immediately feel more like a peregrino, a pilgrim to a strange land. Linda smiles approvingly and sits back down for the two and one-half hour ride to Monterrey where we will change buses.
In the meantime, Ma’lena is praying her Malena and Linda, sisters rosary, sotto voce to Scooby Doo saying “Rooby Roo!” on the TV in front of us. I skooch down into my seat, my pink puffy pillow propped between the window and my shoulder. I take out my journal and pen to write about the pendent Linda has given me, reflecting on superstition and faith, and how these two similar attitudes affect the way one moves through the world, especially if one is a peregrino. While I am in this absorbed frame of mind, Ma’lena pulls from her fanny pack, a white cardboard jewelry box of a larger than normal size.
“Look at these, Katherine. These are King Solomon’s Seals.” Ma’lena shakes the box to get a heavy clinking sound and my attention. I look at the strange metal disks, about ten in all.
Some have different geometric shapes and dots decorating them; some have what look like alchemical codes linked together by rays of lines. Mysterious Arabic writing rims the circumferences. But it is the pentagram on a few of them which catches my eye.
“What do they do?” I ask, picturing Ma’lena in the middle of a dark forest, stirring a steaming cauldron with eyeballs and tongues floating in it
“They’re talismans.” Ma’lena waits for the next question I always put out there.
“Where did you get them?”
“I ordered them off the Internet.”
“Well, I mean, what is their history?”
“I just order one at a time, according to my needs. There are forty-four of them. See? This one is the Third Pentacle of the Moon. It protects against dangers of travel. I just got it last week for this trip. This is the Third Pentacle of Jupiter. It defends against enemies. But this is the one I’ve had the longest: The First Pentacle of Mars—grants me courage, ambition and enthusiasm. It has great power against poverty. And this one, the ‘El Shaddai’, brings me all things I may desire.” Ma’lena laughs. “Deseo muchas cosas.” I look at her questioningly. “I desire many things. I think you need the one for dominance, Katherine.”
“Why?” I cross my arms warily over my chest and push my back into my pillow. I always try very hard not to be dominant. I view dominance as a mean thing.
“Because you have a weak nature. You tend to let people take advantage of you.” I consider this while Ma’lena distributes her gaze between my face and her fingers fiddling with her discs.
“I don’t think I’m weak. I think I’m overly-socialized. What’s the Seal called for overly-socialized people?” At least I have manners. “What I was meaning to ask is, what is the history of King Solomon’s Seals? Is that the Star of David, or a Pentagram, or what, on these here?” I diddle my fingers in Ma’lena’s box, searching for a pentacled disc.
“Don’t touch them! You’ll weaken their magic!” Ma’lena slaps my hand. “I had to perform certain rituals to transfer my will into these.”
Ma’lena is cackling while stirring a steaming cauldron filled with eyeballs and tongues.
“King Solomon’s Seals go back to ancient Jewish mysticism. The Kabbala. See this writing around the edges?” I study the Arabic writing. “That represents the name of a demon or an angel. That’s what makes them work. The possessor plugs into the special power of a particular demon. Or angel. I only buy the angel seals, myself.”
“Really? Who would know?”
Ma’lena does not register my words. Or rather, I think she doesn’t. “There are 72 demons and 44 of angels to choose from.”
Linda’s head pops up over the seat. “Ma’lena! Sweet Mother of God, put those things away. We’re on our way to the El Niño’s Holy Land and you’re filling Katherine’s head with stories of demons. Rey would not approve. You should be praying, not playing with those things. Put them away!”
As Ma’lena puts them away, she leans close to my ear to whisper: “I gave one of these to Rey, already! Teeheehee.”
“Which one?” I whisper back.
“The Fifth Pentacle of Mars.”
“What does it do?”
“Causes all demons to obey the will of the possessor.”
Just like Ma’lena to take some credit for Reynaldo’s curandero power. “Who is the angel with that power?”
“St. Michael the Archangel.”
“Who taught you to work with these?”
“I’ll tell you some other time.” Ma’lena thrusts out her pelvis to put the box back in her fanny pack.
I have enough to write about now to fill up the time it takes to get to Monterrey.
≈≈≈
The Monterrey bus terminal is twice as big as the one in McAllen, and probably fifty years older. And definitely dirtier. And smellier.
There are no bell caps.
No luggage carts.
“Okay, you stay here by the bus with our luggage while I drag the ice chest to the check-in,” Linda says.
Inside the bus station in Monterrey “I can’t let you do that, Linda. You stand here
and let me drag the ice chest.”
“You don’t know where the check-in is,” Linda says as we watch Ma’lena jauntily
making the corner, swinging her one sports bag. I feel mortified.
Linda takes off with my bedding bag in one hand and one handle of the ice chest on which rests the grocery box, and one of her own bags in the other. She gets a good slide going on the tiled floor as she takes quick little Chinese steps in a hunched over position.
Standing outside in the fumes of a million buses, I stuff my pink puffy pillow in the slot of one of the slide-out handles. I then drape the book bag over the leopard skin tote handle and sling my purse over my shoulder. I wouldn’t be caught dead with a fanny pack. Linda’s Kirkland bag gets draped over the slide-out handle of her other luggage. The people who are lining up to board the next bus are looking at me, fortressed by luggage. Or maybe they are staring at the only blonde haired, blue eyed peregrino in the bus station.
An eight-year-old child makes his way through the barricade and begs for money. I take out my wallet and give him a dollar. As he scampers off on some mysterious errand, three more scamper in. I shrug and turn away from them, but they tug at my fringed skirt and poke with their fingers, saying “Meece, Meece” until I open up my wallet again, fearing how many will approach next. I’m trying to ask them in Spanish to help me with my luggage when Linda reappears. Between the two of us, we are able to make our way slowly with the rest of our belongings to check-in where Ma’lena has already been through the line.
“You were right, Ma’lena. I’ve learned my lesson, but please help me with my luggage onto the next bus. Please? It may be what I deserve, but it’s not fair to your sister.”
“I’ll tell you what’s not fair, Katherine. It’s not fair for you to make us miss the bus. The bus leaves in thirty minutes. You still have to go through check-in and get your butt to the other side of the terminal. With all this crap. That’s the only reason I’m going to help. Rey would kill me if I showed up without you two.” Ma’lena grabs the handle of one of the bags and takes off through the crowded terminal.
Linda and I stand in line for an interminable length of time. When we finally receive our bus transfers, we move as fast as we can (which isn’t very) toward the terminal from which we will depart. That terminal is in a completely different building. By now my sandals-with-just-a-little-heel are killing me, and Linda has to stop more and more often to get the kink out of her back from pulling the ice chest. Just when we get in sight of the waiting area for our bus, where we can see Ma’lena studying our suffering, the axle of the elegant leopard skin tote breaks in half.
“Goddammit, Ma’lena!” I yell, and crumple down to the floor wanting to take off my sandals; wanting to throw one at her. “Goddammit, how come you didn’t tell me to pack light in the first place?”
When we finally reach the bus, I see that not even a dwarf could stand in its cargo hull. And only one bag per person is allowed underneath. I watch in disbelief as Linda, with the help of a gentleman’s hand, Mina bus
hoists herself into the bus through the emergency door at the back and yells for me to throw up our stuff. Ma’lena stands guard over the ice chest going into the hull. Somehow, Linda manages to define a space for the three of us to sit on the very back seat stretching across the width of the bus, fencing us in with our luggage. There are no overhead bins; in fact, this bus reminds me of the movies depicting the decrepit Mexican bus stirring up dust clouds as it travels a dangerous mountain road, with crates of chickens tied on the roof. I notice on the side, it says Mina.
I feel the excitement borne of contact with The Other (many Others who are clearly not WASPs) build and finally crescendo with the appearance of a band of musicians crowding into the seats in front of us. There’s an accordion, a trumpet, a guitar, and a bajo sexto sharing the seats with their four owners. As we bump along, I can feel camaraderie and festivity effulge throughout the packed bus. Although I can’t understand what they are saying, I’m still affected by the charge of human stimulation, and my giddiness builds to a degree that I can’t keep my mouth shut. “Play a Huapango!” I yell over the din to the musicians. Actually, I just learned this word for a style of dance from Reynaldo, and feel very proud to be able to use it in this situation.
Leaning forward, I yell again, “Play a Huapango!” One musician, who is sitting with his back against the window and his bajo sexto between his legs, looks at me and then looks forward with no change of expression. “What’s wrong?” I ask Linda. Privately, I think he’s an esnob. “Did I say something wrong?”
Linda shrugs. She asks one of the other musicians something in Spanish. “He says they are going to Espinazo for the Fiesta. They’ll play something there, but probably not a Huapango.”
Suddenly, it’s clear this is a busload of Espinazo pilgrims. Linda grabs her Kirkland bag and starts stepping on the backs of the seats, because the aisles are crowded with luggage. Passengers give her a hand across the seat backs as she is handing out homemade necklaces, crocheted crosses, and hard candy. Children are laughing and reaching their hands out for the palanca. Someone starts singing La Paloma de Niño Fidencio, and half the bus joins in. It makes for a short trip to the town of Mina where half of the travellers get off and go home. But the rest of us peregrinos continue our sojourn to the Promised Land.
≈≈≈
We’ve turned off Highway 53 onto a dirt road, just past the steel-
fenced desert land posted officiously, “No Trespassing” (in Spanish). Linda says this vast expanse of desert is a nuclear waste dump, and the five-hundred Espinazo residents vociferously protest its Federal presence. But oh! Look! Here to immediately greet us on this dirt road, when we look up, is a thing divine. I wonder that the divine always insists we look up—cathedral windows, church spires, prayers directed, Christ on the cross. Niño Fidencio on the adobe wall, his standards fluttering high above him, and a sign that reads, Bienvenidos, Penitentes de Niño Fidencio.
The dirt road we turn onto is a straightaway with neither a bend nor a curve—a brave arrow through the high desert ecosystem of mountains, thorny plants, dry dusty ground and intermittent sightings of dust devils. It is 12:30, the time of day when the noon demon is on the prowl. She whirls and howls as she sweeps through the montes (wilderness) looking for one to devour, one stupid enough to be outside working in the heat instead of inside taking a siesta while the sun is at its zenith.
The road goes on forever, but the party attitude has seemingly changed to reverential hope as the pilgrims stare out their windows, expecting miracles to bless them in the Holy Land. I notice small shrines along the right shoulder of the road. Linda explains these were erected back in 1988 by individual materias (shamans who channel the spirit of Niño Fidencio) from all over, both Mexico and the U.S., to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the crowning, the deification, of El Niño Fidencio.
Espinazo!
Finally, we cross over some railroad tracks, and that crossing causes the penitentes (those who endure hardship in
exchange for answered prayer) to shout in jubilation. We’re in Espinazo!
Before the bus skirts the village, I get my first brief impression: a postcard of true Mexicana. Flat-roofed adobe structures—homes? Really?—painted in bright colors, with rustic wooden doors, hug the dirt streets. I’m glad and sad at the same time to see picture-imperfect electricity lines; appalled to see a satellite dish on top of an impoverished shack which doesn’t even have a front door.
As the bus takes a left before hitting the town proper, a parade of twenty or so people and one eight-foot gorilla approach us. Gorilla? They are carrying outlandishly large sprays of floral arrangements. Well, the gorilla is not. He stops dead in his tracks to watch our bus go by. I turn on my knees to look out the back window as the distance grows between us. He waves. I turn back around. “Linda? Did you see that gorilla? He waved at me!”
“Oh, yes. That was a víejo.”
“El Víejo? Reynaldo was talking about El Víejo being Lucifer, The Old One. How can El Víejo be a gorilla?”
“Not just a gorilla,” Linda says, “but demons and clowns and wild animals and perverted old men. All kinds of scary things.” I try to comprehend the association between scary things, trickster things, El Viejo, and Satan. I can’t grasp it. The concept of El Viejo is too foreign, too Other.
The bus drives to the outskirts of town, stopping inside a wide corral. Linda again opens the emergency exit door. There is Reynaldo, bigger than life, wearing black pants and a white shirt, grinning from ear to ear. I wonder what my hair looks like.
Linda begins throwing things out to him. Ma’lena chooses to get off at the front where steps are available. Reynaldo reaches his hand up to help Linda jump down, saying “Hi, honey. How was the trip?”
“Just fine. Well, Katherine brought a lot.”
“I can see that.” He grins up at me and offers me a hand, too. “Hi, Sister Katherine. Quite the traveler, aren’t we?” He looks me up and down. “You look nice. Are you expecting a dinner party?” In the skirt, I have to skooch from my perch at the emergency exit in a precise position to keep my underwear undercover before Reynaldo helps me jump down. He gives me a bear hug when my feet hit the ground, whereupon a man with a big grin enters the picture with a professional video camera. He is filming Reynaldo hugging me
“You’ll learn many things from this, your first trip to Espinazo,” Reynaldo says wisely to the camera man, one arm still around my shoulders.
Glen filming Reynaldo in Espinazo montes
I wonder what my hair looks like.
The man lowers the camera to reach out to shake my hand. “Glen, from the Dallas Morning News. Reynaldo has told me you are an anthropologist, come to research the Fiesta. But honestly? You are quite a contrast to what I’ve seen so far in Espinazo. You look very nice. And you have a lot of nice luggage.” He points the camera’s eye at the dangling wheels of my leopard skin tote.
“I’m not an anthropologist, yet. Please quit filming me.” Using my hand, I flip my hair
back over my shoulder.
Everybody grabs luggage and takes off, including Ma’lena. She thinks she’s blessing me with a merciful smile when she turns to look over her shoulder to be sure I saw her help. I predict from here on out, Ma’lena will assume saintly behavior in front of Reynaldo, who appears to be famous in Espinazo.
I’m left alone with only the leopard skin tote! Well, and my book bag. And my purse which I hang around my neck like a necklace. But my relief is forestalled as I begin what turns out to be a solitary, penitential trek from the bus stop to the town. I anchor my eyes resolutely on Reynaldo’s and the photographer’s backs for succor.
With almost every step placed on the rocky ground, my ankles twist in the sandals-with-just-a-little-heel. I have to hold my elegant tote up off the ground because the wheels act like brakes if I try to drag it. I’m sweating inside the silk blend. I’m sure my hair is flat. I’m so tired of lugging luggage. Dust is caking to my legs. And I repeat, my poor aching feet are wobbling across the rocky road. My toe catches a big rock, but I make a fantastic save just before the swingy fringe of my skirt bites the dust.
Then, as if someone pulled a theatre curtain, I enter a different world, staged on the main street of Espinazo. There are people everywhere, most of them banded in groups. Some carry huge sprays of flowers, some are singing, and some are chanting. Some play instruments. There are vendors setting up their puestecitos on both sides of the main street. The press of colorful activity makes me forget my personal Inferno. I start digging for my camera.
A wolf-thing runs across my view. When it sees me holding my camera, it runs up to me and poses, pointing from my camera to himself. I am elated to get this shot. Just before I press the button, the wolf-thing lunges at me. I shriek, but I got the shot.
“You’re gonna be a magnet for those viejos, Sister Katherine!” Reynaldo calls to me from the sidewalk across the street. “But they won’t bother you at my house! Mi casa es su casa.”
With a chivalrous bow and a sweep of his arm, Reynaldo invites me through a white gated arch onto a spacious porch, of which one wall is lushly draped in both fuscia bougainvillea, and yellow esperanza. An ebony tree grows in its own little plot of ground. The porch is decorated with bright fiesta pennants and flowers.
This porch is beautiful. Except…uh oh.
Off by itself in a private corner is an outhouse.
“Reynaldo? Is there a shower in your casa?”
“Not exactly. We take spit baths because the city of Espinazo only turns its water on once a day. If we’re lucky we can use a garden hose to fill up a 55 gallon trash can before they turn the water back off. I hope Ma’lena told you to bring wipes.”
“Lucy did…” at Luby’s.....“Chur you can take a chower. Aa-h-h-h-hah-hah-hah.”
So it’s true: four days of flat hair. Arrgghh, the horror.
I soon buy a straw hat at a puesticito. It becomes the signifier of my anthropologist persona for the duration of my First Trip into the Field. I never take it off.
Powerful Memories
By Alexandra H. Rodrigues
Some memories survive ̶ survive the living and the dead.
One such item is a little notebook bound in colorful cloth. This first impression does not speak of really old age; it is clean and very attractive. On the side, there is a little loop to put a thin pencil. The pencil itself is missing.
On the inside of the first page is written in modern script – Lieselotte Graffenberg, Zehlendorf – West, Lessingstr. 12. It is the handwriting of my mother. Graffenberg is her family name. Lessingstr. is the old name for what became Limastrasse around the time of Hitler. It was already Limastrasse when I was born.
Under the address is a picture of my mother taken in a Quick photo booth, black and white of course. My mom looks to be in her early twenties. She wears a turbanlike cap and a coat with a fur collar.
On the next page is the poem Rheinsage. This and other poems are written in an older style of script, which I personally only taught in first grade.
Here is one I tried to find on Google, but in vain. Unfortunately, my mother failed to add the poet to the poems. Here is the way it sounds in the book, in German.
Ellengroesse
Die Pappel spricht zum Baeumchen “Was machst Du Dich so breit? Mit den geringen Pflaeumchen?”
Es sagt: “Ich bin erfreut, dass ich nicht bloss ein Holz Nicht eine leere Stange!”
“Was” ruft die Pappel stolz. “Ich bin zwar eine Stange, doch eine lange, lange.”
Yardsize
The Poplar speaks to the little tree: “Why do you take such wide room? With your meager plums?”
It says: “I am happy that I am not only a piece of wood. Not an empty stick.”
“What?’ cries the poplar proud. “Yes, it is true I am a stick, but one that’s long and big.”
Giving Respect
By Alexandra H. Rodrigues
A little pink note is glued to two letter-size pages. They are titled “Das Ist IHR LEBEN” ̶ large handwritten uppercase print. She, Ilse Bardeleben, would always write like this and was known for it.
The pink note is from my mother. It says, “Das soll das Leben meiner Kleinen sein” oooo (for kisses) and dated March 08, 1996.
Ilse Bardeleben was a good friend of my mother. Gave lots of assistance to my mother and spoiled me through all her life. She was not rich but always found money to make me presents. The attachment I am referring to, is a poem. It was meant for me but never given to me by my mother. I found it in a folder with other letters meant for me after my mother died in 2001.
After the death of my mother, Ilse stayed in touch with me. She, in Berlin Germany, and I, here in New York. I remember that most of her writes to me were in form of poems and mostly spiked with humor. I also remember that at one time I promised her that I would try to publish some of her poetic creations. That was years before I myself decided to become a poet.
Ilse had several unhappy and sickly years before passing away at the age of ninety-nine in a nursing home in Berlin. Till her last day, I stayed in touch with her. She had been robbed and ended up without means. To a point where I had to send her the postage for her letters to me.
Better late than never! I want to make good on my promise to publish something she wrote. Here it is. It will also show with how much interest she followed my entire life. May she be blessed and rewarded for all her good deeds in heaven.
Here is the original text in German.
Das ist ihr Leben
By Ilse Bardeleben
Die kleine Alexa wurde gross Nabelte sich von Omi und Mami los
Die Zeit verging, die Jahre eilen Sie wollt in Deutschland nicht mehr bleiben
Es zog sie in die Welt hinaus Was sollte sie denn auch zu Haus?
Flugs dachte sie, man kanns begreifen Mal gründlich in die Ferne schweifen
Das Ziel, sich in die Lüfte schwingen Warum sollt ihr das nicht gelingen?
Zuerst wars nu rein Schnuppern in der nur ein Welt Dann war’s Beruf der ihr gefaellt
Nun blieb sie ganz in USA Und war begeistert was sie alles sah
So recht war’s Mami wohl nicht Amerika war weit aus ihrer Sicht
Vom Fliegen kam nun esrt der Stres s Doch alle Tücken überwand sie kess
Die Rutsche runter, wie im Spiel Nichts war ihr da zuviel
Sie lernte alles mit Bravour und dann, dann gings auf grosse Tour
Wieviele Länder, Betten, Strände sah sie, bis dann kam das Ende
Pan Am, sie lahmte in den Flügeln Sie konnte ihre dollar nicht mehr zügeln
Pan Am kam nun zu Nöten Alexa’s job ging damit flöten
Pan Am ging hops, was man bedauerte Alexa nur ganz kurz erschauerte
Dann traf sie doch ein Geistesblitz und eine neue Sache war geritzt
Sie machte schnell sich auf die Socken Sie wollte nicht zu Hause hocken
Denn Ehe, Kind und Haus, füllten ihr Leben doch nicht aus.
Sie machte nun in Häusern gross und klein Und liess das auch bis heut’ nicht sein
Sehr viele Klinken puzte sie im Nu So manches Haus blieb für sie zu
Ein andrer war schon vor ihr da Alexa man dann frustriert auch sah
Nicht immer ist es Sonnenschein Nicht immer kommen Dollar rein
Und immer soll man es verstehen Das Dollar kommen und auch gehen
Was der Chronist beinah’ vergass war Wirklichkeit und nicht ein Spass
Inzwischen kam doch das absurde Alexa spät noch Mutter wurde
Wie Mütter manchmal doch so sind Gab’s auf Erden nichts als dieses Kind
Dies Kind, es war ein Knabe Der Chronist sprach von Gehabe….
Sie liess es nicht von ihrem Schoss Bis war der Knabe doch zu gross
Heut ist der Knabe ganz schön stramm und ganz bestimmt ein ganzer Mann
Es fragt sich leise der Chronist Ob Deutschland noch die Heimat ist
And here is the translation:
This is her Life
Author Ilse Bardeleben
Translated by Alexandra H. Rodrigues
The little Alexa grew up
Cut the cord from Mama and Pap
The time moved on. The years sped on
She felt that no longer into Germany she did belong
She wanted to see the world at any cost
Nothing any longer at home she had lost.
Far away she planned to wing
As stewardess into the sky she did swing
Finally, she remained permanently in the USA
Was amazed about all that she had seen on her way.
Of course, she was often also under stress
Still Alexa succeeded over any new mess.
Mom was not really happy with all this
America was far, her daughter she did miss
Alexa learned all with great bravour
70 hours per month she was flying on tour
She saw a multitude of countries, beds, beaches
And the wonders of the world
Till problems the airline out of grandeur hurled
Pan Am weakened in its wing
The dollar was short and caused the airline to sink
Alexa’s fancy job did end that way
But she quickly found a new niche so to say
She did not care to sit around in the house
Despite that she had a child and a spouse.
So, she showed houses big and small
With patience, she did sell them all
If another realtor came ahead of her
She was upset, did not like that to occur
Alexa later became a mother
Suddenly with nothing else she wanted to bother.
A boy it was, and he grew well
Suddenly marriage and motherhood were swell
Writing this chronicle, the question comes to me
Does Alexa Germany still as homeland see?!
Words Of Wisdom
By the Cherokees of California
Many thanks to our Cherokee friends.
Visit their website at:
http://www.powersource.com/cocinc/default.html
"The Cherokee legacy is that we are a people who face adversity, survive, adapt, prosper and excel."
"And to fulfill this legacy, we must ask the questions...
Where will we be as people five, ten, fifty or one hundred years from now?
Do we brag about our full blood ancestor or do we brag about our Indian grandchildren?
Do we live in the past or do we focus on the future?
Is being Cherokee a novelty or a way of life?
Is being Cherokee a heritage or a future?
Our ancestors who walked the grounds of this capitol building resoundingly cry, 'Don’t forget the legacy we passed on. Don’t let it lapse. Pass it on, stronger and stronger to your children. Let the Cherokee language laugh, speak and sing again. Let our history be known and discussed. Live by our wisdom. Don’t let us die as a people. If you do then all our sacrifice will be for nothing and you will lose those things that fulfill your life.'
Principal of the Cherokee Nation, Chief Chad Smith
State of the Nation Address
September 1, 2001
"Being Indian is mainly in your heart. It's a way of walking with the earth instead of upon it. A lot of the history books talk about us Indians in the past tense, but we don't plan on going anywhere... We have lost so much, but the thing that holds us together is that we all belong to and are protectors of the earth; that's the reason for us being here. Mother Earth is not a resource, she is an heirloom."
David Ipinia, Yurok Artist, Sacramento, CA
"The strength of our future, lies in the protecting of our past."
Seminole Elder
"The Earth was created by the assistance of the sun, and it should be left as it was. The country was made with no lines of demarcation, and it's no man's business to divide it. I see the whites all over the country gaining wealth, and I see the desire to give us lands which are worthless.
The Earth and myself are of one mind. Perhaps you think the Creator sent you here to dispose of us as you see fit. If I thought you were sent by the creator, I might he induced to think you had a right to dispose of me.
Do not misunderstand me; but understand me fully with reference to my affection for the land. I never said the land was mine to do with as I choose. The one who has a right to dispose of it is the one who created it. I claim a right to live on my land, and accord you the privilege to return to yours.
Brother, we have listened to your talk coming from our father, the Great White Chief in Washington, and my people have called upon me to reply to you.
The winds which pass through these aged pines we hear the moaning of departed ghosts, and if the voice of our people could have been heard, that act would never have been done. But alas though they stood around they could neither be seen nor heard. Their tears fell like drops of rain.
I hear my voice in the depths of the forest but no answering voice comes back to me. All is silent around me. My words must therefore be few. I can now say no more. He is silent for he has nothing to answer when the sun goes down."
Thunder Rolling in the Mountains-Chief Joseph, Nez Perce
"Our fathers gave us many laws which they had learned from their fathers. They told us to treat all men as they treated us. That we should never be the first to break a bargain. That it was a disgrace to tell a lie. That we should speak only the truth. We were taught to believe that the Great Spirit sees and hears everything and that he never forgets. This I believe and all my people believe the same."
Thunder Rolling in the Mountains-Chief Joseph, Nez Perce
"Wars are fought to see who owns the land, but in the end it possesses man. Who dares say he owns it- is he not buried beneath it?"
Cochise, Chiricahua Apache
"When you are a person who belongs to a community, you have to know who you are. You have to know who your relatives are, and as a tribe we have to know where we came from..."
Charlotte Black Elk, Oglala Sioux
"Marriage among my people was like traveling in a canoe. The man sat in front and paddled the canoe. The woman sat in the stern but she steered."
Anonymous
"A Nation is not conquered until the hearts of its women are on the ground. Then it is done, no matter how brave its warriors nor how strong its weapons."
Cheyenne
"Have patience. All things change in due time. Wishing cannot bring autumn glory or cause winter to cease."
Ginaly-li, Cherokee
"Lose your temper and you lose a friend; lie and you lose yourself."
Hopi
"With all things and in all things, we are relatives."
Sioux
"Kinship with all creatures of the earth, sky and water was a real and active principle. And so close did some of the Lakotas come to their feathered and furred friends that in true brotherhood they spoke a common tongue.
The animals had rights...
the right of man's protection,
the right to live,
the right to multiply,
the right to freedom, and
the right to man's indebtedness."
Luther Standing Bear, Teton Sioux
The Letters of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
FIRST PART—ITALY, VIENNA, MUNICH.—1770 TO 1776.Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born in Salzburg on the 17th January, 1756. His father, Leopold Mozart, belonged to a respectable tradesman's family in the free city of Augsburg. Conscious of being gifted with no small portion of intellectual endowments, he followed the impulse that led him to aim at a higher position in life, and went to the then celebrated University of Salzburg in order to study jurisprudence. As he did not, however, at once succeed in procuring employment in this profession, he was forced, from his straitened means, to enter the service of Canon Count Thun as valet. Subsequently, however, his talents, and that thorough knowledge of music by which he had already (according to the custom of many students) gained some part of his livelihood, obtained for him a better position. In the year 1743 he was received into the band (Kapelle) of the Salzburg cathedral by Archbishop Sigismund; and as his capabilities and fame as a violinist increased, the same Prince shortly afterwards promoted him to the situation of Hof-Componist (Court Composer) and leader of the orchestra, and in 1762 he was appointed Hof-Kapellmeister (conductor of the Court music).
In 1747 Leopold Mozart married Anna Maria Pertlin, a foster-child of the Convent of St. Gilgen. The fruits of this marriage were seven children, two of whom alone survived,—Maria Anna, (the fourth), called Nannerl, born in 1751; and the youngest, Wolfgang Amadeus Johannes Chrysostomus. The daughter at a very early age displayed a most remarkable talent for music, and when her father began to give her instructions in it, an inborn and passionate love of this art was soon evident in her little brother of three years old, who at once gave tokens of a degree of genius far surpassing all experience, and really bordering on the marvellous. In his fourth year he could play all sorts of little pieces on the piano. He only required half an hour to learn a minuet, and one hour for a longer movement; and in his fifth year he actually composed some pretty short pieces, several of which are still extant.
[Footnote: The Grand Duchess Helene Paulowna, a few weeks ago, made a present to the Mozarteum of the music-book from which Mozart learned music, and in which he wrote down his first compositions.]
The wonderful acquirements of both these children, to which Wolfgang soon added skilful playing on the violin and organ, induced their father to travel with them. In January, 1702, when the boy was just six years old, they went first to Munich, and in the autumn to Vienna, the children everywhere on their journey exciting the greatest sensation, and being handsomely remunerated. Leopold Mozart, therefore, soon afterwards resolved to undertake a longer journey, accompanied by his whole family. This lasted more than three years, extending from the smaller towns in West Germany to Paris and London, while they visited, on their way back, Holland, France, and Switzerland. The careful musical instruction which the father perseveringly bestowed on his son, went hand in hand with the most admirable education, and the boy was soon as universally beloved for his amiable disposition and natural simplicity and candor, as admired for his rare gifts and acquirements.
After nearly a year passed at home in unremitting musical instruction, and practice of various instruments as well as composition, the father once more set off with all his family to Vienna,—on this occasion with a view to Wolfgang paving the way to Italy by the composition of an opera, (Italy, at that time, being the Eldorado of music.) He succeeded in procuring the scrittura of an opera buffa, "La Finta semplice;" but, when finished, although the Emperor himself had intrusted the composition to the boy, the cabals of envious singers effectually prevented its being performed. But a German operetta which the lad of twelve also wrote at that time, "Bastien und Bastienne," was given in private, at the summer residence of the Mesmer family, in the suburb called Landstrasse. The father, too, had some compensation by the Emperor commissioning his son to compose a solemn mass for the consecration of the new Waisenhaus church, which Wolfgang himself directed with the conductor's baton, in presence of the Imperial Family, on the 7th December, 1768.
Immediately on their return home, the young virtuoso was appointed archiepiscopal Concertmeister. He passed almost the whole of the year 1769 in Salzburg, chiefly engaged in the composition of masses. We also see him at that time eagerly occupied in improving his knowledge of Latin, although two years previously he had composed a comedy in that language,—"Apollo et Hyacinthus." From this study proceeds the first letter which is still extant from his hand:--
1.
Salzburg, 1769.
MY DEAR YOUNG LADY,--
I beg you will pardon the liberty I take in plaguing you with these few lines, but as you said yesterday that there was nothing you could not understand in Latin, and I might write what I chose in that language, I could not resist the bold impulse to write you a few Latin lines. When you have deciphered these, be so good as to send me the answer by one of Hagenauer's servants, for my messenger cannot wait; remember, you must answer this by a letter.
[Footnote: By a messenger of the Hagenauer family, in whose house, opposite the inn of "Den drei Allurten," Mozart was born, and with whom his family were on the most intimate terms.]
"Cuperem scire, de qua causa, a quam plurimis adolescentibus ottium usque adeo oestimetur, ut ipsi se nec verbis, nec verberibus ad hoc sinant abduci."
[Footnote: "I should like to know the reason why indolence is so highly prized by very many young men, that neither by words nor blows will they suffer themselves to be roused from it."]
WOLFGANG MOZART.
The father's plan to go to Italy, there to lay the foundation of a European reputation for his son, was realized in the beginning of December, 1769, and during the journey, the boy, who was at that time just entering his fifteenth year, subjoined to his father's reports scraps of his own writing, in which, in true boyish fashion, he had recourse to all kinds of languages and witticisms, but always exhibiting in his opinions on music the closest observation, the gravest thought, and the most acute judgment.
2.
Verona, Jan. 1770.
MY VERY DEAREST SISTER,--
I have at last got a letter a span long after hoping so much for an answer that I lost patience; and I had good cause to do so before receiving yours at last. The German blockhead having said his say, now the Italian one begins. Lei e piu franca nella lingua italiana di quel che mi ho immaginato. Lei mi dica la cagione perche lei non fu nella commedia che hanno giocata i Cavalieri. Adesso sentiamo sempre una opera titolata Il Ruggiero. Oronte, il padre di Bradamante, e un principe (il Signor Afferi) bravo cantante, un baritono, [Footnote: "You are more versed in the Italian language than I believed. Tell me why you were not one of the actors in the comedy performed by the Cavaliers. We are now hearing an opera called 'Il Ruggiero.' Oronte, the father of Bradamante, is a Prince (acted by Afferi, a good singer, a baritone)."] but very affected when he speaks out a falsetto, but not quite so much so as Tibaldi in Vienna. Bradamante innamorata di Ruggiero (ma [Footnote: "Bradamante is enamored of Ruggiero, but"]—she is to marry Leone, but will not) fa una povera Baronessa, che ha avuto una gran disgrazia, ma non so la quale; recita [Footnote: "Pretends to be a poor Baroness who has met with some great misfortune, but what it is I don't know, she performs"] under an assumed name, but the name I forget; ha una voce passabile, e la statura non sarebbe male, ma distuona come il diavolo. Ruggiero, un ricco principe innamorato di Bradamante, e un musico; canta un poco Manzuolisch [Footnote: Manzuoli was a celebrated soprano, from whom Mozart had lessons in singing when in London.] ed ha una bellissima voce forte ed e gia vecchio; ha 55 anni, ed ha una [Footnote: "She has a tolerable voice, and her appearance is in her favor, but she sings out of tune like a devil Ruggiero, a rich Prince enamored of Bradamante, is a musico, and sings rather in Manzuoli's style, and has a fine powerful voice, though quite old; he is fifty-five, and has a"] flexible voice. Leone is to marry Bradamante—richississimo e, [Footnote: "Immensely rich."] but whether he is rich off the stage I can't say. La moglie di Afferi, che ha una bellissima voce, ma e tanto susurro nel teatro che non si sente niente. Irene fa una sorella di Lolli, del gran violinista che habbiamo sentito a Vienna, a una [Footnote: "Afferi's wife has a most beautiful voice, but sings so softly on the stage that you really hear nothing at all. A sister of Lolli, the great violinist whom we heard at Vienna, acts Irene; she has a"] very harsh voce, e canta sempre [Footnote: "Voice, and always sings"] a quaver too tardi o troppo a buon' ora. Granno fa un signore, che non so come si chiame; e la prima volta che lui recita. [Footnote: "Slow or too fast. Ganno is acted by a gentleman whose name I never heard. It is his first appearance on the stage."] There is a ballet between each act. We have a good dancer here called Roessler. He is a German, and dances right well. The very last time we were at the opera (but not, I hope, the very last time we ever shall be there) we got M. Roessler to come up to our palco, (for M. Carlotti gives us his box, of which we have the key,) and conversed with him. Apropos, every one is now in maschera, and one great convenience is, that if you fasten your mask on your hat you have the privilege of not taking off your hat when any one speaks to you; and you never address them by name, but always as "Servitore umilissimo, Signora Maschera." Cospetto di Bacco! that is fun! The most strange of all is that we go to bed at half-past seven! Se lei indovinasse questo, io diro certamente che lei sia la madre di tutti gli indovini. [Footnote: "If you guess this, I shall say that you are the mother of all guessers."] Kiss mamma's hand for me, and to yourself I send a thousand kisses, and assure you that I shall always be your affectionate brother.
Portez-vous bien, et aimez-moi toujours.
3.
Milan, Jan. 26, 1770.
I REJOICE in my heart that you were so well amused at the sledging party you write to me about, and I wish you a thousand opportunities of pleasure, so that you may pass your life merrily. But one thing vexes me, which is, that you allowed Herr von Molk [an admirer of this pretty young girl of eighteen] to sigh and sentimentalize, and that you did not go with him in his sledge, that he might have upset you. What a lot of pocket-handkerchiefs he must have used that day to dry the tears he shed for you! He no doubt, too, swallowed at least three ounces of cream of tartar to drive away the horrid evil humors in his body. I know nothing new except that Herr Gellert, the Leipzig poet, [Footnote: Old Mozart prized Gellert's poems so highly, that on one occasion he wrote to him expressing his admiration.] is dead, and has written no more poetry since his death. Just before beginning this letter I composed an air from the "Demetrio" of Metastasio, which begins thus, "Misero tu non sei."
The opera at Mantua was very good. They gave "Demetrio." The prima donna sings well, but is inanimate, and if you did not see her acting, but only singing, you might suppose she was not singing at all, for she can't open her mouth, and whines out everything; but this is nothing new to us. The seconda donna looks like a grenadier, and has a very powerful voice; she really does not sing badly, considering that this is her first appearance. Il primo uomo, il musico, sings beautifully, but his voice is uneven; his name is Caselli. Il secondo uomo is quite old, and does not at all please me. The tenor's name is Ottini; he does not sing unpleasingly, but with effort, like all Italian tenors. We know him very well. The name of the second I don't know; he is still young, but nothing at all remarkable. Primo ballerino good; prima ballerina good, and people say pretty, but I have not seen her near. There is a grotesco who jumps cleverly, but cannot write as I do—just as pigs grunt. The orchestra is tolerable. In Cremona, the orchestra is good, and Spagnoletta is the name of the first violinist there. Prima donna very passable—rather ancient, I fancy, and as ugly as sin. She does not sing as well as she acts, and is the wife of a violin-player at the opera. Her name is Masci. The opera was the "Clemenza di Tito." Seconda donna not ugly on the stage, young, but nothing superior. Primo uomo, un musico, Cicognani, a fine voice, and a beautiful cantabile. The other two musici young and passable. The tenor's name is non lo so [I don't know what]. He has a pleasing exterior, and resembles Le Roi at Vienna. Ballerino primo good, but an ugly dog. There was a ballerina who danced far from badly, and, what is a capo d'opera, she is anything but plain, either on the stage or off it. The rest were the usual average. I cannot write much about the Milan opera, for we did not go there, but we heard that it was not successful. Primo uomo, Aprile, who sings well, and has a fine even voice; we heard him at a grand church festival. Madame Piccinelli, from Paris, who sang at one of our concerts, acts at the opera. Herr Pick, who danced at Vienna, is now dancing here. The opera is "Didone abbandonata," but it is not to be given much longer. Signor Piccini, who is writing the next opera, is here. I am told that the title is to be "Cesare in Egitto."
WOLFGANG DE MOZART,
Noble of Hohenthal and attached to the Exchequer.
4.
Milan, Feb. 10, 1770.
SPEAK of the wolf, and you see his ears! I am quite well, and impatiently expecting an answer from you. I kiss mamma's hand, and send you a little note and a little kiss; and remain, as before, your——What? Your aforesaid merry-andrew brother, Wolfgang in Germany, Amadeo in Italy.
DE MORZANTINI.
5.
Milan, Feb. 17, 1770.
Now I am in for it! My Mariandel! I am so glad that you were so tremendously merry. Say to nurse Urserl that I still think I sent back all her songs, but if, engrossed by high and mighty thoughts of Italy, I carried one off with me, I shall not fail, if I find it, to enclose it in one of my letters. Addio, my children, farewell! I kiss mamma's hands a thousand times, and send you a thousand kisses and salutes on your queer monkey face. Per fare il fine, I am yours, &c.
6.
Milan, Carnival, Erchtag.
MANY kisses to mamma and to you. I am fairly crazed with so much business, [Footnote: Concerts and compositions of every kind occupied Mozart. The principal result of his stay in Milan was, that the young maestro got the scrittura of an opera for the ensuing season. As the libretto was to be sent to them, they could first make a journey through Italy with easy minds. The opera was "Mitridate, Re di Ponto."] so I can't possibly write any more.
7.
Milan, March 3, 1770.
CARA SORELLA MIA,--
I am heartily glad that you have had so much amusement. Perhaps you may think that I have not been as merry as you; but, indeed, I cannot sum up all we have done. I think we have been at least six or seven times at the opera and the feste di ballo, which, as in Vienna, begin after the opera, but with this difference, that at Vienna the dancing is more orderly. We also saw the facchinata and chiccherata. The first is a masquerade, an amusing sight, because the men go as facchini, or porters; there was also a barca filled with people, and a great number on foot besides; and five or six sets of trumpets and kettledrums, besides several bands of violins and other instruments. The chiccherata is also a masquerade. What the people of Milan call chicchere, we call petits maitres, or fops. They were all on horseback, which was a pretty sight. I am as happy now to hear that Herr von Aman [Footnote: The father had written in a previous letter, "Herr von Aman's accident, of which you wrote to us, not only distressed us very much, but cost Wolfgang many tears. You know how sensitive he is"] is better, as I was grieved when you mentioned that he had met with an accident. What kind of mask did Madame Rosa wear, and Herr von Molk, and Herr von Schiedenhofen? Pray write this to me, if you know it; your doing so will oblige me very much. Kiss mamma's hands for me a thousand million times, and a thousand to yourself from "Catch him who can!" Why, here he is!
8.
Bologna, March 24, 1770.
Oh, you busy creature!
Having been so long idle, I thought it would do me no harm to set to work again for a short time. On the post-days, when the German letters come, all that I eat and drink tastes better than usual. I beg you will let me know who are to sing in the oratorio, and also its title. Let me hear how you like the Haydn minuets, and whether they are better than the first. From my heart I rejoice to hear that Herr von Aman is now quite recovered; pray say to him that he must take great care of himself and beware of any unusual exertion. Be sure you tell him this. I intend shortly to send you a minuet that Herr Pick danced on the stage, and which every one in Milan was dancing at the feste di ballo, only that you may see by it how slowly people dance. The minuet itself is beautiful. Of course it comes from Vienna, so no doubt it is either Teller's or Starzer's. It has a great many notes. Why? Because it is a theatrical minuet, which is in slow time. The Milan and Italian minuets, however, have a vast number of notes, and are slow and with a quantity of bars; for instance, the first part has sixteen, the second twenty, and even twenty-four.
We made the acquaintance of a singer in Parma, and also heard her to great advantage in her own house—I mean the far-famed Bastardella. She has, first, a fine voice; second, a flexible organ; third, an incredibly high compass. She sang the following notes and passages in my presence.
[Here, Mozart illustrates with about 20 measures of music]
9.
Rome, April 14, 1770.
I AM thankful to say that my stupid pen and I are all right, so we send a thousand kisses to you both. I wish that my sister were in Rome, for this city would assuredly delight her, because St. Peter's is symmetrical, and many other things in Rome are also symmetrical. Papa has just told me that the loveliest flowers are being carried past at this moment. That I am no wiseacre is pretty well known.
Oh! I have one annoyance—there is only a single bed in our lodgings, so mamma may easily imagine that I get no rest beside papa. I rejoice at the thoughts of a new lodging. I have just finished sketching St. Peter with his keys, St. Paul with his sword, and St. Luke with—my sister, &c., &c. I had the honor of kissing St. Peter's foot at San Pietro, and as I have the misfortune to be so short, your good old
WOLFGANG MOZART
was lifted up!
Voltaire
MICROMEGAS,PHILOSOPHICAL HISTORY
(Book Excerpt)
CHAPTER I.
Voyage of an inhabitant of the Sirius star to the planet Saturn.On one of the planets that orbits the star named Sirius there lived a spirited young man, who I had the honor of meeting on the last voyage he made to our little ant hill. He was called Micromegas[1], a fitting name for anyone so great. He was eight leagues tall, or 24,000 geometric paces of five feet each.
[1] From micros, small, and from megas, large. B.
Certain geometers[2], always of use to the public, will immediately take up their pens, and will find that since Mr. Micromegas, inhabitant of the country of Sirius, is 24,000 paces tall, which is equivalent to 20,000 feet, and since we citizens of the earth are hardly five feet tall, and our sphere 9,000 leagues around; they will find, I say, that it is absolutely necessary that the sphere that produced him was 21,600,000 times greater in circumference than our little Earth. Nothing in nature is simpler or more orderly. The sovereign states of Germany or Italy, which one can traverse in a half hour, compared to the empires of Turkey, Moscow, or China, are only feeble reflections of the prodigious differences that nature has placed in all beings.
[2] This is how the text reads in the first editions. Others, in place of "geometers," put "algebraists." B.
His excellency's size being as great as I have said, all our sculptors and all our painters will agree without protest that his belt would have been 50,000 feet around, which gives him very good proportions.[3] His nose taking up one third of his attractive face, and his attractive face taking up one seventh of his attractive body, it must be admitted that the nose of the Sirian is 6,333 feet plus a fraction; which is manifest.
[3] I restore this sentence in accordance with the first editions. B.
As for his mind, it is one of the most cultivated that we have. He knows many things. He invented some of them. He was not even 250 years old when he studied, as is customary, at the most celebrated[4] colleges of his planet, where he managed to figure out by pure willpower more than 50 of Euclid's propositions. That makes 18 more than Blaise Pascal, who, after having figured out 32 while screwing around, according to his sister's reports, later became a fairly mediocre geometer[5] and a very bad metaphysician. Towards his 450th year, near the end of his infancy, he dissected many small insects no more than 100 feet in diameter, which would evade ordinary microscopes. He wrote a very curious book about this, and it gave him some income. The mufti of his country, an extremely ignorant worrywart, found some suspicious, rash[6], disagreeable, and heretical propositions in the book, smelled heresy, and pursued it vigorously; it was a matter of finding out whether the substantial form of the fleas of Sirius were of the same nature as those of the snails. Micromegas gave a spirited defense; he brought in some women to testify in his favor; the trial lasted 220 years. Finally the mufti had the book condemned by jurisconsults who had not read it, and the author was ordered not to appear in court for 800 years[7].
[4] In place of "the most celebrated" that one finds in the first edition, subsequent editions read "some jesuit." B.
[5] Pascal became a very great geometer, not in the same class as those that contributed to the progress of science with great discoveries, like Descartes, Newton, but certainly ranked among the geometers, whose works display a genius of the first order. K.
[6] The edition that I believe to be original reads: "rash, smelling heresy." The present text is dated 1756. B.
[7] Mr. Voltaire had been persecuted by the theatin Boyer for having stated in his Letters on the English that our souls develop at the same time as our organs, just like the souls of animals. K.
He was thereby dealt the minor affliction of being banished from a court that consisted of nothing but harassment and pettiness. He wrote an amusing song at the expense of the mufti, which the latter hardly noticed; and he took to voyaging from planet to planet in order to develop his heart and mind[8], as the saying goes. Those that travel only by stage coach or sedan will probably be surprised learn of the carriage of this vessel; for we, on our little pile of mud, can only conceive of that to which we are accustomed. Our voyager was very familiar with the laws of gravity and with all the other attractive and repulsive forces. He utilized them so well that, whether with the help of a ray of sunlight or some comet, he jumped from globe to globe like a bird vaulting itself from branch to branch. He quickly spanned the Milky Way, and I am obliged to report that he never saw, throughout the stars it is made up of, the beautiful empyrean sky that the vicar Derham[9] boasts of having seen at the other end of his telescope. I do not claim that Mr. Derham has poor eyesight, God forbid! But Micromegas was on site, which makes him a reliable witness, and I do not want to contradict anyone. Micromegas, after having toured around, arrived at the planet Saturn. As accustomed as he was to seeing new things, he could not, upon seeing the smallness of the planet and its inhabitants, stop himself from smiling with the superiority that occasionally escapes the wisest of us. For in the end Saturn is hardly nine times bigger than Earth, and the citizens of this country are dwarfs, no more than a thousand fathoms tall, or somewhere around there. He and his men poked fun at them at first, like Italian musicians laughing at the music of Lully when he comes to France. But, as the Sirian had a good heart, he understood very quickly that a thinking being is not necessarily ridiculous just because he is only 6,000 feet tall. He got to know the Saturnians after their shock wore off. He built a strong friendship with the secretary of the academy of Saturn, a spirited man who had not invented anything, to tell the truth, but who understood the inventions of others very well, and who wrote some passable verses and carried out some complicated calculations. I will report here, for the reader's satisfaction, a singular conversation that Micromegas had with the secretary one day.
[8] See my note, page 110. B. [this note, in Zadig, says: "This line is mostly written at the expense of Rollin, who often employs these expressions in his Treatise on Studies. Voltaire returns to it often: see, in the present volume, chapter I of Micromegas, and in volume XXXIV, chapter XI of The Man of Forty Crowns, chapter IX of The White Bull and volume XI, the second verse of song VIII of The Young Virgin. B."]
[9] English savant, author of Astro-Theology, and several other works that seek to prove the existence of God through detailing the wonders of nature: unfortunately he and his imitators are often mistaken in their explanation of these wonders; they rave about the wisdom that is revealed in a phenomenon, but one soon discovers that the phenomenon is completely different than they supposed; so it is only their own fabrications that give them this impression of wisdom. This fault, common to all works of its type, discredited them. One knows too far in advance that the author will end up admiring whatever he has chosen to discuss.
My Tragedy to Triumph Story
By Glenn Lovell
I recently watched a video online about the adversity and tragedy that Keanu Reeves has gone through in his life, yet despite all of it how he’s gone on to achieve massive success and is one of the biggest charitable stars in Hollywood. Now I’m sure he doesn’t act the victim with any of this stuff himself, the creators of this video were merely using his story as an example of how you can still succeed even in the face of adversity…
Here’s what the video said…
Tragedy to triumph the Keanu Reeves Story.
He was three years old when his father left. After his parents divorced they moved from City to City. He attended 4 different high Schools and struggled with Dyslexia. He eventually left without a diploma. His ‘struggles’ continued. At the age of 23 he lost his best friend to a drug overdose. Just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse, his girlfriend gave birth to their daughter who was stillborn. Due to the grief of losing their daughter, they split up, 18 months later she died in a car accident. Despite all of the tragedies, Keanu kept pushing forward. He went on to dominate the box office with the film The Matrix. But probably the most important of all, he is known as one of the most charitable in Hollywood. At one point he gave £80 million of his £114 million earnings from the Matrix to the film crew. With all the tragedy he has dealt with, Keanu still decides to make this world a better place by caring and giving. So the question to you is, how are you going to respond to what life throws at you?
This got me thinking, thinking about my own life and the adversity I’ve endured specifically during my childhood but also in later years during my business life that led to success, but more importantly all that I witnessed my mother go through. The strength she’s had to somehow maintain throughout her life, to continue on, to grow and somehow learn something, anything at all from everything she suffered. To try understand and make some semblance of sense out of it all. By sharing my story with you my hope is to pass on some valuable life lessons to you in the process.
Here’s my tragedy to triumph story.
It starts with the cliché of my Dad leaving when I was a year old. Cliché maybe, but it’s true none the less. I was brought up living in various council estates and before I reached secondary School we had lived in eight different council flats across the City. I moved Schools five times before we eventually settled in the house I grew up in as a teenager. By that time my initial education was fucked and I walked into secondary School without even knowing my times tables. I’m by no means blaming my Mother for this because ultimately a lot of what happened was dictated by the circumstances she found herself in.
We lived in a very humble environment of council housing, even though I can’t say I ever felt like we went without, my parents struggled financially most of my life but somehow managed to feed and clothe us and always do us proud at Christmas and Birthday’s, BUT at a massive cost of huge debt to themselves.
I’m the eldest brother of seven immediate related siblings, let me explain. Lee, my first brother was born four years after me to another father. A man who was violent and used to beat my mother up. I have very vague memories of these events as I was still young at the time, but I do recall various incidents when he was aggressive with her and somehow those occasions have left an indelible mark upon me that has ensured I have never hurt or hit a woman in my life.
Although, I’m sure this has more to do with my mother’s stern vociferous education in how to treat a woman, in that ‘if I ever hit or hurt one I would have her to deal with!’, a threat that loomed large when I was younger, I can assure you. I am hugely grateful for this as an adult now though, as witnessing these acts of domestic violence could’ve quite easily had the opposite effect on me as it has with so many others.
Fast forward a few years and my mother had met another man who she has remained with ever since. A kind, generous and as giving a man as you’re ever likely to meet. They had their first son together, Andrew.
Andrew was only a few months old when tragedy struck. My brother Lee was knocked down and killed by a car whilst he was playing outside our flat when he was just four years old. Please understand, it was a different time then, it wasn’t uncommon for young children to be playing outside by themselves. I was eight years of age and I witnessed him lying in the road, blood pouring from his head. This is an image that will never leave me. Lee wasn’t killed instantly, he died in transit on the way to the hospital. The impact of the car had broken his ribs which punctured his lungs and he succumbed to these injuries by drowning in his own blood. Andrew, was merely a few months old when this happened so he never really got to meet Lee.
The loss of Lee had a massive impact on me and my life. He was my brother. My best friend. We played together all the time. Now he was gone and I couldn’t really comprehend or fully understand why at the time. My final - and has since become - repetitive memory of him is of us both waiting in the car one day, whilst our Mum was in the Dr’s surgery and we had a fight over a ball. I hurt him and made him cry and the feeling of guilt from this has lived with me ever since. I know we were kids and it’s what’s brothers do, but it still doesn’t change the fact that that’s remained my most prominent memory of my time with him.
Rightly or wrongly as I’m still unsure after all these years, I visited him in the chapel of rest prior to his funeral to see him off and say our goodbyes. I remember looking at him and hoping he would simply wake up. As an eight year old boy, to me, he looked like he was sleeping and he could just wake up at any moment.
The funeral was horrific. I can recall it in great detail even now, but specifically because my Mum broke down as they were lowering his coffin into the grave. She fell to her knees and was trying to claw her way to the grave to stop the coffin, whilst family members held her back. It was as if she didn’t believe he was dead and wanted to open the casket and he’ll be in there somehow alive still. This memory destroys me as I write and makes me cry even thinking about it. The hopelessness of not being able to do anything to help my Mum. Even at such a young age I felt somehow responsible and wanted to take my Mum's pain away.
A couple years later my next sibling, Katie was born. My first sister.
For some reason my mother always harbored a yearning for two boys and two girls, so they tried for another baby not long after having Katie and her desire was fulfilled as she gave birth to another girl, Gemma.
She was set; two boys, two girls notwithstanding losing Lee of course. But little did we realise the joy of this baby was to be very short lived, as Gemma died of cot death two weeks following birth. I can vividly remember my step-dad almost falling down the stairs whilst clutching her in his arms as he was frantically trying to get help for her.
Not too long after grieving for the loss of Gemma, and I can only assume my Mum wanted to fill the void of that loss as quickly as she could, she decided to try again. This time she was carrying a boy. All was going well during the pregnancy until within an hour before he was due to be born, Guy which he was named, was stillborn.
Back to back, two of my mothers babies, taken from her with a combined eighteen months of pregnancy, and the gap of trying to conceive in-between of course. Not forgetting losing her second son, my brother Lee, to the car accident years before, this was now three of six children my Mum gave birth to all died under completely different but extremely heartbreaking circumstances and within a window of approximately eight years.
A shocking chain of events is an understatement.
It sounds like beggar's, belief doesn’t it?
You would be quite right and forgiven for thinking that all of this should’ve been enough for her. That enough was enough right? No more trying for anymore Children. The pain is too raw. To my mind, how the hell could anyone endure so much pain and suffering, yet potentially put themselves through it all over again.
But that’s exactly what she did, she wouldn’t give in or quit. She still wanted her two boys and two girls. She fell pregnant and again her wish was granted, she had another daughter, Samantha.
Samantha was born with Down Syndrome!
Sammy Lou as we affectionately called her had many complications at birth, from hole’s in her heart to the tubes of her heart needing repair as is a very common occurrence with children born with Trisomy 21.
Now I’m sure you’re reading all this in disbelief and shock and probably feeling very sorry for my mother right about now. All those losses of children to emotionally contend with and now the ‘burden’ of a child born with Down Syndrome. Please don’t though. Sammy was an absolute blessing more than anything else, as she brought an amazing sense of balance and purpose to my Mum and Dad’s life.
Not that any of the other children could be replaced of course, but Sammy was a gift for my Mum and she certainly become an antidote to her grief and in a small way filled the void of her losses. She was a light to be around and could sense when any of us weren’t feeling yourself or if we were upset. She would sit and lay into my chest to comfort me as if she knew what I needed when I needed it the most.
My fondest memories of Sam is when she would lay on me when she was very young and I would sing into her ear, she loved it as much as I did doing it. Her favourite song for me to sing to her was Metallica’s Enter Sandman. It always helped me forget and ease the troubles of my day away. She had that magic effect on me and everyone she came into contact with.
Like a proverbial kick in the teeth, and I’m sure you’re not going to believe this next sentence, but we’ve since lost Sammy too. She lived until she was twenty one, but eventually succumbed to heart complications associated with her conditions at birth. That being said, she died a lot earlier than we expected.
In her few short years she lived a wonderfully fulfilled and fully loved life. As much as it’s painful to think about her, I am grateful for the time I got to share with her. The memories I have can never be taken. Her warmth and love was unquestioning, unconditional and without judgement. It’s a love you can never fully understand until you have a child with Down Syndrome in your life. Of which I too also have myself now, but more on him later.
For now, I want you to understand that this is the adversity I lived through as an eldest son and brother. Spectating, enduring and living a part of these individually horrific ordeals throughout my entire upbringing. Witnessing firsthand the feelings of huge grief surrounding circumstances of trauma, loss, pain and suffering of my mother losing four of her children, each one a brother and sister to me.
As a father myself now and knowing the huge depth of love you feel for your own children, when I take the time to think about all of this I literally cannot fathom the scale and enormity of the loss that my mother endured in her one and only lifetime.
If just one of these deaths and I mean literally just ONE of these child loses were to occur to any parent I’m sure it would be enough to crush them, but to lose four of your Children, each one carried in your womb for nine months, is quite simply devastating beyond comprehension and belief and makes you question the very meaning of faith; faith in a god, faith in a higher power and of all things ‘happening for a reason’. Because what possible reason did this one lady, my mother need to be put through all of that pain and suffering for? What lesson was she and all of us supposed to learn from it?
Even though I lived each moment of this with my parents and the deep profound impact I know it’s had on me and my personality, I know I can never fully comprehend my mothers pain and sorrow and what it would do to me if it was anyone of my children.
But throughout all of that pain and suffering that it’s caused her over the years and the huge emotional grief and mental scars it’s left, she still stands tall after enduring everything. She was and is still available to anyone of us, at any time, day or night even through some of her own recent illness’s, she listens intently and when shit hits the fan, she offers advice as best she knows how and has never, never rightly or wrongly sought any form of counseling throughout any of it. Now that’s strength of character!
And yet somehow none of this has broken her. She’s still quietly standing after all these years and has raised the bar for the rest of us when it comes to strength under adversity and dealing with whatever the fuck life throws at us; quite simply we don’t fold, we don’t give in, we keep moving forward, because that’s how life is. As far as I’m concerned, she’s a fucking hero.
So let me put that earlier question to you again here, how are you going to respond to what life throws at you? When life gets tough. When life takes a turn and throws a huge fucking curveball in your direction and turn’s your world upside down, because I can guarantee that it’s going to one way or another, it always does or if it already has and you’re struggling to pull yourself back from it, will you let it be the breaking of you or the fucking making of you?
I can only hope that this story, my mother's story will give you some sense of perspective, that anything you might be going through right now, may not be as bad as you think. It may not be as bad as what you’ve just read. If so, you can call upon my little story, maybe in your hour of need and hopefully in some small way it helps you in your moment of grief. Or even if you are going through something just as traumatic in your life right now, let this be a reminder that you’re not alone. There’s others you can confide in. Others who have endured huge suffering and come out the other side. My hope is that one day, maybe one day someone will say to themselves and it may well be you, ‘what would Debbie do’?
Because you’ve got to keep moving forward. Everyday. Moving forward. You’ve got to find a way. Take each day as it comes. Regardless of the pain and suffering, light does, eventually always finds a way.
As the Winston Churchill quote says, ‘if you’re going through hell, keep going!
Happiness
By Alexandra H. Rodrigues
Happiness is a delight in simply being.
Depending on one’s temperament, it can show its wings when meditating or during a leisurely walk. It can overwhelm one when finding a related soul in a crowd of strangers or even when killing a mosquito. Let’s picture the latter.
It is a hot summer night and we are sitting on the porch watching the slow moving waves in the canal. We are enjoying the breeze that passes through the blooming pink mimosa tree and touches our skin in cool embrace. Little red and black cats with citronella candles on the table are meant to chase away the mosquitoes. I could swear I hear those unwelcome bugs buzz. They appear to delight in playing with me by avoiding my hand when I try to smack them. They indulge in the poisonous scent and are all around us. My husband is their main target. The minute he kills one on his arm or leg, two or three more are having a ball on his forehead or the naked toes in the open sandals. I tease him, “You must have sweet blood. They really don’t bother me.” And that’s the truth. When he is around, I am not their target. Apparently my blood does not entice their taste buds as much as his blood does. It bothers me however when they buzz around the food, fall into my cocktail or sit on the edge of my cigarette.
“Let’s turn the lights down, maybe that will help,” my husband suggests. We do so and for a short while we seem to have mastered the situation. Unfortunately, those mosquitoes kept still for a short while only as they acclimated to the new situation. Maybe they went back for help, because after a short span of peace they attacked in even bigger armies. We are getting ourselves some blankets, but blankets at 80 degrees are not the answer.
So we decide to break it up and go inside. They occupied the walls, even the bed. The mosquitoes have followed us. We have screens on all our windows. They must have taken the few seconds while we had the screen door open to come inside with us. They outsmarted us again.
We fall asleep around midnight. A short while later, I am awakened as my husband sits up in bed, a devilish smirk on his face; in his palm, a dead mosquito. He proclaims, “Got it! I won!”
There was pure happiness on his face, happiness caused by the satisfaction of having eliminated a great annoyance for good.
How I Married the Girl of My Dreams
By
Jake Cosmos Aller
This is the true story of how I met and married the girl of my dreams.
The dreams started when I was a senior at Berkeley high school in 1974. About a month before I graduated, I fell asleep in a physics class after lunch and had the first dream:
A beautiful Asian woman was standing next to me talking in a strange language. She was stunning – the most beautiful girl I had ever seen. She was in her early twenties, with long black hair, and piercing black eyes. She had the look of royalty. She looked at me and then disappeared, beamed out of my dream like in "Star Trek." I fell out of my chair screaming, "Who are you?" She did not answer.
About a month went by and then I started having the dream as I called it, repeatedly. Always the same pattern – early morning, she would stand next to me
talking, I would ask whom she was, and she would disappear. She was the most beautiful, alluring women I had ever seen and I was struck speechless every time I had the dream.
This went on for eight long years; I had the dream every month during those eight years when I went to College and later after I joined the Peace Corps. In fact, the dream lead me to Korea. After College, I had joined the Peace Corps and had to decide whether to go Korea or Thailand. The night before I had to submit my decision, I had the dream again. However, this time I knew that she was in Korea waiting for me. I felt that the girl of my destiny was in Korea so I called up the Peace Corps and signed up to go to Korea.
Therefore, I went to Korea and joined the Peace Corps. During my two years in the Peace Corps, I met many Korean women, but I knew that none of them was the one for me. I kept looking and looking for the girl in the Dream.
One winter while I was in the Peace Corps I went to Taiwan on a personal visit. I met a famous fortuneteller who made three predictions – I would marry an Asian woman, I would marry when I was 27 and I would become a diplomat. All three predictions turned out to be true.
I got a job after the Peace Corps working for the US Army as an instructor. In addition, I kept looking for the girl in the dream. I was about to leave Korea to
go back to the US to go to graduate school when she walked out of my dreams and into my life.
One morning I had the last of these dreams. She was standing next to me but she was speaking to me in Korean and I finally understood her. She said, "Don't worry, we will be together soon."
That night getting off the bus in front of me was the girl in the dream. She got off the bus at my stop and went on to the base with an acquaintance of mine, a fellow teacher. They went to see a movie on base. She was applying for a secretarial job on the base. I was at a loss for words and wondered what I would say to her when I met her next. At the end of the class, I saw her leaving and found the courage to speak with her. We exchanged phone numbers and agreed to meet that weekend. I went to bed and the dreams stopped. I knew that was the women for me and I was determined to have her.
The next night she was waiting for me at the army base where I was to teach a class. She told me that she had to see me as she had something to tell me. I signed her on to the base and left her at the library to study. She was a college senior she told me. We went out for coffee after class. She told me she was madly in love with me and that I was the man for her. I told her not to worry as I felt the same.
That weekend we met Saturday and Sunday and hung out all day. On Sunday, we went for a hike in the woods. I proposed to her that night three days after we had met, but for me it felt that we had met 8 years ago, I had been waiting all my life for her to walk out of my dreams, and into my life and here, she was.
We married two months later after a Buddhist priest told her Mother that our astrological match was a perfect fit. Her mother did not want her to marry a foreigner. One day about a month after we had met, she invited me to meet her parents, but she did not tell them I was a foreigner. I brought a bottle of Jack Daniels for my Father-in-Law and dranked the entire bottle with him. He approved of me but my Mother-in-Law still had reservations. After the Buddhist Priests told her it was a perfect astrological combination, she agreed and we planned on getting married.
We held the ceremony in January at a Korean army base where I was teaching ESL to Korean Army officers going to the US for advanced training. The wedding was a celebrity wedding covered on the morning news. I was blissfully unaware as I did not watch the Korean news that much – still don’t as it a bit beyond my Korean level to this day.
The reason for the news coverage was that my wife was part of the Kyunju Lee family who were related to the last King of Korea. In the history of the
clan dating back over 600 years only two people had married foreigners, Symung Rhee the first president of the ROK whose wife was Austrian, and my wife some 50 years later.
The second reason that this was a celebrity marriage was that my father came to the wedding. He was a former undersecretary of labor under Kennedy and Johnson and that was big thing for the Koreans. My father was even interviewed on the morning news.
And the third reason was that this was the first time in Korean history that a foreigner married a Korean on a Korean military base.
Over 1,000 people came the wedding. It was done in Korean and was a catholic ceremony as my wife wanted a Church wedding so I converted to Catholicism for her. But we never really became church goers as we are both sort of Buddhists.
We have been married for 35 years now. Whenever things are rough between us, I recall the dream and realize that I had married the girl of my dreams and I fall in love with her all over again. In fact, I see the same girl in the dream whenever I look at her.
They Rock!
Two Popular Biographies Reviewed
By Charles E.J. Moulton
They are more than they seem, as believers and spirits. Not only are they brilliant storytellers in their own right, their stories are also told through music in tales of the events of their lives. Not only because of the noteworthy fame of the authors or the rocking similarities, but also because of the eye-opening effect of the contents. These two artists have more in common than can be seen at first glance. They speak in feelings and thoughts.
What really becomes evident when reading these autobiographies back to back is that these guys vividly invite us on a tour of their lives in written form, poetically, thoughtfully and with a very raunchy and extremely wild honesty. Two autobiographies published this decade deserve special attention. Forgive them their many four-letter-words for these two very extravagant rockers are sensitive souls.
In fact, we are dealing with men who tried every drug known to man and still believe in God, speaking of souls leaving the body at death and music's effect on the eternal spirit.
Steven Tyler, born Tallarico in 1948 back in Yonkers. U.S.A., the self-confessed nature-boy and the son of a classical concert pianist, was mistaken for Mick Jagger during his early career. This caused him to put on a British accent in order to capitalize on this similarity.
Billy Idol, born William Broad in 1955 in England, spent a few years in the U.S. during his childhood before moving back to Bromley in England and gaining back his Brit accent. So both artists were capable of articulated Brit and Yank accents.
Both believers are by now clean ex-drug-addicts.
Idol's nearly lethal motorcycle accident in 1991 might have sobered him up, an incident that gave him a very real out-of-body-experience.
Tyler's soberness might have come out of necessity to survive, who knows?
In any case, after reading these biographies, though, the human side of their artistic lives become very clear.
Idol's most challenging time, health-wise, had him disappearing into a heroin-cocoon, ultimately causing his father to travel across the Atlantic to save him.
No matter how famous he became, to the Broad family he was still just their Billy from Bromley.
While Tyler was supported to become a musician, his mom driving him to early concerts in a van, Idol took the leap very much against his father's will, who wanted him to take over his hardware store.
It is then a happy fact that both men made happy family peace parents: with mother, in Tyler's case, and father, in Idol's case, before their respective deaths.
It is touching, yet heartwrenching, to read about these extravagant rockers with their wild lives and their last moments holding and embracing their loved ones and, in retrospect, feeling good about how they said good bye.
Tyler even speaks of God as a Her, a Goddess.
Idol speaks of an out-of-body-experience and an eternal inspration far away from this world. With all the fascinatingly gritty details of the punk- and rock-life in both books, completely normal functions and day-to-day rehab drudges, with explosive anecdotes of rock shows, at the end all of this makes us discover a humane and sympathetic truth. Genius is genius, celebrity is no less human because of fame.
Sensitivity makes celebrity even more endearing.
Celebrity can hurt. Therefore, the feud Lead Singer Vs. Lead Guitarist dominates both artistic careers. Steven Tyler's dramatic relationship with his "Toxic Twin" Joe Perry has been a four decade love-hate affair. Likewise, Billy Idol's tight fights with his guitarist Stevie Stevens sometimes reached hair raising proportions, a relationship that now has calmed down to bloom into an again prosperous collaboration.
Two enormous stage personalities, whose writing and composing have improved through the years, followed by energetic stage shows with firework-like physical activity.
Billy and Steven have a full throttle work ethos intact, one that cost Tyler multiple foot surgery and Idol a bad back.
Idol, the sneering punk-poet with a heart of gold, and Tyler, the bouncing rag-doll dude with hyper-sensitive drum-rhythm: both speak lovingly and sweetly about their children. Proud fathers both with rocket careers to boot. Sobered up, extraordinary, normal, human, angelic, beastly and spiritual, all at the same time.
Why do we love them?
Because they signify what we humans are all about: we are emotional creatures, willing to learn and willing to rock.
Steven Tyler: "Does the Noise in my Head Bother You?"
Harper Collins, 2011
Billy Idol: "Dancing with Myself"
Simon & Schuster, 2014
Rocking for Christ
By Charles E.J. Moulton
“It would be nice to walk upon the water, talking again to angels on my side ... all my words are golden, so have no Gods before me. I'm the light.”
Was that a saying by the great St. Francis of Assisi? Maybe that was a quote from a book by Deepak Chopra? I could tell you that was Albert Schweizer. We could tribute Socrates, Plato or St. Paul with those words, the Pope or even the Dalia Lama.
All of that sounds plausible, doesn’t it?
Well, guess what?
It was Alice Cooper, back in 1971, during the hayday of his dark rock career.
Wait a minute, rewind the tape. Alice Cooper? The shock-rocker? Wasn’t that the villain of rock ‘n roll, the guy that spent and still spends his life performing explosive hard-rock theatricals filled with electric chairs, guillotines and bleeding dolls? Wasn’t that the guy that agitated more provincial housewives than Charles Manson?
What does Alice say about all this?
“It’s just electric vaudeville.”
Then why do we think rock ‘n roll isn’t just a show?
Because back when the music style first launched, it was a rebellion.
Ten or twenty years later, academics like Freddie Mercury turned the music-style into a Vaudevillian melodrama. But it doesn’t end there.
“If you listen clearly to all of my lyrics,” Alice says, “the warning is clearly written on the box. Don’t follow the dark side. It’s not a good idea. I am just playing the villain of rock ‘n roll. I invented him, like Shakespeare invented MacBeth.”
Keep on reading, though. Now it gets really interesting.
“As the son of a Baptist pastor, I grew up in the church, in religious surroundings. My father got the whole villain-of-rock-thing. He dug it. He just didn’t dig the lifestyle that went with it. The drugs, the alcohol, the excess. It killed a lot of my colleagues.”
The faithful Christian churchgoer Vincent Damon Furnier was born February 4, 1948, a Cold-War-Kid, the son of a preacherman. His social life as a child was centered mainly around church activities. It was this life that made his conciously living Christian soul confess not belonging to this world. Vincent’s creative decision to invent a new kind of Captain Hook in a rocking world of Peter Pan-characters was a testament to his artistic freedom.
His show was an invention, mere storytelling, not a credo.
Accordingly, Alice Cooper’s original band colleagues were art students. They were academics, just like the members of the band Queen. To Alice and his band, something was missing in other rock concerts of the time: there were no creative theatricals to go with them. So the canvas they painted for themselves, creating the fictitious antagonist-like and character-drenched show called “Alice Cooper”, sprung from a need to actually add some dramatic flair to the popular streamline. The canvas they chose was similiar to the framework the English teacher Stephen King’s chose for his work: the birthplace of the horrific and perilous playground of lost souls: guillotines and ghosts. Maybe the era of the 1960s inspired them. Maybe the pain of Vietnam inspired the escapism, the creative outlet.
Cooper’s love of art really came alive when he met the surrealist artist Salvador Dali back in 1973. Dali liked Alice so much that he created a holographic artwork of the rocker, worth $ 2 million today, exhibited in the Dali Museum in Figueres, Spain.
Believe it or not, what Alice says about his own show – and about creativity in general – makes perfect sense. As an artist myself, I know that’s what we do. We tell stories.
The fictitious tale in itself is a warning: it ends badly. Alice gets punished, Vincent goes home. The actor takes off his make-up, just like I do after a show, and kisses his wife good night. The fact that it’s rock ‘n roll and not opera, heavy metal and not Shakespeare, is irrelevant. Edgar Allan Poe told us about the tell-tale heart, Verdi told us about what happened to the punished court jester, Alice Cooper told us the story of what happened to the extravagant crook. So don’t kill messenger.
According to Alice, the theatrical message leads home to Vincent, the faithful churchgoer. “Choose God and not the Devil,” Alice has been quoted as saying. “I created a vaudeville show with a villain. Even the bible has villains. Me? I believe in Jesus Christ. I believe in the eternal soul and in the afterlife.”
If it is just a show, then the distinction between what is public and what is private, what is professional and what is personal, becomes an even more important.
“If you live the same life on- as off-stage, that’s a really bad sign.”
Foreboding warnings from his peers show us the way where not to go. It is where some rockers went in order to make us believe their public personas were private, as well. Canadian talk-show host Jian Gomeshi from Studio Q, who also interviewed Alice back in 2011, mentioned conducting an interview with Johnny Rotten from the Sex Pistols. In that interview, Johnny treated Jian rudely throughout, only to transform into his real and private personality as John Lydon in the commercial breaks.
“Was that okay?” John Lydon asked Jian in his Cockney accent.
Alice Cooper could only confirm that this two-faced act was a part of the show. He called Lydon’s behaviour “the ultimate rock swindle.”
The man who created Alice Cooper learned the hard way how to separate his true self from the on-stage-personality. He had 27 television sets at his house, he was an alcoholic. It was, therefore, all the more amazing that his sober lifestyle came as a complete surprise.
During the beginning of his career, Vincent spent lots of time with the likes of Jim Morrison and Jimi Hendrix. He’d never drunk a beer before, but soon he was consuming a bottle of whiskey a day. He called Morrison and Hendrix his “big brothers.” Both are quoted by Alice as “living the same life on- as off-stage,” constantly drunk or high on something.
In fact, they thought it was necessary to live up to that rock-star lifestyle.
“Somebody is going to die here,” were Alice’s words, “but it’s not going to be me.”
Vincent was a constant church-visitor during his spiritual awakening. The pastor seemed, in his mind, to speak to him and him alone, again and again. It was almost a pain to go to church and hear the sermons back in the early 1970s, but Vincent Furnier knew in his heart that he had to go there. His intuition demanded it.
The medics called Alice’s recovery, in quote, “weird” and, indeed, “a divine miracle.”
When his doctors asked him, in the clinic, how many alcoholic relapses he’d had, Alice could truthfully say that he’d had none at all.
“A Christian is a soul who is constantly being sculpted by God,” he admitted, “and given hints by the creator in how to become a better person.”
In Joe Cocker’s case, becoming sober was a matter of life and death – and Christian faith helped him get there, as well. Bono, the lead singer of U2, did not need an addiction to find God. He believed, anyway. In fact, he was quoted in saying that his stardom was given to him by God himself. The band, Bono said, simply wasn’t good enough to succeed on its own. God had to have been the catalyst.
Bono even continued by pointing out that, “Jesus was his hero.”
Vincent, alias Alice, says that becoming sober was “like winning the lottery three times over – it just doesn’t happen.”
Not only did Alice Cooper remain sober, he also turned this spiritual renewal into a charitable enterprise, giving other unfortunate souls the chance to change, as well. Today, Alice Cooper’s project “Solid Rock” helps improve the lives of mistreated youths. Underprivilaged children from broken families are taught how to sing, play guitar, bass and drums. Alice goes out and performs with them, live on stage. His belief in Christ, the eternal soul and rock ‘n roll boosts the confidence of thousands of delinquents.
How many lives could Alice change if given the chance? Could he have prevented the hospitalization of the elderly busdriver, beaten up by two 14 year-olds, who told them to leave the bus? Could “Solid Rock” have boosted the confidence of the drugdealing teenager, who now serves his second term behind bars?
We must unlearn our preconceived conceptions about rock ‘n roll.
Rock fans are aging alongside their heroes and even Bryan Adams is performing for a crowd of fifty year-olds. Vincent, the faithful husband, would rather go home to his wife instead of to a strip-club. He claims that “everyone will find Christ eventually” and would “choose God any day”. He plays golf with his buddy Bob Dylan and appears in Christian talk-shows. So what was this about Alice Cooper being scary?
Being a Christian, though, he goes on, makes it harder because of the constant pressure to be perfect. Show business is creative, technical and organizational work, but it is not a show reality. If the ideas are sung, painted, written or danced, they are creative outlets, the ideas of the soul at work. Behind the skill, though, we find years of hard work. Out of 10 hours of stage rehearsals, 9 are dedicated to music.
Going back to a former comparison, we find Stephen King, the guru of horror stories, whose showmanship is also combined with devout faith. He told the press repeatedly that he has faith in God. A self confessed family man, a loving father and a completely dedicated friend. Mick Garris from Toronto, Canada, in fact, back in December of 2000, wrote: “Few would guess what a happy, childlike, loyal and generous man the Big Guy is.”
He goes on to say how hilariously funny Stephen is, a joy to be around, very local, very unaffected and very much just “Steve” to his pals. Not at all the horrific master of the macabre that he became when he writing his books.
Orson Wells played Shakespeare’s MacBeth. Playing a bigot villain didn’t mean that he really believed in being incestuous or in practicing witchcraft.
Vincent Furnier’s creative choice resembles the choice Sir Anthony Hopkins made when playing Hannibal Lecter. He could go back to Malibu Beach and be a private person, an intellectual or just a beach bum, after the show.
A storyteller, the prodigal son that found God in his heart, the good samaritan who helped the underprivilaged and didn’t even ask anything of them in return.
I have the advantage of being an actor, an author and a singer. I am, like Alice and like Stephen, a storyteller, as are we all, artists or no artists. So I know exactly where Alice is coming from. People love stories and we love telling them. No more. No less. I know that the roles I play are part of my stage persona. I know that the stories I write are part of my creativity. When I make up a story about a killer voodoo prince, it is just a story. When I portray a villain, it is only a portrayal. Me? I am really a nice guy.
I have been in show business since I was 11 years old. That is a career that has been going on for 34 stage years by now. In Bizet’s “Carmen”, I played Zuniga, a misogynistic killer. I was an evil vampire in Polanski’s “Dance of the Vampires”, an egocentric record producer in “Buddy – the Musical” and the mean Uncle Scar in “The Lion King”. That doesn’t mean, however, that I am an egocentric, evil, mean killer in my private life. I have played that killer lion, that bloodthirsty vampire, that psychopathic murderer, that coldhearted husband, that bastard record producer, that evil king, that village idiot, that mean bandit, that butchered deer, that death row prisoner and that mean ghost, maybe just to warn people not to become like that. Maybe that’s the point of art: to point a finger to what is. Nobody would ever think of coming to me after a show and asking me why I wanted to kill Simba.
Drama has to meet romance, darkness has to be filled with light, truth has to meet reality, classic has to meet rock, souls have to meet, people have to put aside their preconceived conceptions in order find out what lies behind the surface.
We tell gruesome stories, we tell stories that are uplifting and positive. Alice is one of those forerunners who went through hell in order to tell us how he found God.
It also goes to show that most of us have a completely different view of what rock ‘n roll was or is to Alice Cooper in the first place. It just goes to show that the people that complained about his performances never really listened to the actual lyrics.
“I just play the villain of rock ‘n roll,” he concludes. “It’s not really who I am.”
Touché, Alice. Touché.
Now go back to church and dig up that undiscovered treasure, turning it into your reality and uncovering what might be revealed as true spiritual gold.
Praise Jesus, Alice has seen the light.
“Everyone carries a seed of love within them, even villains do.
The real secret is nourishing that seed and blessing every other life with its power.”
- Anonymous
Celebrities
By Alexandra H. Rodrigues
Excerpt from “Emotion in Motion: Tales of a Stewardess.”
My personal meetings with well-known people (while flying as an air hostess) include:
* Maria Callas. She could not be bothered with holding on to 50 red roses given to her by shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis upon departure from Rome.
* Walt Disney. I met him as a good looking, distinguished passenger on one of my Inter German flights. He gave me an autograph on the inside of my first Pan American shoulder bag. Unfortunately, that bag got lost. I wish I still had it.
* Stephen King. We had time to talk for a while. When I mentioned my interest in writing, he predicted that I would do well. How he could come to this conclusion during our short conversation, I do not know. I’m happy to say, “Thank you Mr. King. Your words have been heard by the power of destiny.”
* Charles Kálmán. (son of Emmerich Kálmán best known for the opera Maritza). The composer and I became good friends.
* The Supremes. They impressed me most by their identical leather coats in three different colors. I had the pleasure of hanging up those coats in our Pan American coat room. Albert Schweitzer. Doctor, theologist and missionary.
* Wilhelm Furtwängler. German conductor and composer considered to be one of the greatest symphonic and operatic conductors of the 20th century.
* Jackie Kennedy. We met during a transit in Ireland.
* Ted Kennedy. On the flight I had him, he chose to fly Economy Class. He provided me with an autograph on a A mistake I am realizing only just now. After all it is not fair to be handed a First Class menu when you have to eat an Economy meal.
* On our crew bus, I often met actress Maureen O’Hara on her way to meet Charles Bennett, a very attractive Pan American Captain.
* During my time in Germany I took a ride on the backseat of a motorcycle owned by actor Kurt Maisel.
* When in Limerick, Ireland, I enjoyed lunch with Mirette Hanley-Corboy, who later became well-known for her contributions to construction and education in Ireland.
* The Beatles. Pan Am brought them to New York for their first performance in the States when Ed Sullivan introduced them to America.
* During my time in management, I got to know talk show host Barry M. Farber. He is an American conservative radio talk show host, author and language learning enthusiast. He ran for Conservative Party nominee for Mayor of New York City in 1977, preceded by Maria Biaggio and succeeded by John Esposito as Conservative Party nominee for the position. After the fall of Pan Am, I was selected by Barry Farber to run his language clubs on Long Island. The Language Club was a stimulating, well-educated, interesting, fun group of people from all walks of life. People who enjoy speaking foreign languages. It was open to any body regardless of fluency in language and quite an opportunity to learn while making new friends.
* “Emotion in Motion: Tales of a Stewardess” by Alexandra H. Rodrigues is available through Amazon.com and on Kindle.
The Making of “Business for Pleasure”
By well-known actor, baritone and author
Herbert Eyre Moulton
(1927 – 2005)
I have starred in many movies, including “Firefox” with Clint Eastwood and “Mesmer” with Alan Rickman. Often, I am confused with another colleague of the same generation and of the same name. We share the same profession, but I am also a singer, a teacher, an author and have worked a greater part in Europe.
I was MCA Records’ 1950’s Hot-Shot Dinner Singer, the conductor of the Camp Gordon Chapel Choir during the Korean War, a part of the duo “The Singing Couple”, the other half being my wife Gun Kronzell, creator of the school-radio-programmes for the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation and actor in over three hundred stage productions across the world.
As for the movies, one of my more curious anecdotes concerned the following one.
Yet another of my hot Oscar-Contenders was an Austro-American goody produced in 1996 by “Erotic-Pioneer” Zelman King of “9 ½ Weeks”-fame. This was one little sweetmeat that actually got released, or it snuck out when no one was looking. I know for a fact that it was let loose back home, because a matronly towncrier of my acquaintance phoned me from the Chicago area to relay the glad tidings:
“Don Nichols called last night and said he’d rented a Soft-Porn video and guess who was playing the butler? Not just the butler, but also a sort of uniformed Procurer? Herb Moulton, that’s who! So, of course, we had to have a look at it, and we recognized you, because you were the only one with your clothes on.”
This rococo fertility-rite starred Jeroen Krabbe (Harrison Ford’s nemesis in “The Fugitive”) and two dishy young shooting stars who needed the work, I guess: Caron Bernstein and Gary Stretch, and it was filmed (my scenes, anyway) in various splendidly restored castles ornmenting the Austrian countryside. As usual, I wasn’t especially well-informed about my actual duties. All I knew was: I was to meet and greet the lissome Ms. Bernstein at the portal and usher her up several flights of long winding stairs into a vast bed- and ballroom, in the center of which stood a gilded ornamental bathtub complete with sumptuous Turkish towels and exotic perfumes and ungents. She was to make use of it at once.
On this very first day of shooting I was handed a xeroxed resumé of the convoluted, so-called plot which bore the cryptic stamp “UNAPPROVED 2/7/96”. After a moment’s persual I could see why. To match its sheer gooey grandiloquence you’d have to turn to the Collected works of Dame Barbara Cartland. Talk about “Dynasty”- and “Dallas”-Damage. Allow me to quote some purple patches:
“Isabel Diaz, a beautiful and sophisticated, rising executive, is facing a crisis,” it begins. “That moment in life, when each time she looks in the mirror, she asks herself: ‘What am I saving myself for?’”
The question being wholly rhetorical, the narrative gurgles on:
“A self-possessed woman with a smouldering sensuality, she longs to push beyond the limits of the day to day.”
Helping her push is the powerful, ultra-wealthy magnate Alexander Schutter, with whom she forms an unholy alliance. With him, she “has met her match”. This is Mr. Krabbe at his silkiest and most icky, and his first demand on Isabel is that she “pass a test of personal loyalty and cater to his peculiar sensual desires.” She is to bring two call girls to his suite and observe them making love to Rolf, Schutter’s chauffeur, whom the handout describes as “darkly handsome and gifted lover.” (Well, he’d want to be, wouldn’t he?)
One question, if I may: Why is it always the chauffeur and why not the poor old butler who has all the fun? As the gray eminence of this particular castle, I know I had to be above all that, grandly ignorant of the carnal olympiad swirling all around me, and much more concerned with such domestic duties as supervising a corps of bewigged flunkies as they served a splendiferous candlelight supper out on the terrace. The trouble was it poured wih rain on each of the all-night filming sessions (always tedious and depressing at the best of times), which rather dampended the orgiastic merriment. Luckily, Gary Stretch, alias Rolf the sexually athletic chauffeur, took pity on me and let me take refuge in his heate caravan, for which a benison on him, and may Heaven safeguard his libido.
But wait, there’s more, much more.
“The game begins,” announces the funky travelogue, and before anybody can say “Priapus”, the show is taken off the road and moved to the glitter and swank of Vienna, where “an intensely erotic triangle develops among Isabel, Schutter and Rolf.” The relentlessly lascivious Schutter gets further kicks from watching the other two making what Iago in Shakespeare’s Othello terms “the beast with two backs.” The gameplan breathlessly unfolds:
“The tension in this emotional thriller builds against the background of Vienna where love of life, beauty and luxury echoes Isabel’s growing passion for sensuality. (“Getting There Is Half The Fun!”)
But now danger looms for heedless, headstrong Isabel, along with hints of tragedy buried in the past, as
“Schutter’s world of power, risk and decadence becomes an addiction for her.”
What withdrawal struggles, what cold turkey the poor dear will have to endure while kicking the habuit must be left to the imagination. For now, the whole heroic saga is being rounded off:
“Business for Pleasure is the story of one woman’s brave journey to the heart of her own desires. Isabel’s entry into Schutter’s dark world leaves her shattered ...”
(And she’s not the only one!)
But now come the great crashing chords that signify Redemption and The Grand Finale:
“With the help of the mysterious and hauntingly beautiful Anna ...”
(Mysterious, is right. This is the first we have heard of her!)
“... she is able to pick up the pieces of her life. When finally Isabel triumphs over disaster, she helps Schutter confront his own emptiness and take his first steps into the light.”
What this reminds you of is the grand old era of Super-Soap Heroines like Mary Noble, Backstage Wife, and tragic, self-sacrificing Stella Dallas. Isabel has got to be the most distressed and poignant figure since Tolstoy or possibly Jacqueline Susanne. Yet what is the only thing that bugged those yahoo-acquaintances of mine in Chicago? The next time I’m in that neck of the woods, remind me to check out for myself the video of “Business for Pleasure”, if only to see just what fun-and-games the butler had been missing all that time.
A Celebrity Named Gun Kronzell
By Charles E.J. Moulton
and Gun Kronzell
The 1960's must've been quite a decade for my mother. She was a working opera star active in a dozen German theatres. She sang oratories in Belgium, France and England. She met my dad in Hannover in 1966, toured with him through Europe, appeared on Irish TV and was still able to travel back to the calm home base in her beloved home town of Kalmar in Sweden.
My mom loved Kalmar. It was her centre, her safe haven. As a global citizen touring the world and working with and meeting stars like Luciano Pavarotti, Alan Rickman and the Swedish King, she had been at home most everywhere. But her heart was Swedish. Her soul belonged to Kalmar.
As a little boy in Gothenburg, I was exposed to my mother's amazing imagination. She told me these wonderful good night stories about the trolls Uggel-Guggel and Klampe-Lampe. They eventually turned into the high point of my day. The coolest thing, though, is that I am passing on these stories to my daughter. She is starting to invent stuff for the stories just like I did. I see that she loves the inventive and crazy creativity of our stories just as much as I did.
Having my mom as a good night story teller and my daddy as a professional author was the best mixture a boy could ask for. I thank them for that. For triggering my imagination. For opening the vaults of endless creativity. For that is what it is about, guys. All of it. Creation. Creating always greater versions of ourselves. New parts of ourselves we thought were gone. New pieces of ourselves we didn't know we had. Pieces that appear once we just trust ourselves to be more than we thought we were or could be.
There are so many old documents in my cupboards and closets. Old clippings and reviews that my mom kept as evidence of her glorious career. One paper in particular describes what kind of a career she was having back then.
I also know, being the only child, that if I don't transcribe these documents and have them published somehow, nobody will. I could ask my wife or daughter to transcribe these old things, but it is actually my job as a son to spread the word of what kind of folks they were. They worked so hard for what they became and accomplished. They perfected their art so beautifully that a new generation just deserves to hear about them and damn great they were.
Singers, actors, authors, directors, teachers, scholars: they were everything and more.
So, here we go: back to the beginning of the 1960's. John F. Kennedy was still alive. The Space Race was still on. Armstrong had not yet landed on the moon. And a certain young opera singer named Gun Kronzell travelled the world and inspired people with her voice.
This is what Gun herself wrote in a document that was intended for a newspaper that was about to write an article about her. Her schedule looks like a big city phone book. So many operas and oratories to learn. She must've been rehearsing constantly.
"These are some of my concerts and performances that I have been assigned to carry out during this season of 1962-63:
On March 11th, I am singing Brahms' Altrapsodie and Mozart's Requiem in Beleke with Matthias Büchel as conductor. Then, I am travelling to Bünde to sing Bach's Matthew Passion on March 31st. The April 1st, I am singing the same piece in Ahlen. I am travelling to Brügge in Belgium on April 4th to sing Beethoven's 9th Symphony. On April 17th I am again singing the Matthew Passion by Bach in Bergisch-Gladbach with Paul Nitsche as conductor.
I am back in Sweden on May 31st to sing at the 100 year anniversary of the Kalmar Girl's School.
On July 8th, I am singing Bach's Vom Reiche Gottes in the Church of Zion in Bethel.
In the German Vocal Festival in Essen, I am singing Haydn's Theresien Mass and Koerpp's The Fire of Prometheus.
In November, I am singing Bruckner's Mass in F-Minor in Witten.
On November 28th, 29th and 30th I am performing Beethoven's Mass in C Minor in the Mühlheim City Arena and Duisburg City Theatre.
On December 2nd and 3rd, 1962, I am singing Bach's Christmas Oratory in the Church of Zion in Bethel. On December16th, I am singing the same piece in Mainz. I am also singing the Christmas Oratory by Bach in Soest with Claus Dieter Pfeiffer as conductor and in Unna with Karl Helmut Herrman as conductor.
January 12th, 1963, hears me singing Bach's Christmas Oratory again in Bethel.
On March 31st I have been hired to sing Dvorak's Stabat Mater in Lippstadt.
Those were the concerts. Now for my operatic performances:
I have been hired as Mezzo Soprano at the City Opera in Bielefeld since September of 1961.
This season has seen me perform 5 roles.
The Innkeeper's Wife in Moussorgsky's Boris Godunov. That production had its premiere in September here. But I also guested with that part twice in Cologne this year. We have performed this opera 13 times so far.
The second role was Emilia in Verdi's Othello. We premiered with that on Christmas Day and have played it 10 times so far.
The third role for me this year was Dritte Dame (Third Lady) in The Magic Flute by Mozart. Our musical director Bernhard Conz often guest conducts in Italy and in Vienna. 5 shows of this so far.
The gypsy fortune teller Ulrica in Verdi's A Masked Ball had its premiere on January 23rd and this show has been playing for sold out houses 8 times so far.
Another Gypsy lady role, Czipra, in Johann Strauss' The Gypsy Baron had its premiere on March 6th.
My next role, Hippolytte in Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream, is going to be fun.
A new colleague of mine arrived this year. He is the Swedish son of an archbishop. His name is Helge Brillioth."
Not only did her schedule look like a phone book, the reviews were as impressive as her CV.
My mom had just returned from a tour through Ireland with my dad and appeared on Irish TV. She was pregnant with me while singing Ortrud in Wagner's Lohengrin. The daily newspaper wrote, on December 28th, 1968:
"The best thing that the Opera House of Graz in Austria offered its ensemble was Gun Kronzell with her astounding portrayal of Ortrud. She already made a lasting impression as Mrs. Quickly and confirmed her skills here as well. This voice is a real winning triumph for our city: its intensity and wide range impresses. Gun Kronzell's Ortrud, if directed by a top notch world director, could become really interesting and a global phenomenon."
One critic spoke of a voice that was illuminate in glory. The journal "Die Wahrheit" wrote that she sang a magnifiscent Ortrud with dramatic expression filled with movement and vocal prowess.
Kleine Zeitung remarked on December 28th, 1968, that she was the only one that truly could shine in that production. Her clear and bright mezzo produced a brilliant fully controlled performance worthy of extraordinary theatrical mention.
Ewald Cwienk from the Wiener Kurier wrote on January 3rd about the high level of her excellent vocal work.
But even across the country in Augsburg they wrote about the masterful vocal presence and powerful expression of the Hannover's leading mezzo Gun Kronzell. They even went so far as to say that the audience in the olden days would have interrupted the scene after the operatic Plea of the Gods just to give the singer a standing ovation.
Opern Welt, one of Germany's leading operatic journals, described her thusly: "Gun Kronzell (Hannover), vocally and dramatically convincing devotee of sensual passion."
But her operatic skill alone did not gather rave reviews. Her collaboration with her baritone husband Herbert Eyre Moulton (1927-2005) had the European critics throwing proverbial roses at their feet.
The Reutlinger General Anzeiger, on February 5th, 1968, published the following rave review after a triumphant show in Regensburg, Germany:
"BIG VOICES IN A SMALL CONCERT HALL
A successful concert performed at the America House
They do not only sing duets. The married artistic couple Gun Kronzell (a mezzosoprano from Sweden) and Herbert Eyre Moulton (a baritone from the U.S.) are a living duet. When they appear on stage, they grab each other's hands before singing and try successfully not to compete with each other, but they try to achieve symbiosis. During the solo songs it becomes evident that the wife's lyric expression, vocal volume, skill and artistic temperament is a perfect mirror image of the husband's beautifully placed Irish baritone with its lyric joie de vivre. Both voices are obviously too big for this concert hall. It would have been great to hear them in the Carnegie Hall or at the London Festival Hall, where Miss Kronzell has sung recently, in order to hear the voices reverberate and swing in locations fit for their level of brilliance. And still: compliments to the America House for hiring them in the first place. This concert distinguished itself through a sophisticated programme and excellent interpretation. But even sophisticated programmes don't lift off the ground if the pieces in question don't have the longing of a lover's kiss. This programme did. The singers communicate. They love what they do. The concert started out with three duets by Henry Purcell, vitalized by constant sounds of musical joy. This was Baroque Art at its most lucious, where voices mingled and climaxed in full, soft alto tones and a natural high baritone that never seemed forced or uncomfortable. The three American Songs by Aaron Copland that followed, sung by Gun Kronzell, were functional straight forward pieces with a little bit of romantic flight hidden within the framework. The last song, Going to Heaven, explosively vocalized by the soloists with an accentuated pronounciation on the word HEA-VÉN, was effective to say the least.
The baritone spoke a few words between songs in his self-proclaimed Chicago-German idiom, claiming that composer Charles Ives was the primitive composer of musical history. The singer disproved this. Ives is THE genius of American Music. The folkloristic song 'Charlie Rutlage' is a musical Western in itself: exciting, juicy, full of artistic trivialities. It was sung excellently and served by the singer as a juicy artistic peppersteak of sorts. It was a dramatic number that became a fast speech rotating kind of song, not unlike the Pitter-Patter vocabulary present in Gilbert & Sullivan's operetta chants. The third song, 'The Election', is a political elective song, but no direct campaign hit. National Pathos came as expected and the audience was thrilled to hear it.
The first half of the show ended with duets: the pure enjoyment of the magic songs by Dvorak were the topics of conversations at the intermission bar.
The Swedish mezzosoprano sang Swedish songs with clean artistic expression after the break. The succeeding Hölderlin-songs by the Irish composer Seán O'Riada - a cycle in four parts in which the simplistic harmonies of the beginning returned at the end - could not have been sung better by the baritone Herbert Eyre Moulton. These compositions from 1965 are actually ancient in style and format. These stilistically mysterious thought-songs were triumphs of passionate interpretation.
The finale provided us with the necessary crowning glory: five songs from Gustav Mahler's 'Des Knaben Wunderhorn'. These were not duets. Instead, the songs were divided into dialogues. We found the sadness, we experienced the parody of superiority, scenes were acted out and still nobody feared losing the essence of the tones.
The accompanist Karl Bergemann proved himself to be an accomplished expert in all mentioned musical areas. No harmony was left unsung, no heart was left untouched, the singers were never overpowered by the sound of his piano playing and still he knew how to present himself well. His instrumentation entailed a magnetic expressive force.
His support was a counterpoint that even more famous colleagues would have envied taking them by their musical hands.
The audience were eternally thankful, providing the three artists with standing ovations."
Critiques such as these give even music lovers who didn't have the joy of hearing "The Singing Couple" live the hint of how wonderfully entertaining artists they were.
The amazing thing was that my parents were full fledged and extremely experienced artists already when I was born. They accomplished being successful artists and still being there for me at all times.
I spent a week in London with my mom in 1979. We met my Godfather, the composer James Wilson, and went to musicals like "Jesus Christ Superstar" and "Oliver!" (with a real dog running around the musical London stage, we weaved that, too, into the good night stories).
This trip provided me with good memories. It was a dear part of my childhood whose many events were included in our good night stories: my stuffed dog Ludde fell in love with our hotel chamber maid Maria. That's what we said, anyway.
With my dad, I went to Copenhagen during early 80's three winters in a row. Two guys going to the opera, eating Spaghetti, going to theatre to see an uncut version of Hamlet (the box office lady called Hamlet "a very good Danish play"), going to see a Bond movie in a Copenhagen cinema called the Colloseum (an Italian waiter told us: "The Colloseum is in Rome!") and running through Copenhagen after the royal guards to Queen Margarete's palace only to see them vanish into the courtyard and away beyond the entrance. We had hoped to see the Changing of the Guards, but only saw them march. It didn't matter. It was all good.
All three of us (the holy family) took trips to Sweden and America together, played board games on Friday nights, went to art museums, laughed until we cried on the living room couch we called Clothilde, took long trips in the Volkswagen we called Snoopy and invited my best friends for pancake breakfasts on Sunday mornings.
My parents were witty, generous, experienced people with lots of spirit. They were able to take responsibility for their lives as adults and still have some crazy spontaneous fun along the way. I will always be eternally thankful for their fantastic influence. What they gave me I can pass on to my daughter. And they are our Guardian Angels. What a fantastic job they are doing. As always.
Now, a newspaper article about my mother Gun Margareta Kronzell published during her heyday from the local newspaper Barometern in 1971:
KALMAR’S OPERASINGER IS A EUROPEAN STAR!
HER FATHER KNUT GAVE HER HIS UNENDING SUPPORT
Think about this for a moment: Gun Kronzell can sing!
This discovery was made during Gun Kronzell’s last year at the Girl’s School in Kalmar. Nobody at the school had heard her before, neither the teachers nor the school friends knew it.
Now everybody in Europe knows it.
She is a star.
Gun Kronzell, born on Nygatan 16 in Kalmar, lives in Vienna and works as a Dramatic Mezzo-Soprano all across the continent. She has been working at the Volks-Opera in Vienna during the Springtime and has sung on many European Stages , including London’s Festival Hall. Her appearances in Sweden have been few, but now the Kalmar audience has the possibility to hear her fantastic voice in the Kalmar Cathedral on Monday. There will be two other concerts in the local area.
She lives all summer in her mother Anna’s and her father Knut’s apartment on Odengatan and is taking with her son Charlie. Her husband Herbert Eyre Moulton is still in Vienna, working at the English speaking theatres as an actor, teaching English, creating school radio programs for the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation (ORF) and writing plays.
“My husband and I met in Hannover in Germany. We were both working singers and shared the same singing teacher. I asked him if he would speak English with me. Since then, we have only spoken English with each other. That is, when we are on speaking terms,” Gun laughs with a twinkle in her eye. “We love performing with each other and promoting ourselves as The Singing Couple.”
MULTILINGUAL
Two year old Charlie is raised to speak many languages, among them English and German. His grandparents are right now teaching him Swedish. Some day he will be able to compete with his mother, who fluently speaks at least three languages, if not more.
Sea Captain and Swedish Church Chief Accountant Knut Kronzell wanted to become an opera singer, but his parents had other plans. He had to be satisfied with singing for his family at festive gatherings. In the beginning, Gun wasn’t impressed. But as time went on, she was.
When she applied to study at the Royal Musical Academy in Stockholm, her father Knut gave her all his support.
A FAMOUS FAMILY
Success came flying from high and wide and from all the right places. Her education was superb, her vocal range was phenomenal, her interpretation became renowned: a perfect mixture. Stockholm’s Opera House was too limited a forum and Gun moved to Germany, where Bielefeld, Hannover, Köln, Recklinghausen, Wiesbaden, Paris, Brügge and Graz has become her own “home turf.”
Her husband Herbert Eyre Moulton is from Chicago. He is a singer, author and works for Austrian Radio. Last year he joined his wife in order to sing at the festival Kalmar 70. This year he has not had any time to come to Sweden.
VITALLY ITALIAN
“I like acting on stage,” Gun Kronzell says. “It’s better than singing concerts. I feel lonelier on the concert stage. The opera stage is always lively and full of action.”
The Italian composers are among her favorites. Verdi is number one. Of course.
A LIFE FULL OF SONG
Gun Kronzell:
“I’m actually quite tired of Wagner. He was an amazing composer, but in his operas there is a whole lot of endless singing and that gets strenuous for the audience. Brünhilde, Erda, Kundry, Ariadne, I’ve sung them all, and I was always happy to have a good vocal technique to help me get through those roles and a happy to wear a good pair of shoes.”
The new kind of pop music world wide radio keeps playing is not something Gun dislikes. The Beatles have many good successors, she says. Charlie just loves pop music. The hotter, the better.
SWEDEN’S TOP 40
Gun Kronzell doesn’t mind hot music. However, schmaltzy Schlager Muzak is not her thing and she admits that she also doesn’t really know what’s hot in Swedish popular music today.
“I have no idea what vinyl EPs are being handed over the counters and what songs are making the top record charts in Sweden right now,” she laughs.
RADIO
Gun Kronzell will record a radio program for Swedish Radio this year. Her concert from last year, recorded at the festival Kalmar 70, will appear in a rerun.
This autumn there will be a whole range of continental concerts.
“I have to return to Kalmar at least once a year,” she says. “That family contact is important, the sea air rejuvenates me, the food, the sun, the laughter, the flowers and the friends. And my mom and dad are very happy when I come. Especially when I bring Charlie along.”
The Legend of the Flying Dutchman
Written by Kerry Sullivan
Many thanks to
http://www.ancient-origins.net/myths-legends/legend-flying-dutchman-ghostly-apparition-ship-captain-hendrick-007285
***
Among nautical myths and legends, few are as famous as the Flying Dutchman. Many have claimed to see the ghostly vessel of Captain Hendrick van der Decken (the Dutchman) since it sank in 1641. It is because of his brash attitude in the face of God’s stormy wrath that Captain van der Decken and his crew are cursed to sail the high seas until doomsday.
Captain van der Decken had made the perilous journey from Holland to the Far East Indies in order to purchase lucrative goods like spices, silks, and dyes. There had been close calls of course but they eventually arrived. After purchasing as much as the hull could hold and having made the necessary repairs to the ship, captain van der Decken set out for Amsterdam. As his ship rounded the coast of Africa, captain van der Decken thought of how convenient it would be if his employers, the Dutch East India Company, made a settlement near the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa to serve as a respite from the turbulent waters.
Voyage and Curse
The Captain was deep in thought as his man-of-war ship began to round the Cape. Suddenly, a terrible gale sprung up, threatening to capsize the ship and drown all aboard. The sailors urged their captain to turn around but Captain van der Decken refused. Some say he was mad, others say he was drunk but for whatever reason, the Captain ordered his crew to press on. He lit his pipe and smoked as huge waves crashed against the ship. The winds tore at the sails and water spilled down into the hull. Yet the Captain “held his course, challenging the wrath of God Almighty by swearing a blasphemous oath” (Occultopedia, 2016).
Pushed to their limit, the crew mutinied. Without hesitation, Captain van der Decken killed the rebel leader and threw his body into the turning seas. The moment the rebel’s body hit the water, the vessel spoke to the Captain “asking him if he did not mean to go into the bay that night. Van der Decken replied: ‘May I be eternally damned if I do, though I should beat about here till the day of judgment’” (Wagner quoted in Music with Ease, 2005).
At that, the voice spoke again saying, “As a result of your actions you are condemned to sail the oceans for eternity with a ghostly crew of dead men bringing death to all who sight your spectral ship and to never make port or know a moment’s peace. Furthermore, gall shall be your drink and red hot iron your meat.” At this, Captain van der Decken did not quaver for an instant. Instead he merely cried “Amen to that!” (Occultopedia, 2016).
Ghost Ship
Since then, Captain van der Decken has been given the moniker the Flying Dutchman, sailing his ghost ship the world over. Sailors claim the Dutchmen has led ships astray, causing them to crash on hidden rocks or reefs. They say that if you look into a fierce storm brewing off the Cape of Good Hope, you will see the Captain and his skeletal crew. But beware, legend has it that whoever catches sight of the Dutchman will most certainly die a gruesome death.
The legend of the Flying Dutchman first gained widespread popularity with Wagner’s 1843 opera, The Flying Dutchman. Yet, the reason the legend has endured so long and has been the subject of so many retellings (seen in or inspiring not only Wagner’s opera but also Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Pirates of the Caribbean, a SpongeBob Square Pants character, a Scooby-Doo episode, and more) is because there have been so many supposed sightings of the ghost ship.
One of the most famous encounters was made on July 11, 1881 by Prince George of Wales (future King George V) and his brother Prince Albert Victor of Wales. At the time, they were sailing off the coast of Australia. Prince George’s log records:
July 11th. At 4 a.m. the Flying Dutchman crossed our bows. A strange red light as of a phantom ship all aglow, in the midst of which light the masts, spars and sails of a brig 200 yards distant stood out in strong relief as she came up on the port bow, where also the officer of the watch from the bridge clearly saw her, as did the quarterdeck midshipman, who was sent forward at once to the forecastle; but on arriving there was no vestige nor any sign whatever of any material ship was to be seen either near or right away to the horizon, the night being clear and the sea calm. Thirteen persons altogether saw her ... At 10.45 a.m., the ordinary seaman who had this morning reported the Flying Dutchman fell from the foretopmast crosstrees on to the topgallant forecastle and was smashed to atoms.” (Ellis, 2016)
Today, scientists insist that the Dutchman’s ship is nothing more than a mirage, a refraction of light off of the ocean waters.
Sources:
Ellis, Tony. "Maritime Ghosts." The Flying Dutchman. Woodbury Central, 2016. Web. www.woodbury-central.k12.ia.us/common/pages/DisplayFile.aspx?itemId=9931541
MI News Network. "Ghost Ship: The Mysterious Flying Dutchman." Marine Insight. Marine Insight, 21 July 2016. Web. 20 Dec. 2016. http://www.marineinsight.com/maritime-history/ghost-ship-the-mysterious-flying-dutchman/
Music with Ease. "Source of the Legend of The Flying Dutchman." Operas of Richard Wagner The Flying Dutchman. Music with Ease, 2005. Web. 20 Dec. 2016. http://www.musicwithease.com/flying-dutchman-source.html
Occultopedia. "Flying Dutchman." Occultopedia, the Occult and Unexplained Encyclopedia. Occultopedia, 2016. Web. 20 Dec. 2016. http://www.occultopedia.com/f/flying_dutchman.htm
The Spirit of Anacleto
By Alexandra H. Rodrigues
He is dead I am sure. He was a few years older than me. Apart from that, I seem to recall that my mother had mentioned that he was involved in some political groups and lost his life.
I met Anacleto, a true-blooded Italian man only one single time. This as the result of my mother having met him on a vacation trip with Kurt, her second husband. She was full of praise for the young man. “He looks fabulous, he is intelligent, he is very polite, he is not married,” and so on and on.
To him, she must have spoken the same way about me. The year was 1958. I agreed to meet with Anacleto in Paris!
True, he was a nice young man. He fell in love with me! For some reason he wanted to keep contact via my mother. I did not waste much thought on him. He was not my type and also too young. In addition, I was dating the chief surgeon of a large hospital. All this had happened just before my new life as a stewardess with consequently my going to America.
My mother did not mention Anacleto any more, at least I do not remember. He, however, wrote several letters to her meant in a way to be related to me. Yet I had not even the idea that they existed. In retrospect, it really did not matter but for some odd reason, those letters lay here on my desk now in the year 2017. It is time to put them to rest.
I feel forced to write this story about Anacleto. Ghostlike his pictures, photos from the years 1958 and 1959 are part of the letters. I meant to throw out the entire package. It stands to reason that I did not care then and do not now, but here they are. I found the writes and pictures in a folder when cleaning my mother’s house in Berlin after her death in 2001; I had not known that they even existed. For 16 years now, I have meant to write a short piece about this, to keep, but never did. Never could I bring myself to throw all out either.
So today is the day. Otherwise my own son might find it after my death, and whatever force this material possesses might give him trouble too.
I am turning even more into a believer of ghostly interference. When I broke a few hours ago on this story to have dinner, I had saved it. Nothing unusual about that. When I returned I could not restore or find it. Now, a few hours later and without even trying, the Anacleto story popped up on my computer’s screen. Believe it or not!
The letters I found cover 1957 to 1959 and are all directed to my mother. They are written in broken German. I just notice that Anacleto’s last name was Verrecchia. The name combination, Alexandra Verrecchia would not have been too bad!
Here is the translation of selected letters from German into English and I am going to use it as material for a story. A story that is disturbing as the write was so confusing and constantly interrupted by uncommon incidents of artificial(?) intelligence.
Here are some excerpts from the letters that pertain to me:
…Torino October 31, 1957… (All letters start with “Liebe Frau Krause,” which is my mother, and open with some polite niceties.) You know already that I do correspond with Alexandra. Of course, I am not a sky-blue Prince but only a common, young man, as you know. Now Alexandra wrote me that she needs to be operated and I am sorry. As I cannot get any news from her for the next 10 to 12 days, I ask you to please keep me apprised of the outcome, yes?
I am satisfied to write to Alexandra as she is said to be a beautiful, intelligent and friendly girl, because as daughter of Mr. Krause, this has to be so. (With Mr. Krause he means the second husband of my mother, whom he had also met at the vacation. He did not know that Kurt Krause was not my father.)
I feel good, no longer suffering from an epidemic, just a little heart problem…I am already looking forward to an answer from you and many, many good wishes for Alexandra.
…Torino December 12, 1957…Maybe Alessandra told you already why I have not written lately. I feel better again now, just minor pains, most likely from the cold in the mountains. Dear Mrs. Lilo (my mother’s name is Lilo – even as I edit this piece for publication, words that were italicized suddenly become roman.) and Alexandra’s mother, what can I do to come to meet, your blue prince seeking daughter, in person? I would love to come for Christmas to Berlin but have little time. I asked my boss today if he would give me off from Christmas to New Year’s, but unfortunately, he said “no.” If however, Alexandra would like, and you and your husband would not mind maybe Mekka could go to Macmetto? I know I should not ask for that. The Germans love the Christmas feast more than we do and I, who live alone, can maybe not understand how nice it could be in a small, lovely family. For me the biggest wish is to meet Alexandra in person. I know her so little.
…Torino 30 January 1958… I have not heard anymore from you. Hope all is well. I know you have no time, but when you can please. When will you come again to Italy? Write me a long letter. You are so helpful and motherly that it is a treat for me to read something from you. Alexandra writes that it got warm in Berlin. She thinks it is so different here but that is not so. Now I will finish. I hope to see Alexandra around Easter and finally come to meet her. Maybe I, the prince, will in Alexandra my princess find.
Now I also suddenly come across a letter from Anacleto written to me directly. A letter I never saw before. Guess my mother was supposed to give it to me:
…Torino February 17, 1958…Dear Princessa Alexandra! I got a nice letter from your mother. But you, you my dear love, and loved one (platonic like you say) and still unknown principessa, what do you do that you do not find time to write to me? Are you too lazy to write or is the weather in Berlin so bad that your hands tremble from the cold? You must know that letters from you are a true joy for me. I say that slowly or you will say I exaggerate. Yes Alexandra, I share with you many, many thoughts. In the letter from your mother was a picture of you. You always look beautiful. Why do you say you are afraid that I will not like you? Do you want a backhanded compliment or do you believe I am already like Paride or Hyperion? I am afraid, you should not be. One more month till Easter. What will we do? Where will we meet? For how long will you come? If you never have been to Italy, we could meet at Riva di Garda or
Luenchen, Innsbruck or wherever you want. Do not expect that I speak German like Goethe or you. For me it is easier to talk than to understand, so I will ask you to speak clear and slow. No fear, I will hang on your words like they are spoken by an angel. By the way, how tall are you? I am 1.75, is that tall enough? I am shaky from joy to see you.
…Torino February 15, 1958 …Your letter Mrs. Lilo was very nice and I thank you. Alexandra also wrote to me, just a postcard, and now I am waiting for a letter from her. It would be lovely if we, I mean I and Alexandra, could meet for Easter. I guess I need not to tell you that I want that very much. So far, it is just a Pleonasmus. Please, if you do not mind and trust me, let Alexandra go. Of course, that depends also on Alexandra and I really do not know how she thinks about it. I can only say that when she once comes to Italy, it will brighten her beauty even more.
Thank you for the picture. Please tell Alexandra that I find her prettier every day.
(I am not sure where this belongs, so I will add it here.)
…Alexandra sent me a nice card with a big cat and I answered with an obedient dog. As you see we are like dog and cat. The card was written in good Italian. How come? Maybe you are correct to say that Alexandra is still a child. Also for that, I love her. Maybe she does not even understand what a beautiful and lovable mother she has. If I had a mother like that, I would scream with joy and need nothing else. I told you already that my poor mother died during the War. So, I grew up mostly without parents. I know Alexandra still too little to speak of her weird complexes. Please try to bring her with you to Italy. Maybe then the sun will open her heart. Listen to me and come back to Costa Adriatic. It is nice and not expensive. When will you come? What you tell me about Love and yourself is touching. What shall I answer? Mr. Krause can be happy to have such a wife. I too know the world and must say that women with value get fewer and fewer. Who has such a wife can be happy. Hope Mr. Krause is not jealous and wants to wring my neck for these compliments.
…Torino April 9, 1958…Today the sun is shining in Torino and also my face, my soul and my heart are more rested than in Paris. But also in Paris there was a sun for me even though a cold one. Your child, Mrs. Lilo, is wonderful. Now maybe you can understand if I say that I am in love with Alexandra. True 4 or 5 days are not enough to come to know a person but enough to fall in love. Love and friendship complement each other but only the friendship needs time to be born not the love. When I saw Alexandra the first time at the Hotel D’Orsey, I came to understand all, that Alexandra si sarrebe riuscita fatale. That I am Italian or Turkish has nothing to do with it. The truth is only that I am in love with Alexandra, or if you like, that I like her a lot. Her deep and restless eyes I cannot forget, will never forget. This is not Poesy, neither Madrigal, dear Mrs. Liselotte but only a confession of the soul. Do not think that I am only romantic or gallant. With Alexandra I do not want to make literature but something much more. It is for me the first time that I seriously think about marriage. Yes, for me it is careless so fast about love and honor to talk. Maybe it is naïve, but every man who is in love is naïve. That is the strength of the women, and Alexandra has possible more strength than me. Yet I do not want a toy. I am in love, if it is not forbidden in Germany like it appears with Alexandra. Her I do not understand and that is for sure difficult. If I only could understand her and maybe she does not have a cold heart.
Alexandra said, I must fight to conquer her heart. Fine, but how so if she lives in Berlin and I in Torino? Also with letters I cannot fight because now I know how bad my German is. If I could express myself in German the way I do in Italian, my competition to her German lovers would be much less. I am not rich
enough to move to Berlin and wait without work till I win Alexandra over. But I will fight, even if I am not a Quixote. I will try to get work in Berlin. Not sure if that is possible but I must try it. There I can also learn German, Italian, and Russian, which brings good money. I know also that Principessa could come to Italy to her blue prince, but that I no longer believe she will. Later ! ? I could work in a travel agency. I will for sure try, even as journalist. Please try for me too. Now I am waiting for a letter from “my Princepessa” she is a real principessa. Dear Mrs. Lilo please do not tell Alexandra about this letter.
Tell her nothing. With Alexandra, it is nearly prohibited to talk about love and she might be right because nothing is so boring like a man in love and I do not want to be boring. Please answer soon, my soul needs peace. How nice it would be if I could talk this evening with you and Mr. Krause.
…Torino April 17, 1958...How can I now answer your lovely but sad letter? What you write to me – and I am grateful for it – makes me sad, not only for myself but also for you and Alexandra. Sad but one cannot always only talk with the heart. Now I have no right or reason any more to have Alexandra like me and even less the hope that there will come the day that she would love me. I don’t know what Alexandra thinks and wants. On top of that, it would be idiotic to beg a woman for love. Love comes right away or not at all. For Alexandra, a career as airhostess is better than me. An experience!
Yes, the world is large but nice I do not think so it is said and in Italy there are also pretty girls. I know that but despite my philosophy and the reality of all, I am still in love with Alexandra. More than nice, life is funny, Mrs. Liselotte. Just think, a nice and also rich, pretty girl calls me often and also writes me love letters but I do not want to hear of it. Alexandra, on the other hand, does not contact me and I am still in love with her. He was right Hamletus dear Horatius. In the world much more exists than what your philosophy will understand
There was no way to continue on the original document. Yesterday while I was writing, the letters on the Word Document appeared far apart. Spaces of four or five open spots between. I cannot get to the next line, cannot continue. It is something that has never happened to me before. If I go to another story or document, all is fine.
It is something that has never happened to me before. Am I being tested? Is the spirit of this man, once in the past wanting to be my lover, still clinging on to me and still in love with me? A ghostly thought!
And now what? A handwritten page about all this, from this morning has disappeared.
Today, just now I could not at all find this document! Again, it gives me now the extended letter spaces. I would not even know how to do this if I wanted to.
…Torino April 17, 1958…Only in Paris Alessandra told me that she wants to fly. I only answered, I am not here to marry you right away but if I had known that before, maybe I would not have come to Paris but went skiing. Later she did not say, I will not fly but come to you in Paris. You can see that Alessandra is looking for a Blue Prince or angel in the air. What can one say. I wish her all the best.
Please know Alessandra was quite nice to me in Paris. Possible I was not always nice to her. I had no urge to dance. I think with a pretty girl the time is everywhere and always nice even if one does not dance. But I repeat, Alessandra was nice to me and I was satisfied. Cold is different and has nothing to do with this. As you can see, this time I am less stressed and do not let my heart talk. But I shall still tell you that I love Alexandra. I think Alessandra belongs to those women who are only born so that men can lose their
head. They are without heart, only brain but do sell magic. I should really not tell you this but Alessandra seems to have too many whimsical ideas. Guess I would like to see her the way I like her not how she really is. If you and Mr. Krause and of course Alessandra want it, I will marry her. Believe me that I mean this. Now I will also write to her so she does not say I am too lazy to write.
…I got two airmail letters from you. Entertaining and I thank you for it. You are so motherly and I do not at all understand how your daughter can be so different from you. Maybe she just wants to hide her feelings. I got a postcard from Alexandra. She writes that even if she flies I should not be sad but happy be. Why? I do not understand. She said flying has nothing to do with the two of us. I do not agree. When she is flying and I am on earth, we cannot do anything together. You cannot imagine, dear Mrs. Lilo, how much I have lately suffered for Alex. It is not only yearning for a pretty girl but also for my desire for Germany, the half culture. Due to that also my deep sympathy, illustrated a little nuts, she and me too. For you and your husband, I want to marry Alessandra even if she is cold and I am nuts.
Please tell me the full truth. I do not know with what I deserve the silence from Alessandra.
(I had lost the second handwritten page. Found it. Not sure how it got to where it turned up. This could however have been my mistake.
Is it a kobold or imp playing tricks? Is it the once-ignored energy of the young man Anacleto. Wow! And now I am getting, what I keep calling chicken feet (editing marks). Marks that I have not set for my writings ever. Is Anacleto or rather his spirit finally having his say?
A lady who is a computer wiz will be able to fix all this but I am sure she too will not know how all this came about.)
…Torino Mai 2, 1958… Just this minute our concierge brought me a letter from Berlin. Thought immediately that it is from Mrs. Lilo or Alexandra. (Now the type is changing from italic to roman without my doing, figures. I hope it remains italic long enough to get to press.) But no, it is a letter from a lady who I came to meet in Paris. Her name is Marta and she was quite nice.
(Now the computer adds a grey background on its own and a random email at the paragraph’s end followed by a timestamp???)
Do you know dear lady, that the poor Christus from Anacleto again fell when skiing? Till yesterday I limped like Rigoletto or Goebbels. As I live alone, without a wife, I am mostly alone with just my books. Your newspaper greetings and books I did not get this time. Are you mad at me? No, that I would never believe. Sometimes I am afraid that you misunderstand my letters and Alexandra too because my German is bad. I translate my Italian thoughts into German, and that is not always the same.
Dear Alexandra, hope you're doing well…Best regards from Alan
11:02AM
Please forgive me if I write stupid things at times, it is only because I cannot express myself well in German.
(See what just popped up! it has nothing to do with what I am just now typing)
…Torino Mai 10 1958…Your letter from Mai 7 was appreciated but I did not understand all. Please tell me in your next letter still something about Alexandra. But please do not tell Alexandra. Who was it who lost
their head? Alexandra for the 25-year-old man or I? About this I had already the answer when Alexandra said to me at one time in Paris, “You are too young for me.” If you want to know still more about Paris, you can talk with Mrs. Schumacher in Berlin who was with us nearly all the time. Please phone this lady, she can tell you about me. I think I made a big mistake to meet Alexandra in Paris. It would have been better to meet Alexandra in Italy or Berlin. Alexandra is a spoiled girl, used to luxury and to keep up with that in Paris one has to be as rich as Krupp, Agnelli or Olivetti. That I am for sure not. It is my fault. I should have listened to you and waited till August.
This is followed by a few more pages of letters to my mother. Somewhat resigned but perpetually speaking of love for me and the deep and sad experience it was that I did not feel the same way. The last date is from September 1959 – almost 60 years ago.
Now I should be able to get rid of all the documents, letters and pictures but and that is the clincher. (Suddenly, again, a random email paragraph appeared here and a gray background.)
Consequently, the memory of Anacleto will continue to hang on. Never before have I been visited by spirits. Never before had I the feeling that someone could love me past the earthly life. It was a short encounter with apparently eternal consequences. I am forced to continue to stow these documents as I fear I may be called upon to produce them later. This was an eerie write as something or someone inside the computer seemed to be forcing its desires as I typed. Odd formatting, disappearing documents, time stamp, random email messages. I am ending this story before the computer starts talking to me.
International Quotes About Creativity
Hindi:
रचनात्मकता वह गुणवत्ता है जो आप उस गतिविधि में लाती हैं जो आप कर रहे हैं यह एक रवैया है, एक आंतरिक दृष्टिकोण - आप चीजों को कैसे देखते हैं । । जो भी आप करते हैं, यदि आप इसे आनंद से करते हैं, यदि आप ऐसा करते हैं प्यार से, यदि आपके कार्य करना पूरी तरह किफायती नहीं है, तो यह रचनात्मक है।" - ओशो
Creativity is the quality that you bring to the activity that you are doing. It is an attitude, an inner approach – how you look at things . . . Whatsoever you do, if you do it joyfully, if you do it lovingly, if your act of doing is not purely economical, then it is creative.” – Osho
Greek:
"Κάθε στιγμή έμπνευσης είναι στιγμή παραφροσύνης"
Every moment of inspiration is a moment of out of one's mind.
-Aristoteles Valaorites, greek poet
Posted by Apostolos Kanaris, Greek Tenor and Pianist, Recklinghausen, Germany
German:
"Mutige Ideen sind wie Schachfiguren: sie bewegen sich vorwärts, können geschlagen werden, aber starten ein Gewinnspiel."- Goethe
“Daring ideas are like chessmen moved forward; they may be beaten, but they may start a winning game.” — Goethe
Italian:
“Quello che è un artista? Una provincia che si trova a metà strada tra una realtà fisica e uno metafisica .... E 'questo, questo paese di frontiera in-between che sto chiamando una provincia tra il mondo tangibile e l'intangibile unico che è davvero il regno dell'artista.” – Federico Fellini
“What is an artist? A provincial who finds himself somewhere between a physical reality and a metaphysical one…. It’s this in-between that I’m calling a province, this frontier country between the tangible world and the intangible one—which is really the realm of the artist.” — Federico Fellini
English:
“A man may die, nations may rise and fall, but an idea lives on.”
- John F. Kennedy
Arabic:
الجمال الذي يفي بك هو الجمال الذي يكشف لك صورة روحك الخاصة دون تشوهات المياه الغامضة للحياة
The beauty that fulfils you is beauty that reveals to you the image of your own soul without the distortions of the murky waters of life
Musṭafā Ṣadiq al-Rāfiʿī
Suaheli:
“Hebu daima kukutana kila mmoja na tabasamu, kwa tabasamu ni mwanzo wa upendo.”
“Let us always meet each other with smile, for the smile is the beginning of love.”
- Suaheli Proverb
French:
“Jésus a pleuré; Voltaire sourit. De cette larme divine et de ce sourire humain est dérivée la grâce de la civilisation actuelle.” – Victor Hugo
“Jesus wept; Voltaire smiled. From that divine tear and from that human smile is derived the grace of present civilization.”
– Victor Hugo
English:
“Creativity is using imagination and knowledge to show love!”
- Patrick Bryant Michael
Swedish:
”Om målet med samhällsutvecklingen skulle vara att vi alla skulle arbeta maximalt vore vi sinnessjuka. Målet är att frigöra människan till att skapa maximalt. Dansa. Måla. Sjunga. Ja, vad ni vill. Frihet.” – Ernst Wigforss
”If society’s developmental goal would be maximum work, we would all go insane. The goal is to free manking to ultimate creativity. Dance. Paint. Sing. Whatever you want. Freedom.” – Ernst Wigforss
Japanese:
私は何かを習得し、次に創造性が来るでしょう
“I will master something. Then the creativity will come.”
- Japenese Proverb
Gaelic:
“Is ceannaireacht enlightened spioradálta má tuigimid spioradáltacht ní mar an dogma creidimh nó idé-eolaíocht de chineál éigin ach de réir mar an bhfearann feasachta ina taithí againn luachanna cosúil le fírinne, maitheas, áilleacht, grá agus compassion, agus freisin intuition, cruthaitheacht, léargas agus aird dírithe.” – Bryan O’Flanagan
“Enlightened leadership is spiritual if we understand spirituality not as some kind of religious dogma or ideology but as the domain of awareness where we experience values like truth, goodness, beauty, love and compassion, and also intuition, creativity, insight and focused attention.” – Bryan O’Flanagan
Russian:
Чтобы создать там должна быть динамическая сила, и какая сила более могущественна, чем любовь
“In order to create there must be a dynamic force, and what force is more potent than love?” – Igor Stravinsky
Spanish:
La creatividad y la inspiración:
son susurros y suspiros del corazón
Creativity and inspiración: are whispers and sighs of the heart.
- David Thorpe
From the King James Bible
Matthew 28:1 - 20
1In the end of the sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulchre.
2And, behold, there was a great earthquake: for the angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door, and sat upon it.
3His countenance was like lightning, and his raiment white as snow:
4And for fear of him the keepers did shake, and became as dead men.
5And the angel answered and said unto the women, Fear not ye: for I know that ye seek Jesus, which was crucified.
6He is not here: for he is risen, as he said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay.
7And go quickly, and tell his disciples that he is risen from the dead; and, behold, he goeth before you into Galilee; there shall ye see him: lo, I have told you.
8And they departed quickly from the sepulchre with fear and great joy; and did run to bring his disciples word.
9And as they went to tell his disciples, behold, Jesus met them, saying, All hail. And they came and held him by the feet, and worshipped him.
10Then said Jesus unto them, Be not afraid: go tell my brethren that they go into Galilee, and there shall they see me.
11Now when they were going, behold, some of the watch came into the city, and shewed unto the chief priests all the things that were done.
12And when they were assembled with the elders, and had taken counsel, they gave large money unto the soldiers,
13Saying, Say ye, His disciples came by night, and stole him away while we slept.
14And if this come to the governor's ears, we will persuade him, and secure you.
15So they took the money, and did as they were taught: and this saying is commonly reported among the Jews until this day.
16Then the eleven disciples went away into Galilee, into a mountain where Jesus had appointed them.
17And when they saw him, they worshipped him: but some doubted.
18And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.
19Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:
20Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen.
Memories of the War
By Alexandra H. Rodrigues
The renaissance was the historical period around the 1400s. I should know some solid facts about it, but I don’t and I blame my history teacher in Germany for that. Yes, I remember his name, Mr. Lipke. He was tall, skinny with a wooden leg and a glass eye. We made a lot of fun of him and now that I am a grown up, I recognize that we gave him a harder time than he gave us. He is the cause for the mental block I have when it comes to history. The year was 1942 it was during World War II when I was assigned to Mr. Lipke at my school in Berlin Germany. History classes were mainly focused on our “Great Leader” Adolph Hitler. I had managed to stay in school thanks to the help by some of our friends, but I knew that any small mistake could have had unpredictable, horrible results on my family’s future. My father was at that time already in France, having had to leave our home in Austria because of his Jewish background. Mother and I had come to Berlin and had managed so far to avoid letting anybody know why my father had left. I got away without having to wear the Jewish star. I am only glad that nobody, not even Mr. Lipke, thought of connecting my failure in history classes to anything but a dumb mind. I did not even prepare for the history classes. Why should I make an effort, waste my time, if I would not get good grades anyhow. The problem ended when in 1943 I was evacuated to Vienna and on my return put into a school in Potsdam a quaint little town near Berlin with the prominent castle Sanssoucci, the former summer residence of the King of Prussia
This brings me back to the years shortly after World War II in Berlin. I was 13 years old when it ended.. All of us who had survived the terror of the air raids and the street fights during the last gruesome days, were now yearning for the enjoyments and pleasures of good life. A lot happened though before we could breathe easier.
Never will I forget the day when the first Allied troops approached. We heard their guttural shouts coming closer and getting louder and louder. Then we saw them. Chasing ahead like hoards of animals. Filthy, bearded, tired and smelling of manure We tried to hide but did not know where. My aunt and uncle put me in a bed in their dinghy, moldy cellar apartment. They covered me with blanket and when the soldiers rushed in, ready to satisfy their sex drive by raping, my uncle motioned to them that I am very sick. It worked, thank God. Most German women made themselves look real ugly with torn kerchiefs around their head. But the soldiers did not care Raping was going on all around us. My mother came up with a different solution. She dolled herself up in a pretty dress, high heels, lipstick. A high ranking officer claimed her. Treated her well and even provided my family with food.
As mean as those invaders were, they were quite nice to children I remember being dressed in a red jumpsuit
The red is the color for the Soviets and was to show the admiration for the troops. A group of kids from my street met at the corner and together we marched for about fifteen minutes to the place where the mess halls had been erected. Then we stood in line and some soldiers dished out soup to fill our containers. It was fat and greasy soup, not easily digestible for our hunger ridden intestines but better suited for the inhabitants of the Ural mountains, the homeland of these soldiers. With the fat swimming in layers on top of the soup the dish was still steaming when we got home.
It was obvious that these ground troops had no education, no culture All they knew was the cold and mountains of Siberia. Some displayed a childlike curiosity when coming across a novelty. I remember on soldier sitting on a closed toilet seat, my music box on his lap. This blood thirsty, looting and raping soldier suddenly had turned into a little boy in awe with a new toy. Another soldier had noticed the gleaming handle on the toilet and motioned his friend to get up. He opened the toilet seat and pulled the handle. The flushing noise scared both of them out of their wits. To our relief they both rushed away.
For many of us, a bicycle was the only means of transportation in those days. Now with the Russians confiscating everything nothing was save. My bicycle was old, rusty but still relatively well working “Put it into the attic and cover it with blankets” my aunt advised but I could not make myself carry it up 4 floors. I still needed it that day. So I leaned it against the house wall, taking my chances.
Another group of “Hurrah” screaming soldiers appeared shortly thereafter. Like the ones before they were Mongols. They had come on brand new bikes. Beautiful. Their first way was up into the attic. Instinct told them that it was there where people tend their valuables. They found nothing in our attic, others had been up there before and cleared it out already. They needed a deal. So they took my old bike and left me a shiny new one. Figure it out.
Finally Berlin was divided into four sectors and we were lucky to become occupied by the Americans. Among the four groups, Russian, French, British and American we felt like we had won the lottery.
The American mess hall had been opened at a coffee shop close to our house, far closer than the Russian kitchen had been. As it was summer, the American soldiers would take their meals inside and outside. Many finished their rations only halfway and left the rest on the tables. We climbed the wooden fence and dumped whatever we found into the paper bags we had brought with us for that purpose. Occasionally the MP military police would chase us away but they never put a hand on us. Surely they felt sorry for us. They could see how under nourished we were.
Our spirits got a damper when in 1948 the East was cut off from the West leaving West Berlin stranded like an Island . It was called the Berlin blockade. The American, British and French sectors were surrounded by Russian occupied areas.. The Airlift came to our rescue. Airplanes, compliments of the American Air Force, were assuring us day by day that provisions for our daily needs were flown in steadily. Those planes crossed the air corridor between Berlin and West Germany many times a day.
I remember the dried potatoes that tasted like rubber, the powdered eggs, and the dried vegetables. Not really delicacies, but we were immensely grateful nonetheless. After all, it was more and richer than anything we had been eating during the last years of the war. Amazingly we survived on dandelion salads from the yard, homegrown potatoes and pumpkins, rare quantities of goat’s milk and a six-ounce piece of meat a week. I do not remember anybody suffering from obesity in those years.
The noise of the airplanes shattered our windows and the boom from the planes breaking through the sound barrier was often deafening,. For us Berliners it was like a sound of music as it assured us of a decent meal each day and gave us confidence that we were not forgotten.
I recall having been given my first chewing gum during that time. Never had I seen one before. When I told my mom she asked : “Where is it” “Oh gone, I ate it!” Mom explained to me that I should not have eaten it but she was not mad. We both laughed.
Twelve years later, then living in New York after having been sponsored to come to New York and fly for an American Airline, I married an American. He really had been in Berlin during the occupation after having landed in Normandy. He spread the story that he had met me and that I was so cute, with pig tails, that he had promised my mom and me to come back, would sponsor me and marry me once I became of age. “And so I did” he would say to anybody he had told that story too. He was so happy that most people believed him.
Although I did not like history when I had to study it in school, I did live it.
IF PEOPLE ONLY KNEW
HOW BEAUTIFUL ALLEPO WAS
A Poetry Collection
By Lyn Lifshin
LIFE IN ALEPPO
a day without bombs,
is good. You can
leave your apart-
ment, wander thru
small oasis of color
and light. No words,
only the sense of
loss. No color except
for an plot of green
and one plum tree,
not turned to drift
wood. One man who
has not left, says you
must live on the lower
floors to try to escape
airstrikes, shells, rockets,
phosphorous bombs,
cluster bombs. Dreams
blend with nightmares,
ghosts rise from the ruins.
Stark white bones litter
the streets. No more
dancing, no more violins.
No flamingos or pelicans.
Terror blooms under a
blue moon. When a small
bomb lands on top of
a building, it often takes out
just the top 2 or 3 stories.
Lately Basha al-Assad and
the Russian military have
been using a new kind of
bomb that demolishes the
whole building. People
stay out of any rooms near
the street. There’s no electricity.
Families rarely leave the apart-
ment, prefer to die together
THE LAST GARDEN IN ALEPPO
this small oasis of color and life
as cluster bombs, barrel
bombs, missiles rain on houses,
hospitals, schools in this
hazardous, unpredictable place,
a gardener was able to grow
flowers, vegetables, broad
leaved plants. Roses, gardenias,
bougainvillea. The gardener’s
whole existence dedicated
to the beauty of life, a small
courageous attempt to promote
peace. Dust and smoke blur
the stars, the watered ferns and
lilies in the shadows. Shivering
thru the raids, dreaming of
his dead wife until eventually a
barrel bomb lands near his
garden, kills him, his dream that
the “essence of the world is a
flower,” the color, smell, how it
can inspire. But in the time
since his death, Aleppo seems
mostly defined by another
floral attribute: fragility
THE CHILDREN
in Aleppo have to stay
off the streets or they’ll
be killed. Their parents
listen for sounds of war,
planes or shells, or cluster
bombs. “We try to live like
underground rodents,” one
father says. There are some
underground schools but
many parents find them
too risky. Some families
who live close to the school
let their children go if its
not too long a walk, one man
opened a school called al
Hikma which means wisdom
IN ALEPPO
if you have a car
you’ll have a hard
time getting gas
for it. If you’re
hoping to keep it
from being blown
up or damaged
by shrapnel, you
might store it in
an empty garage or
shop. Open the
windows too. Other
wise the glass may
crack from the pressure
of bombs exploding
LISTENING FOR SCOUTING PLANES
they sound different from
fighter jets on bombing
runs. The scouts fly lower
and they make a constant
buzzing sound. If you hear
them, you’ll know that shells
will be falling soon, bringing
death with them. If you go
outside make sure you don’t
end up in a group of more
than 20 people one man says
or you might attract a plane.
Scouting runs are especially
dangerous in summer when
there aren’t any clouds to
obscure pilots’ vision. But
they’re also bad on clear
days in winter. Going out at
night is especially risky because
you can’t see planes coming over
head and you have to drive with
out headlights. One man said
he suddenly felt pressure in
his ears and the windows of his
car cracked. It was an air strike
less than 100 meters behind him,
reminding him he was still alive
WHEN THE BOMBARDMENT IS AT ITS WORST
you start to worry you
might lose more of your
friends, call them to
check in. If you see them,
when you say goodbye,
you tell them “take care
of yourself. Maybe I
won’t see you
again”
IT’S EASY TO LOSE YOUR MIND IN ALEPPO
you might go one day
to look for food and come
back to find your building
is destroyed and your
family killed. People stand
in front of bombed out
buildings screaming and
crying in disbelief. More and
more people have lost
their homes and now are
living on the streets asking for
money. Before the war, they
never imagined they would
be beggars. Even people who
still have their houses, struggle
to cope. One man killed him
self with a machine gun
after another died. He shot
himself in the chest. Tho
more common in the west, in
Syria it is very rare. In Islam,
suicide is a terrible sin
ALEPPO
if you are not killed,
your next worry is
food. Now many
don’t have enough
money to buy any
thing to eat. There
aren’t any jobs so
every neighborhood
has young volunteers
whose responsibility
is to get food and
other supplies. Families
that still have a father
are lucky. His mission
is to get food and
other supplies
every day
MAYBE YOU’LL TRY TO GROW VEGETABLES IN YOUR GARDEN
some grow eggplant,
parsley and mint. Many
gardens have become burial
grounds because there
isn’t room anywhere else
to bury dead bodies after
four years of war. But
if the alternative is starving
to death, you might not mind
eating food that’s been grown
among corpses
ONE MAN SAID PRAY YOU DON’T HAVE TO GO TO THE HOSPITAL
they’re absolutely
miserable. I don’t
know how the doctors
and nurses can stand
all the blood, bones
and bowels all over
the floor. The smell is
awful. Patients who
can’t leave are constantly
screaming in pain. This
man says, “several
weeks ago I was shot
in the hand by a sniper
and I have some broken
bones. So I go to the
hospital once a week to
change my bandages.
I can’t bear to be there
more than half an
hour.”
EVERGREEN, PEARS, TEREBINTH, HAZELNUTS, ROSES, MAQUIS, ROSEMARY
in the last garden of Aleppo. For
resistance, not remembrance.
The gardener, father of the flowers,
and his son. He thinks of the garden
as music. One flower was hit by
shrapnel but it is still alive. Some
buy plants and scatter them around
the city. Many leave freshly cut flowers
around the ruins. Then a bomb landed
near the garden and killed the gardener.
His son is lost. He doesn’t know what
to do. The chameleons are dust. To live
here is to live with grief. But in time
he will remember how his father
described the cycle of life. This one dies
but another grows. It is the beauty
from god
IF PEOPLE ONLY KNEW HOW BEAUTIFUL ALLEPO WAS
the most beautiful
buildings reduced
to rubble. The lost
houses, the lost
flowers. You get
used to the bombs.
One man, 53, says
he’s seen enough.
He doesn’t want
to get to 60
ALEPPO, A WORLD HERITAGE SITE
the camera was the
worst enemy. One poet
whose whole family was
killed sings to the pigeons.
My heart is broken, my
eyes can’t sleep. Fly away
and reassure me. Tell me
about yourself. Don’t
forget the beautiful words
IN ALEPPO, A HAVEN OF BEAUTY
in the middle of
hell on earth. But
it was more than
the jade abundance
and the brilliant
colors that made it
an oasis of tranquility
and repose for those
who chose to stay
in Aleppo or can’t
leave. Barley wind
from Yarmook River.
Abu Ward, whose name
means “father of the
flowers,” fought to
preserve beauty in the
rubble of what has
been from the
last remaining garden
center in the once
bustling liberated area
of Aleppo. “My place
is worth billions of
dollars,” he told
a video journalist, “it
soothes like Mozart.”
LATER AS THE GARDENER GENTLY TOUCHED A FEW GREEN LEAVES
growing out of
the top of an
otherwise barren
stick of a tree. “This one was hit
by shrapnel but
it is alive. The tree
will live and we
will live.” The
essence of
the world is
a flower
ABDULLAH, HELPING WITH THE FOOD SHORTAGE
runs a small garden
on a blasted out
patch of ground
that was at one
point attacked by a
bomb dropped by
a helicopter leaving
3 people dead. After
the bomb attacked
the patch of ground
he started planting
tomatoes, peppers,
potatoes, Middle East
grain. He says his 250
square feet of produce
is his way of saying
he won’t be brought
down by terror. “My
garden,” he says, “is a
message to the Assad
regime and those who
support it. We will stay
in our city even if they
bomb it to smithereens,
we will resist no matter
how long their siege lasts”
SYRIAN BOY
cries for Dad
after losing
both legs in
a blast. “Pick
me up Daddy,”
he cries “pick
me up, pick
me up”
BEKAA VALLEY, LEBANON
ramshackle tents,
children playing
in garbage. Young
boys and girls,
nephews, nieces,
huddled together
on the tent floor.
In the dry dust and
wind of dead roses
the tents catch on
fire. Refugees from
Syria’s civil war wait
for something to
change but nothing
does. No jobs, no
hope. Flamingos in
rubble. Crying babies.
Men staring into space
most days. One stays
hungry when the
man doesn’t work
ONE FAMILY HAS BAD FEELINGS FOR THE NUMBER SEVEN
one man says his brother
was disappeared on the 7th
of April. Another brother
on September 7th. A fellow
government employer was
taken, tortured and electrocuted,
his family got the corpse back
on the 7th day of the 7th month
ISRAELIS HELP GERMAN AID WORK WITH SYRIAN REFUGEES
after taking the dangerous
journey from war torn Syria
to Berlin, refugees are
surprised to be greeted by
professionals from the Israeli
Trauma Coalition. One man
says the long scar on his left
cheek is not very heroic—it
was from barbed wire on the
Macedonia-Serbia border.
He’s 29 years old but the marks
of exhaustion on his face are
from someone much older.
11 years ago he started working
for the Red Cross then protests
were banned. “Every Friday
we’d go to the mosque and after
prayers we’d start rioting and
protesting. Hidden among the
masses we could protest in
relative security until Asad’s
people starting planting under-
cover agents in the rallies to
identify the protesters and
arrest them. Soon the noose
tightened so they paid a smuggler
who hid them in a car and took
them to Beirut, then he got
to Greece, then Turkey where
they left from Izmir on a small
boat with 40 other refugees. It was so small they weren’t
allowed to sneeze because any
small movement could have
flipped the boat and cause every
one to drown
ONCE IN GERMANY
the refugees are
treated for trauma.
Israelis know a lot
about trauma and
how to treat it be-
cause of the terrorism
in their own country
and organizations
that treat Holocaust
survivors. Politically
this is an interesting
experiment: Israelis
are coming to aid
refugees from enemy
countries on German soil
SURREAL
helping the trauma
victims among the
Israeli professionals
is Vivian Reuflinger
in the settlement Oranit
where Mohammed, a
Palestinian social worker
who moved from Qalgilya
to Berlin 4 years ago and
is now helping refugees.
In the past, Vivian and
Mohammed were on
opposite sides of the
conflict and hadn’t come in
contact with each other. Now, she’s instructing one
how to help Syrian refugees
deal with the ache of war.
“I have nothing against the
Israelis, I accept all people,” he says during a coffee break
as a way for two people on
two different sides of a
conflict, to say “ hello” when
they meet far from the conflict
zone”
IN THE TRAUMA CENTER POLITICS IS SWEPT ASIDE
dozens of children raised
in the belief that Israel is
as bad as Satan are receiving
life saving treatments at Ziv
Medical Center in Safed after
escaping the pain and suffering
of civil war in Syria. “I was
afraid of the Jews, but now I’m
not afraid at all,” says a ten
year old boy whose hands were
saved by Israeli doctors
THE REFUGEES FROM SYRIA
have been thru three
life shattering experiences.
the war, the journey which
is often horrendous and
immigration which is
considered one of the most
difficult experiences
of a person’s life
IN THE REFUGEE CENTER
the food is halal,
adhere to Islam’s
dietary laws. But
many of the refugees
have grown tired of
Islam, with some
often seeing it as one
of the reasons for
their situation. Many
even let their children
eat local gummy bears
even tho they contain
gelatin produced from
pig’s meat. “God,” they
believe, “is looking the
other way”
THE REFUGEE HILTON
there are signs in
English and Arabic
all over the building.
Small windows are
decorated with small
German flags, leaving
no doubt as to what
country the refugees
want to live in. Jugs
with drinking water
are everywhere while
large rats run around
the trash cans outside
enjoying the piles of
left over food
ONE OF THE BUILDINGS FLOORS IN A REFUGEE CENTER
has a room strictly
for women designed
by female refugees
using donated fabrics.
In large bags they can
find knitting needles
and balls of wool. On
the table are bottles
of nail polish to give
the women some link
to their old lives
AT THE GERMAN REFUGEE CENTER
the Israeli therapist
finds the exercises
awaken many demons.
No one knows in weeks
she will go back to Israel
to work with Holocaust
survivors. “Coming in
contact with the German
street, the accent and
the buildings is not easy
for me,” one woman
would say later. “Berlin
is not my favorite tourist
destination. But working
in the center is like being
in a bubble encompassing
past, present and future.
Here I can do what was
not done for my family
and my patients—perhaps
minimize the trauma,
silence and pain that are
passed down with the
generations
THERE ARE MANY CULTURAL GAPS BETWEEN THE REFUGEES AND THE AUTHORITIES
the refugees are frustrated by
the fact that the Germans don’t
understand what they went thru
and their response is not always
the right one. The Germans
misinterpret the refugees’ action.
They think if they are yelling, then
they are displaying violence or
aggression but this is pain. A therapist
says “we who came from the Middle
East understand this emotionality better
than the Europeans. Our work is
that of Tikkum Olam (the Jewish concept
of repairing the world) a way of coming full
circle nights the refugees huddle under flannel,
listen to night birds unlike any they’ve
heard in cities they hate to see torn
to rubble in streets they don’t expect to
see again or listen in their old beds
to the sound of mulberries thru
where once those leaves
were a magical, mysterious
WE DON’T SEE POLITICS
we meet people all over
the globe whose world
was taken away from them.
Everywhere similar stories
of sorrow and pain. Every
where young women
weep for those sunny
afternoons sipping dark
coffee under the shade of
Terebinth branches.
In all these places, therapists
committed to dealing
with crisis. They leave politics
out of it. Some say it is
the Israelis who understand
pain well. Here there
are no “us” and “them”
only what we do together
THERE IS A CLOSENESS
You understand the area
and the history one
woman says. This is
a sort of tikkun because
we’re doing something good
for them. There are people
who have never seen Israelis
so we’re doing a kind of PR.
In their wildest dreams they
didn’t think they’d be sitting
next to an Israeli.”
SYRIAN TV ALWAYS SHOWS THE ISRAELIS STEALING LAND
murdering Palestinians, poisoning
the water. One man says, “but when
I meet Israelis here I see they are
humans. There are many countries
that choose to remain silent seeing
the horrors in Syria. Israelis not only
help the wounded in Syria but they
also help us here.” “Perhaps,” a young
man who fled Damascus says, “the
world is not such a rotten place.”
SYRIAN REFUGEES IN CANADA’S NORTH
it’s not warm in weather,
but in emotions. In communities
such as Yellow Knife the
temperature can sink to -40, a
dramatic change for refugees
who had never experienced
anything like it.
After a rocket hit his sister’s
house and killed his brother
and nephew, Mustafa knew
he had to leave Syria. He says,
“I was not expecting to end up
in the kind of place where snow
blankets the ground for months
at a time and temperatures drop
to -40. As refugees from Lebanon,
the family took courses to prepare
for the move to Canada. They were
warned it would be cold but just
how cold would depend on where
they ended up. When they arrived
in Yellow Knife that was a surprise.
Within hours, Mustafa, his wife and
four children were taken on a
shopping expedition to stock up
on winter gear. The trip was the final
detail in the carefully planned operation
to bring the family to Yellow Knife
as privately sponsored refugees. They
arrive in Canada, stopping in Montreal.
“Don’t go to White Horse,” they were
warned. Not many people and it’s freezing.”
Soon after getting there however the family
realized there was little truth to what
they had been told. “People were so good
to us. Yes, the cold is really cold. Luckily
even the cars have heat.” They saw Northern
lights for the first time and were thrilled.
“Here it’s not warm in weather but
warm in emotion and feelings.”
SYRIAN REFUGEE GIVES BIRTH IN CANADA
secretly entering labor en route
Ibtesam Alkarnake had already
started the hard 24 hour journey
from a temporary home in Jordan
to asylum in Canada when her water
broke. Nearly six years after they
fled the war in Syria, safety seemed
finally in reach as the family made
their way to northern Alberta to
begin new lives as privately sponsored
refugees. Dreams of dates and barley,
roses in the dust of bombs, plum
wind from the Yarmouk River still in
her dreams, Alkarnake said nothing,
enduring hours of discomfort in silence
as they made stopovers in Frankfurt
and Calgary. When the family landed
in Fort McMurry she posed for pictures,
trading hugs and smiling at the dozens
who showed up at the airport to greet
the city’s newest residents. Only when
the family was she taken to their new
home did she reveal to one of the
sponsors, she was about to give birth
and just hours later her son Eyad was
born at a local hospital, a month early,
making, for the whole town, a memory
magical as the print a leaf makes
in amber or stone
How to say "Thank You!" in 50 languages
AFRIKAANS – dankie
ALBANIAN – faleminderit
ARABIC – shukran
ARMENIAN – Շնորհակալություն / chnorakaloutioun
BOSNIAN – hvala (HVAH-lah)
BULGARIAN – благодаря / blagodaria
CATALAN – gràcies (GRAH-syuhs)
CANTONESE – M̀h’gōi
CROATIAN – hvala (HVAH-lah)
CZECH – děkuji (Dyekooyih)
DANISH – tak (tahg)
DUTCH – dank u
ESTONIAN – tänan (TA-nahn)
FINNISH – kiitos (KEE-tohss)
FRENCH – merci
GERMAN – danke
GREEK – ευχαριστώ (ef-hah-rees-TOH)
HAWAIIAN – mahalo (ma-HA-lo)
HEBREW – .תודה / todah (toh-DAH)
HINDI – dhanyavād / shukriya
HUNGARIAN – köszönöm (KØ-sø-nøm)
ICELANDIC – takk (tahk)
INDONESIAN – terima kasih. (tuh-REE-mah KAH-see)
ITALIAN – grazie (GRAHT-tsyeh)
JAPANESE – arigatô (ah-ree-GAH-toh)
KOREAN – 감사합니다 (gamsahamnida)
LATVIAN – paldies (PUHL-dyehs)
LEBANESE – choukrane
LITHUANIAN – ačiū (AH-choo)
MACEDONIAN – Благодарам / blagodaram (blah-GOH-dah-rahm)
MALAY – terima kasih (TREE-muh KAH-seh)
MALTESE – grazzi (GRUTS-ee)
MANDARIN – Xièxiè
MONGOLIAN – Баярлалаа (bayarlalaa)
NORWEGIAN – takk
POLISH – dziękuję (Jenkoo-yen)
PORTUGUESE – obrigado [masculine] / obrigada [feminine] (oh-bree-GAH-doo / oh-bree-GAH-dah)
ROMANIAN – mulţumesc (mool-tzoo-MESK)
RUSSIAN – спасибо (spuh-SEE-buh)
SERBIAN – xвала / hvala (HVAH-lah)
SLOVAK – Ďakujem (JAH-koo-yehm)
SLOVENIAN – hvala (HVAA-lah)
SPANISH – gracias (GRAH-syahs)
SWEDISH – tack
TAMIL – nandri
THAI – kop khun
TURKISH – teşekkür ederim (teh shek uer eh der eem)
UKRAINIAN – Дякую (DYAH-koo-yoo)
WELSH – diolch (DEE-ol’ch)
YIDDISH – a dank
ZULU – ngiyabonga
Sunshine and Superman
by
Gerald Arthur Winter
Before his teens Tommy feared he’d been adopted because his older brother Billy’s blunt insinuations that he’d been dropped on his parents’ doorstep didn’t bolster any confidence that his fear of disconnection from his family could be merely his vivid imagination. Billy would often whisper aside to his friends that Tommy was his adopted little brother, just loud enough for Tommy to hear. Billy’s pretending to keep their blood separation a secret gave more validity to Tommy’s fear. They’d be playing football in the empty lot up the street, and Billy would foster the idea of Tommy’s detachment from his own preferred genes in his younger brother’s head as he handed him the football for an end run. Tommy can’t run as fast as I can because he’s adopted. His real parents were trolls. Tommy thought he’d heard Billy say aside to the other older boys, which gave him an inordinate fear of goats in the neighbor’s pasture, from Little Billy Goat’s Gruff to Big Billy Goat’s Gruff. Tommy often peaked under the bridge that crossed the creek in the meadow to see if any of his kindred trolls were dwelling beneath the wooden blanks.
The tackle football was dangerous enough to life and limb with teams of five players on each side, just a few helmets of the 1950’s vintage with no face guards, or cushioned chin straps, but rather just a thin strap with a snap or buckle to tighten around a player’s head with no protection from concussions. Often during contact the helmet would caused even greater injury in a pile-up than no helmet at all. Shoulder pads under a sweatshirt were the only other equipment used for protection, but only half the kids could afford them, so they had sixteen-year-old boys with helmets and shoulder pads playing full contact against ten-year-olds with no protection other than fleeing avoidance or true grit against the odds of survival. For the most part, Tommy fit into the latter with a short stature his dad referred to as “built like a bric shithouse.”
Tommy wasn’t sure if the doubts Billy put in his head were to make him falter or to make him try harder when playing with the older boys. Tommy was blond and Billy had black hair, but they still had many facial similarities and gesturing mannerism that could be attributable to both their parents. Tommy didn’t dare ask his parents if he’d been adopted for fear Bobby had told him the truth that troll blood flowed through his veins.
Billy was three years older then Tommy, and was born two days before Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. Not until they were teenagers had Tommy heard the story from his mom that his dad thought Billy, with his straight black hair as an infant, might be have been mixed up with some Japanese woman’s baby. His dad had wondered if a Japanese woman had taken his real blond, curly-headed son home from St. Albans Hospital and had switched the baby’s as part of some yellow-peril plot to invade America.
Without his mom’s recounting that story for his reassurance, Tommy suffered from doubts through his adolescence about his true family connection. He never realizedback then how the three-year difference in their ages, made him a drag on Billy’s ill-perceived social life at school. Tommy’s acceptance among Billy’s older friends bugged Billy no end.
They lived off the Belt Parkway near Springfield Boulevard in Laurelton, Queens at a time when Idlewild Airport had just two hangers with only a few daily commercial flights. Rockaway Playland and the best beach north of Coney Island were a short train ride on the El from home. By car with his parents and Billy, it was just fifteen minutes across Jamaica Bay.
Pat Behner was a seventeen-year-old neighbor who often took Tommy to Rockaway Beach on the train when Billy was at summer day camp. Tommy was five and Pat was his babysitter, though she was careful never to use that dreaded term.
From the first day she’d clasped his little hand in hers and sat beside him on the wicker train seat, Tommy was in pre-pubescent love. A light brushing kiss and brief hug of affection from Pat were exciting to Tommy’s unhatched libido.
After a day with Pat at the beach, lying in bed at night, feverish from sunburn, and the scent of Pat’s suntan lotion redolent in his memory, Tommy felt certain he could jump out his window and fly to her bedroom window. Even peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with gritty chomps of sand didn’t matter to Tommy, always longing to return to Rockaway Beach with Pat. She was the quiet studious type, but like a caterpillar fresh out of her cocoon waving her colorful wings in the salty sea breeze. Lying face down on the blanket beside her, Tommy wondered if it was the surf or his heart that was pounding so loud against the sand beneath their shared beach blanket.
Tommy saw that Pat was also his protector. Serene and spread out on the blanket, she suddenly looked up from the book she was reading, Mr. Peabody and the Mermaid, and jumped up to smack a strange kid bigger than Tommy when he tried to steal his pail and shovel. With her shoulder-length black hair swishing, Pat looked like Wonder Woman in her two-piece bathing suit. That’s when Tommy knew he had to become a man. He couldn’t be like the runt in the Charles Atlas ads on the back page of comic books, the skinny guy with his ribs showing who gets sand kicked in his face by a muscle-bound lug stealing his girlfriend..
Tommy kept it a secret and didn’t let Billy know he was conditioning himself with “dynamic tension” exercises under the covers on the top bunk in their shared bedroom—no dead weights or apparatus, just one arm against the other like an an irresistible force against an immovable object.
Pat took Tommy to Rockaway Playland after they left the beach to go on the rides and venture through Davy Jones’s Locker, a fun house with spiraling barrels, distorting mirrors, and traps that made you lose your balance. Rolling around together in the turning barrel, Tommy could smell Pat’s scent. He was in heaven. Wanting Pat, made Tommy’s mind soar from the sunshine of Rockaway Beach to becoming Super- man, able to leap tall buildings with a single bound.
Tommy thought maybe he was adopted, just like Clark Kent, and his real parents died on Krypton and left him to fend for himself, an alien among earthlings who were inferior to his inner strength. But Tommy’s foster family must have decided that he’d have a better chance of survival on this foreign planet if they moved to north Jersey where he and Billy had less chance of becoming juvenile delinquents in Queens. Even though Tommy had to say good-bye to Pat Behner, he vowed to fly back across the Hudson River to make her his life-long sweetheart.
* * *
There was little opportunity for Tommy to fly in Bergen County in 1954, other than vicariously from the swooshing sound on a black-and-white 12-inch TV when actor George Reeves shed his suit and tie in a phone booth and sprang with his fluttering cape into the sky. Tommy was nine years old having similar feelings toward Janet Daniels, his same age, as he had for Pat Behner. His affection; for Pat had faded like snowflakes falling on a sizzling volcanic lava. The flakes may have melted, but the lava continued to flow. That’s when Tommy’s mom asked him what he wanted most for Christmas that year.
“A genuine Superman suit,” he told her without hesitation. “But you have to make it for me from scratch, just like Ma Kent did for Clark.”
“I’ve seen them on sale at the five-and-ten for Halloween. I’ll get you one
if you do well on your next report card from school..”
“School? Superman doesn’t need school. He’s smarter than everyone.”
“Not when he’s Clark Kent,” his mom retorted.
“Those outfits are junk, Ma. If you make it for me, it’ll be bulletproof and with my red cape I could fly.”
She gave Tommy the kind of look you get from the librarian when you fart in the library, but maybe Billy was right that their mom thought of Tommy as her Golden Boy. He wished his hair was black like Billy’s and Superman’s with blue highlights just like in the comics.
* * *
Billy received everything he wrote on his Christmas list, and Tommy got many toys and games he’d asked for, too. Then his mom told Tommy he’d better put on his bathrobe because the heat hadn’t come up high enough in the house yet on that chill Christmas morning. Snow was in the air.
When Tommy opened his wardrobe, there it was, just like in DC’s World’s Finest comic book last month with Superman, Batman, and Robin fighting crime together on the same cover. The Superman suit was blue with a red “S” and a yellow background on the chest. The red cape had a yellow “S” on the back. The stretchy blue pants and red tights had a yellow belt, and on the wardrobe’s floor was a pair of knee-high, red boots. Just with the brush of his hand across the “S” on the chest, Tommy could tell his suit was bulletproof and he could hardly wait to put on his red cape and fly. Now he could be sure Janet Daniels would be his girlfriend forever. He was prettier than Lois Lane or Lana Lang, and she was real and smelled like Juicy Fruit gum.
* * *
Fortunately it was cold that January when Tommy went back to school, so he wasn’t that uncomfortable wearing his Superman suit under his regular clothes.
“You’ve gained a lot of weight over Christmas vacation,” Janet Daniels said in the hallway by his locker.
He closed the locker in time before Janet could see his red cape hanging inside, just in case he had to stop a robbery after school. He’d wait until the corridor was empty before catching his bus home, so he could fold up the cape to fit in his book bag.
Fortunately for those robbers, he couldn’t take out his cape on the bus ride home, because that would give away his secret identity. He couldn’t tell Janet until they were in high school. She’d be more serious and mature at seventeen, just like Pat Behner, now twenty-one. She was practically a grandmother. Billy teased him about wearing the Superman suit under his clothes at school.
He was in junior high now, so he couldn’t bother Tommy at middle school, not until they got home from school. Clark Kent was lucky he didn’t have an older brother to keep reminding him that, with that blond wavy hair, he probably was adopted.
* * *
In May a new kid moved next store. Tommy turned ten and Eric was only seven, so Tommy figured he’d take him into his confidence and reveal his secret identity to him. A next door neighbor was almost like family, so he figured Eric wouldn’t give him all that negative jive Billy showered him with every day. Eric was a chubby kid with an odd manner of expression. When he had to pee, he’d say: “I have to make “tiddlelizz.”
When he had to poop, he’d: “I’ve got to make a “whoorsht.” Tommy later learned that Eric was referring to a wurst, as in liverwurst—a graphic image that left little to the imagination.
Disney’s animated feature Peter Pan was in theaters that summer, so the fantasy of flying overtook Tommy again. With summer vacation from school for three months Tommy had cultivated Eric’s belief that he was Superboy. Apparently Eric wasn’t as gullible as Tommy thought, so it shattered his confidence when Eric called him a liar—a harsh word for a kid with a dream to fly. There was only one way out.
He’d have to fake it, but not just with words. Tommy had to make this odd, but stubborn little kid believe him, certain that was the only way to redeem himself. Tommy planned his strategy for weeks, and finally took his wizened brother Billy into his confidence to help him with some of the details. He brought Billy into their daily games played in late July, so Billy could observe Eric’s temperament firsthand. Watching Looney Tunes on TV everyday, Tommy and Billy convinced Eric to play a game they called “Fudd Pesters.”
“He’s only seven,” Billy reminded him. “Should be a cinch. What does Eric like most? Maybe he isn’t such a Superman fan like you and has to be shown what your super powers can do.”
“He’s more into Peter Pan, “Tommy said. “You know, the pixie dust and flying out your window to fight pirates and Indians on an island called Never Land with mermaids and pixies. Little kids’ stuff.”
Billy smirked maliciously. “Let’s see what we can make him fall for.”
“How?”
“I’ll show you tonight.”
Billy and Tommy shared a second-story bedroom above Eric’s first-floor bedroom window with only ten feet between the houses. They could look down from their high window and see into his bedroom. When it was dark, they turned off their bedroom lights and watched from their window until Eric’s light turned out. Billy took one of his marbles, pushed up the screen in their window, and bounced the cat’s-eye marble off Eric’s window sill with a loud—clink! They held their pillows to their mouths to muffle their laughter.
“Eric!” his father shouted. “Stop fooling around in there and go to sleep!”
“It wasn’t me, Daddy!”
“You heard me! Knock it off or I’ll give you a lickin’!”
They waited a minute then Tommy threw a marble that made a boing sound off Eric’s screen, not loud enough for his father to hear from the other room, but enough to bring Eric to the window.
“E-e-e-ric,” Billy chanted softly, but loud enough for Eric to hear. “It’s Peter Pan. Time to fly away with me to Never Never Land.”
We stayed below our window sill in case Eric looked up toward us.
“Where are you, Peter?” Eric whispered loudly. “Where’s Tinkerbell? I can’t see her pixie dust flashing in the dark.”
Tommy and Billy were about to burst with laughter when Eric’s dad came into his room.
“What did I tell you? Get back in bed and go to sleep! Now!”
We waited about five minutes and Billy found a sparkler left over from
The Fourth of July and lit it with a match from a book in his desk drawer. About to start eighth grade, Bobby had already started smoking with his friends in the woods behind Valley School. He nodded for Tommy to lift the screen then he tossed the sputtering sparkler out the window. It landed in a bush outside Eric’s window.
“E-e-e-ric, it’s Peter Pan. Tinkerbell is with me. She’s in the bush, but she’s dying because she thinks you don’t believe in fairies. Clap your hands loud so she knows you believe. She’ll be OK if you shout loud enough for her to hear. Tell her you believe in fairies and clap your hands.”
Eric came to his window and pushed up his screen. The sparker was fizzling out.
“I do believe in fairies!” he shouted and clapped his hands loudly.
Tommy and Billy were hysterical, but Eric’s father burst into his room, pulled down Eric’s pajamas and began spanking him on his bare backside.
Eric wailed, “It was Peter Pan, Daddy! I have to save Tinkerbell!”
“No more movies for you!” his father shouted. “Now get to sleep before I take a strap to you!”
Tommy felt kind of sick inside about Eric getting a spanking, but Billy gave him a smirk and said, “Just wait. Now you can convince him your Superboy. Here’s how. . . .”
* * *
Billy gave Tommy some ideas how to prove to Eric that he had super powers. Billy had to go to Boy Scout summer camp, so he couldn’t be around and Tommy was on my own—just him and his super powers.
He didn’t want to be obvious, so Tommy tried to act cool even though he was visibly sweating in his Superman suit under his clothes in the August heat. He’d never shown Eric his suit before. In his pocket Tommy had two nails. Both were four inches long, but he’d bent one in half in his dad’s vice on his workbench in the basement.
“Hey, Eric! Tommy called to him in his yard where he was playing with some toy trucks in his sandbox. “Come here and I’ll prove to you that I’m Superboy!”
Curious, Eric got to his feet and waddled toward him.
“Oh, yeah. How?”
The bent nail was inside Tommy’s sleeve.
He took the straight nail from his shirt pocket.
“Do you think you can bend this nail in half?” he asked handing it to Eric.
Eric grunted so hard trying to bend it with his little hands that he farted. He was stubborn for a little kid, so he tried again, so hard and with his face turning red that he pooped his pants. He let out a howl and his mom came out to their back porch.
“What are you boys doing out there?” she shouted.
Tommy grabbed the nail from Eric and said,” Watch this. I’m Superboy.” He put the straight nail in one hand and covered it with his fist then shook his sleeve and dropped the bent nail into his hand and tucked the straight nail back up his sleeve. He’d practiced that maneuver after watching Bonomo the Magic Clown on TV.
“See! I have super strength. I’m Superboy.”
“Nah! That’s not the same nail,” Eric huffed with a frown.
I dropped the straight nail behind my back.
“No. See, that’s the only nail,” I said.
“Your not Superboy,” he grimaced. “That’s just a comic book. My dad said so. Just like Peter Pan is fake and so is Santa Claus.”
Now this little creep was treading on sacred ground. Tommy pulled his shirt open to show him the super suit with its big red “S” on his chest.
“That’s just a Halloween costume. I saw ’m in Woolworth’s. You not Superboy.”
“Oh, yeah,” Tommy challenged. “Try and punch me in the chest.”
Eric was little so he punched Tommy at the bottom tip of the red “S” right in the solar plexus. Caught off guard, Tommy could hardly breathe and his face turned red.
When he got enough air back into his lungs, he shouted to Eric’s mother,
“Eric pooped in his pants!”
As he dizzily staggered back home and into the house, Tommy heard the sound of Eric crying and getting a smack from his mom, not on his behind because she saw he’d pooped his pants.
* * *
Billy was still away at camp, so Tommy had to take matters into his own hands.
The next afternoon Eric was playing in his sandbox again. This time Tommy wore some of Billy’s clothes so he had room under his clothes to attach his red cape to his neck and tuck its drapes under Billy’s shirt and pants. He had to role up his cuffs and wore loafers so he could slip them off quickly. He’d left red boots on the sundeck above the garage with access to the sundeck from his parents’ bedroom across the hall from his and Billy’s.
As he ambled across his yard toward Eric, Tommy noticed Eric’s mom peering out of their kitchen window where she was washing breakfast dishes. Her expression was suspicious with one eye squinting at him.
“Don’t tell me you’re Superboy anymore,” Eric said. “My mom says you’re just teasing me. People can’t fly.”
“That’s because you don’t believe in fairies and Santa Claus, neat stuff that all kids are supposed to believe in. When they don’t, there not kids anymore. My brother Billy is fourteen, so he’s not a little kid. I’m three years older than you, but I want to believe in all that fun stuff for as long as I can until I’m too old. You’re only seven years old and missing out on a lot a fun. That’s why I’ve got to prove to you that I’m Superboy.”
I noticed Eric’s mom was smirking at me through the window.
“I’ll be back in a couple of minutes, but first I’ve got to save a kid caught in a tree, stop a bank robbery, then help a plane make a safe landing because it has an engine out on one of its propellers and will crash if I don’t show up. I’ll be right back.”
As Tommy ran around the side of my house, he let Eric see him shedding Billy’s clothes until his red cape fluttered behind him for take-off and he shouted, “Up, up and away!”
Tommy ran into his house through the front door before Eric could follow him and see where he went, then he ran up the stairs to the second floor. He kicked off his loafers in the hallway then ran through his parents’ bedroom and onto the sundeck where he slipped on his red boots.
He grabbed the edge of the slanted roof and pulled himself up on the railing around the sundeck and stood on the top so he could pull himself onto the roof. Holding the side of the full dormer, he worked his way up the slanted roof to the top of the dormer above the bedrooms where the roof was level.
He ran across the flat roof toward the other side of the house next to Eric’s house.
He visualized himself looking just like Superman in the comics. He came to the slanted roof on the other side of the dormer and eased down the slanted roof until the heels of his red boots in the rain gutter kept him from falling fifteen feet to the ground. He spotted Eric below. Eric had wondered around Tommy’s house in pursuit to see him take off in flight. Sure it was a lie, Eric was heading back toward his sandbox. When Eric was directly below, Tommy imitated the whooshing sound from
George Reeves flying as Superman on black and white TV. But in full color, Tommy leaped from the roof and over Eric’s head. Thinking back on it, Tommy was glad his Olympic gymnastic, ten-point landing hadn’t gone to his head. Though he felt his thigh bones jam up into his hips, Tommy had broken no bones. He turned on his heels with exhilaration as his red cape swirled with the grace of a matador avoiding a bull’s charge.
Eric’s mom came running across the yard and shouted,
“Oh my God! Are you all right?”
Of course, she meant Tommy, but he folded his arms and pumped up his chest then said with a wink, “Yes, Eric’s fine. But he must promise to keep my true identity a secret.”
With her mouth dropped open, she said, “Of course, Superboy. We both promise to keep your secret. You’ll never have to prove it to us again. Absolutely, never. We even promise never to tell Daddy. Right, Eric?”
Eric’s face was still in awe after seeing Superboy come flying out of the sky from nowhere and land in front of him. Tommy remained standing in the yard like a statue of strength for truth, justice, and the American way until Eric and his mom went back into their house. When it was safe, Tommy broke his statuesque pose and limped painfully back into his house and upstairs to his bedroom. He cried in pain for an hour.
Tommy never grew quite as tall as Billy and often wondered if his Superboy landing had stunted his growth. Billy told him that he was shorter than him because he’d been adopted. Even if he was physically damaged or genetically different, in his mind,
Tommy always felt taller since that sunshiny day with Eric just for taking a leap of faith that all kids needed—to dream of feats of strength and wish they’d come to pass.
From the "Gilgamesh"
The Epic of Gilgamesh is, perhaps, the oldest written story on Earth. It comes to us from Ancient Sumeria, and was originally written on 12 clay tablets in cunieform script. It is about the adventures of the historical King of Uruk (somewhere between 2750 and 2500 BCE).
He who has seen everything, I will make known to the lands.
I will teach about him who experienced all things,
... alike,
Anu granted him the totality of knowledge of all.
He saw the Secret, discovered the Hidden,
he brought information of (the time) before the Flood.
He went on a distant journey, pushing himself to exhaustion,
but then was brought to peace.
He carved on a stone stela all of his toils,
and built the wall of Uruk-Haven,
the wall of the sacred Eanna Temple, the holy sanctuary.
Look at its wall which gleams like copper(?),
inspect its inner wall, the likes of which no one can equal!
Take hold of the threshold stone--it dates from ancient times!
Go close to the Eanna Temple, the residence of Ishtar,
such as no later king or man ever equaled!
Go up on the wall of Uruk and walk around,
examine its foundation, inspect its brickwork thoroughly.
Is not (even the core of) the brick structure made of kiln-fired brick,
and did not the Seven Sages themselves lay out its plans?
One league city, one league palm gardens, one league lowlands, the open area(?) of the Ishtar Temple,
three leagues and the open area(?) of Uruk it (the wall) encloses.
Find the copper tablet box,
open the ... of its lock of bronze,
undo the fastening of its secret opening.
Take and read out from the lapis lazuli tablet
how Gilgamesh went through every hardship.
Supreme over other kings, lordly in appearance,
he is the hero, born of Uruk, the goring wild bull.
He walks out in front, the leader,
and walks at the rear, trusted by his companions.
Mighty net, protector of his people,
raging flood-wave who destroys even walls of stone!
Offspring of Lugalbanda, Gilgamesh is strong to perfection,
son of the august cow, Rimat-Ninsun;... Gilgamesh is awesome to perfection.
It was he who opened the mountain passes,
who dug wells on the flank of the mountain.
It was he who crossed the ocean, the vast seas, to the rising sun,
who explored the world regions, seeking life.
It was he who reached by his own sheer strength Utanapishtim, the Faraway,
who restored the sanctuaries (or: cities) that the Flood had destroyed!
... for teeming mankind.
Who can compare with him in kingliness?
Who can say like Gilgamesh: "I am King!"?
Whose name, from the day of his birth, was called "Gilgamesh"?
Two-thirds of him is god, one-third of him is human.
The Great Goddess [Aruru] designed(?) the model for his body,
she prepared his form ...
... beautiful, handsomest of men,
... perfect
...
He walks around in the enclosure of Uruk,
Like a wild bull he makes himself mighty, head raised (over others).
There is no rival who can raise his weapon against him.
His fellows stand (at the alert), attentive to his (orders ?),
and the men of Uruk become anxious in ...
Gilgamesh does not leave a son to his father,
day and night he arrogant[y(?) ...
[The following lines are interpreted as rhetorical, perhaps spoken by the oppressed citizens of Uruk.]
Is Gilgamesh the shepherd of Uruk-Haven,
is he the shepherd. ...
bold, eminent, knowing, and wise!
Gilgamesh does not leave a girl to her mother(?)
The daughter of the warrior, the bride of the young man,
the gods kept hearing their complaints, so
the gods of the heavens implored the Lord of Uruk [Anu]
"You have indeed brought into being a mighty wild bull, head raised!
"There is no rival who can raise a weapon against him.
"His fellows stand (at the alert), attentive to his (orders !),
"Gilgamesh does not leave a son to his father,
"day and night he arrogantly ...
"Is he the shepherd of Uruk-Haven,
"is he their shepherd...
"bold, eminent, knowing, and wise,
"Gilgamesh does not leave a girl to her mother(?)!"
The daughter of the warrior, the bride of the young man,
Anu listened to their complaints,
and (the gods) called out to Aruru:
"it was you, Aruru, who created mankind(?),
now create a zikru to it/him.
Let him be equal to his (Gilgamesh's) stormy heart,
let them be a match for each other so that Uruk may find peace!"
When Aruru heard this she created within herself the zikrtt of Anu.
Aruru washed her hands, she pinched off some clay, and threw it into the wilderness.
In the wildness(?) she created valiant Enkidu,
born of Silence, endowed with strength by Ninurta.
His whole body was shaggy with hair,
he had a full head of hair like a woman,
his locks billowed in profusion like Ashnan.
He knew neither people nor settled living,
but wore a garment like Sumukan."
He ate grasses with the gazelles,
and jostled at the watering hole with the animals;
as with animals, his thirst was slaked with (mere) water.
A notorious trapper came face-to-face with him opposite the watering hole.
A first, a second, and a third day
he came face-to-face with him opposite the watering hole.
On seeing him the trapper's face went stark with fear,
and he (Enkidu?) and his animals drew back home.
He was rigid with fear; though stock-still
his heart pounded and his face drained of color.
He was miserable to the core,
and his face looked like one who had made a long journey.
The trapper addressed his father saying:"
"Father, a certain fellow has come from the mountains.
He is the mightiest in the land,
his strength is as mighty as the meteorite(?) of Anu!
He continually goes over the mountains,
he continually jostles at the watering place with the animals,
he continually plants his feet opposite the watering place.
I was afraid, so I did not go up to him.
He filled in the pits that I had dug,
wrenched out my traps that I had spread,
released from my grasp the wild animals.
He does not let me make my rounds in the wilderness!"
The trapper's father spoke to him saying:
"My son, there lives in Uruk a certain Gilgamesh.
There is no one stronger than he,
he is as strong as the meteorite(?) of Anu.
Go, set off to Uruk,
tell Gilgamesh of this Man of Might.
He will give you the harlot Shamhat, take her with you.
The woman will overcome the fellow (?) as if she were strong.
When the animals are drinking at the watering place
have her take off her robe and expose her sex.
When he sees her he will draw near to her,
and his animals, who grew up in his wilderness, will be alien to him."
He heeded his father's advice.
The trapper went off to Uruk,
he made the journey, stood inside of Uruk,
and declared to ... Gilgamesh:
"There is a certain fellow who has come from the mountains--
he is the mightiest in the land,
his strength is as mighty as the meteorite(?) of Anu!
He continually goes over the mountains,
he continually jostles at the watering place with the animals,
he continually plants his feet opposite the watering place.
I was afraid, so I did not go up to him.
He filled in the pits that I had dug,
wrenched out my traps that I had spread,
released from my grasp the wild animals.
He does not let me make my rounds in the wilderness!"
Gilgamesh said to the trapper:
"Go, trapper, bring the harlot, Shamhat, with you.
When the animals are drinking at the watering place
have her take off her robe and expose her sex.
When he sees her he will draw near to her,
and his animals, who grew up in his wilderness, will be alien to him."
The trapper went, bringing the harlot, Shamhat, with him.
They set off on the journey, making direct way.
On the third day they arrived at the appointed place,
and the trapper and the harlot sat down at their posts(?).
A first day and a second they sat opposite the watering hole.
The animals arrived and drank at the watering hole,
the wild beasts arrived and slaked their thirst with water.
Then he, Enkidu, offspring of the mountains,
who eats grasses with the gazelles,
came to drink at the watering hole with the animals,
with the wild beasts he slaked his thirst with water.
Then Shamhat saw him--a primitive,
a savage fellow from the depths of the wilderness!
"That is he, Shamhat! Release your clenched arms,
expose your sex so he can take in your voluptuousness.
Do not be restrained--take his energy!
When he sees you he will draw near to you.
Spread out your robe so he can lie upon you,
and perform for this primitive the task of womankind!
His animals, who grew up in his wilderness, will become alien to him,
and his lust will groan over you."
Shamhat unclutched her bosom, exposed her sex, and he took in her voluptuousness.
She was not restrained, but took his energy.
She spread out her robe and he lay upon her,
she performed for the primitive the task of womankind.
His lust groaned over her;
for six days and seven nights Enkidu stayed aroused,
and had intercourse with the harlot
until he was sated with her charms.
But when he turned his attention to his animals,
the gazelles saw Enkidu and darted off,
the wild animals distanced themselves from his body.
Enkidu ... his utterly depleted(?) body,
his knees that wanted to go off with his animals went rigid;
Enkidu was diminished, his running was not as before.
But then he drew himself up, for his understanding had broadened.
Turning around, he sat down at the harlot's feet,
gazing into her face, his ears attentive as the harlot spoke.
The harlot said to Enkidu:
"You are beautiful," Enkidu, you are become like a god.
Why do you gallop around the wilderness with the wild beasts?
Come, let me bring you into Uruk-Haven,
to the Holy Temple, the residence of Anu and Ishtar,
the place of Gilgamesh, who is wise to perfection,
but who struts his power over the people like a wild bull."
What she kept saying found favor with him.
Becoming aware of himself, he sought a friend.
Enkidu spoke to the harlot:
"Come, Shamhat, take me away with you
to the sacred Holy Temple, the residence of Anu and Ishtar,
the place of Gilgamesh, who is wise to perfection,
but who struts his power over the people like a wild bull.
I will challenge him ...
Let me shout out in Uruk: I am the mighty one!'
Lead me in and I will change the order of things;
he whose strength is mightiest is the one born in the wilderness!"
[Shamhat to Enkidu:]
"Come, let us go, so he may see your face.
I will lead you to Gilgamesh--I know where he will be.
Look about, Enkidu, inside Uruk-Haven,
where the people show off in skirted finery,
where every day is a day for some festival,
where the lyre(?) and drum play continually,
where harlots stand about prettily,
exuding voluptuousness, full of laughter
and on the couch of night the sheets are spread (!)."
Enkidu, you who do not know, how to live,
I will show you Gilgamesh, a man of extreme feelings (!).
Look at him, gaze at his face--
he is a handsome youth, with freshness(!),
his entire body exudes voluptuousness
He has mightier strength than you,
without sleeping day or night!
Enkidu, it is your wrong thoughts you must change!
It is Gilgamesh whom Shamhat loves,
and Anu, Enlil, and La have enlarged his mind."
Even before you came from the mountain
Gilgamesh in Uruk had dreams about you.""
Gilgamesh got up and revealed the dream, saying to his mother:
"Mother, I had a dream last night.
Stars of the sky appeared,
and some kind of meteorite(?) of Anu fell next to me.
I tried to lift it but it was too mighty for me,
I tried to turn it over but I could not budge it.
The Land of Uruk was standing around it,
the whole land had assembled about it,
the populace was thronging around it,
the Men clustered about it,
and kissed its feet as if it were a little baby (!).
I loved it and embraced it as a wife.
I laid it down at your feet,
and you made it compete with me."
The mother of Gilgamesh, the wise, all-knowing, said to her Lord;
Rimat-Ninsun, the wise, all-knowing, said to Gilgamesh:
"As for the stars of the sky that appeared
and the meteorite(?) of Anu which fell next to you,
you tried to lift but it was too mighty for you,
you tried to turn it over but were unable to budge it,
you laid it down at my feet,
and I made it compete with you,
and you loved and embraced it as a wife."
"There will come to you a mighty man, a comrade who saves his friend--
he is the mightiest in the land, he is strongest,
his strength is mighty as the meteorite(!) of Anu!
You loved him and embraced him as a wife;
and it is he who will repeatedly save you.
Your dream is good and propitious!"
A second time Gilgamesh said to his mother: "Mother, I have had another dream:
"At the gate of my marital chamber there lay an axe,
"and people had collected about it.
"The Land of Uruk was standing around it,
"the whole land had assembled about it,
"the populace was thronging around it.
"I laid it down at your feet,
"I loved it and embraced it as a wife,
"and you made it compete with me."
The mother of Gilgamesh, the wise, all-knowing, said to her son;
Rimat-Ninsun, the wise, all-knowing, said to Gilgamesh:
""The axe that you saw (is) a man.
"... (that) you love him and embrace as a wife,
"but (that) I have compete with you."
"" There will come to you a mighty man,
"" a comrade who saves his friend--
"he is the mightiest in the land, he is strongest,
"he is as mighty as the meteorite(!) of Anu!"
Gilgamesh spoke to his mother saying:
""By the command of Enlil, the Great Counselor, so may it to pass!
"May I have a friend and adviser, a friend and adviser may I have!
"You have interpreted for me the dreams about him!"
After the harlot recounted the dreams of Gilgamesh to Enkidu
the two of them made love.
The Life and Times of Voyager
Review by Charles E.J. Moulton
We could be watching Harrison Ford running through the wilderness hunted by U.S. Marshalls, we could be following Charlton Heston lost in the future hunted by apes or just following Thelma and Louise on their road toward crime and debauchery.
Then again, we might be travelling with Captain Kathryn Janeway and her crew lost 70,000 lightyears from home.
Star Trek: Voyager, the TV-series that ran for seven seasons, explores the unknown adventure. However we choose to experience our lust of joining mutual seekers of the journey, the result of that search is the same. The road is the way.
We all love seeing people travel, but why are we drawn to stories about seekers?
If we don’t travel ourselves, we do so through others. That conveys movement and there’s nothing we love so much as movement. Many people are lost, many people hope to find something real beyond that proverbial rainbow. Then, of course, there is the afterlife. We really belong somewhere else: in heaven with God. Every life we lead here on Earth really brings us back to work on some task or solve some problem.
“Star Trek: Voyager” ran for seven years and the reason for its success is the fact that it really is an extended road movie. So, here it is: a team of space explorers is sent out on an away mission, prepared to be away a couple of months at the most. Among them are talented prisoners on parole, fresh graduates and experienced veterans. The ship, however, gets catapulted through the galaxy 70 000 lightyears from home by mistake and so the crew has to find another way home.
On their way home, they encounter a hundred species, visit hundreds of distant planets and ultimately change the course of time.
The fascinating aspect in general is the eternal question we always ask ourselves every time we read a book or watch a film: what if? What would a world based on interstellar communication look like? What might aliens look like? What would their world be like? We know how it is to travel between New York and Rio, but what would a world look like that is based on travelling between planets on a regular basis. Roddenberry continues on a very old tradition that Homer, Voltaire, Melville and Verne dwelled in: the journey.
Captain Janeway is a future day Don Quixiote. Encountering barbarians and killers just as much as benevolent philosophers on her seven year odyssey, she perseveres in spite of incredible setbacks. Actress Kate Mulgrew’s uncanny resemblance to Katherine Hepburn got her the job portraying the famous thespian in a one-woman show. It is also Mulgrew’s almost painful and ruthless, Hepburnesque, honesty that keeps the spaceship going and eventually takes the weird and wonderful crew home to Earth, eventually happy, eventually joyous.
Robert Beltran’s extraordinary mixture of internal depth with an angry command, as First Officer Chakotay, gives Janeway’s Sherlock her conscience of an eternally wise Watson. In more ways than one, we here have a resiliant team that would not survive as a singular unit. Even when they are stranded alone on a lonely planet, their almost marital team inspires Chakotay’s Adam to create an unusually resistant Eve. Only toward the end of the episode, when Janeway gives in to her quiet seclusion, are they saved to return to Voyager.
Adam and Eve again, willingly unwilling,
become Bill and Hillary.
Robert Picardo breathes life into The Doctor in a role that couldn’t be more different than his most famous portrayal as the Cowboy in “Innerspace”. For those of us who followed Voyager through its journey, the holographic doctor’s love of opera he presents created episodes like “Virtuoso”, where Verdi could be introduced to viewers and aliens alike alongside simple songs like “Someone’s in the Kitchen with Dinah”. The Doctor also becomes an author, a husband, a commanding officer and an advocate of human rights. Wonderfully holographic.
I remember seeing Tom Paris-portrayer Robert Duncan McNeill in a Twilight Zone-episode named “A Message from Charity”. Since then, he has come a long way. His matter-of-fact-way and almost functional form of acting grew in time and became a real jewel of storytelling toward the sixth and seventh seasons of Voyager. McNeill’s very American truthfulness is sympathetic and his cute and constant reparté with Harry Kim in the Captain Proton episodes are worth while to say the least.
Jeri Ryan’s looks have been described as worthy of expressions like “Va-Va-Voom”. Although rather sterile a role, she manages to unify moments of tenderness with a cyborg’s hard battle for individuality as “Seven of Nine”. Tender episodes such as “Someone to Watch Over Me” give us that sweet sneak-peeks of viewing other talents emerge other than looks and strong acting. Her duet with Picardo makes the listener wonder what she would do as the vocalist of a big band. Maybe she already is one. If that is the case, a fellow big band vocalist like me would like to hear her perform songs like “Fly Me to the Moon”.
No Star Trek-ship is complete without a Vulcan. So it is actor and Blues-singer Tim Russ that gives us his constant concentration as Tuvok. The moments when Tuvok is allowed to step outside his own controlled boundaries, however, are the most memorable. Russ is allowed to become a tender and angry soul, happy and enthusiastic, and we find much more beneath that controlled enigma.
Shakespearian actor Ethan Phillips turned Talaxian tour-de-force and Janeway-Alter-Ego Neelix into a weirdly wonderful Pumbaa-like caleidoscope of alien and gastronomical wit. I know he has spent years doing Star Trek, but I also know he is a playwright and the owner of a Master’s Degree in Fine Arts from Cornell University.
UCLA-student Garrett Wang became everybody’s favourite little beginner as Ensign Harry Kim. His smart and honest portrayal was believable enough to inspire people to review the episodes in which he played the focal part. He is and remains Voyager’s charming conscience.
Roxann Dawson created a feisty, angry character with a sensitive core in B’Elanna Torres. As with many of the portrayals in Voyager, we see the development with the oncoming years. We, as actors, do grow with our assigments. Roxann presented superior theatrical skills even in her first episode in addition to being what you could label as versatile and supremely interesting.
Jennifer Lien’s work as Kes unified strength with tenderness. Of all the characters in Voyager, hers is the most feminine, the one with the most thespian introspection.
On the surface, Star Trek Voyager is a sitcom, a soap-opera set in space. At a closer glance, it is a deep and heartfelt plea to enjoy the knowledge the ride itself provides. It is the discoverer’s dream, the seafarer’s love for eternal wisdom.
As I said, we are all seekers and we all love to see that other enjoy seeking, as well.
The Singing Couple, HerbertEyre Moulton and Gun Kronzell, and their Irish sheepdog Fred,
during the heyday of their European concert tour, 1966, singing Rodgers, Bernstein, Copland, Verdi and Brahms.
Dead Flowers
By Herbert Eyre Moulton
(1927 - 2005)
“A lyrical film, a flop ...” So wrote the Austrian film magazine DIAGONALE about “Dead Flowers” three years after the fact. And this was really tragic, this flop, one of the few movies I’ve ever been associated with that was truly all of a piece, with no nonsense and no camp about any portion of it. It was only the second work by the brilliant young Austrian writer/director Peter Ily Huemer, who divides his time between his native Vienna and his adopted New York, where he lives and works.
Huemer’s first work, the film noir “Kiss Daddy Good Night”, had been shot in New York and was just as much a success as “Dead Flowers”, made in Vienna. Financially speaking, let it be said, it was a failure. It stands today as a thoroughly fascinating modern retelling of the old Orpheus and Eurydice myth, transplante to the industrial outskirts of the city and its robust working class, a totally integrated work, in turns endearingly funny, raunchy, somber, spooky, and disturbing. Huemer, known as a man of understatement, is a thoughtful and indeed lovable “Mensch” of infinite patience and kindness, especially towards his chosen players. And with what care he chooses them, too. His casting sessions are famous for their thoroughness. Mine lasted well over half an hour and consisted mainly of thoughtful pauses and groping for the answers to his many searching questions, some of them personal, some seemingly irrelevant, many of them psychological: What animal would you like to be, and why? What would you do if a child of yours was in serious trouble/ mixed up with drugs/ killed in an accident? What would you do to try and prevent it, if possible? Have you any cruel impulses, surpressed or otherwise? Questions like that, a baffling, mentally stretching half-hour ... and then no word of the results for weeks.
In fact, I’d quite forgotten the whole incident when the agent handling it phoned and said I’d been cast as Mr. LeMont, a rich, powerful executive at the United Nations, in some way mixed up with arms smuggling. As a bonus, Mr. LeMont would speak in my own dulcet tones, Chicago-Deutsch and all, without being dubbed later by some low-Viennese kraut-head, as so often happens.
LeMont’s only daughter Alice is the Eurydice of the tale, who was killed in a traffic accident two years before and comes back mysteriously from the underworld to fall in love with the hero, or anti-hero, Alex. And never has Eurydice had a more unlikely Orpheus, laconic, rough-appearing, almost primitive, but with a huge heart and tender nature, by profession with the harrowing of hell with his shirttail hanging halfway out.
Alex lives with his dotty old grandmother (Tana Schanzara, who received an international prize for her delicious portrayal), a grandma who talks to herself when not addressing the image of her dead husband in his illuminated closet-shrine. Whenever she happens to stumble, out in her garden, she just has to lie there on her back like a tortoise, squealing and calling out until somebody, Alex usually, appears and helps her to her feet again.
Into this odd little household comes my daughter, Alice/Eurydice, whom Alex has picked up one night hitchhiking on the highway, bruised and soiled as if she’d been in an accident. This is a haunting performance by the American actress Kate Valk, whom in the idiotic way of moviemaking I have never ever met, while I was filming, she was onstage in New York.
Alice is a figure of mystery, and is already being stalked by a sinister network of agents from Hades, headed by a sadistic creep named Willy deVille, in mauve Liberace-type outfit and dark shades. The flight of the young pair, Alice must be returned to Hades whence she escaped, is packed with danger and excitement and ends up in a truly scary night-sequence in a shut-down zoo. There she gets separated from Alex and is abducted by deVille.
Now deeply in love, Alex breaks out in a desperate search which leads first to Alice’s father, who only compounds the mystery. And that’s where I come in, out of the butler’s pantry for once, and into a top position in the UNO-City-by-the-Danube. I’m first seen in the parking lot there, getting into my big expensive car to drive to my big expensive home in Grinzing. On the expressway I’m increasingly aware of Alex tailing me in his van. Once at my place, he gets himself zapped unconcious by a couple of goons in my employ – Blues Brothers types, only evil, and comes to my cellar where I’m enjoying his getting roughed up, that is, until he mentions his quest for Alice. At which, I get up and come forward to inform him that she has been dead these two years now, the victim of a traffic accident, which Alex, of course, finds incomprehensible. After a moment’s consideration, I order my gorillas to set him free.
LeMont had only a couple of scenes, but these were as meticulously staged and filmed as if it were a major role in a top-budget thriller. Peter guided me through them with great patience and understanding. For the interrogation in the cellar he took me step-by-step, phrase-by-phrase, until, speaking of my dead daughter, I was almost choked with emotion – this tough, amoral, affluent wheeler-and-dealer.
For the chase on the expressway, the traffic was blocked off so that I could race down the wrong way, for a more advantageous shot, the camera whirring away just at my right elbow and Peter directing me from the back seat: “Okay, Herbert, now look in the rearview mirror to see if he’s gaining on you – now speed up a bit – glance at the side mirror, speed up slightly again – shift in your seat – another glance in the mirror – excellent, Herbert, super! That’s it, CUT! Thank you very much!”
Alex’s quest culminates in a foggy rowboat-crossing of the Danube/River Styx – Huemer’s screenplay follows the old legend faithfully, and is studded with intriguing details like Alex meeting a dead pal, just recently killed in a train accident involving the express from Salzburg, the “Rosenkavalier”. He inquires how it was that Alex died – Alex tells him he’s only visiting. Then, in an unforgettable encounter with The Boss, who turns out to be a transsexual Bulgarian woman in a dark suit and boy’s haircut, he learns that, in order to get Alice freed again, someone else must die in her place ...
This little detail is neatly dispatched by dear old Granny, once Alex gets back to the other side.
A fresh viewing of our “Dead Flowers”-video (recorded off the air) convinced me that this is nothing short of a minor masterpiece which deserved a far happier fate than a few prizes and citations from scattered film festivals, followed by a week in a grotty little cinema in Vienna’s 9th district. There, except for a couple of teeny gigglers, my family and I were the only audience that dismal Saturday afternoon – after which it folded up its petals and crept into oblivion.
Some days later, wretchedly true to form, advertising posters began blossoming in streetscars and buses and on railway platforms – just one more example of too little/too late, as if purposely being sabotaged by the insensitive slobs in charge of promotion and distribution. No doubt they were already launched on something much more commercial, something reeking of sentimental schmaltz, but profitable. Peter’s only printed comment: “Da ist man schon einige Zeit angeschlagen – You can be pretty hard hit for a while after that.”
As for the ultimate fate of Alex and Alice, one can only hope there’ll come another oppurtunity some day to re-live this haunting and fascinating picture. Given half the chance it still has all the makings of a genuine cult-film.
during the heyday of their European concert tour, 1966, singing Rodgers, Bernstein, Copland, Verdi and Brahms.
Dead Flowers
By Herbert Eyre Moulton
(1927 - 2005)
“A lyrical film, a flop ...” So wrote the Austrian film magazine DIAGONALE about “Dead Flowers” three years after the fact. And this was really tragic, this flop, one of the few movies I’ve ever been associated with that was truly all of a piece, with no nonsense and no camp about any portion of it. It was only the second work by the brilliant young Austrian writer/director Peter Ily Huemer, who divides his time between his native Vienna and his adopted New York, where he lives and works.
Huemer’s first work, the film noir “Kiss Daddy Good Night”, had been shot in New York and was just as much a success as “Dead Flowers”, made in Vienna. Financially speaking, let it be said, it was a failure. It stands today as a thoroughly fascinating modern retelling of the old Orpheus and Eurydice myth, transplante to the industrial outskirts of the city and its robust working class, a totally integrated work, in turns endearingly funny, raunchy, somber, spooky, and disturbing. Huemer, known as a man of understatement, is a thoughtful and indeed lovable “Mensch” of infinite patience and kindness, especially towards his chosen players. And with what care he chooses them, too. His casting sessions are famous for their thoroughness. Mine lasted well over half an hour and consisted mainly of thoughtful pauses and groping for the answers to his many searching questions, some of them personal, some seemingly irrelevant, many of them psychological: What animal would you like to be, and why? What would you do if a child of yours was in serious trouble/ mixed up with drugs/ killed in an accident? What would you do to try and prevent it, if possible? Have you any cruel impulses, surpressed or otherwise? Questions like that, a baffling, mentally stretching half-hour ... and then no word of the results for weeks.
In fact, I’d quite forgotten the whole incident when the agent handling it phoned and said I’d been cast as Mr. LeMont, a rich, powerful executive at the United Nations, in some way mixed up with arms smuggling. As a bonus, Mr. LeMont would speak in my own dulcet tones, Chicago-Deutsch and all, without being dubbed later by some low-Viennese kraut-head, as so often happens.
LeMont’s only daughter Alice is the Eurydice of the tale, who was killed in a traffic accident two years before and comes back mysteriously from the underworld to fall in love with the hero, or anti-hero, Alex. And never has Eurydice had a more unlikely Orpheus, laconic, rough-appearing, almost primitive, but with a huge heart and tender nature, by profession with the harrowing of hell with his shirttail hanging halfway out.
Alex lives with his dotty old grandmother (Tana Schanzara, who received an international prize for her delicious portrayal), a grandma who talks to herself when not addressing the image of her dead husband in his illuminated closet-shrine. Whenever she happens to stumble, out in her garden, she just has to lie there on her back like a tortoise, squealing and calling out until somebody, Alex usually, appears and helps her to her feet again.
Into this odd little household comes my daughter, Alice/Eurydice, whom Alex has picked up one night hitchhiking on the highway, bruised and soiled as if she’d been in an accident. This is a haunting performance by the American actress Kate Valk, whom in the idiotic way of moviemaking I have never ever met, while I was filming, she was onstage in New York.
Alice is a figure of mystery, and is already being stalked by a sinister network of agents from Hades, headed by a sadistic creep named Willy deVille, in mauve Liberace-type outfit and dark shades. The flight of the young pair, Alice must be returned to Hades whence she escaped, is packed with danger and excitement and ends up in a truly scary night-sequence in a shut-down zoo. There she gets separated from Alex and is abducted by deVille.
Now deeply in love, Alex breaks out in a desperate search which leads first to Alice’s father, who only compounds the mystery. And that’s where I come in, out of the butler’s pantry for once, and into a top position in the UNO-City-by-the-Danube. I’m first seen in the parking lot there, getting into my big expensive car to drive to my big expensive home in Grinzing. On the expressway I’m increasingly aware of Alex tailing me in his van. Once at my place, he gets himself zapped unconcious by a couple of goons in my employ – Blues Brothers types, only evil, and comes to my cellar where I’m enjoying his getting roughed up, that is, until he mentions his quest for Alice. At which, I get up and come forward to inform him that she has been dead these two years now, the victim of a traffic accident, which Alex, of course, finds incomprehensible. After a moment’s consideration, I order my gorillas to set him free.
LeMont had only a couple of scenes, but these were as meticulously staged and filmed as if it were a major role in a top-budget thriller. Peter guided me through them with great patience and understanding. For the interrogation in the cellar he took me step-by-step, phrase-by-phrase, until, speaking of my dead daughter, I was almost choked with emotion – this tough, amoral, affluent wheeler-and-dealer.
For the chase on the expressway, the traffic was blocked off so that I could race down the wrong way, for a more advantageous shot, the camera whirring away just at my right elbow and Peter directing me from the back seat: “Okay, Herbert, now look in the rearview mirror to see if he’s gaining on you – now speed up a bit – glance at the side mirror, speed up slightly again – shift in your seat – another glance in the mirror – excellent, Herbert, super! That’s it, CUT! Thank you very much!”
Alex’s quest culminates in a foggy rowboat-crossing of the Danube/River Styx – Huemer’s screenplay follows the old legend faithfully, and is studded with intriguing details like Alex meeting a dead pal, just recently killed in a train accident involving the express from Salzburg, the “Rosenkavalier”. He inquires how it was that Alex died – Alex tells him he’s only visiting. Then, in an unforgettable encounter with The Boss, who turns out to be a transsexual Bulgarian woman in a dark suit and boy’s haircut, he learns that, in order to get Alice freed again, someone else must die in her place ...
This little detail is neatly dispatched by dear old Granny, once Alex gets back to the other side.
A fresh viewing of our “Dead Flowers”-video (recorded off the air) convinced me that this is nothing short of a minor masterpiece which deserved a far happier fate than a few prizes and citations from scattered film festivals, followed by a week in a grotty little cinema in Vienna’s 9th district. There, except for a couple of teeny gigglers, my family and I were the only audience that dismal Saturday afternoon – after which it folded up its petals and crept into oblivion.
Some days later, wretchedly true to form, advertising posters began blossoming in streetscars and buses and on railway platforms – just one more example of too little/too late, as if purposely being sabotaged by the insensitive slobs in charge of promotion and distribution. No doubt they were already launched on something much more commercial, something reeking of sentimental schmaltz, but profitable. Peter’s only printed comment: “Da ist man schon einige Zeit angeschlagen – You can be pretty hard hit for a while after that.”
As for the ultimate fate of Alex and Alice, one can only hope there’ll come another oppurtunity some day to re-live this haunting and fascinating picture. Given half the chance it still has all the makings of a genuine cult-film.
A Fellow MEETS His DAD Way BEFORE He HAD Kids
A look at The BACK TO THE FUTURE-Trilogy
By Charles E.J. Moulton
Small town, America. 1955. A young boy saves his friend from a car accident, who thanks him by simply jumping on his bike and driving off into the sunset.
Sounds like pure soap opera, fifties style.
Yes, but with a twist: the hero is his son and they are both 17 years old.
Huh? What was that? 17? Both?
Rewind the tape. Marty McFly’s friend, the much older Doc Brown, has invented a time machine with the help of plutonium-smuggling Libyans. During a demonstration, Marty McFly is accidentally catapulted thirty years back to a time when his parents were in high school.
Oops.
The only problem is that he never expected to stand in their way. He interrupted with his parent’s first meeting and now Marty has to get his folks back together so he can be born.
At first, it doesn’t work at all. His Dad is a complete wimp, mobbed by the local bully Biff, and his own mom is in love with… Marty. So it takes a whole lot of courage and pain and playing of love songs on proms to get them back together before he can by the help of a lightning bolt go back to the future, only to find out that he changed his parents: his formerly drunk loser parents are now prime yuppies out for tennis speaking like rich middle-class people. Who are better people? Losers or phoneys? Is the loser more honest because he lost?
Wait a minute, there is more. In the second picture, old Doc Brown travels back from the future, 2015, to tell Marty and his girl that their kids are in trouble. They go there to save them, but Marty is tempted by the dark side of the force (sorry, Mr. Lucas). He is chased on a hovering skateboard by Biff’s grandchild when he buys an almanac that reveals all sport results of the later half of the 20th century. Doc prevents him from taking it back with him, but evil things lurk in the minds of men and the entire story becomes a very Shakespearian parody.
Old Biff steals the book and takes the time vehicle back to the past and gives himself this desirable object. The result is a 1985 Hill Valley Gambling Hell with Biff as the rich devil replacing his murdered father. They accordingly go back to the past to fix this present in the past. They do succeed, run into themselves a couple of times, before burning the book and saving the future.
You think this is over? Not yet. Doc’s car was struck by lightning and sent back to 1885. Marty has to travel back there, against the Doc’s wishes, because he finds out that the Doc was murdered by Biff’s great grandfather. He does so, in the process letting Indians rip the fuel line. The result is that he meets his ancestors, his grandpa even pees on him as a baby, in order to find a home in his own town a hundred years back in time. He gets into a fight with Biff’s grandpa Buford “Mad Dog” Tannen (“I hate that name!”), who challenges him to a duel. The Doc, however, has fallen in love and after the victorious duel he elopes with his Miss Clara Clayton, whilst Marty pushes up to high velocity by a steam train into the present.
But there is hope yet.
Doc returns with a new invention, prompted by the hover board from the future.
He is now the owner of a time steam train.
Sound like fun? Yes. It is. Fast, furious and funny.
But let’s look a little behind the scenes, shall we now? Having read two of Michael J. Fox’s biographies, I am a little smarter. He tells us that his now very evident Parkinson’s disease comes from an accident in the hanging scene of the third movie. “Accidents are temporary, film is forever.” These were his exact words.
However, we must admire a man who so bravely left Canada to become a star and decided to work day and night on two projects while doing the movie.
What about the characters in the film?
All Marty’s family are losers made winners in the movies, through Marty’s timely doing. Biff’s family are winners made losers in the movies, also through Marty’s doing. There is thus a reverse side to the movies, with Marty undoing ill and doing well. Is it too bad that Marty and Doc are not together at the end? Yes. But Doc was always lonely and now has a family in the only place he ever really truly loved: the old west.
Looking at them as a whole, with all of their reversible fun of characters meeting themselves and changing lives, the most interesting part of it is still how the characters can change personality wise according to circumstance and situation.
Marty’s mother is a drunken housewife who, completely and utterly resigned to a dull poor life, really has given up. But because of loving a man of heroics (Dad prompted by Marty) she turns into the fit, self secure and hip mother in 1985. The hip mother, however, turns into a rich, silicon pumped and frustrated wife in the alternate reality just because wealthy Biff murdered her husband and married her.
Biff is a pure sleaze, who has been used to winning all his life and therefore does the same thing he did in the fifties and even gets away with it because no one tells him otherwise. But the fact that Marty’s father has the guts to retaliate in 1955 he turns Biff into a meek and shy car mechanic thirty years later.
Receiving the book from himself in 1955, moreover, turns him into the evil man we all love to hate.
Marty’s father is a shy loser in 1985 because no one ever told him he was a capable man. But by receiving the right courage he dares to take the risk he needs and becomes a successful author and eventually a happy, rich grandpa.
Marty’s problem is that he never lets anyone call him coward. And so he gets into an accident in 1985 that ruins his life. But by the actual intervention of Doc he changes his mind and is able to not get into the accident and thereby make himself a future with his girl without being a loser.
TIME magazine was once quoted as saying that these films are like a fugue improvising on the theme of the previous movies.
Interesting point, this. A man might change his life if he makes the right decisions. What are the right decisions? Being strong and feeling strong. Having the guts to say: “Man, I am so talented. I can handle this, all right.”
Marty travels close to hundred and fifty years in time to find out that it isn’t the main thing to defend yourself against people who judge you ignorantly.
Defending yourself to save your soul from ignorance might be the main thing.
The main thing is not holding on to your past mistakes and letting your intuition lead the way. Is that what Marty does? Time is illusive and strange and maybe that is what the movies want to teach us. That going on with your life and working from the moment is the most important thing. Don’t keep reminding yourself that you did a mistake. Make sure that you don’t make the mistake again. Don’t be a bully like Biff or as quick in the draw as Marty. Be as good as you possibly can be. Sail through time in your own speed and with your own elegance and eloquence. Don’t be intimidated by past mistakes.
Don’t be so sure that you cannot learn anything from a movie just because pop corn and coke is labeled on the cover of a motion picture. Surprising truths can be found at the backsides of cereal cartons. This little extravaganza about time tells us that hotheads do well in not following grudges.
BACK TO THE FUTURE:
Three Motion Pictures
(© 1985, 1989, 1990)
Director: Robert Zemeckis
Music: Alan Silvestri
Actors: Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Lea Thompson, Crispin Glover, Thomas F.Wilson, James Tolkan;
Producer: Steven Spielberg.
Creative Non-Fiction can also be poetic, as Alexandra H. Rodrigues points out in this poem.
We can redefine literature by asking ourselves the eternal question what literature is,
what words are, what poetry is.
Music can be poetic, stories can be creative,
and we certainly know that many authors write their stories with their own lives in mind.
So enjoy this poetic painting by Alexandra.
The Creativity Webzine is the journal
where all the arts meet.
Redefine the borders.
Enjoy the eternal moment.
The Painting
By Alexandra H. Rodrigues
My painting won first prize
Yet my smile was just a disguise.
My sister had sat for this sample
During her very last week
As I, on the canvas, each line or
Dimple to capture did seek.
Only in her thirties, my sister was
Certainly, much too young
To be already from this earth gone.
During the show, I was offered good money
For the portrait of her
It made no impression, I swear.
Being a very close-knit family
For our sister we opened a kind of a shrine
I visited often, when no one else around
In the painting, she was mine and peace I found.
The portrait exuberated life and showed me a way
With her, who I loved so much, to stay.
A photo is great, also as memory can be seen
But paint strokes on canvas show how she has been
Executed while she still did breathe
Not just ink that quickly on paper would freeze
Causing minute changes in her pose
When fatigue to exhaustion rose.
Before my sister’s death, I viewed my talent an art
Now I thank destiny that of me it became part.
It is the memory of the time spent on the strokes
That now a different intimacy with her evokes.
Why I just wrote this, I really don’t know
Never did I have a brother or sister to show.
Excerpts from
Christopher Columbus'
Log
1492 A.D.
IN THE NAME OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST
Whereas, Most Christian, High, Excellent, and Powerful Princes, King and Queen of Spain and of the Islands of the Sea, our Sovereigns, this present year 1492, after your Highnesses had terminated the war with the Moors reigning in Europe, the same having been brought to an end in the great city of Granada, where on the second day of January, this present year, I saw the royal banners of your Highnesses planted by force of arms upon the towers of the Alhambra, which is the fortress of that city, and saw the Moorish king come out at the gate of the city and kiss the hands of your Highnesses, and of the Prince my Sovereign; and in the present month, in consequence of the information which I had given your Highnesses respecting the countries of India and of a Prince, called Great Can, which in our language signifies King of Kings, how, at many times he, and his predecessors had sent to Rome soliciting instructors who might teach him our holy faith, and the holy Father had never granted his request, whereby great numbers of people were lost, believing in idolatry and doctrines of perdition. Your Highnesses, as Catholic Christians, and princes who love and promote the holy Christian faith, and are enemies of the doctrine of Mahomet, and of all idolatry and heresy, determined to send me, Christopher Columbus, to the above-mentioned countries of India, to see the said princes, people, and territories, and to learn their disposition and the proper method of converting them to our holy faith; and furthermore directed that I should not proceed by land to the East, as is customary, but by a Westerly route, in which direction we have hitherto no certain evidence that any one has gone. So after having expelled the Jews from your dominions, your Highnesses, in the same month of January, ordered me to proceed with a sufficient armament to the said regions of India, and for that purpose granted me great favors, and ennobled me that thenceforth I might call myself Don, and be High Admiral of the Sea, and perpetual Viceroy and Governor in all the islands and continents which I might discover and acquire, or which may hereafter he discovered and acquired in the ocean; and that this dignity should be inherited by my eldest son, and thus descend from degree to degree forever.
Hereupon I left the city of Granada, on Saturday, the twelfth day of May, 1492, and proceeded to Palos, a seaport, where I armed three vessels, very fit for such an enterprise, and having provided myself with abundance of stores and seamen, I set sail from the port, on Friday, the third of August, half an hour before sunrise, and steered for the Canary Islands of your Highnesses which are in the said ocean, thence to take my departure and proceed till I arrived at the Indies, and perform the embassy of your Highnesses to the Princes there, and discharge the orders given me. For this purpose I determined to keep an account of the voyage, and to write down punctually every thing we performed or saw from day to day, as will hereafter appear. Moreover, Sovereign Princes, besides describing every night the occurrences of the day, and every day those of the preceding night, I intend to draw up a nautical chart, which shall contain the several parts of the ocean and land in their proper situations; and also to compose a book to represent the whole by picture with latitudes and longitudes, on all which accounts it behooves me to abstain from my sleep, and make many trials in navigation, which things will demand much labor.
Friday, 3 August 1492. Set sail from the bar of Saltes at 8 o'clock, and proceeded with a strong breeze till sunset, sixty miles or fifteen leagues south, afterwards southwest and south by west, which is the direction of the Canaries.
Monday, 6 August. The rudder of the caravel Pinta became loose, being broken or unshipped. It was believed that this happened by the contrivance of Gomez Rascon and Christopher Quintero, who were on board the caravel, because they disliked the voyage. The Admiral says he had found them in an unfavorable disposition before setting out. He was in much anxiety at not being able to afford any assistance in this case, but says that it somewhat quieted his apprehensions to know that Martin Alonzo Pinzon, Captain of the Pinta, was a man of courage and capacity. Made a progress, day and night, of twenty-nine leagues.
Thursday, 9 August. The Admiral did not succeed in reaching the island of Gomera till Sunday night. Martin Alonzo remained at Grand Canary by command of the Admiral, he being unable to keep the other vessels company. The Admiral afterwards returned to Grand Canary, and there with much labor repaired the Pinta, being assisted by Martin Alonzo and the others; finally they sailed to Gomera. They saw a great eruption of names from the Peak of Teneriffe, a lofty mountain. The Pinta, which before had carried latine sails, they altered and made her square-rigged. Returned to Gomera, Sunday, 2 September, with the Pinta repaired.
The Admiral says that he was assured by many respectable Spaniards, inhabitants of the island of Ferro, who were at Gomera with Dona Inez Peraza, mother of Guillen Peraza, afterwards first Count of Gomera, that every year they saw land to the west of the Canaries; and others of Gomera affirmed the same with the like assurances. The Admiral here says that he remembers, while he was in Portugal, in 1484, there came a person to the King from the island of Madeira, soliciting for a vessel to go in quest of land, which he affirmed he saw every year, and always of the same appearance. He also says that he remembers the same was said by the inhabitants of the Azores and described as in a similar direction, and of the same shape and size. Having taken in food, water, meat and other provisions, which had been provided by the men which he left ashore on departing for Grand Canary to repair the Pinta, the Admiral took his final departure from Gomera with the three vessels on Thursday, 6 September.
Sunday, 9 September. Sailed this day nineteen leagues, and determined to count less than the true number, that the crew might not be dismayed if the voyage should prove long. In the night sailed one hundred and twenty miles, at the rate of ten miles an hour, which make thirty leagues. The sailors steered badly, causing the vessels to fall to leeward toward the northeast, for which the Admiral reprimanded them repeatedly.
Monday, 10 September. This day and night sailed sixty leagues, at the rate of ten miles an hour, which are two leagues and a half. Reckoned only forty-eight leagues, that the men might not be terrified if they should be long upon the voyage.
Tuesday, 11 September. Steered their course west and sailed above twenty leagues; saw a large fragment of the mast of a vessel, apparently of a hundred and twenty tons, but could not pick it up. In the night sailed about twenty leagues, and reckoned only sixteen, for the cause above stated.
Friday, 14 September. Steered this day and night west twenty leagues; reckoned somewhat less. The crew of the Nina stated that they had seen a grajao, and a tropic bird, or water-wagtail, which birds never go farther than twenty-five leagues from the land.
Sunday, 16 September. Sailed day and night, west thirty-nine leagues, and reckoned only thirty-six. Some clouds arose and it drizzled. The Admiral here says that from this time they experienced very pleasant weather, and that the mornings were most delightful, wanting nothing but the melody of the nightingales. He compares the weather to that of Andalusia in April. Here they began to meet with large patches of weeds very green, and which appeared to have been recently washed away from the land; on which account they all judged themselves to be near some island, though not a continent, according to the opinion of the Admiral, who says, "the continent we shall find further ahead."
Monday, 17 September. Steered west and sailed, day and night, above fifty leagues; wrote down only forty-seven; the current favored them. They saw a great deal of weed which proved to be rockweed, it came from the west and they met with it very frequently. They were of opinion that land was near. The pilots took the sun's amplitude, and found that the needles varied to the northwest a whole point of the compass; the seamen were terrified, and dismayed without saying why. The Admiral discovered the cause, and ordered them to take the amplitude again the next morning, when they found that the needles were true; the cause was that the star moved from its place, while the needles remained stationary. At dawn they saw many more weeds, apparently river weeds, and among them a live crab, which the Admiral kept, and says that these are sure signs of land, being never found eighty leagues out at sea. They found the sea-water less salt since they left the Canaries, and the air more mild. They were all very cheerful, and strove which vessel should outsail the others, and be the first to discover land; they saw many tunnies, and the crew of the Nina killed one. The Admiral here says that these signs were from the west, "where I hope that high God in whose hand is all victory will speedily direct us to land." This morning he says he saw a white bird called a water- wagtail, or tropic bird, which does not sleep at sea.
19 September. Continued on, and sailed, day and night, twenty- five leagues, experiencing a calm. Wrote down twenty-two. This day at ten o'clock a pelican came on board, and in the evening another; these birds are not accustomed to go twenty leagues from land. It drizzled without wind, which is a sure sign of land. The Admiral was unwilling to remain here, beating about in search of land, but he held it for certain that there were islands to the north and south, which in fact was the case and he was sailing in the midst of them. His wish was to proceed on to the Indies, having such fair weather, for if it please God, as the Admiral says, we shall examine these parts upon our return. Here the pilots found their places upon the chart: the reckoning of the Nina made her four hundred and forty leagues distant from the Canaries, that of the Pinta four hundred and twenty, that of the Admiral four hundred.
Thursday, 20 September. Steered west by north, varying with alternate changes of the wind and calms; made seven or eight leagues' progress. Two pelicans came on board, and afterwards another,--a sign of the neighborhood of land. Saw large quantities of weeds today, though none was observed yesterday. Caught a bird similar to a grajao; it was a river and not a marine bird, with feet like those of a gull. Towards night two or three land birds came to the ship, singing; they disappeared before sunrise. Afterwards saw a pelican coming from west- northwest and flying to the southwest; an evidence of land to the westward, as these birds sleep on shore, and go to sea in the morning in search of food, never proceeding twenty leagues from the land.
Friday, 21 September. Most of the day calm, afterwards a little wind. Steered their course day and night, sailing less than thirteen leagues. In the morning found such abundance of weeds that the ocean seemed to be covered with them; they came from the west. Saw a pelican; the sea smooth as a river, and the finest air in the world. Saw a whale, an indication of land, as they always keep near the coast.
Saturday, 22 September. Steered about west-northwest varying their course, and making thirty leagues' progress. Saw few weeds. Some pardelas were seen, and another bird. The Admiral here says "this headwind was very necessary to me, for my crew had grown much alarmed, dreading that they never should meet in these seas with a fair wind to return to Spain." Part of the day saw no weeds, afterwards great plenty of it.
Sunday, 23 September. Sailed northwest and northwest by north and at times west nearly twenty-two leagues. Saw a turtle dove, a pelican, a river bird, and other white fowl;--weeds in abundance with crabs among them. The sea being smooth and tranquil, the sailors murmured, saying that they had got into smooth water, where it would never blow to carry them back to Spain; but afterwards the sea rose without wind, which astonished them. The Admiral says on this occasion "the rising of the sea was very favorable to me, as it happened formerly to Moses when he led the Jews from Egypt."
Tuesday, 25 September. Very calm this day; afterwards the wind rose. Continued their course west till night. The Admiral held a conversation with Martin Alonzo Pinzon, captain of the Pinta, respecting a chart which the Admiral had sent him three days before, in which it appears he had marked down certain islands in that sea; Martin Alonzo was of opinion that they were in their neighborhood, and the Admiral replied that he thought the same, but as they had not met with them, it must have been owing to the currents which had carried them to the northeast and that they had not made such progress as the pilots stated. The Admiral directed him to return the chart, when he traced their course upon it in presence of the pilot and sailors.
At sunset Martin Alonzo called out with great joy from his vessel that he saw land, and demanded of the Admiral a reward for his intelligence. The Admiral says, when he heard him declare this, he fell on his knees and returned thanks to God, and Martin Alonzo with his crew repeated Gloria in excelsis Deo, as did the crew of the Admiral. Those on board the Nina ascended the rigging, and all declared they saw land. The Admiral also thought it was land, and about twenty-five leagues distant. They remained all night repeating these affirmations, and the Admiral ordered their course to be shifted from west to southwest where the land appeared to lie. They sailed that day four leagues and a half west and in the night seventeen leagues southwest, in all twenty-one and a half: told the crew thirteen leagues, making it a point to keep them from knowing how far they had sailed; in this manner two reckonings were kept, the shorter one falsified, and the other being the true account. The sea was very smooth and many of the sailors went in it to bathe, saw many dories and other fish.
Wednesday, 26 September. Continued their course west till the afternoon, then southwest and discovered that what they had taken for land was nothing but clouds. Sailed, day and night, thirty- one leagues; reckoned to the crew twenty-four. The sea was like a river, the air soft and mild.
Sunday, 30 September. Continued their course west and sailed day and night in calms, fourteen leagues; reckoned eleven.--Four tropic birds came to the ship, which is a very clear sign of land, for so many birds of one sort together show that they are not straying about, having lost themselves. Twice, saw two pelicans; many weeds. The constellation called Las Gallardias, which at evening appeared in a westerly direction, was seen in the northeast the next morning, making no more progress in a night of nine hours, this was the case every night, as says the Admiral. At night the needles varied a point towards the northwest, in the morning they were true, by which it appears that the polar star moves, like the others, and the needles are always right.
Monday, 1 October. Continued their course west and sailed twenty-five leagues; reckoned to the crew twenty. Experienced a heavy shower. The pilot of the Admiral began to fear this morning that they were five hundred and seventy-eight leagues west of the island of Ferro. The short reckoning which the Admiral showed his crew gave five hundred and eighty-four, but the true one which he kept to himself was seven hundred and seven leagues.
Saturday, 6 October. Continued their course west and sailed forty leagues day and night; reckoned to the crew thirty-three. This night Martin Alonzo gave it as his opinion that they had better steer from west to southwest. The Admiral thought from this that Martin Alonzo did not wish to proceed onward to Cipango; but he considered it best to keep on his course, as he should probably reach the land sooner in that direction, preferring to visit the continent first, and then the islands.
Sunday, 7 October. Continued their course west and sailed twelve miles an hour, for two hours, then eight miles an hour. Sailed till an hour after sunrise, twenty-three leagues; reckoned to the crew eighteen. At sunrise the caravel Nina, who kept ahead on account of her swiftness in sailing, while all the vessels were striving to outsail one another, and gain the reward promised by the King and Queen by first discovering land--hoisted a flag at her mast head, and fired a lombarda, as a signal that she had discovered land, for the Admiral had given orders to that effect. He had also ordered that the ships should keep in close company at sunrise and sunset, as the air was more favorable at those times for seeing at a distance. Towards evening seeing nothing of the land which the Nina had made signals for, and observing large flocks of birds coming from the North and making for the southwest, whereby it was rendered probable that they were either going to land to pass the night, or abandoning the countries of the north, on account of the approaching winter, he determined to alter his course, knowing also that the Portuguese had discovered most of the islands they possessed by attending to the flight of birds. The Admiral accordingly shifted his course from west to west-southwest, with a resolution to continue two days ill that direction. This was done about an hour after sunset. Sailed in the night nearly five leagues, and twenty-three in the day. In all twenty-eight.
Monday, 8 October. Steered west-southwest and sailed day and night eleven or twelve leagues; at times during the night, fifteen miles an hour, if the account can be depended upon. Found the sea like the river at Seville, "thanks to God," says the Admiral. The air soft as that of Seville in April, and so fragrant that it was delicious to breathe it. The weeds appeared very fresh. Many land birds, one of which they took, flying towards the southwest; also grajaos, ducks, and a pelican were seen.
Tuesday, 9 October. Sailed southwest five leagues, when the wind changed, and they stood west by north four leagues. Sailed in the whole day and night, twenty leagues and a half; reckoned to the crew seventeen. All night heard birds passing.
Wednesday, 10 October. Steered west-southwest and sailed at times ten miles an hour, at others twelve, and at others, seven; day and night made fifty-nine leagues' progress; reckoned to the crew but forty-four. Here the men lost all patience, and complained of the length of the voyage, but the Admiral encouraged them in the best manner he could, representing the profits they were about to acquire, and adding that it was to no purpose to complain, having come so far, they had nothing to do but continue on to the Indies, till with the help of our Lord, they should arrive there.
Thursday, 11 October. Steered west-southwest; and encountered a heavier sea than they had met with before in the whole voyage. Saw pardelas and a green rush near the vessel. The crew of the Pinta saw a cane and a log; they also picked up a stick which appeared to have been carved with an iron tool, a piece of cane, a plant which grows on land, and a board. The crew of the Nina saw other signs of land, and a stalk loaded with rose berries. These signs encouraged them, and they all grew cheerful. Sailed this day till sunset, twenty-seven leagues.
After sunset steered their original course west and sailed twelve miles an hour till two hours after midnight, going ninety miles, which are twenty-two leagues and a half; and as the Pinta was the swiftest sailer, and kept ahead of the Admiral, she discovered land and made the signals which had been ordered. The land was first seen by a sailor called Rodrigo de Triana, although the Admiral at ten o'clock that evening standing on the quarter-deck saw a light, but so small a body that he could not affirm it to be land; calling to Pero Gutierrez, groom of the King's wardrobe, he told him he saw a light, and bid him look that way, which he did and saw it; he did the same to Rodrigo Sanchez of Segovia, whom the King and Queen had sent with the squadron as comptroller, but he was unable to see it from his situation. The Admiral again perceived it once or twice, appearing like the light of a wax candle moving up and down, which some thought an indication of land. But the Admiral held it for certain that land was near; for which reason, after they had said the Salve which the seamen are accustomed to repeat and chant after their fashion, the Admiral directed them to keep a strict watch upon the forecastle and look out diligently for land, and to him who should first discover it he promised a silken jacket, besides the reward which the King and Queen had offered, which was an annuity of ten thousand maravedis. At two o'clock in the morning the land was discovered, at two leagues' distance; they took in sail and remained under the square-sail lying to till day, which was Friday, when they found themselves near a small island, one of the Lucayos, called in the Indian language Guanahani. Presently they descried people, naked, and the Admiral landed in the boat, which was armed, along with Martin Alonzo Pinzon, and Vincent Yanez his brother, captain of the Nina. The Admiral bore the royal standard, and the two captains each a banner of the Green Cross, which all the ships had carried; this contained the initials of the names of the King and Queen each side of the cross, and a crown over each letter Arrived on shore, they saw trees very green many streams of water, and diverse sorts of fruits. The Admiral called upon the two Captains, and the rest of the crew who landed, as also to Rodrigo de Escovedo notary of the fleet, and Rodrigo Sanchez, of Segovia, to bear witness that he before all others took possession (as in fact he did) of that island for the King and Queen his sovereigns, making the requisite declarations, which are more at large set down here in writing. Numbers of the people of the island straightway collected together. Here follow the precise words of the Admiral: "As I saw that they were very friendly to us, and perceived that they could be much more easily converted to our holy faith by gentle means than by force, I presented them with some red caps, and strings of beads to wear upon the neck, and many other trifles of small value, wherewith they were much delighted, and became wonderfully attached to us. Afterwards they came swimming to the boats, bringing parrots, balls of cotton thread, javelins, and many other things which they exchanged for articles we gave them, such as glass beads, and hawk's bells; which trade was carried on with the utmost good will. But they seemed on the whole to me, to be a very poor people. They all go completely naked, even the women, though I saw but one girl. All whom I saw were young, not above thirty years of age, well made, with fine shapes and faces; their hair short, and coarse like that of a horse's tail, combed toward the forehead, except a small portion which they suffer to hang down behind, and never cut. Some paint themselves with black, which makes them appear like those of the Canaries, neither black nor white; others with white, others with red, and others with such colors as they can find. Some paint the face, and some the whole body; others only the eyes, and others the nose. Weapons they have none, nor are acquainted with them, for I showed them swords which they grasped by the blades, and cut themselves through ignorance. They have no iron, their javelins being without it, and nothing more than sticks, though some have fish-bones or other things at the ends. They are all of a good size and stature, and handsomely formed. I saw some with scars of wounds upon their bodies, and demanded by signs the of them; they answered me in the same way, that there came people from the other islands in the neighborhood who endeavored to make prisoners of them, and they defended themselves. I thought then, and still believe, that these were from the continent. It appears to me, that the people are ingenious, and would be good servants and I am of opinion that they would very readily become Christians, as they appear to have no religion. They very quickly learn such words as are spoken to them. If it please our Lord, I intend at my return to carry home six of them to your Highnesses, that they may learn our language. I saw no beasts in the island, nor any sort of animals except parrots." These are the words of the Admiral.
Gods and Heroes Among Us
A True Story of Spiritual Awakening and Meaning
By Chris Aldridge
The Greek gods are real, and human determination is not something that can be easily conquered. The gods who are great of Olympus and rule all, also guide us to achievement, for they wish us to be a great and prosperous people, not live in self-pity or loathing at the belief that we are somehow inherently broken. These things are evident to me, and have been for years. The story of my wife and son is but one way I tell the truth of these events from a belief system that so many have forgotten throughout the centuries of destruction and persecution of pagans and polytheists. While the ancient Greek temples are in ruins across the Hellenic landscape, the gods they honor are not. They are as real today, for they are not statues or tall columns that melt in the fires of religious hatred, rot away with the winds of time, or deteriorate with the pounding of continuous downpours, but gods who live eternally in the universe with ultimate authority.
Little did I know in my much younger days, this would be a great revelation for me in later life, because like most people in the south, I was born and raised Christian, particularly southern baptist and all of its hell-fire preaching, taught that there is only one god, and I’d go to hell should I believe otherwise. I sometimes remember being taught to fear the devil, his eternal punishment of fire, and the assaults of demons more than to actually love Jesus. This terror was drilled into my every brain cell and thought. But this indoctrination and fear would not be able to hold me back from my true spiritual calling. This is testimony, I think, to the validity of my life experiences, because in order for someone to let go of a lifetime of fear successfully and abandon what they have known their whole life as religion, spirituality and truth, something profound must take place, beyond the experiences of normality. What child born in the late 20th Century of American Christianity would have possibly thought they would grow up to follow the old Greek gods? Certainly not me at the time, but life’s roads are as nearsighted as they are curvy.
My first official taste of ancient Greece came in high school when my English class studied Homer’s classic The Odyssey. I was ever-fascinated with the ancient gods, culture, and the timeless adventures of noble and brave Odysseus. I even decided to dress like him one day during high school spirit week to honor “Hero Day.” Many others dressed in military outfits, because we were just coming out of the September 11th attacks, but I took up the ancient Greek robes of the famed king of Ithaca. Certainly, it’s not to say that I wasn’t a patriot. I simply didn’t want to be the same as everyone else. I had always been my own person. Odysseus was a hero to me as he was to the ancient Hellenes.
Then I saw the movie Troy for the first time in 2005, and I began to lean more toward the interest in actual Greek religious and spiritual belief; not just the captivation of mythology. In 2009, I met my wife Anastasia, and together we had an awesome spiritual experience where the Greek gods Athena and Apollo saved us from a very bad haunting that our new apartment had turned up, after all other prayers received no response. The next morning, Anastasia and I officially and fully converted to Greek Polytheism.
Growing up in Thomasville, North Carolina, I never thought I would marry a girl from the Land of Lincoln. I was a proud southerner and wanted everything in my life at one point to remain that way, but then I met Anastasia. We had similar youtube channels and interacted through discussions with one another. She fascinated me with her intelligence, so much so that I regularly messaged and asked her for advice in debates I was having with people on the website. The more we talked, the more we fell into intense passion with one another, even escalating to the point of seeing ourselves together in dreams. Without ever having met me in real life and living nearly a thousand miles away in Chicago at the time, Anastasia was able to tell me precise details about the inside of my home through a dream she had. It was very compelling evidence that divinity was at play in our relationship.
She would journey a seemingly endless amount of miles to visit me on a regular basis. Sometimes, she spent more time on the road than with me, but each moment together was worth it to the both of us entirely. She was the ultimate road warrior with her ice coffee and beat-up red car. It probably wasn’t the safest to drive straight through for twelve to fourteen hours, but her desire for me simply could not be frightened or discouraged. We fell instantly in love, and spent our days together frolicking around the local towns. It was as if all was right with our world. I enjoyed being with her so much that it became harder to let go of her each time. I simply cried as she pulled away and left for Illinois.
I had other women trying for my hand at the time, but I decided to choose the most dedicated, and nothing fulfilled that requirement more than the cute little northern girl who was willing to come so far just to be with me consistently, even for a short amount of time. Being that I had experienced many girls in my past, I knew how to spot commitment as opposed to a lack thereof. None of the women in my life had ever demonstrated a willingness to even cross the street for me, but Anastasia was prepared to go any distance. I knew that if I wanted a serious, long-lasting relationship, here was the opportunity.
The last time she ventured down toward the summer of that year, she made me promise to never let her leave again. I knew that if I truly loved her, now was the time to make the ultimate decision. Needless to say, my grandmother who I lived with at the time did not approve of our relations, nor did her own parents. She and I were complete strangers to the other family. So I chose to take the chance of being homeless for a while than to live without the love of my life. I packed up my things and we left, bound for wherever the North Carolina roads would take us. My grandparents who were supposed to have cared for me didn’t even bother to know me at that point. They did not care at all that I had nowhere to go. I felt so abandoned and alienated, like I had never actually had a place in that family at all. Fortunately, Anastasia was able to find a job within a week, which enabled us to obtain our first apartment that summer in High Point.
We literally ran away together. Many may only dream of such a fairy tale, but we lived it in a basic sense, and survived often on just love, sometimes sitting on our clothes or sleeping on an air mattress, and eating chicken and rice every night. It wasn’t always the glorious story of freedom that poets make it, as we basically only had four walls, but we were still as happy as those who had it all. It was one of the most joyous times of our lives. We spent the summer watching new movies, traveling the area and visiting wonderful and memorable Pagan shops as much as our limited funds would allow, and swimming in the pool of the apartment complex which usually welcomed us as its only attendants.
As the year drew to a close, my son was conceived and I was very proud to be a father. I thought it would be a wonderful, exciting adventure, but big problems began occurring within the ultrasounds at early stages. Judging by the readings, they feared he would have Down Syndrome or Cystic Fibrosis. My wife was visibly devastated, and no one in the doctor’s office seemed to care the least. No one comforted her except me. They gave us the option of abortion, but we refused. We decided that we would never give up on our child, just as we had never given up on each other.
In June 2010, my wife’s blood pressure skyrocketed to stroke level because of pregnancy complications, and Gryphon Maximus Aldridge had to be delivered at 24 weeks on June 4th and placed in the NICU at Forsyth Medical Center in Winston Salem, North Carolina. Fortunately, the doctors successfully stabilized our son, and he had none of the problems his other doctors had previously feared. Had we aborted him, we would have done so entirely on false grounds. However, that did not change the fact that he now had to face an entirely new set of problems, ones that could end his life just as easily. There was still the risk that he would not make it out of the hospital alive. His chances of survival, even with all of the advanced medicine and technology they had, was only 50%, and around a 70% chance of basically being a vegetable or severely mentally disabled should he survive at all.
However, from the very start of his journey, we knew there was divine favor with him. He was born on the 4th, his incubator number was 4, and Anastasia’s discharge room number was 4444. I did not notice the signs offhand, but my wife, being the oracular woman she is, pointed them out. Four stands as the number of good fortune and prosperity, and the gods can send messages through signs and omens. I was astonished, knowing that it was not possible that all of these coexistent representations were all merely coincidences. When something happens enough, it ceases to be an accident. As Aristotle said, nature does nothing without use. All things have purpose and direction, from the strifeful relationship my wife and I started out in, to the birth of our son, all things happen for a reason, and more importantly, nature or the gods, intend purpose behind everything they push into this world. The universe, likewise, would also not have given us all of these consistent signs needlessly. We decided to listen to the gods, and take the lessons of the journey.
When his mother and I first visited him together in the NICU, I placed pictures of Athena, Apollo and Artemis on the windows of his incubator. Athena is a strong protective goddess and Apollo and Artemis help infants and children. Gryphon soon began to breathe on his own for a while without the help of a ventilator. The doctors were amazed. I realize now that what I saw was more than just my son taking the element that gives us all life, it was the presence of the gods there with him. He himself was also the strongest little fighter, so much will to live packed into his tiny body. Whatever ailments wanted to come his way, they were clearly in for a very hard time.
Each day looked better and better, no one willing to give up the fight. We all loved him far too much to give in to defeat, and his doctors worked round the clock to save his life. They are most certainly a kind of hero in themselves. When it came time for Anastasia to first feed him, she was told to not be worried if he only took a few sips, because that was to be expected. He took the whole bottle down. He was certainly earning his name of Maximus. Day by day, we watched our son grow, develop and progress without any real complications. They never even had to do any surgeries. It was clear, this baby’s life had purpose and meaning.
After being in the NICU for over one-hundred days, we finally got to take him home, growing to around five times his size at birth at the time of discharge. I pulled up in my Buick Park Ave with a carseat in the back for the first time in my life, ready to welcome in my first son. Never again would Anastasia and I have to enter those dim parking decks and walk to the NICU in fear that our son would be gone when we arrived, each step more worrisome than the last. No more would my wife have nightmares about him never being released and vanishing from our embrace. Gryphon was finally home.
Today, our son has surpassed his expectations. He is not the crippled, extremely disabled person as we previously feared. He can walk, run, laugh, play, eat, learn, and do basic things for himself. He does have a mild case of Cerebral Palsy in his legs, but it’s treatable and does not prevent him from moving. In Kindergarten, he even learned how to ride a tricycle. School remains one of his favorite activities, and his mother and I are gladly so because the great education and assistance he has received has tremendously progressed him.
Each day when Eos escorts the morning light, I thank the gods that I have such a wonderful wife and son to love. While it was hard, I thank them also for this amazing religious and spiritual journey they have brought me on, to teach me the value and meaning of life through the eyes of the ancient gods, culture and men who shaped the very foundation of the America in which we live today. The lesson is simply that we still possess the ability to reach that Golden Age from the old world that we so often long to replicate. And I certainly consider my family and I fortunate enough to live in a world where there are still gods and heroes among us.
An Ode to Warmth
Creative Non-Fiction by Charles E.J. Moulton
The palmtree in the corner covered parts of the dining room lamp. It looked like the sun shining through the rainforest on an August morning. The ginger tea had the taste of that rainforest warmth, a look that resembled the color of the Egyptian painting in the living room. The feeling in my soul really encompassed warmth, logical warmth, if ever there was such a thing. The warmth I heard in Toto’s “Rosanna” playing on German radio, cool keyboard sounds originated in the 1980s. Warmth, like a palmtree providing a soothing shade away from the heat of a bright light. Warmth, like the soothing love of a daughter practicing math to the sounds of Leopold Mozart. Warmth, like a wife knitting a cap while the tea trickled down a wintery chill-protected larynx. Warmth, like the studious attention of six vocal pupils whose fine personalities gave a teacher pride of being an artist.
This singer looked up at the painting that hung upon his wall: one artwork painted by one Caspar David Friedrich. A boy holding a Swedish flag fluttering in the ocean breeze. 19th century men and women lingering on the stones of an ocean shore, overlooking the departure of five ships. Five people, five ships, one sunset. The chill of the breeze still unable to freeze any of the love that came flooding out into the world from within the endless soul out into the ether.
One word: warmth.
Warmth, like a lucious evening bath to Chopin music.
Warmth, like making love on the sea shore.
Warmth, like creating a baby that changed the world.
Warmth, like the smile of a baby.
Warmth, like the future of the world held together in one oyster shell.
Warmth, like a universe residing within the joyous teardrop emanting out of a baby boy’s eye.
Warmth, like ginger tea steaming inside an Elvis cup.
Warmth, simple red and yellow and orange warmth.
Warmth, like the dainty staccatis of a Mozart quintet.
Warmth, like a sage in his couch on the bear rug in front of a roaring fireplace.
Warmth, like a brandy and a cigar.
Warmth, like a hug and a boo.
Warmth, like a kiss on a summer day.
Warmth, behind the scenes.
Warmth.
Simple and genuine warmth.
The creation of art, the creation of love, the creation of truth, the creation of a baby, the creation of warmth, the creation of faith. Building bridges, building houses, building trust, building churches, building temples, building trust.
A fiddler in the corner stamping his feat to the sound of the tin whistle and the bodhran, creating warmth in the hearts of Irish rovers.
Warmth, like the rum of pirates, pulling their ropes on deck.
Warmth, like a baking pizza in a stone oven.
Warmth, like a fresh hug from a wife and daughter after a long business trip.
Warmth, like laughing friends around a table on a spring night.
Warmth, like a hot cup of coffee given to a homeless man on a cold winter’s day.
Warmth, like love.
Warmth, like old friends drinking a pint at the local Dublin pub.
Warmth, like applause after a concert.
Warmth, like confession.
Warmth, like marriage.
Warmth, like unselfish behavior.
Alive, alive-oh.
Send those gypsy harmonies into the world.
Make a circle, bless you.
Let’s all make a circle right now.
Think good thoughts and good thoughts shall come to you.
Good thoughts create good actions, good actions create a good world.
If you don’t start spreading warmth around this rock, who will?
It’s up to you.
Yes, you CAN change the world.
That’s where the future lies.
***
Odyssey of an Opera Freak
or
Waiting For Callas
By Herbert Eyre Moulton
(1927 – 2005)
Imagine being a 19-year old opera freak, a voice student between jobs and suddenly finding yourself shepherding a whole carload of famous, if impoverished opera singers overnight from Chicago to New York in the middle of a midwestern winter – in February 1947 yet.
Imagine that these splendid artists have been stranded by an opera season that folded before it opened, and, just to add to the fun, that they have barely a word of English among them, while your own knowledge of foreign language is almost as sketchy as theirs.
Then imagine that this whole bizarre, impromptu interlude would turn out to be one of the most memorable of your lifetime, vivid even now, more than half a century later.
But first we’d better backtrack a bit ...
The previous summer, dazzled by the prospect of mingling with some real live opera singers – past, present, and future – I’d given up an academic scholarship for the richly rococo voice studio of oldtime diva Anna Fitziu and her fascinating entourage of students of hangers-on. (One of her last and finest gifts to the world would be the megastar Shirley Verrett). That same summer I was engaged as the youngest 2nd tenor to grace (or disgrace, as some would have it) the Chicago Opera Company chorus for what would be the city’s last resident season until 1954 – no connection there, really, folks.
By mid-July we were rehearsing for the October opening of a 6-week season to feature such household Gods of ours as Milanov, Björling, Traubel, Warren, and Tibbett, along with overseas newcomers like Ferruccio Tagliavini and Italo Tajo. For me, all this amounted to The Big Time, or as near as you would come to it in Chicago of 1946 – but wait! What was that brilliant light shining on the horizon? A brand new opera company. Glory! Hallelujah! A veteran impressario from South America named Ottavio Scotto had suddenly appeared – a feisty little turkey-cock of a gent with flowing silk scarves, a wide-brimmed champagne-colored Borsalino hat, silver-headed cane, and – I swear it – spats and pince-nez glasses. And he was fizzing over with grandiose plans for an ambitious new undertaking with the imposing name of The United States Opera, to open its inaugeral season at the Civic Opera House on January 6th, with an all-star production of Puccini’s Turandot. But that wasn’t all – thanks to generous backing, a constellation of legendary European stars had already been signed, names familiar from recordings and opera magazines, along with an excellent musical staff from conductors (Sergio Failoni, George Sebastian) and coaches to a chorus master from the old opera days. And the company would live up to its name by using Chicago as a base for touring all over opera-hungry America.
Signor Scotto strutted through the studio several times to audition singers for smaller roles, always with a squad of Cosa Nostra types, and though Madame Fitziu was always her usual gracious self, it was obvious that she Didn’t Quite Trust That Little Man. She disclosed that he had at one time been the manager and possibly lover of the tragic, Duse-like prima donna Claudia Muzio. Also, his vibes were negative in the extreme. Once at a rehearsal in South America, she saw him slap star tenor Miguel Fleta viciously across the face for cracking on high notes due to sexual excess. (Ah, the mysterious mystique of Art!)
Anyway, we choristers were at once plunged into daily rehearsals for the new season. In addition to Turandot, there would be several operas new to many of us: Tannhäuser, Don Pasquale, Cavalleria, and two Massenet works, Thais and Manon, as showcases for a star of the Paris Opéra, Georgi-Boué, and her baritone husband, Roger Bourdin. (She was reputed to be drop-dead gorgeous, perfect casting for Massenet’s romantic heroines.) We never did see this pair – did they know something we perhaps didn’t?
Among the Italians would be established singers like Mafalda Favero, Galliano Masini, Cloe Elmo – while the German wing would be led by Heldentenor Max Lorenz, the famed Konetzni sisters, Hilde and Anny, from Vienna, and the young Swiss bass Heinz Rehfuss. Most compelling of all: a superb Italo-Russian basso from La Scala, Nicolo Rossi-Lemeni, who arrived early enough to become a familiar figure at Fitziu’s studio, a stunning singing-actor, 27 years of age, too intellectual really to be an opera star, simpatico, and physically what nowadays would be called a Hunk. Moreover, he was probably the only singer ever to get a rave review from critic Claudia Cassidy for singing over the telephone, sending her to the highest heaven of invention, where she remained for at least 24 hours.
It was Nicola who first told us about our Turandot, a fabulous young Greek-American soprano still back in New York – only 23 years old: shy, nearsighed, plump, and awkward to play the fire-in-ice princess, but possessor of one of the most fantastic voices that he or anybody had ever heard. Her name was something like Maria Kalogerapoulous shortened, or so he believed, to Callas (though advance publicity, bumbling as usual, dubbed her “Marie Calas”.) She had been something of a phenomenon in Greece during the war – singing roles like Tosca, Santuzza and Fidelio, but for the past year or so, back in New York she hadn’t had a chance. Learning Turandot had been a godsend – coached by a singer-pianist, who was along on our epic trip – but with the collapse of the season, she’d be back to square one, poor girl. However – the future held such things for her that no fairytale could envision. (By the way, many of the the Callas biographies have her coming to Chicago and getting stranded there like all the others, but it simply isn’t true. She remained in New York. If she HAD been along – in that concert AND on that train, I’m sure somebody would have noticed. So much for good reporting. Take that, Arianna Stassinopoulous. Sic semper Tabloidiensis!
Another outrider from the Scotto troupe was an Italian comprimaro tenor named Virginio Assandri (or “Sandro”), amiable and high-spirited. From him I acquired the Italian cusswords and scatological terms that still stud my vocabulary. (He later went on to New York to sing in several of Toscanini’s legendary NBC opera productions, starting with Cassio in the benchmark Otello the following autumn.)
December came and went, and with it the usual Chanukah and Christmas festivities, with Turandot all but coming out of our ears – one foot in Ancient Peking, the other in Limbo, because at that point we didn’t know where we stood: still no “Marie Calas”, and, what was worse, no money. Illustrations artists kept on arriving, and, though the opening had already been put forward a couple of weeks, ticket orders were already being filled. Rumors were rife and speculation becoming general because nobody had as yet seen a penny of rehearsal pay. And we were constantly being put off by the vaguest of excuses – the money was there, all right, but (a) being held up by the government, or (b) caught up in the bureaucratic tangle of international finance, or (c) tied up in the escrow, whatever the hell that meant.
When the opening date was again moved forward, our AGMA chorus-delegate, a lady named Evelyn Siegel, who Took No Prisoners, issued a Put-Up-or-We-Shut-Up ultimatum that brought matters to a nasty head.
Signor Scotto, meanwhile, last of the Bigtime Impressarios, had vanished in a puff of smoke like Rumpelstilskin – scarves, pince-nez, and spats, leaving his luckless partner, an agent named Eddie Bagarozy, holding the tab for something like $ 100 000 in debts.
The backers – invisible Millionaires from Outer Space – had suddenly withdrawn their support, taking all of their gold with them like Alberich and his seven dwarfs in Das Rheingold. The bitter, unvarnished truth: there would be no opera season, there would be no United States Opera Company ever. The key word was bankrupt. Kaputt. Fini. Finiti. That’s all she wrote, as they say in This Man’s Army.
And those magnifiscent singers from overseas, what would happen to them? How would they going to bankroll their journey back to Europe? What, by giving a benefit concert for themselves, that’s how ...
And what a concert it turned out to be – one of those rare occasions which one can, in all confidence, call unforgettable. The Civic Opera House was packed, and the audience was as enthusiastic as the Super Bowl’s. True, the programme handed out consisted of only one page mimeographed in that blotchy purple ink that old office machines used to have – no Xerox yet in 1947. The vast stage was empty except for the piano, a seat for the accompanist (Sandro on his very best behavior). The singing and the artistry were, of course, something else again. As one by one these wonderful artists came and went, most of them in pre-war finery that had seen better days, they planted themselves by the piano and delivered with a grandeur of voice and style that had nothing to do with costumes or scenery – an inner pride, a rocklike self-confidence that could only come from generations of tradition and hard work, showing us just what were about to be deprived of. Now, more than five decades later, highlights are still fresh in memory, and these are only as one spectator remembers them. There are bound to be some errors. Nodody’s perfect, as the fellah said.
Especially memorable high points – a Rigoletto Quartet that was, in a word , simply to die for – Mafalda Favero’s lovely but delicate soprano, heartbreaking in scenes from La Boheme and La Traviata (the latter with an attractive lyric baritone named Daniele Cecchele) – a humorous basso buffo (Melchiore Luise) and itinerant quack hawking his wares to a gullible country bumpkin (tenore-di-grazia Nino Scattolini) who looked like a waiter at the Italian Village café a few streets over, but who sang like a Donizetti angel – sparkling Rossini from a beauteous young senorita named Carmen Gracia – superb arias from Masini, still one of the greatest Italian tenors extant. Then there were the tremendous Wagnerians, and you’d have to journey all the way to Bayreuth or Vienna to hear them or their like – Max Lorenz and Hilde Konetzni flooding the house with the lyrical springtime of Die Walküre (So what if it was incest? This was opera!), and her sister Anny, her dramatic soprano matching the royal purple velvet of her gown, taking us through all 18 minutes of Brünhilde’s Immolation, the longest aria in the lexicon, and this to only the plinkety-plonk of a piano. Most impressive of all: two singers on the brink of world fame – the contralto Cloe Elmo, delivering a Il Trovatore aria which critic Irving Kolodin would call an “incitement to arms” when the same lady debuted with it at the Met a year or so later – and Rossi-Lemeni, as unique an actor as he was a singer, with a Boris Godunov. That oldtimers were comparing to Chaliapin’s. (A few seasons later, when Nicola was performing Boris with the San Francisco Opera, one of my oldest friends, the actress Janice Rule, was suddenly stricken with a bursting appendix, but refused to be taken to hospital until Boris had expired. Luckily, she didn’t follow suit, but greater love hath no opera buff!
For me the concert had an unexpeced encore, a Second Act in this young American’s life that rounded things off perfectly. My own troubles seemed tiny indeed compared to the stranded titans, but still and all, in addition to disappointment of the shipwrecked opera (six or more weeks of unpaid rehearsing), I’d been bellowing Grand Old Opry for something like seven months and felt I deserved a break. And what better tonic that a weekend in New York? So I got myself a ticket ($ 34,50 round trip) on the New York Central’s economical, no perks, no-frills coach train, the Pathfinder, which left the LaSalle Street Station every afternoon and plunked you down at New York’s Grand City Central early the next morning, come rain or come shine, all in one piece, and, apart from feeling rather moldy, ready for anything. But please hang on – here’s an excerpt from a letter which my dad wrote to his father about it – were are a family of incurable letter-writers and letter-savers, as well, for which I have been grateful many times –
Nell and I went to see Herby off at 3 p.m. on the 6th. Waiting to take the same train were all of the stranded stars mentioned in the enclosed clipping. He had met several of them backstage or at Fitziu’s and had made good friends with Rossi-Lemeni especially. They sang and had a glorious time all the way to New York. The Turkish Consul was there with baskets of lunch. Herby threw his box of lunch into the pot. The sane people on the train wanted to get some sleep and the conductor threatened to put the whole crowd off at Buffalo ...
And thereby, as they saying goes, hangs a tale ...
There weren’t any seat reserveration (at those prices, you were lucky they had seats) so we got there nice and early so the Beamish Boy could get a decent place on this, his first real adventure. My mom Nell, as was her custom, had provided me with enough provender to sustain a goo-size travel group a full week on the Trans-Siberian Railway – none of it was going to be wasted.
There was something unusual about the crowd milling about, waiting to board the train. Besides the usual clutter of seedy Willy Lomans with their cardboard sample cases, and the families with kids who should have been in school, this was a mob not exactly typical for a Thursday afternoon in February – a laughing, babbling, polyglot crush of wayfarers and wellwishers, many of them flamboyant in flowing scarves and berets, some armed with bottles of wine and long loaves of fresh French bread, one even wielding a king size salami. The air was vibrant with chatter and snatches of song.
And suddenly there was Sandro, pushing his way towards me: “Ciao, ‘Erby! Tu stai qui? Molto bravo! Anche tu a New York? Benissimo!” – “Una gioia improvvisa, Dearie!” put in “the Fitziu”, at my elbow and suddenly gone all Traviata. She had arrived with what seemed like half of the town’s music world – Rosa Raisa, her husband Giacomo Rimini, Edith Mason, Claire Dux, and the critic Rene Devries. Her trilling continued: “I had a distinct feeling that something marvelous was going to happen today. You’re just the one to lead all these poor darlings to the promised land!” And she was jostled away by a moustached gentleman in a black homburg and a fur-collared overcoat, who turned out to be the Turkish consul, and he and Fitziu began handing out beribboned lucnh bags to our displaced canaries.
They seemed to be everywhere you looked – Favero and Masini and Elmo with her rich contralto laugh, and the lovely Spanish soprano, Carmen Gracia, lugging the guitar which would help us thru the long night ahead. I could also pick out some of the others – Melchiore Luise, Cecchele, and the boyish Scattolini, Rossi-Lemeni, who greeted me with a hug, and a lady who proved to be the wife of Bagarozy, the agent who had lost such a bundle on the scuttling of the season. She was also a singer and had been coaching the Greek-American girl, Maria Whatzername, for the role of Turandot.
But where was the Wagnerian contingent ...? Ach ja, they could be seen off to one side in a stolid little cluster, looking rather askance at the Roman carnival swirling all around them. As was their custom, they were keeping themselves to themselves, which was fine with me, considering the new-found responsibilities I had just fallen heir to as bellweather to the Italian herd.
Deafening loudspeaker crackling, and the train’s departure was announced – much hissing of steam and whistling as the train backed majestically in from the yards up ahead. The crowd started moving toward the gate, where some of the crew had gathered, looking most important: official caps, dark overcoats, clipboards ... But first Sandro had to make his farewell speech to the troops, which ran somewhat as follows: This was ‘Erby, he began, aa fellow singer and a Chicago Paisan, who would take good care of them all until delivery at the hotel in New York. This news was greeted with smiles and clapping, and, I have to say, I stood mighty proud. Boy, what would they say at the Music School I’d opted out of?
A final chorus of “Ciao’s” and “Bye-Bye’s” and “Arrivederci’s” and we pressed forward. My parents, who had been enthralled by the spectacle being played out all around them, kissed me goodbye, handed over the grubstakes especially prepared for the trip, and took their leave. A final departure call and the conductor bawled out in a ratchetty voice: “ALL A-BO-O-ARD!” – one more impatient whistle and I hustled the last of precious charges up the steps and into the day-coach. The epic journey, pure Fellini, and surely one of the most singular in the history of American rail transport, was about to begin ...
Once inside, it took some time to get everyone sorted out and settled in our portion of the coach, lifting luggage – bags, umbrellas, cardboard boxes, real gypsy impediments – up onto the overhead rack, finger wiping off dusty windowsills and grimy windows – to a true worshiper like myself, every one of their actions and reactions, each small gesture had flair and style. One immediate project: an improvised buffet to be arranged on top of two suitcases piled one on top of the other on one of the seats, followed by sloshing of red wine into wax-paper cups (Chin-Chin! Cheers! Salute!) and slicing of bread and salami and cheese, all of it spiced with laughter. It was all so easygoing, so goodnatured that you couldn’t help wonder at these blithe musical spirits. They weren’t any of them despondent or depressed over the shipwreck of the opera. The thumping success of the concert the night before, both artistic and financial, plus the unqualified praise for each of them in the newspaper reviews of Claudia and Colleagues kept spirits soaring. Even if I’d had my pocket dictionary with me, I couldn’t have provided a very good translation, but they got the gist of it and were duly set up.
When you think about it, those weeks in America must have been a kind of vacation for them all, perhaps the first most of thm had ever known. Remember that in the winter of 1946 – 47, the war had only been over for about a year-and-a-half, and privation, rationing, and black marketeering were still a big part of everyday European life. The threat of rampant communism was growing ominously, though the newly-coined phrase Iron Curtain wasn’t even a year old. The Nuremberg Trials were still fresh in memory and the Marshall Plan wasn’t even a plan yet. Large population centers like Berlin and Vienna were divided and being administered by the occupying victors, while most of the once-lovely historic towns still lay in ruins.
What a contrast with our own bustling, prosperous, wasteful and wisecracking cities. Even viewed through the grimy windows of a cheap day-coach, Small Town U.S.A. with all the lights and cars and overflowing shops must have had the storybook unreality of a Hollywood movie. Compared to what these happy and gifted people had endured – who, with their music and their merriment, were even now annoying the hell out of the Willy Lomans and the day-coach conductors – compared to all that, the collapse of a mere opera season was small beer indeed, and the fineglings of a tin-horn impressario were reduced to their proper puniness.
During the first leg of the trip I was like a Red Cross orderly heading out relief-packets to the survivors of a disaster, supplementing the Turkish contributions with my own hoard of fried chicken, meatloaf-and-peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches, topped off with a variety of traditional American delicacies like Hostess Twinkies and cupcakes, Fig Newtons, and Tootsie-Rolls.
“Grazie, caro, molto gentile –“ I can still see the great lyric soprano Mafalda Favero, whose recordings of Boito and Massenet and the Cherry Duet from L’amico Fritz with Tito Schipa were among my most cherished 78’s, polishing off the last of my mom’s tollhouse cookies and rolling the crumbs between forefinger and thumb: “Delizioso, veramente, Signor ‘Erby!”
I’d be so pleased to discover that my Puccini-and-Pizzeria Italian wasn’t so hopeless after all. My only regret was that I had no German. How I’d have loved checking out the Wagnerians, wherever they were roosting for the night, to ask if they’d ever heard of this or that singer, and to pick their brains about prewar Bayreuth and Salzburg and Vienna. But, alas, at that point all that my Deutsch consisted of was “Bei mir bist du schön” (Early Andrews Sisters damage), a verse or two of Schubert, and bits from Lohengrin, one of the two German operas I’d ever been in, and there are limits to what you can do with phrases like “Heil dir, Elsa von Brabant!” and the praise for a knight’s shining armor: “Wie glänzt sein Waffenschmuck!”, while couplets like “Heil, deiner Fahrt, deinem Kommen!” wouldn’t do at all.
We must have been halfway across Indiana and well into the vino rosso when somebody toom out the guitar and struck up the Brindisi, the Drinking Song from La Traviata, and soon everybody joined in. For the first time the other, “normal” passengers actually sat up and took notice. (“Sane” was my Dad’s word for them, and who needs it?) The voices were so powerful and the singing so stirring and so true that at first the audience was simply incredulous – the newspaper reviews helped clarify matters – and before long they’d be genuinely interested. Of course, as the hours flew by on wings of song and as Sandman-time approached, the fascination began to wear a wee bit thin.
Each time the conductor came through, he resembled more and more the old Scots comic James Finlayson. Remember Fin? Laurel and Hardy’s furious nemesis with the Scots-burr and the baleful double-takes? Well, he had a Doppelgänger working for the New York Central in the 1940’s and that particular week his luck ran out. I don’t suppose he’d ever had to deal with a coachload of opera stars before. How do you ever prepare for such a challenge? Just then, our storied songsters enjoyed a high approval-rating, so all the poor sod could do was shake his head and to plead with me to “get ‘m to put a lid on it.” But imagine anyone putting a lid on a singer like Cloe Elmo? Follia! The sturdy little contralto was only just warming up, and soon, with only a guitar and not even a piano, let alone a full 110 piece orchestra, she’d be trading glavanic Sicillian taunts with the intensely dramatic Masini in the big showdown duet from Cavalleria Rusticana. (They’d been scheduled to do it in Chicago along about that time.) This might confrontation ends with Santuzza laying a death-curse on her former lover, and with him brushing her off with loud sardonic laughter, and if that didn’t break every window in the car it wasn’t for want of decibels. That should give some of the Hoosier Hot-Shots something to talk about at their next Kiwanis meeting.
The dearly handsome Masini had been a special idol of mine ever since ten years before when my parents took me to a performance of Lucia di Lammermoor, starring Lily Pons, we we all adored. She tweeted and chirped divinely, but the one I remember to this day was her tenor-lover Edgardo, played by Galliano Masini right up to the hilt and perhaps a quarter-of-an-inch beyond, the same Masini who was even sitting across the isle from me, nibbling chicken from Nell Moulton’s suburban kitchen and bantering between bites.
Back then in autumn 1937, he was winding up one of the most sensational engagements our opera had ever witnessed, “one long crescendo of excitement,” as the trib critic described it. To this day I can see him in his last aria, espiring from a self-inflicted dagger wound, propped up on one elbow and singing his great Livorno heart out. Then, at the final curtain calls, waving his hands up over his head to screams and cheers, like the true champion that he was. Later, during my high-school goofing-off period, I used to haunt the main Public Library reading room to pore over the old Tribune reviews of his performances, many of them hysterical in tone: WILD OVATION STOPS OPERA AS MASINI SINGS, headlined the Trib about one of his Tosca appearances when he had to encore his last act aria, something almost unheard of before or since. The same critic nominated him for “the mantle of Caruso.”
The next year he’d had to share the limelight with none other than Beniamino Gigli, who was singing opera for the first and only time in Chicago, and not even a grand “Can Belto” like Masini could top that. But he went on to a successful Met debut in the same season that was Favero’s only time in New York. After her second Mimi there, both she and Masini, so the story goes, were ordered back home to Italy, and in those days nobody defied Il Duce. Then came the war and that was the last the were heard from for years, except for an occasional recording like the complete Forza del Destino, which Masini made in Rome and which is still state-of-the-art. If Masini had his faults, they came with the territory and Caruso and Gigli shared them, too – emotional overdrive heartrending sobs even in the middle of a word, and the endemic terminal grunt at the end of a high note. Sure they were (and are) in questionable taste, but audiences lap them up regardless.
So when both Favero and Masini were announced for the U.S. Opera in Chicago, it all but blew my mind. And as Masini walked on out onto that stage that had witnessed such triumphs a decade before, to be greeted by polite, but hardly wild applause, I wondered if I was the only one there who recalled that “one long crescendo of excitement.”
It was a nice enough success that he scored with a couple of arias, a consummate Boheme Act I scene with Favero, and the Rigoletto Quartet with himself as the Duke and Elmo as a once-in-a-lifetime Maddelena, joined by Carmen and Cacchele. It was as grand a finale as possible, given the circumstances: still and all, it was deeply anti-climactic , and must have perplexed him, like Othello, in the extreme. If only my Italian had been up to the task of telling just how much his voice and his art had meant to me all of these years. But no – there he was, just across from me, relaxed and receptive as he would be for the next few hours – and what did I do? Italiano or no Italiano, I blew it, let the moment slip away from me forever. I have regretted it ever since.
My bittersweet musings were broken off by more urgent matters. The ladies of the ensemble, temporarily exhausted by so much high-powered yodelling, and sated with juice, cola, and red wine, sent up such a heartrending lament for “acqua fresca” that I set off at once in my appointed role of Ganymedes, cup-bearer – no, make that PAPER-cup-bearer to the Gods – on a search for fresh water. My quest too me through each and every stuffy, smelly coach on that train, past the scowling Finlayson and his goons, past knitting womenand senior couples doing crossword puzzles and trying to ignore the minor sex-plays of necking teenagers, past people still nasching and others already snoozing. It also took me through squealing knots of small nosepickers, one of whom, a fat little girl with glasses, plunked herself right down in my path and greeted me with an enormous pink Double-Yum Bubble-Gum balloon, which emerged slowly but surely from her mouth and was almost as splendiferous as I could have blown myself if I’d not had better things to do.
Moving on, I knew at once which car was serving as Valhalla-on-wheels for the German-speakers, for they were conversing in low yet resonant Deutsch. Funny how the less you know a language the more you try to cover your embarrassment with idiotic grins, and I must have been grinning like a zonked-out samurai. My efforts were met with regal nods and a courtly bow from the Heldentenor, Max Lorenz, highly esteemed on both sides of the Atlantic, just then between pre- and post-war Met engagements. He and his companions seemed so grateful for any contact with another humanoid that I was instantly swept up in a handshaking marathon. Maybe they could even help to solve the water shortage problem.
“Wasser?” I ventured with descriptive gestures.
“Ach ja! Jawohl, junger Mann! Ist gut!”
I felt I hadn’t quite got my message across.
“No, I mean water --- aqua --- dov’é? --- where Wasser?”
By now it was clear that my miming would never put Marcel Marceau out of business.
The great tenor took over most courteously, and in French: “Milles regrets, mon brav, mais il n’y a pas de l’eau ici. Je regrette beaucoup.”
Now he, too, was trying to break the language barrier.
“Um --- Kein --- No WASSER here ---“
“Well, thanks anyway, Sir,” I pulled my ragged faculties together with a heartfelt “DANKEY!”
“Bitte, bitte, bitte!”
And we went back to shaking hands again, like a scene from a silent movie. And that was the extent of my contact with Tannhäuser & Co. Just as well, because formal teutonic politeness was nowhere as much fun as the wine-dark, many-throated turbulence a few cars back.
(Footnote: To illustrate how fast things can move once Destiny takes over, that same Max Lorenz would sing Tristan to the Isolde of Maria Callas a little more than a year later in Genoa.)
My noble quest continued until, so far that it was practically in the engineer’s cab, I fetched up at the onl water-cooler still functioning. So, with a high heart and a dripping offering, I staggered back to home base and my precious charges, who by then must’ve been languishing like Manon Lescaut in Puccini’s Desert Near Louisiana. One sip, however, unleashed such a torrent of lipcurling scorn, so stentorian a chorus of “Cloro! Gesumaria! Cloro!” that it still resounds in my inner ear. So much for good intentions, Ganymedes!
Outside, wintry darkness, lit now and then by a small town flashing by. Inside, dim lights and the heat hellish. (No such thing, apparantly, as a thermostat, so it was either FREEZE or FRY, so we got FRY.) Even the washroom facilities were all but non-existant. Talk about your American Primitives! So what else was there to do but sing?
It was a bit past Toledo that the really smashing vocalizing began --- not just opera and operetta, but folk songs all the way from Napoli to Harper’s Ferry. John Brown’s Body never had it so good, with the Glory, Glory Halleluya-chorus rolling out like thunder, with myself taking the lead, and solid guitar strumming provided by Rossi-Lemeni, the Romanov Burl Ives. Everything at full throttle, of course, including the complaints by some of our fellow- travellers, the woebegone Willy Lomans whose flat midwestern grousing was no match for operatic yodelling. Every time one of them tried to get a word in, he’d be engulfed in song and good-natured guffawing and invitations to join in the fun. There was enough Vino Rosso for many a mile, that good wine that our good conductor-friend offensively called Dago Red. Luckily, I was the only one who understood this last.
“Oh, what did I ever do to deserve this?” he kept on moaning. “This was always such an easy run --- no sweat, no problems --- until tonight!
And he regarded us balefully.
A golden flourish on the guitar, and Nino --- last night’s beautifully Singing Waiter --- burst into the tenor torch song to end all tenor torch songs: Core ‘n grato, Catari, Catari
“Just listen to that,” I burbled in ecstacy.
“We’ve been listening since we crossed the Indiana border.”
“But where could you hear singing like that – for free?”
At this point, the Assistant Conductor, Fin’s catemate, a spotty yahoo with an IQ of 10, waddled through the car and offered his opinion: “Never mind these fancy foreigners. Gimme Vaug-han Monroe any day --- or Gene Autry.”
And he went off on his business.
Dulcet Tenor: “Catari, pecche me dicesti parole amare?”
I persisted in my admiration: back home these were all famous singers.
“If they’re so famous, what are they doing sitting up in a day-coach to New York? How come they ain’t with all the fat cats on the 20th Century?”
“They couldn’t afford the 20th Century?”
Dulcet Tenor Voice: “Pecché me parlee o core me turmiente, Catari?”
I continued my arguement: “They could barely afford this miserable cattle-car!”
Irate passenger at the other end: “Can’t you jokers hold your summit conference someplace else?”
Another angry voice: “Yeh, we wanna get some rest!”
Mr. Coffee-Nerves, the conductor (still smarting from my last remark, furiously grinding his dentures:)
FIN: Miserable? You take that back? It ain’t miserable and it ain’t no cattle-car, at least not until now! (Starting to lose it:) This is my car! My train! And these are my passengers! An’ it’s up to me that they get peace an’ quiet, unnerstan’?”
Tenor: Cor’ – Cor ‘n grato!
FIN: Peace ‘n quiet! It’s a rule!
ANGRY VOICE FROM THE REAR: Knock it off, you guys! We gotta get some rest! Dammit, we all got things to do tomorrow!
FIN: There, ya see? (To Tenor:) Stop That! He’s gotta stop now, ya hear! Make him stop!
This display had the whole company laughing and applauding. Then they joined the tenor on the climactic notes of his big number.
FIN: Are they making fun of me? ‘Cause if they are ---! SHADDUP, alla ya! Make them stop!
ME: But I don’t know how! They’re only singing to keep their spirits up.
FIN: I’m going out to get some help! I can’t handle all this! You wait right there!
(Next stop: PARANOIA CITY!)
And out he went once more, fists flailing and muttering imprecations. He was definately coming unstuck ... we’re talking seizures here. We’re talking hyper thrombosis. We’re talking the dreaded PUCCINI-INDUCED CARDIAC ARREST, or PICA for short, far more deadly than mere TRAVIATA-SYNDROME, from earlier on the trip. That had been only a mild case of Brindisi-fever, but this was something else again.
And speaking of Puccini, The Golden Gleeclub had now ripped into Musetta’s Waltz from Act 2 of La Boheme, the most elaborate ensemble piece in that whole enchanting score. Maybe it was the scent of danger that gave it that extra pizzaz, but it was their finest achievement so far. You recall how the flirtatious Musetta leads off proudly “Quando m’en v’o ...”, then one by one the other Bohemians join in, and soon they are all celebrating youth and love on Christmas Eve in Paris. This was a communal effort led by Masini himself doing his Toscanini-conducting impression, with Rossi-Lemeni doubling on guitar and singing his role of Colline, Favero’s vintage Mimi, and with Cecchele providing great arcs of melody as Marcello. The Willy Lomans were truly stupified. Just as the whole cast was going for gold on the finale, Fin and his vigilantes burst in again, running in smack into this tidal wave of sound. It all but blew them all out again. The effect was catatonic.
“How about that?” I yipped, as Fin shook himself all over like wet hound dog.
I had a feeling that this time was going to be different, and, sure enough, te new manifesto was as follows, and MERCILESS: All singing, all jabbering loud laughter and carrying on of any kind, especially the drinking of “Dago Red” must cease AT ONCE, DID WE HEAR? AT ONCE ... or else the entire troope, this whole operatic travelling circus, the original Ravioli Express, part and parcel and guitar, would be tossed off the train without any ceremony or apology at the next stop, which happened to be Buffalo, for us The City of Destiny, Realm of Doom. It would be the next stop, and, for us, the very last.
ME: But you can’t do that to this people! They were already stranded in Chicago!
FIN: Yeh, and they’re gonna be stranded in Buffalo! Let them go out and sing to the Falls!
(A sudden vision: Elmo, Massini, Favero and all and all, trying to compete with the neighboring Niagara --- and coming off rather well, at that. Of course, the Wagnerians would have to be there to back them up.) The train had already strarted to slow down and the outskirts of Buffalo to appear. I had to act and act faster than ever before in my life, and what was more, in comprehensible Italian. The resulting oration was born of sheer damn-the-torpedos/ you-have-nothing-to-lose-but-your-cadenzas desperation, a pastiche of every operatic or literary cliché I’d ever read or heard --- molto pericoloso --- guardate per piacere ---- catastrofe, disastro --- nel nome del Dio! --- Zitta per carita! --- all rounded off with a little saying I’d learned from Sandro: Chi va piano va sano, e va lontano ...: Take it nice and slow, keep your wits about you, and you’ll go the distance! And I wrapped it all up with a quote from --- what else? --- La Boheme: “C’e freddo fuori ---“ Rough translation: “Mimi-baby, it’s cold outside!”
And wonder of wonders, it worked, transmuting all those volatile gremlins into a choir of Raphael Putti, angelic smiles as if manna wouldn’t melt in their mouths. When The Evil One reappeared to carry out the sentence, he was stopped dead in his tracks by the wall of silence flung up in such a haste. He was dumbfounded, one might even say discombombulated. Having to rescind the Banishment AND Issue a general pardon had not been part of the game-plan at all. Brought up short, he could only squeak: “NEXT STOP, BUFFALO!” And he repeated it, for my benefit: “NEXT STOP: BUF ... – FA – ... – LO!”
His voice cracked.
(I had to surpress an insane urge to shout out two of Madame Fitziu’s surefire teaching instructions: “Out your ears, dearie!” and “Keep your larynx down!”)
He then delivered his final word, and a pretty string of triple negatives it was, too: “You can tell ‘em from me in that queer lingo of theirs, I don’t take no crap from nobody, unnerstan’?” A pyrrhic victory at best. He knew it, and so did we.
As soon as he’d disappeared, there arose a fine Italian murmur of mixed amusement, derision and relief ... A sudden loud clanging from beneath the train, reminiscent of Garbo’s suicide scene in Anna Karenina, and the train gave a massive shudder. Then, with much hissing and creaking, we were under way once more. We wouldn’t have to face Niagara Falls after all.
It was an uneasy truce but it held. Only a few more hours to go. In the background someone was picking out, ever so softly on the communal guitar, “Good Night, Irene, I’ll see you in my dreams ...”
“Oh, Gawd,” a man’s voice groaned from a afar. “Here we go again.”
This was followed by a woman’s drawl: “At the next stop remind me to have this entire car backed into a siding a left there.”
“Lady,” I informed her, “the next stop is Grand Central Station.”
“You’re kidding,” came the reply. “Oh, well.”
The last couple of songbirds were settling down as best they could in their improvised nests when The World’s Friendliest Train Conductor came back into focus. Before he could say another word, I informed him coldly that we were trying to get some sleep and to go away and leave us in peace. He was flummoxed as usual and for once speechless. He then beat a retreat – thus endeth the Saga of the Fiend we’ve been calling Finlayson. (Oh, forgive us, Fin, wherever you may be.) I turned back to the passengers that really mattered.
“Buona notte,” I murmured, and the answer came with a little laugh, “Buona notte, caro ...” Then for the first time since our departure from Chicago I had a chance to relax and maybe nod off a little bit ... I remember this pause in the night’s activities, with everyone bedded down at last and all quiet except for some sonorous snoring ... quiet enough to hear the hypnotic click of the wheels, and the train whistle and its attendant echo screeching up the Hudson River Valley. (How I still miss the old steam locomotives and everything about them!)
One positive thing that learned from this whole surrealistic experience: Opera-Singers always go “Hmmm-Hmmm” at regular intervals, maybe to check if the voice is still present and accounted for, even in their sleep --- oh, especially in their sleep. That came as an interesting revelation, an insomniac revelation. But, being an ex-altarboy AND as a boy-scout 2nd class, brought up in the security of the suburbs, I had never slept with an opera singer before, nor anywhere near one. (Don’t anyone say anything!) Yet there I was, with a good baker’s dozen of the best “Hmmm”-ers in the business, strewn all about me like the petrified inhabitants of a newly excavated Pompeiian villa, all within snoring distance, and each one going “Hmmm” like mad ...
There was Favero-Mimi, her lovely head pillowed on a topcoat-swaddled suitcase with one sleeve draped over her eyes. Opposite her, Cloe, Queen of the Gypsies, appropriately bundled in a fringed shawl, her head slowly sinking till it hit the wooden arm-rest. On the seat beyond, sprawled the gallant Edgar of Ravenwood as Sir Walter Scott had never imagined him, that is, more or less flat on his back, his Valentino features beneath a copy of Corriere della Sera, which rose and fell with rhythmic breathing. Across the aisle, Boris Gudonov thrashed and twisted in a heroic effort to stretch his elegant six foot frame. A little further off, the basso buffo, no longer Dulcamara, but an ordinary uprooted citizen craving repose, basque-beret shading his eyes – then Senorita Carmen, guitar laid aside and a terricloth towel in place of a mantilla, moaning softly in Castillian, and the remainder of the party: tenor, baritone, agent’s wife, each one in a caricature of slumber ...
By then we were chuffing alongside the slate-gray Hudson, and not far from --- Are you ready for this? --- Sing-Sing. But for the moment no Sing-Song, no chatter, no moritorium on nasching and yodelling, even on bickering with the hired help. All passion spent, at least temporarily.
With the long winter night already behind us, I found myself to turned on to sleep --- this would be my very first time in New York and I wasn’t about to miss a moment of it with anything as mundane as sleep. As the early gray light gave way, the approaches to the city seemed to follow exactly the start of the old radio series, complete with locomotive sound effects and oncoming express train: “Day and night great trains rush towards the Hudson River, sweep down its eastern bank for one hundred and forty miles, flash briefly by the long row of tenament houses south of 125th Street, dive with a roar into the two-and-a-half mile tunnel that burrows beneath the glitter and swank of Park Avenue and then --- GRAND CENTRAL STATION: crossroad of a million human lives, gigantic stage on which are played a thousand dramas daily ...”
***
Odyssey of an Opera Freak
or
Waiting For Callas
By Herbert Eyre Moulton
(1927 – 2005)
Imagine being a 19-year old opera freak, a voice student between jobs and suddenly finding yourself shepherding a whole carload of famous, if impoverished opera singers overnight from Chicago to New York in the middle of a midwestern winter – in February 1947 yet.
Imagine that these splendid artists have been stranded by an opera season that folded before it opened, and, just to add to the fun, that they have barely a word of English among them, while your own knowledge of foreign language is almost as sketchy as theirs.
Then imagine that this whole bizarre, impromptu interlude would turn out to be one of the most memorable of your lifetime, vivid even now, more than half a century later.
But first we’d better backtrack a bit ...
The previous summer, dazzled by the prospect of mingling with some real live opera singers – past, present, and future – I’d given up an academic scholarship for the richly rococo voice studio of oldtime diva Anna Fitziu and her fascinating entourage of students of hangers-on. (One of her last and finest gifts to the world would be the megastar Shirley Verrett). That same summer I was engaged as the youngest 2nd tenor to grace (or disgrace, as some would have it) the Chicago Opera Company chorus for what would be the city’s last resident season until 1954 – no connection there, really, folks.
By mid-July we were rehearsing for the October opening of a 6-week season to feature such household Gods of ours as Milanov, Björling, Traubel, Warren, and Tibbett, along with overseas newcomers like Ferruccio Tagliavini and Italo Tajo. For me, all this amounted to The Big Time, or as near as you would come to it in Chicago of 1946 – but wait! What was that brilliant light shining on the horizon? A brand new opera company. Glory! Hallelujah! A veteran impressario from South America named Ottavio Scotto had suddenly appeared – a feisty little turkey-cock of a gent with flowing silk scarves, a wide-brimmed champagne-colored Borsalino hat, silver-headed cane, and – I swear it – spats and pince-nez glasses. And he was fizzing over with grandiose plans for an ambitious new undertaking with the imposing name of The United States Opera, to open its inaugeral season at the Civic Opera House on January 6th, with an all-star production of Puccini’s Turandot. But that wasn’t all – thanks to generous backing, a constellation of legendary European stars had already been signed, names familiar from recordings and opera magazines, along with an excellent musical staff from conductors (Sergio Failoni, George Sebastian) and coaches to a chorus master from the old opera days. And the company would live up to its name by using Chicago as a base for touring all over opera-hungry America.
Signor Scotto strutted through the studio several times to audition singers for smaller roles, always with a squad of Cosa Nostra types, and though Madame Fitziu was always her usual gracious self, it was obvious that she Didn’t Quite Trust That Little Man. She disclosed that he had at one time been the manager and possibly lover of the tragic, Duse-like prima donna Claudia Muzio. Also, his vibes were negative in the extreme. Once at a rehearsal in South America, she saw him slap star tenor Miguel Fleta viciously across the face for cracking on high notes due to sexual excess. (Ah, the mysterious mystique of Art!)
Anyway, we choristers were at once plunged into daily rehearsals for the new season. In addition to Turandot, there would be several operas new to many of us: Tannhäuser, Don Pasquale, Cavalleria, and two Massenet works, Thais and Manon, as showcases for a star of the Paris Opéra, Georgi-Boué, and her baritone husband, Roger Bourdin. (She was reputed to be drop-dead gorgeous, perfect casting for Massenet’s romantic heroines.) We never did see this pair – did they know something we perhaps didn’t?
Among the Italians would be established singers like Mafalda Favero, Galliano Masini, Cloe Elmo – while the German wing would be led by Heldentenor Max Lorenz, the famed Konetzni sisters, Hilde and Anny, from Vienna, and the young Swiss bass Heinz Rehfuss. Most compelling of all: a superb Italo-Russian basso from La Scala, Nicolo Rossi-Lemeni, who arrived early enough to become a familiar figure at Fitziu’s studio, a stunning singing-actor, 27 years of age, too intellectual really to be an opera star, simpatico, and physically what nowadays would be called a Hunk. Moreover, he was probably the only singer ever to get a rave review from critic Claudia Cassidy for singing over the telephone, sending her to the highest heaven of invention, where she remained for at least 24 hours.
It was Nicola who first told us about our Turandot, a fabulous young Greek-American soprano still back in New York – only 23 years old: shy, nearsighed, plump, and awkward to play the fire-in-ice princess, but possessor of one of the most fantastic voices that he or anybody had ever heard. Her name was something like Maria Kalogerapoulous shortened, or so he believed, to Callas (though advance publicity, bumbling as usual, dubbed her “Marie Calas”.) She had been something of a phenomenon in Greece during the war – singing roles like Tosca, Santuzza and Fidelio, but for the past year or so, back in New York she hadn’t had a chance. Learning Turandot had been a godsend – coached by a singer-pianist, who was along on our epic trip – but with the collapse of the season, she’d be back to square one, poor girl. However – the future held such things for her that no fairytale could envision. (By the way, many of the the Callas biographies have her coming to Chicago and getting stranded there like all the others, but it simply isn’t true. She remained in New York. If she HAD been along – in that concert AND on that train, I’m sure somebody would have noticed. So much for good reporting. Take that, Arianna Stassinopoulous. Sic semper Tabloidiensis!
Another outrider from the Scotto troupe was an Italian comprimaro tenor named Virginio Assandri (or “Sandro”), amiable and high-spirited. From him I acquired the Italian cusswords and scatological terms that still stud my vocabulary. (He later went on to New York to sing in several of Toscanini’s legendary NBC opera productions, starting with Cassio in the benchmark Otello the following autumn.)
December came and went, and with it the usual Chanukah and Christmas festivities, with Turandot all but coming out of our ears – one foot in Ancient Peking, the other in Limbo, because at that point we didn’t know where we stood: still no “Marie Calas”, and, what was worse, no money. Illustrations artists kept on arriving, and, though the opening had already been put forward a couple of weeks, ticket orders were already being filled. Rumors were rife and speculation becoming general because nobody had as yet seen a penny of rehearsal pay. And we were constantly being put off by the vaguest of excuses – the money was there, all right, but (a) being held up by the government, or (b) caught up in the bureaucratic tangle of international finance, or (c) tied up in the escrow, whatever the hell that meant.
When the opening date was again moved forward, our AGMA chorus-delegate, a lady named Evelyn Siegel, who Took No Prisoners, issued a Put-Up-or-We-Shut-Up ultimatum that brought matters to a nasty head.
Signor Scotto, meanwhile, last of the Bigtime Impressarios, had vanished in a puff of smoke like Rumpelstilskin – scarves, pince-nez, and spats, leaving his luckless partner, an agent named Eddie Bagarozy, holding the tab for something like $ 100 000 in debts.
The backers – invisible Millionaires from Outer Space – had suddenly withdrawn their support, taking all of their gold with them like Alberich and his seven dwarfs in Das Rheingold. The bitter, unvarnished truth: there would be no opera season, there would be no United States Opera Company ever. The key word was bankrupt. Kaputt. Fini. Finiti. That’s all she wrote, as they say in This Man’s Army.
And those magnifiscent singers from overseas, what would happen to them? How would they going to bankroll their journey back to Europe? What, by giving a benefit concert for themselves, that’s how ...
And what a concert it turned out to be – one of those rare occasions which one can, in all confidence, call unforgettable. The Civic Opera House was packed, and the audience was as enthusiastic as the Super Bowl’s. True, the programme handed out consisted of only one page mimeographed in that blotchy purple ink that old office machines used to have – no Xerox yet in 1947. The vast stage was empty except for the piano, a seat for the accompanist (Sandro on his very best behavior). The singing and the artistry were, of course, something else again. As one by one these wonderful artists came and went, most of them in pre-war finery that had seen better days, they planted themselves by the piano and delivered with a grandeur of voice and style that had nothing to do with costumes or scenery – an inner pride, a rocklike self-confidence that could only come from generations of tradition and hard work, showing us just what were about to be deprived of. Now, more than five decades later, highlights are still fresh in memory, and these are only as one spectator remembers them. There are bound to be some errors. Nodody’s perfect, as the fellah said.
Especially memorable high points – a Rigoletto Quartet that was, in a word , simply to die for – Mafalda Favero’s lovely but delicate soprano, heartbreaking in scenes from La Boheme and La Traviata (the latter with an attractive lyric baritone named Daniele Cecchele) – a humorous basso buffo (Melchiore Luise) and itinerant quack hawking his wares to a gullible country bumpkin (tenore-di-grazia Nino Scattolini) who looked like a waiter at the Italian Village café a few streets over, but who sang like a Donizetti angel – sparkling Rossini from a beauteous young senorita named Carmen Gracia – superb arias from Masini, still one of the greatest Italian tenors extant. Then there were the tremendous Wagnerians, and you’d have to journey all the way to Bayreuth or Vienna to hear them or their like – Max Lorenz and Hilde Konetzni flooding the house with the lyrical springtime of Die Walküre (So what if it was incest? This was opera!), and her sister Anny, her dramatic soprano matching the royal purple velvet of her gown, taking us through all 18 minutes of Brünhilde’s Immolation, the longest aria in the lexicon, and this to only the plinkety-plonk of a piano. Most impressive of all: two singers on the brink of world fame – the contralto Cloe Elmo, delivering a Il Trovatore aria which critic Irving Kolodin would call an “incitement to arms” when the same lady debuted with it at the Met a year or so later – and Rossi-Lemeni, as unique an actor as he was a singer, with a Boris Godunov. That oldtimers were comparing to Chaliapin’s. (A few seasons later, when Nicola was performing Boris with the San Francisco Opera, one of my oldest friends, the actress Janice Rule, was suddenly stricken with a bursting appendix, but refused to be taken to hospital until Boris had expired. Luckily, she didn’t follow suit, but greater love hath no opera buff!
For me the concert had an unexpeced encore, a Second Act in this young American’s life that rounded things off perfectly. My own troubles seemed tiny indeed compared to the stranded titans, but still and all, in addition to disappointment of the shipwrecked opera (six or more weeks of unpaid rehearsing), I’d been bellowing Grand Old Opry for something like seven months and felt I deserved a break. And what better tonic that a weekend in New York? So I got myself a ticket ($ 34,50 round trip) on the New York Central’s economical, no perks, no-frills coach train, the Pathfinder, which left the LaSalle Street Station every afternoon and plunked you down at New York’s Grand City Central early the next morning, come rain or come shine, all in one piece, and, apart from feeling rather moldy, ready for anything. But please hang on – here’s an excerpt from a letter which my dad wrote to his father about it – were are a family of incurable letter-writers and letter-savers, as well, for which I have been grateful many times –
Nell and I went to see Herby off at 3 p.m. on the 6th. Waiting to take the same train were all of the stranded stars mentioned in the enclosed clipping. He had met several of them backstage or at Fitziu’s and had made good friends with Rossi-Lemeni especially. They sang and had a glorious time all the way to New York. The Turkish Consul was there with baskets of lunch. Herby threw his box of lunch into the pot. The sane people on the train wanted to get some sleep and the conductor threatened to put the whole crowd off at Buffalo ...
And thereby, as they saying goes, hangs a tale ...
There weren’t any seat reserveration (at those prices, you were lucky they had seats) so we got there nice and early so the Beamish Boy could get a decent place on this, his first real adventure. My mom Nell, as was her custom, had provided me with enough provender to sustain a goo-size travel group a full week on the Trans-Siberian Railway – none of it was going to be wasted.
There was something unusual about the crowd milling about, waiting to board the train. Besides the usual clutter of seedy Willy Lomans with their cardboard sample cases, and the families with kids who should have been in school, this was a mob not exactly typical for a Thursday afternoon in February – a laughing, babbling, polyglot crush of wayfarers and wellwishers, many of them flamboyant in flowing scarves and berets, some armed with bottles of wine and long loaves of fresh French bread, one even wielding a king size salami. The air was vibrant with chatter and snatches of song.
And suddenly there was Sandro, pushing his way towards me: “Ciao, ‘Erby! Tu stai qui? Molto bravo! Anche tu a New York? Benissimo!” – “Una gioia improvvisa, Dearie!” put in “the Fitziu”, at my elbow and suddenly gone all Traviata. She had arrived with what seemed like half of the town’s music world – Rosa Raisa, her husband Giacomo Rimini, Edith Mason, Claire Dux, and the critic Rene Devries. Her trilling continued: “I had a distinct feeling that something marvelous was going to happen today. You’re just the one to lead all these poor darlings to the promised land!” And she was jostled away by a moustached gentleman in a black homburg and a fur-collared overcoat, who turned out to be the Turkish consul, and he and Fitziu began handing out beribboned lucnh bags to our displaced canaries.
They seemed to be everywhere you looked – Favero and Masini and Elmo with her rich contralto laugh, and the lovely Spanish soprano, Carmen Gracia, lugging the guitar which would help us thru the long night ahead. I could also pick out some of the others – Melchiore Luise, Cecchele, and the boyish Scattolini, Rossi-Lemeni, who greeted me with a hug, and a lady who proved to be the wife of Bagarozy, the agent who had lost such a bundle on the scuttling of the season. She was also a singer and had been coaching the Greek-American girl, Maria Whatzername, for the role of Turandot.
But where was the Wagnerian contingent ...? Ach ja, they could be seen off to one side in a stolid little cluster, looking rather askance at the Roman carnival swirling all around them. As was their custom, they were keeping themselves to themselves, which was fine with me, considering the new-found responsibilities I had just fallen heir to as bellweather to the Italian herd.
Deafening loudspeaker crackling, and the train’s departure was announced – much hissing of steam and whistling as the train backed majestically in from the yards up ahead. The crowd started moving toward the gate, where some of the crew had gathered, looking most important: official caps, dark overcoats, clipboards ... But first Sandro had to make his farewell speech to the troops, which ran somewhat as follows: This was ‘Erby, he began, aa fellow singer and a Chicago Paisan, who would take good care of them all until delivery at the hotel in New York. This news was greeted with smiles and clapping, and, I have to say, I stood mighty proud. Boy, what would they say at the Music School I’d opted out of?
A final chorus of “Ciao’s” and “Bye-Bye’s” and “Arrivederci’s” and we pressed forward. My parents, who had been enthralled by the spectacle being played out all around them, kissed me goodbye, handed over the grubstakes especially prepared for the trip, and took their leave. A final departure call and the conductor bawled out in a ratchetty voice: “ALL A-BO-O-ARD!” – one more impatient whistle and I hustled the last of precious charges up the steps and into the day-coach. The epic journey, pure Fellini, and surely one of the most singular in the history of American rail transport, was about to begin ...
Once inside, it took some time to get everyone sorted out and settled in our portion of the coach, lifting luggage – bags, umbrellas, cardboard boxes, real gypsy impediments – up onto the overhead rack, finger wiping off dusty windowsills and grimy windows – to a true worshiper like myself, every one of their actions and reactions, each small gesture had flair and style. One immediate project: an improvised buffet to be arranged on top of two suitcases piled one on top of the other on one of the seats, followed by sloshing of red wine into wax-paper cups (Chin-Chin! Cheers! Salute!) and slicing of bread and salami and cheese, all of it spiced with laughter. It was all so easygoing, so goodnatured that you couldn’t help wonder at these blithe musical spirits. They weren’t any of them despondent or depressed over the shipwreck of the opera. The thumping success of the concert the night before, both artistic and financial, plus the unqualified praise for each of them in the newspaper reviews of Claudia and Colleagues kept spirits soaring. Even if I’d had my pocket dictionary with me, I couldn’t have provided a very good translation, but they got the gist of it and were duly set up.
When you think about it, those weeks in America must have been a kind of vacation for them all, perhaps the first most of thm had ever known. Remember that in the winter of 1946 – 47, the war had only been over for about a year-and-a-half, and privation, rationing, and black marketeering were still a big part of everyday European life. The threat of rampant communism was growing ominously, though the newly-coined phrase Iron Curtain wasn’t even a year old. The Nuremberg Trials were still fresh in memory and the Marshall Plan wasn’t even a plan yet. Large population centers like Berlin and Vienna were divided and being administered by the occupying victors, while most of the once-lovely historic towns still lay in ruins.
What a contrast with our own bustling, prosperous, wasteful and wisecracking cities. Even viewed through the grimy windows of a cheap day-coach, Small Town U.S.A. with all the lights and cars and overflowing shops must have had the storybook unreality of a Hollywood movie. Compared to what these happy and gifted people had endured – who, with their music and their merriment, were even now annoying the hell out of the Willy Lomans and the day-coach conductors – compared to all that, the collapse of a mere opera season was small beer indeed, and the fineglings of a tin-horn impressario were reduced to their proper puniness.
During the first leg of the trip I was like a Red Cross orderly heading out relief-packets to the survivors of a disaster, supplementing the Turkish contributions with my own hoard of fried chicken, meatloaf-and-peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches, topped off with a variety of traditional American delicacies like Hostess Twinkies and cupcakes, Fig Newtons, and Tootsie-Rolls.
“Grazie, caro, molto gentile –“ I can still see the great lyric soprano Mafalda Favero, whose recordings of Boito and Massenet and the Cherry Duet from L’amico Fritz with Tito Schipa were among my most cherished 78’s, polishing off the last of my mom’s tollhouse cookies and rolling the crumbs between forefinger and thumb: “Delizioso, veramente, Signor ‘Erby!”
I’d be so pleased to discover that my Puccini-and-Pizzeria Italian wasn’t so hopeless after all. My only regret was that I had no German. How I’d have loved checking out the Wagnerians, wherever they were roosting for the night, to ask if they’d ever heard of this or that singer, and to pick their brains about prewar Bayreuth and Salzburg and Vienna. But, alas, at that point all that my Deutsch consisted of was “Bei mir bist du schön” (Early Andrews Sisters damage), a verse or two of Schubert, and bits from Lohengrin, one of the two German operas I’d ever been in, and there are limits to what you can do with phrases like “Heil dir, Elsa von Brabant!” and the praise for a knight’s shining armor: “Wie glänzt sein Waffenschmuck!”, while couplets like “Heil, deiner Fahrt, deinem Kommen!” wouldn’t do at all.
We must have been halfway across Indiana and well into the vino rosso when somebody toom out the guitar and struck up the Brindisi, the Drinking Song from La Traviata, and soon everybody joined in. For the first time the other, “normal” passengers actually sat up and took notice. (“Sane” was my Dad’s word for them, and who needs it?) The voices were so powerful and the singing so stirring and so true that at first the audience was simply incredulous – the newspaper reviews helped clarify matters – and before long they’d be genuinely interested. Of course, as the hours flew by on wings of song and as Sandman-time approached, the fascination began to wear a wee bit thin.
Each time the conductor came through, he resembled more and more the old Scots comic James Finlayson. Remember Fin? Laurel and Hardy’s furious nemesis with the Scots-burr and the baleful double-takes? Well, he had a Doppelgänger working for the New York Central in the 1940’s and that particular week his luck ran out. I don’t suppose he’d ever had to deal with a coachload of opera stars before. How do you ever prepare for such a challenge? Just then, our storied songsters enjoyed a high approval-rating, so all the poor sod could do was shake his head and to plead with me to “get ‘m to put a lid on it.” But imagine anyone putting a lid on a singer like Cloe Elmo? Follia! The sturdy little contralto was only just warming up, and soon, with only a guitar and not even a piano, let alone a full 110 piece orchestra, she’d be trading glavanic Sicillian taunts with the intensely dramatic Masini in the big showdown duet from Cavalleria Rusticana. (They’d been scheduled to do it in Chicago along about that time.) This might confrontation ends with Santuzza laying a death-curse on her former lover, and with him brushing her off with loud sardonic laughter, and if that didn’t break every window in the car it wasn’t for want of decibels. That should give some of the Hoosier Hot-Shots something to talk about at their next Kiwanis meeting.
The dearly handsome Masini had been a special idol of mine ever since ten years before when my parents took me to a performance of Lucia di Lammermoor, starring Lily Pons, we we all adored. She tweeted and chirped divinely, but the one I remember to this day was her tenor-lover Edgardo, played by Galliano Masini right up to the hilt and perhaps a quarter-of-an-inch beyond, the same Masini who was even sitting across the isle from me, nibbling chicken from Nell Moulton’s suburban kitchen and bantering between bites.
Back then in autumn 1937, he was winding up one of the most sensational engagements our opera had ever witnessed, “one long crescendo of excitement,” as the trib critic described it. To this day I can see him in his last aria, espiring from a self-inflicted dagger wound, propped up on one elbow and singing his great Livorno heart out. Then, at the final curtain calls, waving his hands up over his head to screams and cheers, like the true champion that he was. Later, during my high-school goofing-off period, I used to haunt the main Public Library reading room to pore over the old Tribune reviews of his performances, many of them hysterical in tone: WILD OVATION STOPS OPERA AS MASINI SINGS, headlined the Trib about one of his Tosca appearances when he had to encore his last act aria, something almost unheard of before or since. The same critic nominated him for “the mantle of Caruso.”
The next year he’d had to share the limelight with none other than Beniamino Gigli, who was singing opera for the first and only time in Chicago, and not even a grand “Can Belto” like Masini could top that. But he went on to a successful Met debut in the same season that was Favero’s only time in New York. After her second Mimi there, both she and Masini, so the story goes, were ordered back home to Italy, and in those days nobody defied Il Duce. Then came the war and that was the last the were heard from for years, except for an occasional recording like the complete Forza del Destino, which Masini made in Rome and which is still state-of-the-art. If Masini had his faults, they came with the territory and Caruso and Gigli shared them, too – emotional overdrive heartrending sobs even in the middle of a word, and the endemic terminal grunt at the end of a high note. Sure they were (and are) in questionable taste, but audiences lap them up regardless.
So when both Favero and Masini were announced for the U.S. Opera in Chicago, it all but blew my mind. And as Masini walked on out onto that stage that had witnessed such triumphs a decade before, to be greeted by polite, but hardly wild applause, I wondered if I was the only one there who recalled that “one long crescendo of excitement.”
It was a nice enough success that he scored with a couple of arias, a consummate Boheme Act I scene with Favero, and the Rigoletto Quartet with himself as the Duke and Elmo as a once-in-a-lifetime Maddelena, joined by Carmen and Cacchele. It was as grand a finale as possible, given the circumstances: still and all, it was deeply anti-climactic , and must have perplexed him, like Othello, in the extreme. If only my Italian had been up to the task of telling just how much his voice and his art had meant to me all of these years. But no – there he was, just across from me, relaxed and receptive as he would be for the next few hours – and what did I do? Italiano or no Italiano, I blew it, let the moment slip away from me forever. I have regretted it ever since.
My bittersweet musings were broken off by more urgent matters. The ladies of the ensemble, temporarily exhausted by so much high-powered yodelling, and sated with juice, cola, and red wine, sent up such a heartrending lament for “acqua fresca” that I set off at once in my appointed role of Ganymedes, cup-bearer – no, make that PAPER-cup-bearer to the Gods – on a search for fresh water. My quest too me through each and every stuffy, smelly coach on that train, past the scowling Finlayson and his goons, past knitting womenand senior couples doing crossword puzzles and trying to ignore the minor sex-plays of necking teenagers, past people still nasching and others already snoozing. It also took me through squealing knots of small nosepickers, one of whom, a fat little girl with glasses, plunked herself right down in my path and greeted me with an enormous pink Double-Yum Bubble-Gum balloon, which emerged slowly but surely from her mouth and was almost as splendiferous as I could have blown myself if I’d not had better things to do.
Moving on, I knew at once which car was serving as Valhalla-on-wheels for the German-speakers, for they were conversing in low yet resonant Deutsch. Funny how the less you know a language the more you try to cover your embarrassment with idiotic grins, and I must have been grinning like a zonked-out samurai. My efforts were met with regal nods and a courtly bow from the Heldentenor, Max Lorenz, highly esteemed on both sides of the Atlantic, just then between pre- and post-war Met engagements. He and his companions seemed so grateful for any contact with another humanoid that I was instantly swept up in a handshaking marathon. Maybe they could even help to solve the water shortage problem.
“Wasser?” I ventured with descriptive gestures.
“Ach ja! Jawohl, junger Mann! Ist gut!”
I felt I hadn’t quite got my message across.
“No, I mean water --- aqua --- dov’é? --- where Wasser?”
By now it was clear that my miming would never put Marcel Marceau out of business.
The great tenor took over most courteously, and in French: “Milles regrets, mon brav, mais il n’y a pas de l’eau ici. Je regrette beaucoup.”
Now he, too, was trying to break the language barrier.
“Um --- Kein --- No WASSER here ---“
“Well, thanks anyway, Sir,” I pulled my ragged faculties together with a heartfelt “DANKEY!”
“Bitte, bitte, bitte!”
And we went back to shaking hands again, like a scene from a silent movie. And that was the extent of my contact with Tannhäuser & Co. Just as well, because formal teutonic politeness was nowhere as much fun as the wine-dark, many-throated turbulence a few cars back.
(Footnote: To illustrate how fast things can move once Destiny takes over, that same Max Lorenz would sing Tristan to the Isolde of Maria Callas a little more than a year later in Genoa.)
My noble quest continued until, so far that it was practically in the engineer’s cab, I fetched up at the onl water-cooler still functioning. So, with a high heart and a dripping offering, I staggered back to home base and my precious charges, who by then must’ve been languishing like Manon Lescaut in Puccini’s Desert Near Louisiana. One sip, however, unleashed such a torrent of lipcurling scorn, so stentorian a chorus of “Cloro! Gesumaria! Cloro!” that it still resounds in my inner ear. So much for good intentions, Ganymedes!
Outside, wintry darkness, lit now and then by a small town flashing by. Inside, dim lights and the heat hellish. (No such thing, apparantly, as a thermostat, so it was either FREEZE or FRY, so we got FRY.) Even the washroom facilities were all but non-existant. Talk about your American Primitives! So what else was there to do but sing?
It was a bit past Toledo that the really smashing vocalizing began --- not just opera and operetta, but folk songs all the way from Napoli to Harper’s Ferry. John Brown’s Body never had it so good, with the Glory, Glory Halleluya-chorus rolling out like thunder, with myself taking the lead, and solid guitar strumming provided by Rossi-Lemeni, the Romanov Burl Ives. Everything at full throttle, of course, including the complaints by some of our fellow- travellers, the woebegone Willy Lomans whose flat midwestern grousing was no match for operatic yodelling. Every time one of them tried to get a word in, he’d be engulfed in song and good-natured guffawing and invitations to join in the fun. There was enough Vino Rosso for many a mile, that good wine that our good conductor-friend offensively called Dago Red. Luckily, I was the only one who understood this last.
“Oh, what did I ever do to deserve this?” he kept on moaning. “This was always such an easy run --- no sweat, no problems --- until tonight!
And he regarded us balefully.
A golden flourish on the guitar, and Nino --- last night’s beautifully Singing Waiter --- burst into the tenor torch song to end all tenor torch songs: Core ‘n grato, Catari, Catari
“Just listen to that,” I burbled in ecstacy.
“We’ve been listening since we crossed the Indiana border.”
“But where could you hear singing like that – for free?”
At this point, the Assistant Conductor, Fin’s catemate, a spotty yahoo with an IQ of 10, waddled through the car and offered his opinion: “Never mind these fancy foreigners. Gimme Vaug-han Monroe any day --- or Gene Autry.”
And he went off on his business.
Dulcet Tenor: “Catari, pecche me dicesti parole amare?”
I persisted in my admiration: back home these were all famous singers.
“If they’re so famous, what are they doing sitting up in a day-coach to New York? How come they ain’t with all the fat cats on the 20th Century?”
“They couldn’t afford the 20th Century?”
Dulcet Tenor Voice: “Pecché me parlee o core me turmiente, Catari?”
I continued my arguement: “They could barely afford this miserable cattle-car!”
Irate passenger at the other end: “Can’t you jokers hold your summit conference someplace else?”
Another angry voice: “Yeh, we wanna get some rest!”
Mr. Coffee-Nerves, the conductor (still smarting from my last remark, furiously grinding his dentures:)
FIN: Miserable? You take that back? It ain’t miserable and it ain’t no cattle-car, at least not until now! (Starting to lose it:) This is my car! My train! And these are my passengers! An’ it’s up to me that they get peace an’ quiet, unnerstan’?”
Tenor: Cor’ – Cor ‘n grato!
FIN: Peace ‘n quiet! It’s a rule!
ANGRY VOICE FROM THE REAR: Knock it off, you guys! We gotta get some rest! Dammit, we all got things to do tomorrow!
FIN: There, ya see? (To Tenor:) Stop That! He’s gotta stop now, ya hear! Make him stop!
This display had the whole company laughing and applauding. Then they joined the tenor on the climactic notes of his big number.
FIN: Are they making fun of me? ‘Cause if they are ---! SHADDUP, alla ya! Make them stop!
ME: But I don’t know how! They’re only singing to keep their spirits up.
FIN: I’m going out to get some help! I can’t handle all this! You wait right there!
(Next stop: PARANOIA CITY!)
And out he went once more, fists flailing and muttering imprecations. He was definately coming unstuck ... we’re talking seizures here. We’re talking hyper thrombosis. We’re talking the dreaded PUCCINI-INDUCED CARDIAC ARREST, or PICA for short, far more deadly than mere TRAVIATA-SYNDROME, from earlier on the trip. That had been only a mild case of Brindisi-fever, but this was something else again.
And speaking of Puccini, The Golden Gleeclub had now ripped into Musetta’s Waltz from Act 2 of La Boheme, the most elaborate ensemble piece in that whole enchanting score. Maybe it was the scent of danger that gave it that extra pizzaz, but it was their finest achievement so far. You recall how the flirtatious Musetta leads off proudly “Quando m’en v’o ...”, then one by one the other Bohemians join in, and soon they are all celebrating youth and love on Christmas Eve in Paris. This was a communal effort led by Masini himself doing his Toscanini-conducting impression, with Rossi-Lemeni doubling on guitar and singing his role of Colline, Favero’s vintage Mimi, and with Cecchele providing great arcs of melody as Marcello. The Willy Lomans were truly stupified. Just as the whole cast was going for gold on the finale, Fin and his vigilantes burst in again, running in smack into this tidal wave of sound. It all but blew them all out again. The effect was catatonic.
“How about that?” I yipped, as Fin shook himself all over like wet hound dog.
I had a feeling that this time was going to be different, and, sure enough, te new manifesto was as follows, and MERCILESS: All singing, all jabbering loud laughter and carrying on of any kind, especially the drinking of “Dago Red” must cease AT ONCE, DID WE HEAR? AT ONCE ... or else the entire troope, this whole operatic travelling circus, the original Ravioli Express, part and parcel and guitar, would be tossed off the train without any ceremony or apology at the next stop, which happened to be Buffalo, for us The City of Destiny, Realm of Doom. It would be the next stop, and, for us, the very last.
ME: But you can’t do that to this people! They were already stranded in Chicago!
FIN: Yeh, and they’re gonna be stranded in Buffalo! Let them go out and sing to the Falls!
(A sudden vision: Elmo, Massini, Favero and all and all, trying to compete with the neighboring Niagara --- and coming off rather well, at that. Of course, the Wagnerians would have to be there to back them up.) The train had already strarted to slow down and the outskirts of Buffalo to appear. I had to act and act faster than ever before in my life, and what was more, in comprehensible Italian. The resulting oration was born of sheer damn-the-torpedos/ you-have-nothing-to-lose-but-your-cadenzas desperation, a pastiche of every operatic or literary cliché I’d ever read or heard --- molto pericoloso --- guardate per piacere ---- catastrofe, disastro --- nel nome del Dio! --- Zitta per carita! --- all rounded off with a little saying I’d learned from Sandro: Chi va piano va sano, e va lontano ...: Take it nice and slow, keep your wits about you, and you’ll go the distance! And I wrapped it all up with a quote from --- what else? --- La Boheme: “C’e freddo fuori ---“ Rough translation: “Mimi-baby, it’s cold outside!”
And wonder of wonders, it worked, transmuting all those volatile gremlins into a choir of Raphael Putti, angelic smiles as if manna wouldn’t melt in their mouths. When The Evil One reappeared to carry out the sentence, he was stopped dead in his tracks by the wall of silence flung up in such a haste. He was dumbfounded, one might even say discombombulated. Having to rescind the Banishment AND Issue a general pardon had not been part of the game-plan at all. Brought up short, he could only squeak: “NEXT STOP, BUFFALO!” And he repeated it, for my benefit: “NEXT STOP: BUF ... – FA – ... – LO!”
His voice cracked.
(I had to surpress an insane urge to shout out two of Madame Fitziu’s surefire teaching instructions: “Out your ears, dearie!” and “Keep your larynx down!”)
He then delivered his final word, and a pretty string of triple negatives it was, too: “You can tell ‘em from me in that queer lingo of theirs, I don’t take no crap from nobody, unnerstan’?” A pyrrhic victory at best. He knew it, and so did we.
As soon as he’d disappeared, there arose a fine Italian murmur of mixed amusement, derision and relief ... A sudden loud clanging from beneath the train, reminiscent of Garbo’s suicide scene in Anna Karenina, and the train gave a massive shudder. Then, with much hissing and creaking, we were under way once more. We wouldn’t have to face Niagara Falls after all.
It was an uneasy truce but it held. Only a few more hours to go. In the background someone was picking out, ever so softly on the communal guitar, “Good Night, Irene, I’ll see you in my dreams ...”
“Oh, Gawd,” a man’s voice groaned from a afar. “Here we go again.”
This was followed by a woman’s drawl: “At the next stop remind me to have this entire car backed into a siding a left there.”
“Lady,” I informed her, “the next stop is Grand Central Station.”
“You’re kidding,” came the reply. “Oh, well.”
The last couple of songbirds were settling down as best they could in their improvised nests when The World’s Friendliest Train Conductor came back into focus. Before he could say another word, I informed him coldly that we were trying to get some sleep and to go away and leave us in peace. He was flummoxed as usual and for once speechless. He then beat a retreat – thus endeth the Saga of the Fiend we’ve been calling Finlayson. (Oh, forgive us, Fin, wherever you may be.) I turned back to the passengers that really mattered.
“Buona notte,” I murmured, and the answer came with a little laugh, “Buona notte, caro ...” Then for the first time since our departure from Chicago I had a chance to relax and maybe nod off a little bit ... I remember this pause in the night’s activities, with everyone bedded down at last and all quiet except for some sonorous snoring ... quiet enough to hear the hypnotic click of the wheels, and the train whistle and its attendant echo screeching up the Hudson River Valley. (How I still miss the old steam locomotives and everything about them!)
One positive thing that learned from this whole surrealistic experience: Opera-Singers always go “Hmmm-Hmmm” at regular intervals, maybe to check if the voice is still present and accounted for, even in their sleep --- oh, especially in their sleep. That came as an interesting revelation, an insomniac revelation. But, being an ex-altarboy AND as a boy-scout 2nd class, brought up in the security of the suburbs, I had never slept with an opera singer before, nor anywhere near one. (Don’t anyone say anything!) Yet there I was, with a good baker’s dozen of the best “Hmmm”-ers in the business, strewn all about me like the petrified inhabitants of a newly excavated Pompeiian villa, all within snoring distance, and each one going “Hmmm” like mad ...
There was Favero-Mimi, her lovely head pillowed on a topcoat-swaddled suitcase with one sleeve draped over her eyes. Opposite her, Cloe, Queen of the Gypsies, appropriately bundled in a fringed shawl, her head slowly sinking till it hit the wooden arm-rest. On the seat beyond, sprawled the gallant Edgar of Ravenwood as Sir Walter Scott had never imagined him, that is, more or less flat on his back, his Valentino features beneath a copy of Corriere della Sera, which rose and fell with rhythmic breathing. Across the aisle, Boris Gudonov thrashed and twisted in a heroic effort to stretch his elegant six foot frame. A little further off, the basso buffo, no longer Dulcamara, but an ordinary uprooted citizen craving repose, basque-beret shading his eyes – then Senorita Carmen, guitar laid aside and a terricloth towel in place of a mantilla, moaning softly in Castillian, and the remainder of the party: tenor, baritone, agent’s wife, each one in a caricature of slumber ...
By then we were chuffing alongside the slate-gray Hudson, and not far from --- Are you ready for this? --- Sing-Sing. But for the moment no Sing-Song, no chatter, no moritorium on nasching and yodelling, even on bickering with the hired help. All passion spent, at least temporarily.
With the long winter night already behind us, I found myself to turned on to sleep --- this would be my very first time in New York and I wasn’t about to miss a moment of it with anything as mundane as sleep. As the early gray light gave way, the approaches to the city seemed to follow exactly the start of the old radio series, complete with locomotive sound effects and oncoming express train: “Day and night great trains rush towards the Hudson River, sweep down its eastern bank for one hundred and forty miles, flash briefly by the long row of tenament houses south of 125th Street, dive with a roar into the two-and-a-half mile tunnel that burrows beneath the glitter and swank of Park Avenue and then --- GRAND CENTRAL STATION: crossroad of a million human lives, gigantic stage on which are played a thousand dramas daily ...”
Diana
By Alexandra H. Rodrigues
It was early in the day on Long Island. The suburban houses with the closed shutters appeared empty but the yawning garages indicated that the men had left for work. I went to look for Diana, our summer guest from the orphanage.
She stood motionless, doll-like, at a bed of fully opened, red and pink tulips, her bare feet exposed to the tranquilizing touch of grass still damp from the night’s dew. Her eyes reflected the clear, gleaming sun in the cloudless sky, and her fragile figure was another beautiful creation added to the abundance of nature’s treasures.
Together with this child from the slums I marveled at the twittering birds on the wooden fence and at the ducks on the muddy, seaweed-covered canal. I was conscious of a faint scent from flowering lilac and pungent earth. The breeze that evoked a melodious timbre in the branches of the weeping willow, petted my face and the crackle of opening pine cones resembled tiny kisses. An airplane painted a silvery contour as it circled toward the airport. The remote swish of rushing cars on the chestnut-treed streets which border the community golf course gave assurance of a link with the pulsating city. Across the canal, two shaggy dogs jumped into the chilly bay water for a swim. Their splashing rippled the surface and upset the even swing of a wooden fishing skiff.
When I bent down to free some baby strawberry plants from yellow, crowding weeds, Diana stretched out her arms – to the air, to the flowers, to the sky and to me. I was happy that she was happy! Often happiness singles us out at the oddest moment – allow it in!
EVERY SOUL HAS A STORY
Article by Charles E.J. Moulton
The wind cannot be caught, the soul can be categorized. Nowadays, everybody judges a book by its cover. Doing that is like chasing the wind. It will never ever have anything to do with reality. Spiritual reality. And yet, we do categorize. Ruthlessly. We always judge a book by its cover. Even if the contents inside is complete different than what is on the outside.
Murders occur because people don’t get respect. Wars, divorces and cataclysms could be avoided with a simple: “I understand you!” or a nice “I like you!”
The simple fact, though, is that everybody needs some respect.
Even Aretha Franklin knew that. She even sang about it.
It can be difficult to step outside the boundaries of generalization. “Soccerfans are lazy brutes, Germans eat Sauerkraut, Americans eat Hamburgers and Chinese people eat dogs. Kings are noble, the common man loves beer and movie stars are happy.
There is no such thing as the common man.
He does not exist, because no man, woman or child is common.
Everyone is unique.
Every soul has as story.
So, who is he, this famous common man? What is ordinary? Society supports the cliché that “ordinary” exist and people buy it. The think that the media expects them to be common and the media think that the people expect them to provide the necessary output. People think that the other person expects something and then they act accordingly. But, basically, the other person might actually be expecting something else. Something different. Or they might just be caught up in themselves. In fact, who cares what they expect? Surprise them with your skill. Let them discover your brilliance. Lead them into your world of kindness and grace.
This following examples are all true stories.
Read, my dears, contemplate and examine.
We see Joan Collins and we think: “That woman has never been poor!” What we don’t know is that she collected unemployment-money prior to her Dynasty-fame.
We see the hardworking stagehand and repairman with many gaps in his teeth, close to retirement and we think: “This is a guy without much culture or education!” What we don’t know is that this man is an accomplished and artistically very skilled classic painter, who has sold his art for high money on countless exhibitions.
We see the eccentric old lady, rummaging in her wallet for some spare small-change at the supermarket check-out-line and we think: “What a crazy, boring old lady. Can’t she be quicker?” What we don’t know is that she is a Russian Jewish concert pianist, who survived the death-camp of Auschwitz in Poland.
While sitting in the cold winter air, sketching a portrait, a man stinking of alcohol comes up to us and sits down to chat. We think: “What a loser! He stinks!” What we don’t know is that he is an ex-airplane-constructor that ruined his health through his hard work in the factory. He now spends his time travelling to Gran Canaria and Seville just to compensate for the pain of his early retirement, trying to get over his girlfriend’s early death ten years back.
Fame is never a guarantee for happiness. Likewise, clichès are common. Follow your humane dreams, whatever those mankind-loving and Earth-improving dreams may be. I bet the Queen of England brushes her teeth at night and goes to bed, wondering if her children and grandchildren are all right. I bet she has a cold now and then. I bet Bill Gates has a stomach ache now and then and has to ask his wife if she will make him some tea.
I am sure that the President of the United States gets sick now and then and tells his wife. “Dear, I can’t hold this speech tomorrow. I’ve lost my voice!”
Basically, we are all people. No, I will correct that. We are all souls. People inside souls. The soul is the first thing that you should care about. Without that, life does not matter. Soul matters. Feelings matter. Individuals matter. Love matters. Our feelings, our microcosmos rules our lives. These feelings carry the packages that we brought with us into the world.
God lives in us and our fate resides inside us and manifest the reality as we know it.
Inside us.
The answer is, was and always has been inside us.
Inside us, there is a ticket that leads to the next world.
What is the answer?
In acting training, we speak of “thinking outside the nine dots”. What are they?
Nine individual dots are formed on a paper inside a square. The assignment is to connect them without them crossing or the pen lifting from the paper. That is only possible if you make a triangle, whose boundaries end outside the square. That is symbolism. In acting, you have to look for character-similar emotion outside the normal borders of the play. Likewise, in the world we have to “think outside the dots”. We can’t afford to believe in clichés anymore.
Brave innovators are unusual people. Edison would never have invented the lightbulb if he had followed the leader. Wires and glass don’t normally create light, right? Einstein would’ve never ever created his theory of relativity, if he hadn’t believed in the unique experience.
But this is not just about famous people. Famous? Who cares if you’re famous? You’re famous, too. Yes, you. You reading this article. You are famous in your own right. A lot of people know you. Your family, your friends, your colleagues. I bet you have met thousands of people in your life and they all know you, like you and admire you. If that’s not fame, I don’t know what is.
We live in a time, where the mainstream engulfs so much of what really is individualstic and true. In this time, it is vitally important that we try thinking for ourselves. Do unusual things. The kind man who let’s you go first into the elevator, ask him about his day. What did he do today? The little girl playing in the sandbox. Give her a flower and walk away, smiling. Teach her a song. The woman with the beautiful hat, give her a compliment. The busdriver yelling at you for being slow while getting into the bus. Tell him that you understand that he has had a long day.
Only if we take brave steps to look beyond what is superficial can we change the world as we know it. Look deeper into the symbolic canvas of your spiritually manifested life. Don’t believe what society tells you. See for yourself what lies inside the hat of the beggar. If your colleagues tell you that the new boss is an awful man, go and talk to him yourself and find out what makes him tick. If the woman in the cantine at work tells you that the girl working in the art department is an antisocial snob, go talk to her. Find out who she is. If you don’t, at least don’t tell anyone else that she’s a snob.
How can you know? You’ve never met her.
Every microcosmos reveals individualism.
Every soul has a story.
The Common Error
By Sumant Sharma
In a common man’s life, how much role does a ‘common’ politician play? I am not talking of the 5-6 top notched country’s decision makers. I am talking of the average goonda of the area who is sitting in the secretariat elected on the basis of providing freedom to break the law to the common man. This question assumes more importance today as every way side tea stall has become hub of discussion about the pros and cons of the so called surgical demonetization strike by the Indian Central Gov. Is the work of politicians just to stage a hue and cry in the media and furor in the parliament and the lower house? Is their role in the democracy just to pose themselves or do they really have a valid purpose?
In one’s thinking an average fellow country man and woman doesn’t worry beyond the daily bread and butter and a good sleep at night for themselves and their families. No one is much bothered about what are the BRICS agenda or difference between OCI and NRI. The politicization of the external aspects of human life-like media and office gossip has nothing to do with the grass root values of us humans. So, there is a need to de-politicize the ‘common’ life of the ‘common’ man.
As everyone realizes, the less the obligations and the less the liabilities, the better the state of one’s mind is. In today’s life politics and politicians have become more of unwanted responsibilities only. Unwanted -but not irremovable. Let’s ponder at a country that has lesser politicians. That will just mean a people that is at its own-no one to blame and no one to expect from. This removes the prime flaw in any society governed by unworthy people-that of shifting responsibility, of playing the blame game.
The provision of basic amenities is and will remain in businessmen’s hands. The production of food grain and poultry will depend on natural resources as before, the number of poor farmers committing suicides is not going to change either. The masons, carpenters, drivers, mechanics, engineers and doctors will function ditto to the previous state too. The cooks will cook with similar culinary skills and the crooks will flourish with same unhealthy fervor.
Instead there will be less noise on the TV about some ‘breaking news’ and less loudspeakers roaring against or for the ruling gov. Children will find their parents having more time to love them. The senior citizens will find peace to play with the nature more easily. The wives will find their husbands more available and the latter will see mirth in the thrift of time that will be saved from unnecessary gossip.
Whatever will result because of depoliticization, it will be a welcome change. And it’s not only a welcome option but the need of the hour to get rid of the unwanted politicians. The political systems in today’s democracies have not only turned societies into jokes but have also converted them into masochistically oriented masses.
The democracy was originally described as a government ‘by the people, for the people and of the people’. As we are, we can’t stay chaste for long. We prefer negativity to remaining neutral. Goodness for longer than usual bores us. It is the result of this game that we inflict upon us that the Democracy today is defined as a government ‘bye the people, far from people and off the people’.
My Moment with Clint
Memories by the late, great
Herbert Eyre Moulton
(1927 - 2005)
The bit part I played in Clint Eastwood’s Cold War adventure melodrama FIREFOX was one of his first times out as both director and star. In it he plays an American pilot disguised as an ordinary businessman and sent to Moscow to steal a new supersonic fighter plane.
This was Vienna 1981 --- we were living in Sweden at the time, but this didn’t stop me from trundling down to Johann-Strauss-Ville every chance I got --- for theatre work, school radio recordings, translations, or what you will.
This particular assignment was definately of the what-you-will variety, with myself as a KGB apparatchik hovering ominously in the middle background while “Our Clint” is being interrogated by a cool, polite, and deadly Soviet customs official regarding certain suspicious-looking items in his luggage --- the usual anti-American, anything-to-be-mean hard time those boyos used to specialize in. All I was supposed to do was stand there glowering, but I fear I did considerably more than that, and I’ve got a home video-clip of the scene to prove it. It could serve as a model for all time of how prominent a bit player in the background can be, if he has a mind to, and is sneaky enough to see his chance and take it.
My bit being so miniscule, such an old ham like myself --- sugar-cured, hickory-smoked, pineapple-glazed --- naturally felt it could use a bit of fleshing out, which is precisely what I proceeded to do, by the simple expedient of staying right on camera the whole time, naughty, unprofessional, but devilishly effective. All it took was swaying back and forth ever so slightly on my two little cloven hooves, whilst staring into the camera with doubt and suspicion in my eyes, real Spy-Who-came-in-from-the-Cold-stuff ... Powerful, stark, menacing.
But not everybody saw it that way, and my performance did not go completely unnoticed. At length one of the camera crew spoke up rather pointedly: “Clint, please tell that gentleman to stand still ... bobbing back and forth like that, he’s making me dizzy.” A tiny reprimand, and it did no good whatsoever.
Clint for one, being much too preoccupied with his end of the scene and his interrogation, nodded and went on to say nothing but give me a tiny smile. So, accordingly, there’s “Old Herbie” or “Air-Bear”, as my college friends used to call me, in that key opening reel, beginning 21 minutes into the motion picture and going for another full one-and-a-half minutes (the black-haired and elegant gentleman behind the Soviet military official), swaying back and forth, back and forth, gently, quietly, like a padded pendulum, frowning his Filthy-McNasty-Tovaritsch frown, all the while ...
To show you what a fine gentleman and colleague Clint Eastwood truly is, he came over to me afterwards and --- the very pineapple of politeness (to borrow Mrs. Malaprop’s phrase), thanked me for doing the scene with him. Hmm, doing it? Dear Hearts, it looks from this end like I was doing my damndest to ruin it, though I’d swear a great and terrible oath that such was never my intent.
Alas, Firefox turned out to be one of the biggest proverbial and monetary duds of Clint’s career. Purest coincidence? As in W.W. Jacobs’ classic horror story “The Monkey’s Paw”, maybe, maybe not. But given my track record before or since, who knows? Mine wasn’t much a part as parts go in “Firefox”, but was it sufficient to jinx the whole operation? If that be the case, sorry about that, Clint. Tough luck that it had to happen at such a vulnerable stage in your endevors. It could have happened to a worse film and as anyone who reads these chronicles can tell --- could, and did.
Were the fates even then getting me warmed up for a pre-destined role as plague-carrier sui generis? Stay tuned.
I only knew that in the bad old days they used to toss types like me overboard to placate the angry Gods causing all the shipwrecks: “And Jonah said unto them, take me and cast me forth into the sea, for I know that for my sake this great tempest is upon you.”
I guess I’m lucky I’m still more or less intact.
Let’s see, how things stand now? I shot my first motion picture in Ardmore Studios in Bray, Ireland, as a seaman, with dear Cy Knapp. Between that film (1961) and Firefox lay three thousand concerts, maybe one hundred stage productions and a few dozen commercials, one or two episodes in a local TV-series, not counting the radio-programmes.
But as far as the motion pictures go, one vanished into the Bermuda Triangle as if it never existed, the other internationally distributed, but still a moderate flop --- 2 films, 2 flops, a perfect score. Where would the Moulton Menace strike next?
The body count continues. Stay tuned.
All joking aside, of all the celebrities I have had as colleagues Clint was the most supreme gentleman of them all. Alan Rickman, for his part, was very pleasant and soft-spoken intellectual, Mickey Rourke the cool buddy-type character, David Warner the friendly thespian, Zsa-Zsa Gabor the temperamentful diva par excellance, Viggo Mortensen the consummate professional.
Clint? He was, remains and always will be the prince of politeness.
The 9/11 Syndrome
Article by Charles E.J. Moulton
I had a quarrel with a friend this morning. The discussion escalated out of nothing, really, the reason for our differences a very small detail, indeed. What saved the situation was something simple I said. Something I never would have thought could have resolved the issue. “I take half of the blame for this. You’ll have to take the other half!”
That was more than anyone could ask.
We went to the dance rehearsal we had originally cancelled because of our differences. The situation was far from perfect, but we were on speaking terms. Eventually, the situation went back to normal. We learned a few very important things through this experience: human beings defend themselves when they are attacked. Secondly, you only have to take half of the blame for any fight that erupts between you and any adversary. No more, but also no less. Telling another person that you are partly to blame gives him or her the chance to like you. You are not withdrawing from the situation. He or she knows that you know you hurt his or her feelings. Empathy is instrumental for a peace treaty. Without empathy or sympathy, a heated discussion will never cool down. If you don’t talk it out, it will inevitably turn into a disaster.
We’re all human. Our human feelings are the cornerstones of every problem that arises. Whether we’re dealing with small petty differences or huge world wars, it’s all the same. The bigger and more impossible difficulties emerge when countries attack other countries or groups attack other groups. One million people who hate another million people, will they ever resolve their differences? They’re building defense towers to protect other defense towers. Those initial towers were built on lies, misunderstandings and accusations. So, how could you ever resolve a misunderstanding that was founded on a lie?
That’s why I am writing this article.
The idea for it came yesterday. I sat on the couch, calmly, my wife watching a movie, my daughter snoozing in her bed. I don’t know why I began researching the web for information about the events surrounding September 11th, 2001, but I did. I ended up sitting there for two hours, flipping webpages, trying to make heads or tails of both sides of the story.
I wanted to start writing this thing already yesterday night. I sincerely do believe, though, that fate provided me with this little minor dilemma this morning in order to show me how to formulate my idea: the human issue I would like to label as the 9/11 syndrome. The opposing forces within us and between us fuel this syndrome and keep it thriving.
Hate fuels disaster.
There are now more conspiracy stories in circulation that deal with the cataclysmic events of that day than any other event in history. These conspiratorial explanations include alien invadors wanting to take over the world, senators sending their rocket missiles on the Pentagon and wealthy oil barons with greedy hearts bringing down their own creation just to collect the insurance money.
The culprits are as varied as our world is vast and incomprehensible.
Dozens of websites are devoted to 9/11-related illnesses, psychological, psychosomatic and physical in nature. The firefighters that lived through that day are now either retired or dead. There is even a little boy that claims he is the reincarnation of a firefighter that died in of one of the towers as it collapsed on 9/11.
The events of that day were a human holocaust. Few modern day events have had such an impact on the minds of the world population as this catastrophy. Not even the Vietnam War or the assassination of John F. Kennedy terrified people as much.
I remember the day vividly. Exactly 16 days later, I was flying to Barcelona to board the cruise ship M/S Arkona for a term full of vocal show work. The six weeks prior to that were filled with work. We were rehearsing 7 two-hour shows, learning 116 songs. We were five actors that were about to perform artistic cavalcades while cruising the world. I was headlining most of the shows, so my director summoned me for a solo rehearsal. We were going to rehearse some dialogue.
That plan soon disintergrated into oblivion. As soon as we heard that a plane had flown into the World Trade Center in New York City, we quickly shortened the rehearsal. At first, I could not even comprehend what really had happened. Was this a small private plane that had lost itself in Manhattan and somehow crashed into the building?
The issue turned humungous quicker than we believed to be possible. It seemed to influence all of what we thought was given and natural. Safety was a thing of the past. Nobody stepped into a plane without fearing never to land again without crashing. The world had turned into a terrorist’s filthy playground. Flights were cancelled, airport security became vicious and people with Arabic names were thrown manually off Boeings.
The story became more and more incredible as it unfolded. A million questions appeared in my mind. Things just did not add up. I researched the subject to a great extent and found information all too incredible to be true.
The alleged phone call that Barbara Olson made from Flight 77 was intensely described by her husband Ted Olson on Larry King Live. If there had been a passenger seat phone at Flight 77 in the first place, which there wasn’t, she couldn’t have made it because she apparently did not have her credit cards with her. Furthermore, cellular phones have been proven useless at such speeds and altitudes above 2000 feet.
Later on, FBI released a a statement that Barbara never had made the phone call at all. In fact, Barbara had only made one single unconnected call within the plane. Ted changed his story three times and was then described as a liar. So, what are we supposed to believe? That Ted Olson lied to us? If that’s true, we have to ask ourselves why he lied to us? Who was he protecting? The Pentagon? In fact, Ted Olson has admitted on previous occassions that the government lies. Now the lawyer lied himself.
The most astounding piece of information comes from the hijackers themselves. They were all proven to be miserable pilots, men who couldn’t even fly small planes, let alone huge ones that needed massive amounts of disclosed tutoring. They took over the planes with box-cutters. It has been said that such a take-over could be regarded as ludicrous, given that the passengers all had luggage with them which they could beat the hijackers to death.
The FBI also knew all their names almost immediately after the attack, because Mohammed Atta obviously left a conveniently complete list of all 19 hijackers in a forgotten bag in Oregon. That sounds fake already. Why did U.S. intelligence ignore all the huge amount of leads that told them what was going to happen and where, but find Atta’s bag in such as remote place as Portland within hours of the attack?
The horrible thing, yet again, is that people were talking about the attack for years before it happened, even pointing at the towers and saying they would come down in 2001. Hundreds of international leads were practically handed over to American intelligence and completely ignored. Sometimes, these leads were even pushed away with deliberate aggression.
Flight 77 vanished completely after it hit the Pentagon. The part of the Pentagon that was struck was also partly closed for renovation and the only available evidence for what exactly hit the Pentagon, video tapes filming the attack, were confiscated by U.S. Intelligence.
Seasoned commercial airlined pilot Russ Wittenburg reported that uneducated pilots like the hijackers would be physically unable to fly those planes into the towers or into the Pentagon. In fact, the data recorders read that Flight 77 flew 300 feet over and not into the Pentagon. Something else did hit the Pentagon. Flight 77 didn’t hit it. The hijackers didn’t reset the altitude device and the didn’t know how to operate the auto pilot.
In fact, I will repeat this, these people were not even good enough to operate a small plane. Commercial planes like that carry tons of fuel, luggage and 300 people. They are not as flexible as smaller planes. They are unable to fly into towers, according to Wittenburg.
The Pentagon attack left no wreckage, no motors, nothing of any kind. Even the hole of the Pentagon didn’t match the description. There should have been at least one more hole in the Pentagon from the one wing that had not fallen off. At the speed, as well, there would have been a great chance that the entire Pentagon would have been destroyed in the process. The hole? It looks like the hole made by a missile.
Retired Intelligence General Albert Stubblebine, who spent his entire life studying intelligence photography, agreed with this assumption. He told a reporter that a plane could not have hit the Pentagon. There should have been plane marks. There weren’t.
Stubblebine goes on to say that the free press have now ceased to be free. They are told what to report. That coincides with the journalist that resigned from his profession just this year, because he could not live with having to spread lies.
David Ray Griffin’s compelling book “The New Pearl Harbor” summarizes the accusations, outlines scenarios, describes the many problems in the storyline, addresses problems that exists within the official accounts. Anyone interested in researching the issue should try first reading this book. Another controversial novel is Steve Alten’s “The Shell Game”, which outlines a certain reality that might come true one day. Here we find supposedly official reasons for the fake attack.
The information blaming the government for the attack ends up flabbergasting any reader or viewer. The information flow is so overwhelming that it threatens to drive you insane. One can really not see the forest for the trees. That triggered a need in me to look at the other side of the story.
One of Osama Bin Laden’s confession letters outlines a reason for his alleged revenge on the United States of America. He saw tens of thousands of his countrymen die in American attacks. Most prominently were his memories of seeing two towers fall and burn in his homeland. He wanted to destroy two American towers as a revenge. He claims that only a small amount of people died in the attacks in Manhattan. In his country, thousands more died.
The question is if the government really is as bloodthirsty as the conspiracy says it is. We don’t really want to believe that, do we? But if the cover-up is so thinly disguised, holes really everywhere with absolutely no aim to try to keep the implausabilities a secret, then a million people will become suspicious.
Most websites that debunk the myths don’t give much evidence. They show the official films, tell the official stories, claim that everything is what it seems. The only real evidence comes from people who question the official story. Eye witnesses claim to have seen a military plane with no windows at all flying into the first building.
Milton William Cooper, former CIA-agent and author of the conspiracy-book “Behold A Pale Horse”, announced a statement on 6/28/2001 that a terrorist attack would be carried out in September and that Osama Bin Laden would be blamed for it. He knew. He also knew that the people planning the New World Order would be behind it. He said that Martial Law would be declared. It cost him his life. He was shot and killed by the Apache County Sherriff Deputy on November 6, 2001. Milton William Cooper will be sorely missed.
There is hope. As strange as it seems, there is hope. Why is there hope? Because, as of yet, no martial law has been declared. FEMA has not taken over the world. There is Windows 10, that is claimed to be a spy program. There is Facebook, which is claimed to be a conspiracy. There is the Islamic State, which is claimed to be the reason the New World Order is seeking to plant and detonate an atom bomb within the American borders. But the I.S. is not going international, as little as the Ebola has gone international.
If I understand the conspiracy right, 9/11 was created by the government in order to get the permission to invade Iraq. To do what? Get oil? I don’t know. Maybe someone was really afraid that America was going just as much down the drains as Rome did. It’s getting there. No superpower has ever lasted. Go through history. Every huge empire eventually fell.
I just know that the whole conspiracy thing fell to smithereens. Nothing down there in Iraq turned out the way it was supposed to turn out. Trying to control the world by creating cataclysmic events is like trying to predict the weather. Let’s say you live in Angusville, California. Your local meteorologist says it’s going to rain on Tuesday. The low pressure could be influenced by a sudden gust of wind, though. The raincloud could change course. That is what happened with 9/11 and the proposed effects of FEMA martial law. You can’t predict people. You can’t predict life. We are seven billion people here on this planet. We all know that things turn out differently than we plan them to turn out.
The critiques of conspiracy theories claim that they are ill informed and make up stuff as they go along. In this case, bro, the conspiracy theorists are more informed than the friends of the official account. The ones sticking their heads in the sand are the official storytellers.
That is not the point, though.
A part of the 9/11 syndrome is that, although we have a common cause, we act like we are enemies. This has become more a case of being in the right than actually being right.
Bill Cooper did predict 9/11. We have to be on our guard. But I knew people who thought the world was going to end in 2012, because the Mayas allegedly predicted something the could not have known 5000 years ago. I knew people who were extremely nasty to me because I told them they were in the wrong. I knew people who told me that Operation Desert Storm in the first Gulf War was the beginning of the Third World War. Political Conspiracies are as old as time. They’re not new. They have just turned a little bigger, a little more technical. The people who plan them pretend they’re God.
They’re not. Believe me. They eat, drink, laugh, cry, love, hate, read, write, think, feel, make love, shit and pee like the rest of us do. No matter how rich you get, you’re still a person. You’re still a soul. When the conspirators up there again in front of God’s throne, after they die, God will ask them, honestly and kindly, what the hell they thought they were doing down there? They’ll have to go back here in their next lives and they will have to make amends, seriously and honestly.
The 9/11 syndrome is the mentality that we have to be enemies, build camps, complain at each other and tell each other that the other one is wrong, if we’re right or not. It is the mentality today’s lawyers present. They say truth is irrelevent. The only thing that matters is how you present your client’s case.
We believe that everyone has the power except us. But I have news for you. You have the power over your own life. The politicians don’t. They don’t know you. They will never know you, even if they will hear about you in the papers or in the internet or even if you become more famous than Robert de Niro. You have a family, you have a home, you have a life, you like certain things, dislike certain things, you eat, drink, laugh, cry, love, hate, read, write, think, feel, make love, shit and pee like the rest of us do. And there is no one on the Earth like you. Be proud of that. The President of the United States, the King of Spain and the CEO of Microsoft are just as unique as you, their souls are just as eternal, they cry just like you do.
They don’t control you.
They can’t.
They have no power over you.
Laugh at them.
Live your life.
Do not follow the crowd.
Life is not the 9/11 syndrome.
Life is ALL about soul.
The politicians and the conspirators are just people with incredibly cocky and very annoying attitudes. There are good ones, but there are also bad ones.
Believe in your own soul.
That most important thing in life is not how big your checkbook is. It’s how big your heart is that matters. The important thing is that you are faithful to what and who you love. The only thing that mattered to the conpirators was the size of their wallets. Unfortunately, they were so preoccupied with money that they forgot that their hearts had gaps in them. The gap in the heart of the main 9/11 conspirator was as big as the hole the missile made in the corner of the Pentagon.
Be honest, be fair.
God will reward you for it.
A Princess in the Making
By the late, great Herbert Eyre Moulton
(1927 - 2005)
I made many movies in my day.
One of them was with David Warner and Susannah York.
In the script of the Italian-produced movie “Princess”, we find this direction:
“The door opens and an elderly, impeccably dressed BUTLER appears, with a silver tray piled high with magazines.
BUTLER
Excuse me, Your Highness, but you said you wanted these urgently.
Three guesses who the butler is, and the first two don’t count. That’s right: always the butler and never the boss, a somewhat wearying sentence I seem to be serving for a lifetime.
The setting for this Graustarkian love story is the mythical principality of Lichtenhaus, with its royal family modelled on the Grimaldi clan of Monaco. For the part of the princesses, meant to be Caroline and Stephanie, two of Vienna’s most important dramatic regal landmarks were chosen to offer their cinematic bailiwicks. Even the minor players were handpicked by the director, Carlo Vanzina, a one-time protegé of Fellini, no less. So, it was a noble line I was about to tangle with when I turned up at Vienna’s equally noble Hotel Imperial for the casting interview.
All right, yet another butler, but this one was special, for he was part of the household of His Royal Highness, Prince Maximilian, played by a favorite of ours, David Warner, not too long ago considered the quintessential Hamlet-for-our-time. His screen-break-through came in 1966 with the crazy title role in “Morgan, A Suitable Case For Treatment”. That made him a star and my wife and me fans of his for life. Some time later, our son Charlie joined the club with “Omen”, and when he told Warner that himself, Warner snorted: “Oh, God, that!” Our film-freak son was likewise excited by the casting of Paul Freeman as Otto, the villain of the piece, remembering his evil turn as Beloque, the Nazi heavy in “Raiders of the Lost Ark”: “500 000 watts of Nasty!”
My workaday duties for the prince were dispatched in two different palatial settings: the Hofburg, the Emperor Franz Josef’s old pad in the heart of Vienna, and, a few streets, and, a few streets and a couple centuries removed, the Theresianum, a superbly preserved baroque complex that once served as an officer’s training school and was named after its patroness, the Empress Maria Theresia, whose name it still bears as a college for budding diplomats. Its 18th century splendor has been has been kept lovingly intact, and we were to play our scene in the fabled library, a treasure house of precious inlaid wood and priceless antique leather volumes all the way up to the frescoed ceiling. It’s open to visitors only with a special pass and suitable pedigreed blue blood.
Our first scene however was set in Maximilian’s princely bedchamber in the Hofburg, and I had the honor of waking up the royal slugabed with this exquisitely cadenced speech:
BUTLER
Good morning, Your Highness. Today is May twelfth, the feast of Saint Ladislas Martyr, also your cousin of Romania. The temperature is falling slightly: a high of fifty-three degrees, and a low of forty-five.
The scenes with Mr. Warner were all of them fun, with his easy gift of friendly argle-bargle, both relaxed and refreshing. He even did me the kindness of autographing a portrait of himself which I’d removed from a calendar I’d bought at Stratford, a full-size head-and-shoulders done in pastels and dubbed “The Actor”. This was the first time he’d ever seen it!
“To Herbert, Many Thanks, David Warner, ‘The Actor’, Vienna 1993.”
Between takes we retreated to the cellar and the museum staff canteen. The scene there could well be entitled “Costumed Chaos in the Canteen”, for there happened to be another film, a real costume extravaganza, being shot in these hallowed precincts at the same time as ours, the latest Hollywood version of “The Three Musketeers”, the jokey one done with American accents and all, with Charlie Sheen and Kiefer Sutherland. The latter nearly brought down destruction on their entire operation by his tosspot antics in the all-night-fleshpots of Babylon-on-the-Danube. So, as things heated up, the Gods were already making rumbling noises.
Of course both companies had to break for meals simultaneously, turning the canteen into the scene of the most variegated costume orgies, Louis XIII and Monaco Gold-Braid, since the climactic reels of Lon Chaney’s “Phantom of the Opera”. It might have been better if they’d released those goings-on as newsreel stuff and jettisoned the two doomed feature films. But of that, more anon ...
The venue for my second scene was less crowded and yet more elegant: the Theresianum library doubling as the Lichtenhaus Council chamber, presided over by the sinister Otto, whose machinations were suddenly broken up by Maximilian’s no-nonsense and imperious entrance sweeping in, with me, padding breathlessly, in his wake. I was bearing the obligatory silver tray, onto which H.R.H. was lofting over his shoulder, without looking all manner of official-looking documents and letters. It was a dizzying journey across what seemed to me recently restored to its former glory.
I am pleased to report that while scampering behind the Prince, molto allegro, I was somehow nimble enough enough to catch everyy single one of the documents he was tossing over the royal epulet. Limping and tottering at his heels, dodging and feinting, but always maintaining my dignity, so I went, and a memorable sight it should be, too, if the movie ever gets released.
That’s precisely where the fate-keeps-on-happening routine comes in: a delicious light comedy script, first rate directing, handsome authentic settings, and stars like David Warner, Paul Freeman, and Susannah York as the Queen Mother, plus what Signor Vanzina promises in the press releases to be a sensational new Dutch actress, Barbara Snellenburg as Princess Sophia: “ This girl will be a star!”
And the best of Viennese-Italian-Dutch luck to them all, what with Moulton here as Major-Domo (Major Disaster would be more like it). For as far as my sources can discover, “Princess”, running true to form, hasn’t yet seen the light of day anywhere, or if it has it hasn’t reached Central Europe yet or any of the international publications we subscribe to. It might have been shown in Vanzina’s native Italy, but it was filmed in English for the English-speaking market.
As far as that all-too-jokey “Three Musketeers”-movie goes, well, of course it was a movie for the MTV-generation and a kind of a youthful introduction to Alexandre Dumas. Literary history for the Brat Pack with a huge Top 40 Hit as a PR-gag, Roddy, Sting and Bryan, the three musketeers of Rock ‘n Roll, singing it away, all for one and all for love. Me, Herbert Eyre Moulton, having shared tables with Kiefer and Charlie in the Hofburg canteen in Vienna, chatting away with good old David and hearing the Hollywood hotshots repeating their lines while drooling over their Wiener Schnitzels. Seriously now, Gang, could it be that this butler-playing character-actor is the subject not to a a pernicious, contagious curse, but a small blessing? Could it have rubbed off during those united lunchroom melées in the Hofburg cafeteria? After all, I wined and dined with the best. Maybe “Princess” will have its day in the sun after all. A sobering thought. And a good one. Just like the movie I was in.
Painting below by Gene McCormick
Let us Dance
By Alexandra H. Rodrigues
It was a guest performance. Ten days in total.
Fully sold out at the Modern Opera House.
The operetta shown – Cloudy Dancing!
Ariana had talked herself into an illusionary love affair. She, the Prima Ballerina, who was desired by many men but unwilling to tie herself to either one of them, experienced for the first time the urge to be held, embraced and conquered by him.
Would today be the day? Today was the last day of Cloudy Dancing on this stage.
Ariana was not at all shy. She would try to meet up with Mr. Strange during the intermission, at which time she would let him have her cell phone number.
The curtain opened. The stage was hers. She once again felt the elation of being the Prima Ballerina of this show. Dance for her was the world. The music, her movements and the intense admiration of the audience was what Ariana lived for. She was born to dance!
Petite, proportioned like a dainty porcelain doll, she had never let anything interfere with the discipline required by her career. She had worked her way up, literally step by step: tap, ballet and modern dance. When friends were out partying, she was practicing, improving her talent, often spending excruciating long hours in yawning, empty training halls. Now, in her mid-twenties she was on top of her art.
In society, she could be seen with suitors. These were men she asked to accompany her to required functions, nothing more. None of these men could ever claim to be her boyfriend.
Ariana lived for her dance and in the characters she played.
She glanced at the spectators. Again, the theater was full. It was the last performance of Cloudy Dancing. There he was. The good looking young man with those mesmerizing brown eyes that seemed to pierce through her body and set her emotions on fire. She had first noticed him the night of the Premiere in the third row at the orchestra side. His smile intrigued her. Her dance, always exhilarating, took on an etheric swing. The applause was deafening.
He did not let her forget him. He was there again the next evening and every evening during the show. Always in the third row. Always smiling and intently following her every move. Every evening he was accompanied by a slightly older looking gentleman. That man hardly ever smiled, and one got the feeling that the performing arts were not exactly to his special liking.
After a few nights, Ariana had expected to get a note from her obvious admirer or even a visit by him to her dressing room. But nothing! By now the exchange of their looks had taken on a certain intimacy. Who was that man? Why always the male company? Was he gay? In that case, why did he come every day?
It was the first time in her life that Ariana allowed herself romantic expectations and even sexual fantasies. Thoughts about that stranger inhibited much of her free time and crept into her dreams.
By now, this last day of the show, Ariana had talked herself into an illusionary love affair with her anonymous admirer. She had given her very best during the first act, and then came the intermission. He seemed a little sad today. Sad that it was the last time? She even imagined that he threw her a kiss when their eyes met. He was in for a surprise. She smiled to herself.
As she made her way down to meet him she felt her heart beat with excitement and nervousness. Would he be happy? His friend had gone outside during the intermission and Ariana saw that Mr. Strange had remained in his seat.
As she turned into row three, she saw something that made her entire body shake. Next to the stranger rested a folded wheelchair. The man’s upper body was immaculately dressed but it ended just below the thighs. He was an amputee. The companion most likely his aide. Ariana choked. He had noticed her. Too late to turn around. He had paled when he saw her approach. She went to him. “I should not have come today,” he whispered and added “By coming down here you gave me an unforgettable gift.”
Ariana went close to him and pressed a timid kiss on his forehead. She did not leave her phone number. Her entrance was required on the stage again. She was confused. This last dance was for him despite that her legs felt like lead. The final part of the play required her to cry. Today she finished with real tears.
Speeches:
Literary and Social
by Charles Dickens
SPEECH: EDINBURGH, JUNE 25, 1841
At a public dinner, given in honour of Mr. Dickens, and presided over by the late Professor Wilson, the Chairman having proposed his health in a long and eloquent speech, Mr. Dickens returned thanks as follows:
If I felt your warm and generous welcome less, I should be better able to thank you. If I could have listened as you have listened to the glowing language of your distinguished Chairman, and if I could have heard as you heard the "thoughts that breathe and words that burn," which he has uttered, it would have gone hard but I should have caught some portion of his enthusiasm, and kindled at his example. But every word which fell from his lips, and every demonstration of sympathy and approbation with which you received his eloquent expressions, renders me unable to respond to his kindness, and leaves me at last all heart and no lips, yearning to respond as I would do to your cordial greeting--possessing, heaven knows, the will, and desiring only to find the way.
The way to your good opinion, favour, and support, has been to me very pleasing--a path strewn with flowers and cheered with sunshine. I feel as if I stood amongst old friends, whom I had intimately known and highly valued. I feel as if the deaths of the fictitious creatures, in which you have been kind enough to express an interest, had endeared us to each other as real afflictions deepen friendships in actual life; I feel as if they had been real persons, whose fortunes we had pursued together in inseparable connexion, and that I had never known them apart from you.
It is a difficult thing for a man to speak of himself or of his works. But perhaps on this occasion I may, without impropriety, venture to say a word on the spirit in which mine were conceived. I felt an earnest and humble desire, and shall do till I die, to increase the stock of harmless cheerfulness. I felt that the world was not utterly to be despised; that it was worthy of living in for many reasons. I was anxious to find, as the Professor has said, if I could, in evil things, that soul of goodness which the Creator has put in them. I was anxious to show that virtue may be found in the bye-ways of the world, that it is not incompatible with poverty and even with rags, and to keep steadily through life the motto, expressed in the burning words of your Northern poet -
"The rank is but the guinea stamp, The man's the gowd for a' that."
And in following this track, where could I have better assurance that I was right, or where could I have stronger assurance to cheer me on than in your kindness on this to me memorable night?
I am anxious and glad to have an opportunity of saying a word in reference to one incident in which I am happy to know you were interested, and still more happy to know, though it may sound paradoxical, that you were disappointed--I mean the death of the little heroine. When I first conceived the idea of conducting that simple story to its termination, I determined rigidly to adhere to it, and never to forsake the end I had in view. Not untried in the school of affliction, in the death of those we love, I thought what a good thing it would be if in my little work of pleasant amusement I could substitute a garland of fresh flowers for the sculptured horrors which disgrace the tomb.
If I have put into my book anything which can fill the young mind with better thoughts of death, or soften the grief of older hearts; if I have written one word which can afford pleasure or consolation to old or young in time of trial, I shall consider it as something achieved--something which I shall be glad to look back upon in after life. Therefore I kept to my purpose, notwithstanding that towards the conclusion of the story, I daily received letters of remonstrance, especially from the ladies. God bless them for their tender mercies! The Professor was quite right when he said that I had not reached to an adequate delineation of their virtues; and I fear that I must go on blotting their characters in endeavouring to reach the ideal in my mind. These letters were, however, combined with others from the sterner sex, and some of them were not altogether free from personal invective. But, notwithstanding, I kept to my purpose, and I am happy to know that many of those who at first condemned me are now foremost in their approbation.
If I have made a mistake in detaining you with this little incident, I do not regret having done so; for your kindness has given me such a confidence in you, that the fault is yours and not mine. I come once more to thank you, and here I am in a difficulty again. The distinction you have conferred upon me is one which I never hoped for, and of which I never dared to dream. That it is one which I shall never forget, and that while I live I shall be proud of its remembrance, you must well know. I believe I shall never hear the name of this capital of Scotland without a thrill of gratitude and pleasure. I shall love while I have life her people, her hills, and her houses, and even the very stones of her streets. And if in the future works which may lie before me you should discern--God grant you may!--a brighter spirit and a clearer wit, I pray you to refer it back to this night, and point to that as a Scottish passage for evermore. I thank you again and again, with the energy of a thousand thanks in each one, and I drink to you with a heart as full as my glass, and far easier emptied, I do assure you.
[Later in the evening, in proposing the health of Professor Wilson, Mr. Dickens said:-]
I have the honour to be entrusted with a toast, the very mention of which will recommend itself to you, I know, as one possessing no ordinary claims to your sympathy and approbation, and the proposing of which is as congenial to my wishes and feelings as its acceptance must be to yours. It is the health of our Chairman, and coupled with his name I have to propose the literature of Scotland- -a literature which he has done much to render famous through the world, and of which he has been for many years--as I hope and believe he will be for many more--a most brilliant and distinguished ornament. Who can revert to the literature of the land of Scott and of Burns without having directly in his mind, as inseparable from the subject and foremost in the picture, that old man of might, with his lion heart and sceptred crutch--Christopher North.
I am glad to remember the time when I believed him to be a real, actual, veritable old gentleman, that might be seen any day hobbling along the High Street with the most brilliant eye--but that is no fiction--and the greyest hair in all the world--who wrote not because he cared to write, not because he cared for the wonder and admiration of his fellow-men, but who wrote because he could not help it, because there was always springing up in his mind a clear and sparkling stream of poetry which must have vent, and like the glittering fountain in the fairy tale, draw what you might, was ever at the full, and never languished even by a single drop or bubble. I had so figured him in my mind, and when I saw the Professor two days ago, striding along the Parliament House, I was disposed to take it as a personal offence--I was vexed to see him look so hearty. I drooped to see twenty Christophers in one. I began to think that Scottish life was all light and no shadows, and I began to doubt that beautiful book to which I have turned again and again, always to find new beauties and fresh sources of interest.
[In proposing the memory of the late Sir David Wilkie, Mr. Dickens said:-]
Less fortunate than the two gentlemen who have preceded me, it is confided to me to mention a name which cannot be pronounced without sorrow, a name in which Scotland had a great triumph, and which England delighted to honour. One of the gifted of the earth has passed away, as it were, yesterday; one who was devoted to his art, and his art was nature--I mean David Wilkie. He was one who made the cottage hearth a graceful thing--of whom it might truly be said that he found "books in the running brooks," and who has left in all he did some breathing of the air which stirs the heather. But however desirous to enlarge on his genius as an artist, I would rather speak of him now as a friend who has gone from amongst us. There is his deserted studio--the empty easel lying idly by--the unfinished picture with its face turned to the wall, and there is that bereaved sister, who loved him with an affection which death cannot quench. He has left a name in fame clear as the bright sky; he has filled our minds with memories pure as the blue waves which roll over him. Let us hope that she who more than all others mourns his loss, may learn to reflect that he died in the fulness of his time, before age or sickness had dimmed his powers--and that she may yet associate with feelings as calm and pleasant as we do now the memory of Wilkie.
SPEECH: JANUARY, 1842.
In presenting Captain Hewett, of the Britannia, with a service of plate on behalf of the passengers, Mr. Dickens addressed him as follows:
Captain Hewett,--I am very proud and happy to have been selected as the instrument of conveying to you the heartfelt thanks of my fellow-passengers on board the ship entrusted to your charge, and of entreating your acceptance of this trifling present. The ingenious artists who work in silver do not always, I find, keep their promises, even in Boston. I regret that, instead of two goblets, which there should be here, there is, at present, only one. The deficiency, however, will soon be supplied; and, when it is, our little testimonial will be, so far, complete.
You are a sailor, Captain Hewett, in the truest sense of the word; and the devoted admiration of the ladies, God bless them, is a sailor's first boast. I need not enlarge upon the honour they have done you, I am sure, by their presence here. Judging of you by myself, I am certain that the recollection of their beautiful faces will cheer your lonely vigils upon the ocean for a long time to come.
In all time to come, and in all your voyages upon the sea, I hope you will have a thought for those who wish to live in your memory by the help of these trifles. As they will often connect you with the pleasure of those homes and fire sides from which they once wandered, and which, but for you, they might never have regained, so they trust that you will sometimes associate them with your hours of festive enjoyment; and, that, when you drink from these cups, you will feel that the draught is commended to your lips by friends whose best wishes you have; and who earnestly and truly hope for your success, happiness, and prosperity, in all the undertakings of your life.
The Moulton Family Ghouls
Article by Charles E.J. Moulton
Do you wake up in the middle of the night with a strange face screaming at you in the darkness? When you turn on the light ... is that spectre not already gone? Does something creep up behind you in your hallway and, in that case, is it the family ghost lurking around and making strange noises? Or is it just the heat making things crack in the hallway or the old pipes making spooky noises?
Maybe it’s both.
Everybody does have a family ghost. And so, we are left with a mystery. It is a mystery that is baffling and sometimes even irritatingly cryptic. We seek the mystery in our lives. We love it. We buy books about it, we even go to great lengths to create a mystery, even if it’s not there. Or was it there to begin with?
That, too, is a mystery.
As I write this, the radiator behind me makes a banging noise. Was that the family ghost or just an old metal part bending in the breeze of domestic heat? The enigma, my dears, keeps us alive. It makes us love the unknown. It keeps challenging us to keep discovering our own life as it unfolds, metre by metre, moment by moment, ghost by ghost.
I am not saying ghosts are made up. Energies are here, the afterlife is real, very real, angels exist, the soul leads the way. No, we love the unknown because we come from the unknown. Our souls are part of God, so we inadvertantly seek what we don’t understand, because we want to remember our previous lives.
Get it?
No.
You will.
In the case of the Kronzell-Moulton family, that is: ours and mine, the family ghost was a woman named Mildred. Apparently, this lost but peaceful soul had died in an apartment that father Herbert Eyre Moulton occupied for a short time. Mildred decided just to stick around for a little while longer. I guess she liked my dad. She stuck around long enough for me to write this article.
Accordingly, every proverbial family mystery was blamed on Mildred, every bump in the night and every missing object a friendly reminder from our invisible friend. We even imagined Mildred having a one-legged boyfriend in the other world. Why else would only one sock be missing when we emptied the washing machine? Mildred even made things vanish. Accordingly, we found ourselves misplacing all sorts of things. Every time it was Mildred’s fault. Or was it only Mildred half of the time? Hard to say.
Mildred, however, is not the only ghost that has honored our family with its presence. During his seven years as an actor in Ireland, my dad had several supernatural encounters. All of them, supposedly unexplained. On the other hand, the explanation my father got from these experiences was sufficient in spiritual terms. What we call unexplained phenomena is only reality getting its rug pulled from under its feet.
As a guest at the Eyre Family Mansion somewhere on the spooky Irish west coast, he was awoken at 4:30 one morning by the clanging of pots and pans in the household kitchen. He awoke his great-aunt, asking what that noise was. The woman just answered: “Oh, those are just the ghosts of the kitchen staff. They make a racket at this time of the morning! Nothing to worry about!”
Perfectly sound explanation to me. The ghosts just decided to stick around for a couple of hundred years. Nothing strange about that, is it now?
It gets more intense, though. Other than the occasional psychic dog foreseeing an upcoming crisis or my father meeting a long dead local gypsy, his most ghoulish encounter took place one New Year’s Eve in the year of 1963, somewhere close to the burned down ruin of his ancestor Baron Giles Eyre’s Eyre Court Castle.
That evening, my father’d had a few pints and maybe a few glasses of whiskey. But he was still sober enough to walk home. The performance that evening had “taken the Mickey” out of him and so Herbie decided to saunter off home. After all, it was just a ten minute walk across the field to get there.
“No, no,” the host exclaimed. “Don’t walk across the fairy-field. The bushes that grow there are haunted. If we cut them down, the cows die and our crop turns rotten. Walk around the field, Herbie, or you will get lost and we will never find you again.”
Well, Herbie was tired and longed to sleep in his own bed soon enough. That was why he actually ignored his friend’s advice that night and walked across the field, anyway, when he came to it.
Soon enough, he got lost as foretold, wandering about in the darkness. He kept seeing women in gala-dresses, waiters in tuxedos serving champagne and even hearing a pianist playing Cole Porter-tunes.
After growing desperate, Herbie passed out in the ice-cold snow and first woke up the next morning in the local hospital. His friend, the host of the party, had found him laying unconcious in the snow.
The epilogue of this tale remains as mysterious as it odd. That March 17th, 1963, Herbie was back in Dublin, living on Grafton Street and working at the Gaiety Theatre. St. Stephen’s Green was in full St. Patrick’s Day celebration, when he met an old lady-friend, who seemed to be worried about him.
“Herbie,” she cried. “What were you doing in our Dublin house on New Year’s Eve? You appeared out of nowhere, looking really pale and sick. You stood out in the crowd, being the only one not wearing a tuxedo. I even wandered up to you in my blue gala-dress and tried to convince you to sit down and talk to me. But you left, you disappeared out of sight and we couldn’t find you after that. Why were you here and why didn’t you join us once you arrived?”
“Honey, I was on the west coast on New Year’s Eve,” Herbie answered.
“You couldn’t have been on the west coast,” his friend exclaimed. “You were here in Dublin in my house.”
“No,” my father said. “I got lost on a field and I saw women in gala dress and men wearing tuxedos ...”
My father’s soul had been lead astray by the fairies, for one moment travelling over 130 miles to the other coast, just to see his lady-friend.
All of that seemed to have been forgotten later that autumn. He was on a concert tour in Ireland. One night after a late concert, he had talked a friend into giving him and his Irish Sheepdog Fred a bed for the night. The problem was that the husband alone knew Herbie was coming. The wife didn’t and that could become a problem.
Everyone was asleep, but Herbie still tiptoed into the house with his dog on a leash. He found his bed, snuggled up and almost fell asleep.
Fred started whimpering, begging for some food and so the snooze in question was interrupted. Although my father was unwilling to move, having already slipped into his nightgown and almost snoring, he lit a candle and found a pocket-knife in his bag with which he could cut up the sheep’s heart the local butcher had sold him this morning for the dog. It could serve as proper food for the canine. It was the only thing he had with him, anyway.
So, my dad wandered down the stairs to the kitchen in his nighgown, holding a knife and a candle and a sheep’s heart.
At that moment, the woman of the house appeared on the stairs.
Imagine the horror she felt when she saw the strange man in the nightgown holding a knife and candles ... and a dripping heart.
She screamed.
“It’s alright, Madam,” my father said. “I’m a friend of your husband’s. I’m just going to the kitchen to cut up a heart!”
The woman screamed even louder in fright.
“It’s okay. It’s my dog’s!”
Needless to say, the woman rushed into her bedroom again and was never seen again. At least not until my father left the house.
Ghoulish tales are present not only in my father’s family, but in my mother’s, as well. Gun Kronzell’s ancestors can sport a spectre or two. Her childhood neighbors at Nygatan 16 in Kalmar were the Bobecker-family. Valter Bobecker, the family father, was a local journalist, who specialized in a daily column that researched supernatural tales criss-crossing between normal common folk and from generation to generation. He travelled the region on a regular basis, interviewing locals and letting them talk about their encounters with fairies, trolls, goblins and ghosts.
One day in 1939, Valter even met an old lady way out on the countryside who claimed that the devil had come to visit her late one night. In the end, however, the demon turned out to be the headlights of a car. There weren’t many cars in the countryside back in 1939. Or had it been a demon?
My mother’s hometown of Kalmar, though, is still a real meltingpot of ghost-stories. Not only that. East Sweden’s top tourist attraction presents a lively cultural life, amusement parks and an exquisite range of gastronomical wonders and wonderful natural habitats.
Kalmar’s most prominent landmark is, nonetheless, Scandinavia’s most well kept Renaissance castle. Due to the city’s former position as last bastion before the Danish border, the castle has been elevated to achieve cult status. It was invaded 22 times and protected by over 287 cannons during the high point of its career. Up until 1648 the border lay only 25 miles away and this gave the city its nickname: “The Key to the Kingdom”. Whoever wanted to invade Sweden had to crush Kalmar Castle first.
Needless to say, the 12th century fortress, rebuilt during the Renaissance, is also the home of many spectres and apparations. This palace was my summer vacation childhood playground. I climbed the cannons, pretending to be a pirate. I wandered about the castle walls, peeking into the gigantic storage towers, calling out the names of the giants my father and I imagined lived there inside: “Brambambus, Trenucheeya,” we called out, “come out!”
In 1982, we also saw a small whirlwind at the corner of the castle moat. Naturally, the two giants had sent the whirlwind to catch us.
Seven years later, working as a trilingual tourguide and inspired by the giants, I was taken on a private midnight tour of the castle’s many vaults and attics. We saw dead bats in the attic, skulls left over from the 14th century in the basement and heard our boss Erling Berg talk of the ghosts that might be lurking around the corner. These are the stories that Erling told us back then.
One spectre that is constantly sighted bears the name The White Lady. She is believed to be the ghost of an aristocratic resident named Anna Bielke, the only castle inhibitor to support the later king Gustav Vasa against the Danish occupants back in 1520. The theory is that Anna acted as a false lighthouse, standing by the watchtower window and swinging a lamp, only to confuse enemy ships. Apparantly, she does so to this day.
Royal antiquarian Dagmar Selling, a good friend of the family, was thought to be The White Lady when she accidentally got locked inside the castle after closing time one night. The township pedestrians reported seeing “some lady standing in the watchtower window waving a lamp”.
We are left with a baffling question: why did fate actually make Miss Selling completely recreate this 16th century event? Did she know about Anna Bielke’s experience or was it a fluke that she was there?
What is real?
But there are more surprises along the way. A seven-year-old boy named Carl Gustav Wrangel is supposed to roam the palace rooms as a spectre, left alone in there one baroque evening by his strict father, who was an army colonel. Dorothea Öberg, a female prisoner, fell in love with a male prisoner named Johan. Their love letters were found stuck into the walls. She is now heard weeping at night in one of the rooms.
The most haunting ghost story of all comes from a place close to the Queen’s Staircase by the main entrance. The Grey Monk has been seen walking on a floor level that existed prior to the Renaissance renovation, leading to a ghostly apparation only visible to its hips. Many people believe this has to do with the definate fact that the staircase in question was built out of tombstones, whose corpses never were removed.
Was the monk actually one of the deceased locals, whose grave was robbed in order to elevate the castle’s stature?
We conclude our journey as travellers through the haunted landscape of the Moultonian world in the same country, but now on the other coast: in Gothenburg, Sweden. We travel four centuries into the future, a distant future with a ghost of a completely different kind playing the main part.
It is Friday, September the 23rd, 1983, around 8 p.m. Two schoolfriends play in a rural domestic garden. Suddenly, as the one boy notices a blinking light in the sky, he calls out and pleads to inspect it. The other friend thinks nothing of the light, but as his buddy insists on the mysterious nature of the event, it soon has them running up to his playroom with camera and binoculars. As they stand there on the boy’s balcony, a future ghost appears, a cosmic ghost.
What meet their adolescent gazes that night is no age-old spectre. It is a ghost, perhaps, from outer space, one that flies right over the boy’s house, so close that they can almost touch its structure. It has a flat bottom, is formed like a car, only that it flies, and has six spotlights in the back. It floats on air, silent like the leaf gliding on a breeze and disappears as mysteriously as it first appeared. When the same vehicle appears a second time, now in a completely different place, their imagination takes its toll.
Inspired by the popular science-fiction-films of their time, they invent telepathic creatures that communicate with them by the power of their minds. Who might these creatures have been and appeared in two different places? Was this just a coincidence?
Although the UFO Organization called every possible nearby airport, police station and army camp, no one reported in having seen an unidentified object of its kind. Being one of the boys that saw the vehicle back then, I am left with a mystery. Who were these ghosts from outer space? Did I see a spaceship from another world or am I just an author with a wild imagination?
And so we end where we began: with the mystery, one that is baffling and sometimes even irritatingly cryptic. On the other hand, that enigma makes us love the unknown. It keeps challenging us to keep discovering our own life as it unfolds, metre by metre, moment by moment, ghost by ghost.
The mystery, after all, is an endlessly fascinating enigma.
The mystery, as such, keeps us turning the pages of every book we will every read. It makes us scroll every internet-page to its finishing line and search every nook and cranny just to find the answers to a row of eternal questions: are ghosts real? What is real? Are we alone in the universe? That feeling I had that someone was watching me just now, was I right about that? Was that a ghost or just my own wild imagination going haywire? Or maybe I am crazy and sane at the same time?
Who knows what sane really is?
What is normal?
That is the important question to which there are as many answers as there are people. Look out into the distance. Do you see the sunrise? How many colors mingle in that morning? If the eternal creator can create something as simple and magnifiscent as a sunrise, then he certainly will take care that we transcend easily into the next life when our time has come.
Some of us just return, just to see what’s going on back home.
It’s as simple as that.
Memories Evoked by Pictures
By Alexandra H. Rodrigues
Massapequa
To verify happenings and special events by pictures is truly a good idea. Of course it is so much easier nowadays when we can snap a picture by camera, smartphone or any kind of tablet. We can have it taken by somebody, take it by ourselves or even ask a robot to take it. One thing I have learned many years ago is the importance of jotting down a date when writing a letter or postcard or when documenting something. I have collected pictures, articles, memorabilia and keepsakes since my early youth for no special reason. Not sure at this point for what! I guess in a weird way, my life was interesting for me and I do want to keep the memories. From childhood on I was always losing something: my father, my friends at school, my bicycle, our house, and on and on. How most of the notes and articles which I still have nowadays survived is a riddle to me.
For years now I have pleaded with my son and used to tell my husband to date anything they give to me. Birthday cards, X-mas cards as well as pictures. They both had a hard time doing that. My son is slowly getting around to it.
I recently leafed thru one of my folders, dated 1950 thru 1959, the last 10 years of my life in Germany, with a 14-month interval in Sweden, before coming to the States. I came across two pages of two different editions of the The Berliner Zeitung, a newspaper with the caliber of the New York Daily News. I had cut out the article showing the contest and my picture but did not keep the entire newspaper and thus could not find a date. The name of the contest was “Who shall have the Golden Pin?” It said that the jury would decide on May 15, but it did not give the year. Just like in “The American Idol” the public had the last word. It was a competition for the most accomplished female athlete in Berlin who also was very attractive. I don’t mean to say that I was especially pretty during those years, but I had just won second place in the Berlin Table Tennis matches and also had advanced considerably during some official tennis tournaments.
Yes, there it was, I found a copy of the certificate issued for the Table Tennis. It says 1951. Great, now I can match this document with a time and date, May 1951. I was 17 years old then. No, I did not win that time.
True in 1967 I visited the Blarney Castle in Ireland. It is the place where you are promised to gain the gift of eloquence, if you lean backwards out of the window to a point where you nearly fall out. Some interpret it that you will be able to brew up stories like Munchhausen, whose stories would not hold water if researched.
Some of my stories about my past do not even ring true to me but thanks to my drive as collector, I have proof for most of them.
The Enjoyment of Little Things
By Alexandra H. Rodrigues
In our society today it has become a bitter struggle to keep up with the Johnsons. A futile endeavor because the Johnsons are doing the same. We all strive constantly for success and prestige. We want to get to the top, belong to the elite and be able to afford anything we desire. Yet how often do we hear about persons, who are at the top but nevertheless miserable.
To live a full life, you do not need all those riches. Just get into the habit of recognizing the little pleasures, which are available to you without big expense. Even if you are at the top, you will be amazed how rewarding it can be to pay attention to little things.
I own a big boat. The kind you can take longer trips on it and show it off to your neighbors. With us, on deck, we carry a small dinghy. It holds two people, is made of a hard rubber, has two plastic paddles and a throw rope. It is meant to take our little poodle to shore, when he has to do his business and we are cruising the waterways. This little gadget has become my biggest pleasure. You step inside, fight for balance and hope not to get splashed right from the beginning. I cannot go far with it and I have no desire to do so, the wind usually decides my direction anyhow. Sometimes I bump into one of the big party boats that are anchored along our 40 ft. wide and 3 city blocks long canal. But no problem, I bounce off them and back to the middle of the canal. No harm done. I sit there in my little nutshell, not working the oars except when I feel like exercise, I look at the sky and kind of meditate. We all know that little wonders of nature exist all around us but hardly ever take the time to watch them and enjoy them. We are so full of it when imagining ourselves, famous, rich and prominent. I use my imagination right on this little boat. It is my gondola and I am skimming along the waterways of Venice. I ignore that my neighbors’ black dogs bark at me furiously when I pass them. Maybe I interrupted their meditation. I pay no attention to the seaweed floating on the surface of the water. I am happy and only see and feel what I want.
When I get back I notice the mimosa-trees in their pink bloom, the gardenias in their luscious white pride. I watch a squirrel climbing up a pine tree and call a friendly “hello”. Mother duck is taking her children for a first outing and I ponder what they are doing in the winter. I hear the happy noises from the seagulls in the distant bay, where they catch remnants of dead fish which fisherman throw overboard. I look at the weather-beaten red bench on the lawn of the house with the “For Sale” sign, and I wonder who used to sit on there in the past and who will in the future.
All is so peaceful. No noise or vibration like on the big boat. No place to reach within a certain time. I just float, look and relax.
I put my hand into the water and then let the water drops slowly dissipate in the sun. I lay down, with my chin on the rubber edge of my little gondola and watch how the sun is making the most colorful rays just below the water’s surface. A school of little fish is passing by, so much more enjoyable to watch here than on the hook as bait.
On these occasions I do not want to change with anybody.
Below:
Charles E.J. Moulton in Triptychon, an evening of three one-act operas.
Gelsenkirchen, Germany.
The Eternal Now
By Charles E.J. Moulton
“Each star represents a single thought.”
That’s a line from the series “Star Trek: Voyager.”
In the episode “Night”, fifth season, first episode, Tuvok, Spock’s post-centurion torch, tells us that he misses the stars he has gotten to know so well, during an excursion through empty space. That inspired a thought in me. A thought that follows the ideology of a quote I read on the way back in the train today:
“We think all the time, so why not just CHOOSE to think good thoughts.”
Life is a journey, definately, and everyone is involved.
Choose to think positive.
Choose not to complain.
Choose to take responsibility.
Even if someone did you wrong, you had the choice of
going there to partake in it.
Take responsibility.
Positivity is a choice.
You can choose.
Life is a concerto ... and you play your instrument in the orchestra ... of life. You might not like the instrument playing next to you, bub, but unless he existed, you wouldn’t know who you are. So, you need him. You need the variety. Without it, you would lose your place as fast as someone that looks for streetsigns in a world of similar names. Your adversary points you in the right direction, but he tells you where not to go.
I had a conversation with a singer in the chorus I am conducting ... a few days ago. We were having a spiritual conversation filled with deep thought.
“The God Within counts,” he said. “The afterlife exists, but the key to it is not outside of you, but inside you. The God of Religions is a fabrication. The God inside you is eternal. I am not afraid of death, because God lives within me.”
Just imagine, folks, if there was no death. That death was an illusion, that your soul
all you have, all you need. Just imagine you are here to learn something, that the real world is where you are at home, beyond this world.
You wouldn’t have to bicker about whose version of the afterlife was right, would you? It is. That’s it. There are a thousand synonyms for the word “beautiful”, but it is what is is. If we wear a scarf or a turban, call God “Allah” or “Brahma”, it doesn’t matter.
It is what it is.
Our interpretations vary.
If we want the truth, we seek inside ourselves, not within society.
We have to live with and within society in these days, no question.
The inner truth remains the same.
Every star represents a single thought.
Respect life, for nothing comes without it.
Respect every thought, for with every thought there is a feeling.
Respect love, for without it you would not exist.
Respect making love, for without it you would not have been born.
Respect procreation.
This is the magical forest.
Think positive, for life is a journey.
Always.
We need diversity.
Respect the eternal now.
Take one moment of every day to realize what you are feeling
... and why ...
... and if you can turn every situation into a blessing ...
within your personal eternal now.
The Boat
By Alexandra H. Rodrigues
A little white boat sails along the calm surface of the lake. Nobody steers it. Nobody tells it where to go. It gets stuck among yellow sea roses and pink coral. Gracefully it bobs up and down till it becomes free to move on once again.
This little marvel is made of paper. It is no bigger than an egg carton. The paper is supposedly waterproof and the workmanship superb.
At the shore stands the master who had folded the material into a boat: A little blonde blue-eyed boy. He is still a kid, skinny, unkempt, but with a wide smile on his face. As an orphan, few pleasures were his. He watched his little boat. Now he knew! When grown up he would build himself a real boat. He would sail the seas. He was happy now in the prospect of what he imagined to be. He had a goal! Slowly he turned to join the group he had come with. As he walked away, the little boat got shook up by the unintentional waves caused by a proud white swan. The boat took on water and sank.
The little boy was spared to watch this spectacle. When he came back the next day to have a look at his boat, the boat was gone. He was overjoyed. In his mind, the boat had taken off and sailed to some foreign place. The boy’s dream of future travel was safe.
Kan nit Verstehn
By Alexandra H. Rodrigues
“Tell me a story, you will need the practice,“ Lydia said.
With that she pulled the covers over her nose and hugged the spread.
Otto smiled at his pregnant wife.
They were looking ahead to a growing, new life.
And thus the story went:
Kan nit Verstehn
Sir Scott was on a holiday spree
He had made plans a lot to see
In Bavaria he took a taxi instead of renting a car
He wanted to be able to see the near and the far.
German he did speak not
What was learned in school he long had forgot.
The cab driver only a few words of English knew
Talk must be short was the conclusion they drew.
They passed a fancy mansion while driving along
To whom does that marvel belong
Sir Scott asked for a name
“Kan nit Verstehn,” the answer came.
Shortly thereafter a lake with swans was in sight
Sir Scott inquired, “Who the owner might – “
Like a bullet the answer came.
The cabbie gave a friendly smile, “Kan nit Verstehn”’
Nature’s luscious and plentiful farms rushed by
Then Sir Scott a now dormant ski lodge did eye.
“Who is the owner of this great place?”
“Kan nit Verstehn,” a grin lit up the driver’s face.
Back in the city they got held up by a hearse
The cabbie could not pass and began to curse.
“Do you know who it is that they burry there”
Sir Scott asked though he hardly did care.
Then he was truly surprised to hear again
Mumble, mumble and, “Kan nit Verstehn.”
That shows, Mr. Scott thought, all is in vain
There is truly little value in the earthly gain.
Obviously there is a moral in this story on hand
“Kan nit Verstehn” means I cannot understand
Sir Scott had thought it was a Dutch name
That was why to a wrong conclusion he came.
Otto had wanted to discuss with his wife, why
The story moved him so deep
But right at the end Lydia had fallen asleep.
Oh well, he chuckled and stroked her belly
“Did you hear me Little One?
There are many more stories to come!”
Then he yawned and under the covers joined his wife.
Relaxed and happy at the thought of the coming new life!
Below:
Charles E.J. Moulton as Prince Alexander, 1989, in "Molly Munter - the Musical",
during his time at the Kronoberg Music Academy.
Here seen with Hans Weichbrodt as his butler.
Herbert Eyre Moulton
(1927 - 2005)
remembers
July 17, 1936, Headline, Glen Ellyn News:
VACATION FOR A BIRTHDAY PRESENT
We hadn’t planned on going so far afield but since my grandparents had left us their Ford V-8 Sedan (so much more comfortable than Henrietta, our 1927 Studebaker), why not take advantage of it? Our goal, a last-minute choice: Niagara Falls. So scenic, so educational, and so many lovely sights for Little Herbert to see on the way. What I saw was next to nothing. The whole expedition was planned for me and where did I spend it? Scrounched up on the floor of the back seat munching candy bars and having a glorious hog-wallow, reading comic books, movie magazines, Big Little Books, and Popular Mechanics. Whose birthday was it, anyway? All I wanted was some peace and quiet ...
Peace and quiet, did someone say? My dear mother Nell was of a different mind. We were driving a long way all the way from Glen Ellyn, Illinois, it was costing a helluva lot for gas and oil alone, and we’d just better enjoy every single minute of Middle-America passing by ...
“Now, is that clear, young man? Or else! Get up from there this instant, did you hear what I said? Little Herbert, you’re missing everything. Just look at this lovely town, the rolling countryside, all those lovely cows!”
This kept up in every state we sped through, including Ontario:
“Little Herbert, we’re in a different country all together now: Canada! Get up now and look around you. They don’t have a president as we do. They have a king.”
“Maybe not for long,” my dad, Big Herb, chimed in, otherwise intent on his driving.
“Oh, ish!” scoffed Nell. “A perfectly lovely man. Your cousin Virginia Gamon danced with him once. They had to put together a whole pitcher of Scotch at his place every meal. That’s when your Uncle Arthur was ambassador ...”
“General Consul,” said Big Herb. “Or Consul General, Mexico someplace.”
Nell bridled at this:
“That’s right, make a liar out of me, as usual. I stand corrected.”
“Oh, Nell, please.”
“Just pay attention to your driving, Mister. Oh, Little Herbert, look at that lake or sea or whatever it is. I always forget which. Erie? Ontario? Well, it can’t be Michigan. That’s back home in Chicago.”
Big Herb chuckled. “Try Lake Huron, Nell. It’s the only one of the two left.”
Nell gave him a look and then shook her head. This wasn’t going as well as she’d hoped. It very seldom did.
I did graciously consent to put away my reading for the sake of the Falls. They were, after all, quite worth seeing. Especially at night when lit up with colored lights. We took a little steamboat, Maid of the Mist, which went up as close as it could to the thundering waters (of which the composer Gustav Mahler once exclaimed: “Endlich fortissimo!” – “At last something loud!”
But what I really saved to tell my pals back home was the rescue operation downstream at the treacherous whirlpool. A man had recently drowned. His corpse was whirling madly around – he had a white shirt on – and they were trying to fish him out by means of long pools, but each time, the vortex almost got them, as well. Vortex! Edgar Allan Poe! But we had to get going.
My Dad had to get back to work, and Grand-Dad would want his car back.
“When you’re as poor as we are,” said Nell in her best Irish-Martyr-Voice, “you can’t always do what you like.”
“Oh, nuts,” was Big Herb’s comment. He was used to this.
The trip back home was more of the same.
“Get up off that floor, now. I’m not telling you again! Look at where we are on the map, Little Herbert! East Liverpool, Ohio, fancy that! Wouldn’t you like to have a new pennant for your bedroom wall with that on it? We must stop and get some things for your knick-knack shelf, oh, and some post cards. Are you looking, Little Herb? This is Pughstown, dear God in heaven! Imagine living in a town called Pughstown! Mother of Mercy! Wouldn’t you ashamed? HERBERT, I’m telling you for the very last time!”
“Well, please don’t shout,” said my Dad.
“Who the hell is shouting?” shouted Nell. “We go to all this trouble and expense to take this boy on a nice trip and what does he do? Spends the whole time on the damned back floor! Never heard of such a thing! Why can’t YOU say something to him, reprimand the boy?”
“Please, Nell, we’ll have an accident!”
“If you ask me, LIFE is an accident.”
“Nuts.”
“Stop the car, do you hear me? Stop it at once! I want to get out!”
“What? Here? In Pughstown? You’re even crazier than usual.”
“Well, thank you very much! Stop the car, I said!”
In other words, a typical Moulton Family Excursion, and, like our life itself, one part Irish temperament, one part Yankee cussedness, and one part pre-pubescent bloody-mindedness, a volatile mixture that always spelled out High Dramatics. A regular Brouhaha, but not a word of it to be taken seriously.
This spirited exchange was followed by a long aggrieved silence. Then gradually the mellowing began, and before long, euphoria reigned once more.
“Oh, thanks be God,” murmured Nell. “The Illinois border. Big Herb, you’ve done a beautiful job, as usual. And you, Little Herb, won’t you have a lot to tell your chums about? I can’t wait to phone Bess. Is there anything to drink at home?”
And, as always, the next day found her writing about Glen Ellyn News.
Freudened by Sex
By Charles Rammelkamp
“I could set you up with Richie,” Debbie pleaded. Richie was her boyfriend, the class “wit.” He punned all the time. (“Can we play Haydn seek?” he impishly asked the music teacher, Mrs. O’Dell, who groaned appreciatively while the other students just looked puzzled. Debbie wasn’t sure if she was proud of him or not. He was smart, and not bad-looking.)
“So he just came over? Did he call first?” Brenda pursued. “He told me he was going to the library. To ‘study.’”
“Danny doesn’t mean anything to me. It was nothing, what we did. It was just nothing, you’ve got to believe me.”
“Did he call first?” Brenda persisted.
“He just showed up,” Debbie confessed. “I was the only one home.” She looked miserable. Brenda’s imagination fired with images of what they’d done, the betrayal, but she wasn’t going to ask.
“Does Richie know?”
“Please don’t tell Richie!” The pleading tone was back in Debbie’s voice.
“Oh, well, he says he’s freudened by sex anyway.”
“What?”
“One of Richie’s little jokes.”
They both sniggered in faint contempt then, and Debbie hoped the mutual disdain might bring her and Brenda back together.
But Brenda didn’t thaw. She liked having the upper hand here, and she liked the new-found power of her coldness. It could be this way forever, she thought. She’d never much liked Debbie anyway, and here was her chance at a break. She’d be going to college next year anyway and wouldn’t have to deal with Debbie or Danny ever again anyway.
“Don’t worry, Deb. I won’t breathe a word to Richie.”
As she turned to go she heard a sob escape from Debbie and the sound of her friend sucking back snot.
A sinus of the times, Brenda thought, channeling Richie and she wondered why Debbie had offered to set her up with her boyfriend. Some sort of consolation prize? A quid pro quo? But it sure wouldn’t have been satisfying revenge.
Gratitude
By Alexandra H. Rodrigues
It is true! I am grateful to have outsmarted the odds I will refer to as survival umpteen times. These occurrences are so numerous that I could write a book about them. However, I will try to be brief. They will lose on impact but maybe can serve as an outline for a booklet in the future.
I was born prematurely on the couch of a Villa in Berlin. Once this house had been ours but had sold when inflation warranted it – I survived.
World War II – Bomb craters behind our house. My father had to flee to Paris to avoid the Nazi camps -- I survived.
Evacuated to Vienna during World War II, I contracted a serious disease and was at the mercy of Social Services – I survived.
It was the time when Vienna experienced its first major destruction by air -- I survived.
As teenager, I had my stomach pumped out at the hospital and was subjected to painful tests for serious illnesses. Finally, the medical team was unable to come up with a reason for my pains and nausea – I survived.
Constant problems resulting from a deviated septum put me into the Ear and Eye Infirmary. After the operation, I was black and blue in the face, but still unable to smell and always sniffling. Finally, a plastic surgeon in New York City, who also had operated on one the Gabor sisters, solved my problem. I had to agree to also have a nose job at the same time – I survived.
1949: My tonsils were removed. The next morning when I expected my doctor to make his rounds, I was told he had had a heart attack shortly after he had performed the operation on me. For years after, I thought about what could have happened if he had died with the scalpel in my throat. Needless to say – I survived.
In my early 20s I fell skating. Diagnosis: a sprain in my leg. It got taped up, got swollen, black and blue, and I was crying for days. It was broken, and I nearly lost my leg. Four months under the care of a top surgeon and in traction followed. You guessed it – I survived with both of my legs.
I will never forget the day when, after a drinking splash of several hours, I declined a ride home on the back of a motorcycle of a friend. Going home with another friend a little later, we saw the motorcycle on its side laying on the street, the body of the driver on the side of the curb and police all over. Good judgment -- I survived.
When flying as a stewardess, our plane dropped 8,000 feet; the oxygen masks were deployed. I missed a flight I was scheduled for; that being the flight that crashed over Lockerbie, Scotland. Another time, the plane I was on lost an engine in flight. All close calls – I survived.
1964: I was told I would go into shock and could die unless I had my thyroid removed. The medicine Synthroid came on the market at exactly that time and I have3 been taking it ever since – I survived.
1972: Pregnant at 39, I was expected to have a difficult delivery and was likely to need a caesarian. I gave natural birth using the Lamaze method, something new at that time -- I survived.
1979: I was in a hospital to have a biopsy for breast cancer. Pretest results, possibly from another patient named Rodrigues, showed a silent heart attack and ischemic heart disease. The biopsy was postponed. I checked myself
out of the hospital. A week later a consultation with a specialist for breast diseases assured me that my breasts were fine – I survived.
During the years I came close several times to be hit by careless drivers -- I survived.
Recently I had a bad fall, which resulted in facial lacerations that ended just millimeters below my left eye. My eyesight was not damaged -- I survived.
I could go on and on, but enough for now. I am grateful to whatever power it is that is watching over me.
Teen Angst
By Alexandra H. Rodrigues
My teenage years? They had followed a most confusing childhood. There were not too many illusions left. I was 13 years old when the war ended in 1946. Berlin had been freed. The terror of air attacks was over. No longer did I have to be afraid of being woken by shrill sirens. Those sirens had been the sign to grab some belongings, already packed in a little suitcase, and sneak into the bunker across from our house.
I had swallowed my first chewing gum, given to me by an American soldier when the Russians had finally left our area and we had become the American sector. That took place after I had witnessed rapes and destruction by the Russians. Still I had managed to save my family from starvation by venturing to a Russian Military Cantina and, dressed in a red jumpsuit, the Soviet color, begged for soup. The soup was rich and fatty.
I thumbed thru some old letters recently, written in 1944 in Vienna to my grandmother in Berlin. “Dear Grandma. How are you? Are you still sick? How is the food in Berlin? We just had a real air raid and went into the bunker. There were shots, but not too bad. Hope I will find some nice shrapnel tomorrow for my collection.”
Yes, I had been evacuated to Vienna in 1943. Presumably safe! I was there when the first air raid destroyed most of the city in March 1944, the city of Music of Strauss and his Waltzes, Franz Liszt and Mozart. At school in Vienna I received a “B” in music, imagine that! In Berlin my report cards showed a “D” year after year. I deserved the “D.” I cannot hold a note and never could.
This brings me to an event that occurred during my teen years:
At the age of seven, I had joined a local dance school. Ms. Irene taught us creative dancing. I loved it, and I was good at it. Eventually, I became the star of the group and the pet of Ms. Irene.
When I was 13 years of age, two friends of mine, sisters, both in my dance class, decided to apply to the Berlin Opera. Their classes were free and students were also provided special allowances on food stamp cards. “I am even better than they are,” or so I thought, and went to apply. I was accepted. I hated it: Creative dance had been my strength not Ballet! It was very strenuous, no room for imagination. I wanted to be a Ballerina! My grades in school plummeted. I began to dread the days I had Ballet class. Mrs. Merina obviously saw no merit in my dancing, and I did not like her a bit. Then one day my pride got its ultimate shock. My mother awaited me with a letter from the Opera.
”We regret to inform you that your daughter Alexandra can no longer be supported by our Ballet school as she has no ear for music, a requisite for becoming a Solo dancer.” I was devastated. I hated Mrs. Merina even more. It was my pride that was hurt most of all.
Well life has its ways. Ten years later, when I was already a stewardess, I had Mrs. Merina as a passenger on the DC-4 from Berlin to Stuttgart. It was quite a bumpy flight. Mrs. Merina was afraid and got sick. With a typical stewardess smile I handed her the airsick bag from the seat pocket. I mumbled, “I have to thank you for getting this fabulous job.” And a little devil made me add, “Some people have no ear for music, and some people have no stomach for flying.” She did not hear me – it did not matter. I had had my say.
Roger Maris Comes Back
By Robert Cooperman
What Roger Maris regretted most? Breaking Babe Ruth’s
home run record, that asterisk forever next to his 61 homers,
since it took him all of the bloated 162 game season,
not the Bambino’s 154, when the Sultan swatted 60.
Maris took crap from Yankee lovers, Yankee haters,
fans who shouted he didn’t deserve to break the record,
never a .300 hitter, the Babe batting a gaudy .360 or so.
Besides, so many of Maris’ homers just farted over
the Stadium’s short right field fence, while Ruth’s blasts
broke windows, and if anyone on that 1961 team deserved
to break the record it was beloved Mickey Mantle,
who kept his hatred of little kids a semi-secret.
And to cement Maris’s misery, the next season
when he hit a paltry 39 home runs, and fans rode him
with, “Hey Maris, how come you’re such a bum!”
he snapped, flipped the bird at some bleacher buzzards.
So after the cancer tagged him out, he came back
as a hobo, hopped freights, slept under bridges,
but far happier than blaspheming the Babe’s sacred record.
And when his time came that second time, he went straight
to Hobo Heaven: pies cooling on window sills,
barns filled with soft hay, and whiskey flowing in streams.
Leo Durocher
Baseball Manager Extraordinaire
In His Next Life
By Robert Cooperman
“Leo the Lip”—the baseball manager
who could spit a stream of invective
so sharp, the poor umpire would wipe
his face for a good half hour--
came back as a librarian, shushing
gossiping mothers, looming over kids
who had no idea that “Library” meant
“Silence, people are trying to read,”
and with just a glare, separating giggling
teens in the stacks, where they hid
in their hormone-raging youth.
He could make his whispered,
“Quiet!” carry farther than a homer
hit to dead centerfield at the cavernous
Polo Grounds. And God help anyone
who brought back books late;
he treated them as if they’d robbed
little old ladies of their pensions.
Worse, to return a book a dog had left
fang-marks and slobber all over
the now unreadable pages,
Leo the Librarian pronouncing
like a hanging judge,
“That will cost you exactly….Plus,
your borrowing privileges are suspended
until the debt is paid in full. Next!”
And the next suppliant would slink up
to the counter, and with wringing hands,
plead his or her worthless case.
Thinking of Food
By Alexandra H. Rodrigues
Going through my Pan Am memorabilia, I came across several menus from our Lunch and Dinner Services in First Class. It was then that I realized how blasé I had become through the years. From nearly starving through the War years and being thrilled with dandelion salad and greasy, grimy leftovers from Russian Soldiers canteen food (when a slice of toasted cornbread with fatty bacon was a delicacy exclusively for holidays), I have risen to become part of the top of culinary consumers.
Orange blossoms (Champagne and freshly squeezed orange juice) for breakfast or a Bloody Mary (vodka and tomato juice spiced with horseradish and decorated with a slice of fresh lemon) after a night of walking up and down the aisles of a transatlantic jet serving passengers was commonplace
when arriving at a crew hotel for a 24-hour layover.
Lunch was often taken at airport restaurants anywhere from New York to Zurich to Rome, Beirut, Tehran, Karachi, Hong Kong, Dakar, Johannesburg to Dar es Salaam, Tanzania (where the blue Tanzanite gem comes from).
The tanzanite has become quite a gemstone of choice demanding a high price now. I could have picked it up real cheap, but I did not do so. Another opportunity missed.
Memories of bratwurst in Germany, curry dishes in New Delhi, and Calderada, a soup made with at least six different kinds of fish, in Portugal still today make my taste buds tingle. While we were indulging on those local tidbits, the aircraft was provisioned by the station’s commissary with superb specialties of the respective country and the ever-standard juicy prime rib of beef which we cooked and served rare, medium or well done to those passengers unwilling to indulge in unfamiliar fare.
A Dinner menu consisted of cocktails, hors d'oeuvres, fish, a main entrée of choice, cheeses from all over the world and dessert of irresistible quality, like cherries jubilee or vanilla ice cream with a thick chocolate sauce. All this was followed by cordials.
French wine, Brut Champagne and beer were available without limitations – in First Class that is! I became an expert in popping Champagne corks and am still being admired for my dexterity in it.
Here are a few dishes I will never forget. Russian caviar, served with chopped egg and lemon slices, accompanied by Stolichnaya Vodka, Lobster Thermidor. Quail with grapes. Cornish Hen. Veal chops with Calvados sauce. Pâté foie gras and truffles. Not to forget the cherries jubilee: Sour cherries slightly heated, and served over heart-melting vanilla ice cream. Well, I am getting carried away and hungry. A good espresso for digestion to end the feast in style. I am looking at an inflight menu; it signed by Ted Kennedy who happened to be a passenger that day.
On international layovers of several days in the 1960s and 1970s, I made it a habit to sample the native delicacies: Kippers for breakfast in Scotland, avocado and eel in Mexico, chorizo and eggs in Portugal, venison with lingonberries in Sweden, sushi in Japan. Different roasts from the
carving board in England, Kobe beef in Guam, turtle soup, goulash and a multitude more. Today I would settle for oysters and eggs benedict. I guess you can understand that my taste has been spoiled, confused and become quite unconventional during the years.
I am thinking about world-renowned chefs! My husband could have joined their ranks. He loved to cook. He had worked as a butler for several mega-rich families where the old ladies loved him as he was very handsome. Only the best chefs worked for those families and my husband had plenty of opportunity to mingle and taste the pheasant under glass, the beef wellington and more. From there Pan Am got hold of him and they sent him to become acquainted with the services of superb dining at Maxim’s in Paris. He was not to learn to cook, but to excel in the elegant ways of serving food. All thru my marriage I profited from those experiences.
Creative Spirtituality Reflection
By Dustyn Taylor
How do you define “spirituality”?
I define spirituality as one’s ability to be in touch with their inner emotions as well as being in touch with outside forces that we cannot see. These forces can be simply as simple as love or as complex as an entity that created us all. I would consider people who do yoga to be spiritual. What they are essentially doing is releasing all of their problems and worries and synergizing their body and mind with the universe. Spirituality is the ability to connect with something other then what is visible or audible to us. To be spiritual one would have to believe in more than just himself.
Does spirituality differ from religion?
Spirituality differs from religion, even though the both can exist within each other. The main difference between the two is that a person can be spiritual and not religious, but in order to truly be religious you would have to be spiritual. Religion is mad made. It is a group of people who all believe in similar spiritual entities and rules laid out by those entities. It is essentially an umbrella for a group of spiritual people. While a hippie for example could be consider spiritual because the value the earth and environment, plants and animals. Many believe they are in touch with mother earth and that is why they are so “free”.
How do you define “creativity”?
I define creativity as being innovative and unique and analyzing all approaches and developing your own. You have to be willing to try new things and create new things while accepting that you may make many mistakes. In order to be creative you must be willing to go against all common perceptions and beliefs and dismantle social constructs. Michelangelo’s sculpture David, is a prime example of this. The funniest thing is that he is considered creative because he created an image of a man stripped of all societies bonds. He was naked, no clothing, no stipulations and no restraints.
What is the source of creativity?
As cliché as it sounds, creativity comes from the heart. It comes out when you dig deep and let your mind and heart go to work. Some of the most compelling writings, songs and pictures are created out of raw emotion. All of these pieces of art you can tell the artist put all they had into and exposed their inner emotions. This is where creativity comes from. It is on the inside and we find unique and different ways to display it.
~ by Dustyn Taylor, August 10, 2014
The Bucket List
By Alexandra H. Rodrigues
The bucket list is an expression I had never heard. Does that mean I am left with an empty bucket? Not for long. Let me throw some stuff into it.
Here we go. Let’s fill the bottom with some heavy artillery. Four books. Actually two issues per topic: 2 hardcovers and 2 paperbacks. Author of both these books -- ME. They are about 400 pages each. One is entitled “Emotions in Motion” about my life as a Stewardess. The other book is entitled “Reasons Why it is Foolish to Pick on Older People.”
The middle of the bucket is filled with newspaper clippings. There are pages of The New York Times covering both books on the bestseller list for weeks in a row. At one time both of the books are mentioned honorably on the same page. “Emotions in Motion” was quite easy to complete. I had a diary over the years, yes nearly a lifetime, and thus had all the material I needed at my fingertips.
The second book had been quite a challenge. Ever since I had turned 70, it annoyed me that I would come across more and more NO-NOs due to my age. None of us get younger. Even if I had thrown the idea of getting younger into the bucket, I know it would not have done much good. Younger at heart, maybe, but that is just idle wordplay.
The second book had required some research, many interviews and countless hours of brain- and soul-searching.
People say: You look good for your age.
I think: Nice complement but why for your age? You look good would have pleased me more.
People say: Sex at your age?!
I think: Careful now, wine too mellows with age and gets better.
People say: You want to buy yourself a bicycle? You mean a stationary one?
I think: Now, now. I can run circles around you.
People say: Your husband looks much older than you.
I think: Sure, he is ten years older and he fought for this country but he is young in his ways.
Unfair profiling keeps taking place.
Why do companies ignore applicants over 56 despite their exceeding qualifications over younger applicants?
Why is long hair a privilege for young ladies?
Why are jeans silly when worn by an old lady with a perfect size 8 figure with a 30-inch waist line?
Why is dressing modern is labeled not suitable for old age?
Why are old people expected to be feeble, on the verge of dementia or Alzheimer’s even if they have clearer thinking than some of the younger people on drugs or alcohol?
Is it the old people who form gangs? Who molests kids? Who rob banks? What happened to equality? To same rights for all?
Age should not automatically be used for exclusion of any kind. Each person should be judged on an individual basis. It appears that we are all brainwashed and automatically view each other as marionettes categorized by age.
See, I proved it can be done. I started at old age with an empty bucket. I threw in some challenges which I felt would be worthwhile to be accomplished before I die and I did it!
Or is it old age that gives me the illusion that I did?!
Will there be a David-Bowie-Street in Berlin?
By Charles E.J. Moulton
They flock in droves to Hauptstrasse 155 in Berlin-Schöneberg, laying flowers on the pavement in front of the megastar’s former flat. They listen to his music in order to calm down their sorrow. The legend, who sold 140 million records world wide, died on Sunday night, January 10th, 2016, of liver cancer, two days after his birthday. Since then, his Berlin-fans have launched a movement to inspire the city to name a street after the star.
Politician Daniel Krüger doesn’t exclude the possibility that this could become a reality, “but first in five years, according to state law”.
It would make perfect sense. Berlin meant a great deal to David Bowie. He spent many formative years here that shaped his musical career, recording the famous Berlin Trilogy at the Hansa Studios, changing Rock history forever and still keeping a safe distance to his own fame. On his 57th birthday, his friend Ricky Gervais joked: “Isn’t it time you got a real job?” Bowie mused: “I have one. Rock God!”
This wit was Bowie incarnate. He was the intellectual art collector with a brilliant mind and still the tongue-in-cheek-rebel with a brave heart. The director of Bowie’s Broadway-Musical “Lazarus”, Ivo Van Howe, told reporters Bowie broke down during rehearsals back-stage last year, but still spoke of writing another musical, soon enough.
A David-Bowie-Street in Berlin would most certainly make many fans happy, perhaps even give young rockers enough guts to try to make it as musicians.
Charles E.J. Moulton (2008) as the rich blonde
in the Gelsenkirchen production of "Die Fledermaus" by Johann Strauss
Photo: Marion Lauer
Rich
By Karen King
Are you rich? Are you worthy? Do you count in this materialistic society?
Sorry, but if you are a woman and you don’t care for the latest designer dresses, handbags
and shoes, you don’t count! If you don’t have the latest hairstyle, you don’t count! If you
don’t go the most exotic places, you don’t count! If you don’t have the latest designer
kitchen and equipment, you don’t count! If you don’t have the latest décor in your house,
you don’t count!
Sorry, but if you are a man and don’t care for the latest designer jeans, you don’t count! If
you don’t travel to the most exotic places, you don’t count! If you don’t have the trendy car,
you don’t count!
Sorry, but I don’t care for the latest designer dresses, handbags, shoes, hairstyle, exotic
holidays or the latest equipment and décor in my house! Does that mean I am less? No, I
don’t think so. If anything, I am more, because I don’t feel a need for these things to pro
myself up. I don’t care what others think, I don’t wish to compete, for I have no need for it. I
am complete in myself. Surely, health, peace, happiness, a loving family and partner and
enough money to pay the bills and occasionally treat yourself is all we need?
Look around, often the richest people in the world are very unhappy, because they keep
spending money buying things, trying to fill that hole in their hearts that cannot be filled.
They buy more and more, desperate and needy as they feel emptier and emptier.
How come, often the poorest people in the world are the happiest? I would suggest that it is
because they are living in the present and savouring every moment. They have a hard time
finding food, they often have no electricity, no lighting and few clothes, yet they are happy!
This defies our comprehension. I feel it is because they are spending time with their families,
they are outside enjoying nature and they are not draining themselves with electronic devices
or trying to keep up with everyone else, rushing around in a pointless, exhausting manner,
making themselves ill.
I would certainly not want to go back to primitive times, but I can see that they have
something special that many of us have lost in modern society. I feel that they could teach us
a better way of being and, perhaps, it is not them that are backward at all, it is us in Western
societies that are backward? After all, what is the point in having the latest electronic
equipment if we no longer talk to each other?
Karen King Copyright February 2016
in the Gelsenkirchen production of "Die Fledermaus" by Johann Strauss
Photo: Marion Lauer
Rich
By Karen King
Are you rich? Are you worthy? Do you count in this materialistic society?
Sorry, but if you are a woman and you don’t care for the latest designer dresses, handbags
and shoes, you don’t count! If you don’t have the latest hairstyle, you don’t count! If you
don’t go the most exotic places, you don’t count! If you don’t have the latest designer
kitchen and equipment, you don’t count! If you don’t have the latest décor in your house,
you don’t count!
Sorry, but if you are a man and don’t care for the latest designer jeans, you don’t count! If
you don’t travel to the most exotic places, you don’t count! If you don’t have the trendy car,
you don’t count!
Sorry, but I don’t care for the latest designer dresses, handbags, shoes, hairstyle, exotic
holidays or the latest equipment and décor in my house! Does that mean I am less? No, I
don’t think so. If anything, I am more, because I don’t feel a need for these things to pro
myself up. I don’t care what others think, I don’t wish to compete, for I have no need for it. I
am complete in myself. Surely, health, peace, happiness, a loving family and partner and
enough money to pay the bills and occasionally treat yourself is all we need?
Look around, often the richest people in the world are very unhappy, because they keep
spending money buying things, trying to fill that hole in their hearts that cannot be filled.
They buy more and more, desperate and needy as they feel emptier and emptier.
How come, often the poorest people in the world are the happiest? I would suggest that it is
because they are living in the present and savouring every moment. They have a hard time
finding food, they often have no electricity, no lighting and few clothes, yet they are happy!
This defies our comprehension. I feel it is because they are spending time with their families,
they are outside enjoying nature and they are not draining themselves with electronic devices
or trying to keep up with everyone else, rushing around in a pointless, exhausting manner,
making themselves ill.
I would certainly not want to go back to primitive times, but I can see that they have
something special that many of us have lost in modern society. I feel that they could teach us
a better way of being and, perhaps, it is not them that are backward at all, it is us in Western
societies that are backward? After all, what is the point in having the latest electronic
equipment if we no longer talk to each other?
Karen King Copyright February 2016
Herbert Eyre Moulton back in 1953, the Elvis year, looking like Elvis, during the time he was stationed at Camp Gordon in Georgia.
Herbert was the musical director of the Camp Gordon Chapel Choir back then.
Here surrounded by a bunch of lovely ladies, thirteen years before he met my mother,
sixteen years before my birth.
High Old Times in the Threadbare ‘30s
By the late and great Herbert Eyre Moulton (1927 – 2005)
http://about.me/hmoulton
Considering the perilous state of everyone’s finances during the 1930’s --- at least everyone we knew --- and recalling our own feast-and-famine cycles, the wonder is that we managed to take in as much grand entertainment as we did. But then, I was an only child (born July 1927) and no problem to be taken any where my parents went. Obviously I was also smart enough to grow as fast as I could so that these excursions of ours could grow ever more festive. Before anybody realized it, they consisted of at least one carefully chosen opera each season, plus operettas, musicals, stage plays, and, two summers running (’33 and ’34), the marvels of the Chicago World’s Fair, A Century of Progress.
We were determined to miss as little as possible. Damn the Depression, anyway! Naturally, there were the usual sour comments from the local Babbitts: Who did we think we were, anyway? Going to plays and operas, with so many people on relief?
“Oh, don’t mind those old horses’ neckties!” my mother Nell advised. “They’re only jealous. Such Slobs ICH KABIBEL!” (She’d once had a Yiddisch speaking suitor.) “Now, let’s see what’s playing next week, what we can afford, that.”
Something affordable would always turn up --- there was so much to choose from. And if the tickets cost too much, there was always some way to blarney our way past the Manager. “Honey-Boy, remember, I’m not Irish for nothing!” On such occasions, my Dad, Big Herb, would either look the other way or simply pretend he wasn’t with us.
Those were the days of Vaudevill, so we were able to bask in the glow of dying embers. One of my first Show-Biz memories was of Sophie Tucker, all in white, being driven onstage in a white-and-gold open limousine, attended by flunkies in matching livery. They escorted her down to the footlights. “Some of these days/ You’re gonna miss me, Honey”.
I was absolutely transfixed.
There were, as well, lots of live radio broadcasts originating in Chicago, like W-G-N’s popular Soap “Bachelor’s Children” --- we wrote in and got free tickets several times. Got the cast’s autographs, too, and a write-up in our local newspaper, The Glen Ellyn News. So much for the Babbitts.
There were also hour-long radio dramas like the version of “A Farewell to Arms” with no one less than Helen Hayes as Catherine, script in hand, loving, emoting, and finally dying beautifully, all into the microphone. Just think: The First Lady of the American Theater, not ten yards away from us and all the better because it hadn’t cost us a red cent!
The same went for the nightly free summer concerts in Grant Park. We took in them all, or some of them, anyway. And Nell got more articles printed in the paper. Living Well is the Best Revenge!
On athletics and sporting events we didn’t waste much time --- wrongly perhaps, and I the figure to prove it. (Sorry, Jocks!) I did like to go swimming, with my pals at the Wheaton pool in the next town, riding our bikes and devouring candy bars the whole way. There was also skating on Lake Ellyn, the best part of which was the hot cocoa with marshmallows in it at the boat house. That, and chatting up the junior high school girls. And the Hell with the Hans Brinkers outside falling on their bottoms!
We did make an annual pilgrimage to Wrigley Field each summer, mostly to humor Big Herb, an inveterate Cubs fan. They very seldom won a game, but my Dad was convinced they would, and the Pennant, too, if only we’d keep thinking Positive Thoughts. So we did ... meanwhile, the Hot Dogs there - they were just about the best in town.
Well, in 1938, Big Herb’s beloved Cubs finally won their Pennant, and, bless him, he hurried home as fast as he could just to tell us the News in person. It wasn’t just “Gabby” Hartnett’s last minute Grand Slam Homer that had turned the tide --- our own good wishes and positive thoughts had also played their part. Right, perhaps they had ... Nothing like keeping everyone on the Home Front happy and content.
Like most families, we had our share of seasonal traditions and these we kept religiously. Christmas vacation always meant one thing in certainty: a trip to the Chicago Stadium for Sonja Henie’s spectacular Ice Revue --- breathtaking costumes and orchestrations, Olympic skaters, and hair-raising comics-on-ice like Frick and Frack, and, the peak of the program and always dazzlingly beautiful: Sonja Henie herself, solo, a cherubic blond dream in a short glitzy skirt and spinning and wafting her way through Liszt’s “Liebestraum” --- Man alive! Now that was magic! That, ladies and gents, was a star to conjure with!
The Stadium of W. Madison St. was likewise the setting for another family tradition, this one in summertime: Ringling Bros., Barnum and Bailey’s Circus! Three rings continuously alive with clowns and their exploding flivvers, acrobats and tumblers, magicians and live animal acts, and a bevy of pretty ballet girls, fluttering vast butterfly wings a hundred feet up, hanging from the ceiling by their teeth! (Ow!) And at the Grand Finale, having to stop your ears when somebody got shot out of a mammoth cannon. (I never quite grasped the charm of this.)
Yet another amicable tradition: celebrating my parents’ Wedding Anniversary every February 27th, getting launched with a three-way “Kram” (Swedish for “embrace” – we called it simply a Hug-and-a-Boo.) Then a slap-up-dinner at a fine downtown restaurant --- Henrici’s or, better, still, the Berghoff, where the Wiener Schnitzel and Tafelspitz, AND the home-made Lemon Meringe Pie are to die for. This would be followed by a stage show, whatever happened to be playing that appealed to us all. One year, it was “The Hot Mikado”, another: “Porgy and Bess”, and the last such occasion in the ‘30’s (“Good riddance!” was Nell’s send-off-comment): the wonderful comedy “Life with Father” with Percy Warum as fulminating Father Day, and Lillian Gish (Yes!) as the gentle, slightly pixilated mother, heading a company said to be far superior to the popular Broadway original.
Another season brought Noel Coward’s witty Spook-Comedy “Blithe Spirit”, featuring the deliciously dotty Estelle Winwood of the lace-curtained hair-do, wide-set eyes, and pixie movements, along with Dennis King, old-time operetta idol, and the chic but incomprehensible Annabella. We hoped her husband Tyrone Power could understand her better than we did.
A farce my parents loved was “Leaning on Letty”, with the loose-limbed Charlotte Greenwood, whose post-performance display of rubber-legged acrobatics brought down the house. An incredible display, much loved.
Then there was the dark andd melancholy Sylvia Sidney in a stage version of Nell’s beloved namesake “Jane Eyre” (her father had been born an Eyre of Eyrecourt in County Galway, where Charlotte Bronte, the author, once settled, taking that family’s name for her own heroine). One reason for Miss Sidney’s melancholy might have been having the show stolen from under her by that delicious character actress Cora Witherspoon in the cameo role of Mr. Rochester’s complaining cook.
Another star turn, and one deemed by some of Nell’s bitchier lady friends as quite unsuitable for young Herbert’s innocent ears, was Clifton Webb’s waspish “The Man Who Came to Dinner” --- not for school-boys, and, consequently, relished all the more by this one. We also revelled in “Pins and Needles”, a political revue put on by members of the international Garment Workers Union in New York --- their spoof of an old-fashioned mellerdrammer was achingly funny and remains so in memory today.
“Achingly funny” wouldn’t half describe Olsen and Johnson’s zany “Helzapoppin’”, which gave a new meaning to madness, but it sure took a lot of tolerance to reconcile this kind of thing with the dignified Auditorium. What counted was the great old theater was being used as such. It surely was for the next production, which came at the very close “Dirty ‘30’s” --- “Romeo and Juliet” starring the most glamorous and famous pair of lovers of the time, Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh. We all thought it was the most sumptuous and thrilling Romeo possible, but it’s now reckoned the biggest flop of the Oliviers’ otherwise distinguished career. It played in the theater I shall always love more than any other --- Louis Sullivan’s masterpiece, and I write about it with a reverance reserved for very holy places.
I was and indeed still am deeply devoted to this historic old theater which dates from 1889 and which played such a seminal role in my life. And when it was threatened with demolition in the early ‘40’s, my personal sorrow was so profound that I wrote critic Claudia Cassidy a lament for its apparently inexorable fate. She published it almost in full in her Sunday column in the Chicago Sun --- Fame! And at the tendenage of 15, too. But thank God and a lot of marvellous people, the Auditorium managed to survive after all and is now enjoying a new lease on life as part of Roosevelt University --- restored to its pristine splendor as a protected Historical Monument.
It was there that I had my first real theatrical experience, a musical extravaganza in every sense of the word, “The Great Waltz”, music by Johann Strauss the Younger, book by Moss Hart, and featuring the soprano Marion Claire. It was she, as wife of the Music Director of W-G-N, who, in Spring 1953, auditioned and hired me for my first nationwide broadcast, commenting to the others in the control room: “We must find something that shows off his beautiful diction.”
As for “The Great Waltz” itself, very little I have seen since --- this was 1936, remember --- has ever approached it for sheer theatrical magic, now, during the introduction to the Grand Finale, the bandstand with orchestra, moved swiftly and silently upstage as far as it would go, crystal chandaliers descended from above and pillars slid out from the wings on both sides. Thus, in a matter of seconds, what was just another set downstage for a bit of dialogue, was transformed into the grandest of ballrooms, crowded with handsomely dressed couples waltzing to the beautiful Blue Danube. This was Glamour. This was Theater. This was an Epiphany, and I never quite got over it.
Let’s get down now to the operas my parents took me to in the 1930’s, after a quick glance back to the dark days of October 1929, when, by supreme stroke of irony, the stockmarket crash that triggered the Great Depression, neatly coincided with the opening of Samuel Insull’s brand new, twenty-million dollar, Art-Deco Civic Opera House. This soon came to be known as Insull’s Folly, and for it, his Civic Opera Company had abandoned the historic and still viable Auditorium, home of Chicago opera for four decades. Luckily, Chicago opera is now flourishing again.
In the ‘30’s, the only opera being performed at the Auditorium (probably the best acoustics in Christendom) was that of Fortune Gallo’s San Carlo Company, an excellent troupe of first-class artists from home and abroad, performing standard repertory at “popular” prices a few weeks at a time before moving on to the next city. My first opera was their “Faust”, with a nice chubby Marguerite named Belle Verte, and, as Mephisto, the company’s resident bass, Harold Kravitt (these names have been flashed solely from memory). There was even a “white” ballet between the acts. It was all totally new to me and it left me hooked for life.
My second night at the Opera, again the San Carlo, was Bizet’s “Carmen”, starring the Russian mezzo Ina Bourskaya. The trouble was that particular Saturday night an American Legion convention was in town, and Big Herb, a faithful, if not fanatical Legionaire, was all set to spend the evening with some of his buddies at Mme. Galli’s Italian Restaurant on the Near North Side --- a rollicking occasion reminiscent of Laurel and Hardy’s classic “Sons of the Desert” convention, which also took place in Chicago. All well and good, but what about my Carmen? I’d been looking forward to it for weeks. As curtain time approached, with the merriment showing no signs of abating, I began to twitch, and then to panic. Was I the only one who remembered our date at the opera? Nothing for it, but to burst into tears and create such a scene that the festivities ended then and there. We got to the theater just in time to miss Carmen’s Entrance and Habanera, but the important thing was we got there, period. And a terrific experience it turned out to be.
Besides my tearful brouhaha at Mme. Galli’s, what I remember most about that performance was Act IV and the hardy little band of 5 or 6 supers, got up as matadors and marching round and round in the pre-bullfight parade --- in one side and out the other, then a dash backstage and in again, at least four times, each appearance getting a bigger laugh and louder hand than before.
Then, for the final scene --- Brouskaya resplendent in gold lace, tier after tier down to the ground, with a matching mantilla held in place by a jeweled comb and blood-red rose. What impressed me most was the moment just prior to her death --- she made a frantic Sign of the Cross, then turned and rushed upstage to meet her lover’s naked knifeblade --- this desperate, dramatic Sign of the Cross, then hurtling hurtling to her doom. Boy! That was Destiny with a capital D!!!
Herbert was the musical director of the Camp Gordon Chapel Choir back then.
Here surrounded by a bunch of lovely ladies, thirteen years before he met my mother,
sixteen years before my birth.
High Old Times in the Threadbare ‘30s
By the late and great Herbert Eyre Moulton (1927 – 2005)
http://about.me/hmoulton
Considering the perilous state of everyone’s finances during the 1930’s --- at least everyone we knew --- and recalling our own feast-and-famine cycles, the wonder is that we managed to take in as much grand entertainment as we did. But then, I was an only child (born July 1927) and no problem to be taken any where my parents went. Obviously I was also smart enough to grow as fast as I could so that these excursions of ours could grow ever more festive. Before anybody realized it, they consisted of at least one carefully chosen opera each season, plus operettas, musicals, stage plays, and, two summers running (’33 and ’34), the marvels of the Chicago World’s Fair, A Century of Progress.
We were determined to miss as little as possible. Damn the Depression, anyway! Naturally, there were the usual sour comments from the local Babbitts: Who did we think we were, anyway? Going to plays and operas, with so many people on relief?
“Oh, don’t mind those old horses’ neckties!” my mother Nell advised. “They’re only jealous. Such Slobs ICH KABIBEL!” (She’d once had a Yiddisch speaking suitor.) “Now, let’s see what’s playing next week, what we can afford, that.”
Something affordable would always turn up --- there was so much to choose from. And if the tickets cost too much, there was always some way to blarney our way past the Manager. “Honey-Boy, remember, I’m not Irish for nothing!” On such occasions, my Dad, Big Herb, would either look the other way or simply pretend he wasn’t with us.
Those were the days of Vaudevill, so we were able to bask in the glow of dying embers. One of my first Show-Biz memories was of Sophie Tucker, all in white, being driven onstage in a white-and-gold open limousine, attended by flunkies in matching livery. They escorted her down to the footlights. “Some of these days/ You’re gonna miss me, Honey”.
I was absolutely transfixed.
There were, as well, lots of live radio broadcasts originating in Chicago, like W-G-N’s popular Soap “Bachelor’s Children” --- we wrote in and got free tickets several times. Got the cast’s autographs, too, and a write-up in our local newspaper, The Glen Ellyn News. So much for the Babbitts.
There were also hour-long radio dramas like the version of “A Farewell to Arms” with no one less than Helen Hayes as Catherine, script in hand, loving, emoting, and finally dying beautifully, all into the microphone. Just think: The First Lady of the American Theater, not ten yards away from us and all the better because it hadn’t cost us a red cent!
The same went for the nightly free summer concerts in Grant Park. We took in them all, or some of them, anyway. And Nell got more articles printed in the paper. Living Well is the Best Revenge!
On athletics and sporting events we didn’t waste much time --- wrongly perhaps, and I the figure to prove it. (Sorry, Jocks!) I did like to go swimming, with my pals at the Wheaton pool in the next town, riding our bikes and devouring candy bars the whole way. There was also skating on Lake Ellyn, the best part of which was the hot cocoa with marshmallows in it at the boat house. That, and chatting up the junior high school girls. And the Hell with the Hans Brinkers outside falling on their bottoms!
We did make an annual pilgrimage to Wrigley Field each summer, mostly to humor Big Herb, an inveterate Cubs fan. They very seldom won a game, but my Dad was convinced they would, and the Pennant, too, if only we’d keep thinking Positive Thoughts. So we did ... meanwhile, the Hot Dogs there - they were just about the best in town.
Well, in 1938, Big Herb’s beloved Cubs finally won their Pennant, and, bless him, he hurried home as fast as he could just to tell us the News in person. It wasn’t just “Gabby” Hartnett’s last minute Grand Slam Homer that had turned the tide --- our own good wishes and positive thoughts had also played their part. Right, perhaps they had ... Nothing like keeping everyone on the Home Front happy and content.
Like most families, we had our share of seasonal traditions and these we kept religiously. Christmas vacation always meant one thing in certainty: a trip to the Chicago Stadium for Sonja Henie’s spectacular Ice Revue --- breathtaking costumes and orchestrations, Olympic skaters, and hair-raising comics-on-ice like Frick and Frack, and, the peak of the program and always dazzlingly beautiful: Sonja Henie herself, solo, a cherubic blond dream in a short glitzy skirt and spinning and wafting her way through Liszt’s “Liebestraum” --- Man alive! Now that was magic! That, ladies and gents, was a star to conjure with!
The Stadium of W. Madison St. was likewise the setting for another family tradition, this one in summertime: Ringling Bros., Barnum and Bailey’s Circus! Three rings continuously alive with clowns and their exploding flivvers, acrobats and tumblers, magicians and live animal acts, and a bevy of pretty ballet girls, fluttering vast butterfly wings a hundred feet up, hanging from the ceiling by their teeth! (Ow!) And at the Grand Finale, having to stop your ears when somebody got shot out of a mammoth cannon. (I never quite grasped the charm of this.)
Yet another amicable tradition: celebrating my parents’ Wedding Anniversary every February 27th, getting launched with a three-way “Kram” (Swedish for “embrace” – we called it simply a Hug-and-a-Boo.) Then a slap-up-dinner at a fine downtown restaurant --- Henrici’s or, better, still, the Berghoff, where the Wiener Schnitzel and Tafelspitz, AND the home-made Lemon Meringe Pie are to die for. This would be followed by a stage show, whatever happened to be playing that appealed to us all. One year, it was “The Hot Mikado”, another: “Porgy and Bess”, and the last such occasion in the ‘30’s (“Good riddance!” was Nell’s send-off-comment): the wonderful comedy “Life with Father” with Percy Warum as fulminating Father Day, and Lillian Gish (Yes!) as the gentle, slightly pixilated mother, heading a company said to be far superior to the popular Broadway original.
Another season brought Noel Coward’s witty Spook-Comedy “Blithe Spirit”, featuring the deliciously dotty Estelle Winwood of the lace-curtained hair-do, wide-set eyes, and pixie movements, along with Dennis King, old-time operetta idol, and the chic but incomprehensible Annabella. We hoped her husband Tyrone Power could understand her better than we did.
A farce my parents loved was “Leaning on Letty”, with the loose-limbed Charlotte Greenwood, whose post-performance display of rubber-legged acrobatics brought down the house. An incredible display, much loved.
Then there was the dark andd melancholy Sylvia Sidney in a stage version of Nell’s beloved namesake “Jane Eyre” (her father had been born an Eyre of Eyrecourt in County Galway, where Charlotte Bronte, the author, once settled, taking that family’s name for her own heroine). One reason for Miss Sidney’s melancholy might have been having the show stolen from under her by that delicious character actress Cora Witherspoon in the cameo role of Mr. Rochester’s complaining cook.
Another star turn, and one deemed by some of Nell’s bitchier lady friends as quite unsuitable for young Herbert’s innocent ears, was Clifton Webb’s waspish “The Man Who Came to Dinner” --- not for school-boys, and, consequently, relished all the more by this one. We also revelled in “Pins and Needles”, a political revue put on by members of the international Garment Workers Union in New York --- their spoof of an old-fashioned mellerdrammer was achingly funny and remains so in memory today.
“Achingly funny” wouldn’t half describe Olsen and Johnson’s zany “Helzapoppin’”, which gave a new meaning to madness, but it sure took a lot of tolerance to reconcile this kind of thing with the dignified Auditorium. What counted was the great old theater was being used as such. It surely was for the next production, which came at the very close “Dirty ‘30’s” --- “Romeo and Juliet” starring the most glamorous and famous pair of lovers of the time, Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh. We all thought it was the most sumptuous and thrilling Romeo possible, but it’s now reckoned the biggest flop of the Oliviers’ otherwise distinguished career. It played in the theater I shall always love more than any other --- Louis Sullivan’s masterpiece, and I write about it with a reverance reserved for very holy places.
I was and indeed still am deeply devoted to this historic old theater which dates from 1889 and which played such a seminal role in my life. And when it was threatened with demolition in the early ‘40’s, my personal sorrow was so profound that I wrote critic Claudia Cassidy a lament for its apparently inexorable fate. She published it almost in full in her Sunday column in the Chicago Sun --- Fame! And at the tendenage of 15, too. But thank God and a lot of marvellous people, the Auditorium managed to survive after all and is now enjoying a new lease on life as part of Roosevelt University --- restored to its pristine splendor as a protected Historical Monument.
It was there that I had my first real theatrical experience, a musical extravaganza in every sense of the word, “The Great Waltz”, music by Johann Strauss the Younger, book by Moss Hart, and featuring the soprano Marion Claire. It was she, as wife of the Music Director of W-G-N, who, in Spring 1953, auditioned and hired me for my first nationwide broadcast, commenting to the others in the control room: “We must find something that shows off his beautiful diction.”
As for “The Great Waltz” itself, very little I have seen since --- this was 1936, remember --- has ever approached it for sheer theatrical magic, now, during the introduction to the Grand Finale, the bandstand with orchestra, moved swiftly and silently upstage as far as it would go, crystal chandaliers descended from above and pillars slid out from the wings on both sides. Thus, in a matter of seconds, what was just another set downstage for a bit of dialogue, was transformed into the grandest of ballrooms, crowded with handsomely dressed couples waltzing to the beautiful Blue Danube. This was Glamour. This was Theater. This was an Epiphany, and I never quite got over it.
Let’s get down now to the operas my parents took me to in the 1930’s, after a quick glance back to the dark days of October 1929, when, by supreme stroke of irony, the stockmarket crash that triggered the Great Depression, neatly coincided with the opening of Samuel Insull’s brand new, twenty-million dollar, Art-Deco Civic Opera House. This soon came to be known as Insull’s Folly, and for it, his Civic Opera Company had abandoned the historic and still viable Auditorium, home of Chicago opera for four decades. Luckily, Chicago opera is now flourishing again.
In the ‘30’s, the only opera being performed at the Auditorium (probably the best acoustics in Christendom) was that of Fortune Gallo’s San Carlo Company, an excellent troupe of first-class artists from home and abroad, performing standard repertory at “popular” prices a few weeks at a time before moving on to the next city. My first opera was their “Faust”, with a nice chubby Marguerite named Belle Verte, and, as Mephisto, the company’s resident bass, Harold Kravitt (these names have been flashed solely from memory). There was even a “white” ballet between the acts. It was all totally new to me and it left me hooked for life.
My second night at the Opera, again the San Carlo, was Bizet’s “Carmen”, starring the Russian mezzo Ina Bourskaya. The trouble was that particular Saturday night an American Legion convention was in town, and Big Herb, a faithful, if not fanatical Legionaire, was all set to spend the evening with some of his buddies at Mme. Galli’s Italian Restaurant on the Near North Side --- a rollicking occasion reminiscent of Laurel and Hardy’s classic “Sons of the Desert” convention, which also took place in Chicago. All well and good, but what about my Carmen? I’d been looking forward to it for weeks. As curtain time approached, with the merriment showing no signs of abating, I began to twitch, and then to panic. Was I the only one who remembered our date at the opera? Nothing for it, but to burst into tears and create such a scene that the festivities ended then and there. We got to the theater just in time to miss Carmen’s Entrance and Habanera, but the important thing was we got there, period. And a terrific experience it turned out to be.
Besides my tearful brouhaha at Mme. Galli’s, what I remember most about that performance was Act IV and the hardy little band of 5 or 6 supers, got up as matadors and marching round and round in the pre-bullfight parade --- in one side and out the other, then a dash backstage and in again, at least four times, each appearance getting a bigger laugh and louder hand than before.
Then, for the final scene --- Brouskaya resplendent in gold lace, tier after tier down to the ground, with a matching mantilla held in place by a jeweled comb and blood-red rose. What impressed me most was the moment just prior to her death --- she made a frantic Sign of the Cross, then turned and rushed upstage to meet her lover’s naked knifeblade --- this desperate, dramatic Sign of the Cross, then hurtling hurtling to her doom. Boy! That was Destiny with a capital D!!!
Get Away From Home
By Alexandra H. Rodrigues
I wrote this years back. Maybe it was 1972.
At that time, rules at airlines were still more relaxed.
Terrorism had not yet gotten the upper hand.
To take a pleasure trip is fun, or is it? I was not in high spirits when, after an eight-hour ocean crossing, the 707 jetliner brought me into Holland. No matter how much some people rave about flying, I am tense when locked in the tube, when my life is at the mercy of a man I do not even know. I am referring to the pilot in the cockpit whose name one hardly ever gets to hear or it is mumbled by a flight attendant who cannot pronounce it properly. The weather was dull. The clouds, irritated by the winds, knocked against the fuselage. It sounded like a car engine knocking. From where I was sitting, which was pretty much in the middle of the plane, I could see the wings bend. How much can they bend?
Customs did not bother to check my or anybody else’s luggage. The officer nodded us quickly through and hurried back into his office to escape the draft that was everywhere. I had a reservation at the Rotterdam Hilton Hotel. Imagine spending the first two days of my trip in a first class hotel before continuing to Amsterdam. The best way to get to the city from the airport was by taxi, I had been told. I was not prepared for the 60-minute ride that followed. I had been under the impression that taxi drivers in the Far East, in Mexico or Tehran, ranked first in their eagerness to make good time. The ride into Rotterdam taught me differently. Speeding on a narrow highway, my driver accelerated whenever another car came into sight and stopped short just a few inches behind that vehicle. It worked. The chased car moved over to the right lane and we passed in pursuit of the next one. My driver did speak some English but too busy with his maneuvers he would answer me with monosyllable words. I decided it was safer anyhow not to interrupt his compulsive driving, so I remained quiet.
We finally arrived at the hotel, an imposing building in the center of town. I checked in, picked up the key from the concierge and took the elevator to my suite, looking forward to a nice hot shower and a hot chocolate. A cool breeze greeted me in the nicely furnished room and I asked the baggage boy, who did speak English, to turn up the heat. My tip of 2 guilder was obviously too meager as his “thank you” was hardly audible and the door was closed with a bang behind him when he left.
A little forlorn I sat down on the couch and with my legs pulled up for warmth; I looked thru some folders and pamphlets introducing the magnificent services of the Hilton Hotel and the excitement of Rotterdam. I ordered my hot chocolate, two fried eggs and bacon. It came amazingly fast: 2 boiled eggs, bacon and tea in a fancy blue and white teapot. I was tired, hungry and thirsty. The tea would have to do. It was still cold in the room. I called down to the porter and asked for help. It took another 20 minutes before somebody came and made it work. The fan was blowing now. Instead of warm air, it was laboriously throwing more of the cold air. Too cold to take a shower, I settled to get some sleep first. At least the quilts looked like they would provide nice warmth.
Not to miss the advertised exciting night life of Rotterdam, I left a wake-up call with the operator for 6 p.m. Since I like to dose off with music, I turned on the radio. Four different channels, no music, mostly news in Dutch and even those stations went off the air intermittently. The wake-up call came at 6 and I felt like just closing my eyes again and continue sleeping. But the room felt cozy now, so I got up took a hot shower and got dressed to go out. Under my window a group of young people was singing and having a good time. From conversation in the lobby, I found out that it was inauguration day for the new subway.
The main drag was also filled with people. It looked like a miniature of Coney Island. Spinning wheels, bazaars, hot -dog vendors, entertainment all over. I elbowed my way to one of the shooting galleries. For a guilder, you could shoot and win some trinkets. If you hit a lucky number the man behind the counter would give you the prize. I had
already played away 6 guilder when a little boy on the left pulled on my sleeve to stop my attempt to start a new game. Although it was in Dutch I did understand what he meant. I had already won several times without knowing but failed to get the attention of the gallery owner. Oh well, the game had lost my interest.
I continued to walk along the arcade toward the spot where my map promised me a good restaurant. I found it quickly, but with the festivities in full swing it was crowded and people stood in line waiting to be seated. I tried another one a few blocks away: Same story. The natives were all over.
So I went back to the Hilton and into the coffee shop. Even there I was lucky to find a table as other tourists in the same predicament had come back also. The table was so small that the waiter had to remove the little dauphin vase to find room to place the menu. I ordered and got a beer right away. It sure tasted good and cheered me up, so I did not mind to have to wait for food for quite a while.
At the table next to me sat a Dutch couple with two children. The little girl, blond with pigtails, had taken to run round and round the table with never-tiring joy, making circles wider and wider till my legs felt a breeze whenever she passed in her pink dress. The happy playing of their daughter extracted laughs from the parents and delighted squeaks from the baby brother. Suddenly my dinner plate landed on my table with a crash, the sauce spilling onto the tablecloth and some green beans dangling tiredly over the rim of the plate. The waiter had collided with the little girl. The mother got down on her knees and tried to pick up some glass that had broken: It was my second beer. The little girl unperturbed continued to make her rounds.
Shortly thereafter, having finished my dinner, I decided to go back upstairs. The cigarette smoke in the coffee shop had begun to bother me, and it had gotten quite noisy in the little place. I passed some time writing postcards to friends, elaborate little masterpieces that stated what a great time I was having and how marvelous everything was. I wondered if it is those postcards which all of us are getting from time to time, written by vacationing friends, which awaken in us the desire to travel. Maybe our expectations would not be quite as high if people wrote the truth.
I still wrote more postcards during the following days, from Amsterdam, Vienna, Berlin and Brussels. While I was writing these cards, I was thinking of my cozy house on the south shore of Long Island. I was ready to return possibly faster than I had planned.
Most of the time when I wrote “It is great” it nearly was ; but I will never forget this first day of my vacation and whenever the house and home seem boring, I open the door to my memory. A train ride to New York City, a boat ride on the Great South Bay or a leisurely walk in the arboretum will quickly satisfy my wanderlust.
Slaves to Society
By Karen King
Many of us are slaves in society. We work for a pittance, trying to make ends meet. I have
heard that 5% of the world owns 95% of the wealth. So, while the rest of us are struggling to
pay our bills, others earn silly amounts of money. I ask, are they so much more intelligent,
worthy or more talented than, say, the writing fraternity?
It seems it’s easy to publish if you are already famous, but if you are not, then you are
pleased if people bother to read your poetry or buy your books. Often you have to self-
publish or publish through a publisher for vast amounts of money. Is this fair when you have
so much talent to give society? Many of us struggle to do what we enjoy or, more likely, we
have a day job to enable us to afford to write our poetry. Still, poetry is something we have
to do and we try and benefit society with our words.
Just think, next time you see someone with the latest design gear, ask yourself if this is what
life is all about and if you truly think they are happy for, surely, happiness comes from inside
through the expression of our soul and not from outside, material goods? They feel that
happiness can be bought and do not understand that it just comes about through following
your soul’s path. I, personally, feel that many people have sold their souls to “fit in” and
“keep up” with other people, like it is some sort of competition. They do not wish to follow
their souls and find inner peace and happiness. In a way, perhaps they are also slaves to
society?
Karen King Copyright February 2016
Broadway
By Alexandra H. Rodrigues
All turns at one point or another into the past. Not so! Not the pulse of a city. It is there before us and after us. While around we add to its vibrancy. Particles of each of us mix with the ongoing river of renewal!
In 1963, I settled in Massapequa on the South Shore of Long Island. It is a peaceful suburb of New York City. Living in one of the suburbs near the Great South Bay offers an immense advantage. Within minutes you can bathe in the rays of the setting sun painting the sky from a soft orange to a fiery red. You can find a quiet place in the sandy dunes along the beaches where the ocean roar turns into a soothing melody. You can meditate while sailing along the plentiful canals that cut through the island. You can enjoy looking at wintry bare trees bending their twigs in the wind; they nod like old men with white beards who have no command over their tilting heads.
During the summer I listen to the chirping of the birds in my garden. I am happy to know that with only a 59-minute train ride, the Long Island Rail Road could take me to the glittering, buzzing, color-flashing excitement of Broadway, the heart of the city, the center of Manhattan. Theaters, cinemas, high-class restaurants all are within my reach. The Metropolitan and Smithsonian Museums, concerts and the New York Library offer to quiet any hunger for knowledge and culture.
What I sensed for the City then has changed little during a lifetime of ups and downs. Out on the Island it has become harder but not impossible to find a truly tranquil spot. The City keeps coming closer and closer. The number of people wanting to live in the outskirts must have tripled. The houses have grown and the properties have shrunk. Storms have caused severe damage on the Island and terrorism has wounded the City. However, the freedom to choose whether to spend one’s days peacefully and calmly at the shores of Long Island or joining into the bustle of Midtown Manhattan remains a given.
Year after year the big ball will drop down in Times Square ringing in another year to come. I often wonder about how Broadway must have looked many years ago in its first attempts to spread entertainment. It surely has come a long way since Fred Astaire walked its cobblestones as a young boy. Since Marika played music by Charles Kalman at the Winter Garden. Charles Kalman is the son of the famous Operetta King Emmerich Kalman. Charles was an Austrian film and stage composer in his own rights, who passed away in 2015.
Skating at Rockefeller Center was and still is a highlight and an absolute delight, followed by a hot toddy or hot chocolate on the premises. The Old Opera House, built in 1883, was gutted in 1892 by fire, and Lincoln Center is now the home of the Metropolitan Opera.
Broadway evokes in me the same feeling as does Hollywood. It is a center of show business. A multitude of stories could be written about the many hopefuls who tried and wished for stardom. Some became starlets but few made it to the top. The ones who succeeded added to the mystery of glamour and riches. What I like most about New York is the choice of where to go and what to experience. Even if you yourself are not the one to have made a career on Broadway, you will always be able to participate in the tingling exhilaration by getting a ticket to a box seat. There’s a calming continuity in ongoing customs.
While I was re-reading this essay I saw that a friend of mine was just expressing the same sentiment. She writes “This weekend I visited some of NYC’s great neighborhoods. Carroll Gardens, the meat packing district, East Village and Little Italy. Saw old friends, bonded with some recent friends and made a few new friends. Saw some kick ass music, ate some great food and now I’m off to Jones Beach. All this within 30 miles of my home. I sometimes forget how much I love NY!”
I have chosen my residence in Massapequa, where I still live, as starting point for my thoughts and went westward but would like to add that an equally short train ride in the opposite direction, out East, opens additional enchanting points of interest, like Fire Island and the Hamptons.
No, I do not mean to ignore the North Shore with its charms. Estates are bigger; the landscape is intriguing with woods and hills.
There is no end in possibilities to explore and “boredom” is not a word in my vocabulary. No money for vacation? There’s lots to see here!
Alienated
By Thomas N. Hackney
There’s an awful lot going on in the universe that people are blissfully unaware of, and it’s probably just as well. If people knew who we share our own galaxy with, for example, a lot of them would probably rip their own heads off rather than see or acknowledge them. There are beings drifting on currents unknown to mortal men, accomplishing things the enculturated mind just isn’t equipped to deal with. Like when twenty-one comets – not fourteen or nine -- smashed into Jupiter over six days in July 1994. Comets have long been thought to augur near future events, usually fairly catastrophic events, like the death of an emperor or of a civilization, a great flood or plague. Montezuma, the emperor of the Aztecs, feared for his empire when he saw a comet around five hundred years ago. It turned out that he was right to be afraid because it wasn’t long before his empire was in ruins at the hands of the Spanish Conquistadores. Of course, such beliefs are considered quaint today. On the other hand, twenty-one comets -- one for each Anno Domini century, by George! -- certainly did portend and mark the approaching 21st century. What a stunning coincidence, though! Was this simply the way the comet-cookie crumbled or was it the amazing
handiwork of advanced beings making semiotic comment, as it were, on our last twenty centuries of history? In this author’s opinion the answer to this is both clear and overwhelming, clear because of the abundance of evidence supporting the idea, overwhelming because the importance of this revelation is off the chart. Apart from its obvious allusion to the twenty-first century, the great comet crash of 1994 was the first time anyone had ever seen a cosmic object crash into another such object in space. Designated “A” through “W” (letters “I” and “O” were not used), the fragments of Shoemaker- Levy 9 (aka “the string of pearls”) ranged in size from one or two hundred meters to approximately two kilometers in diameter. The impacts were the most energetic events of any kind ever seen by Man in his solar system, period. The combined explosions were described as being roughly equivalent to fifty million atom bombs. Astronomers assumed that the comets were fragments of a former single parent comet, one that had broken apart due to gravitational forces exerted on it by a previous close pass of Jupiter. This may well be what happened. The only problem is that there is no hard evidence to support the assertion, because the alleged parent comet was never previously seen near Jupiter, nor anywhere else. So if it did happen, then the question becomes how do you miss a thing like this? Scientists generally pride themselves on not jumping to conclusions without firm evidence to support those conclusions. Not this time.
Another famous meteor impact that defied the odds in a curiously articulate fashion was the Peekskill meteor event of October 9, 1992. It occurred shortly before the Ames Research Center (NASA) commenced a massive “Targeted Search” for extraterrestrial intelligence on
October 12, 1992. The High Resolution Microwave Survey, the official name of the project, was the first congressionally funded and major search for intelligent extraterrestrial life. According to the project’s chief radio-astronomer, Dr. Jill Tarter, more radio-waves in space were analyzed by HRMS in the first few minutes of operation than had been analyzed in all the previous fifty SETI projects since 1961 combined. A writer for the New York Times called it “the first comprehensive high technology search for evidence of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe.” For once in the SETI paradigm’s 30-year history, money wasn’t a problem. According to numerous videos and photographs, a string of seventy meteor fragments scored the skies of the American north-east at a little before 8 p.m. on the 9th, or three days before the launch of HRMS. One football-sized fragment impacted the right rear signal-light of a parked Chevrolet, pulverizing its attenuated right tail-light, and nothing else. This was almost, but not quite, impossible because the tail-light of a 1980 Chevy Malibu measures about 5-by- 22-inches, whereas the recovered meteorite measured 4-by-5-by-11-inches. Incredibly, neither the bumper immediately beneath the signal-light nor the thin chrome accent forming its upper border was significantly damaged by the impact. This meant the meteorite had to navigate between these chrome borders rather precisely. Ironically, the very words that tumble from the lips to describe this paradox are peek and skill. This could be just a coincidence, of course, but how exactly does this happen in a random and unplanned universe? SETI scientists will tell you that this was simply a coincidence, but I am not convinced. One reason for my skepticism is that HRMS was commenced on no less a date than the 500th anniversary of Columbus’s discovery of the (last) new world, America -- Oct. 12, 1992.
Did it not occur to anyone at NASA-Ames that their Columbian symbolism might have been seen as a bit rich by those being searched for? After all, Columbus’s discovery and the old world’s subsequent colonization of America was a catastrophe for the indigenous peoples of that world? How were any neighboring extraterrestrials supposed to let a faux pas like this slide without inserting a word or thought or two in edgewise? Surely, there was a way for advanced extraterrestrials to accomplish this without giving away too much, like their star system of origin, their phenotype, or even their culpability in these events. The Peekskill meteor event was infused with dozens of articulating coincidences, and there is simply no way this was natural or random. I‘ve written two books -- one published in 2012, the other is as yet unpublished -- enumerating and discussing them. There is no space to mention them all here but here are four or five that stand out. 1. The annual Draconid meteor shower just happened to be at its apex on October 9 when the Peekskill meteor went down. Coincidence? Sure, but that’s only the half of it. The newspapers and TV reporters all reported that the fireball was a Draconid. The strange thing of it was that the Peekskill fireball was not a Draconid. Although no one in the press caught on to this, the fact is that Draconids travel from North to South, not South to North like the Peekskill meteor did. What were the odds that the most prominent and probably the largest shooting star that night was a sporadic and not a Draconid? Sporadics are not associated with meteor showers. Why is this important? Draconid meteors get their name because they appear to arrive from the northern circumpolar constellation, Draco the Dragon. Draco was a 6th century B.C. Athenian archon infamous for his cruel and unusual punishments; nearly every offense resulted in death.
Indeed, he is the origin of the term “draconian.” Knowing their human history well, the dispatchers of the Peekskill fireball went to a lot of trouble to requisition a 27-pound sporadic meteor that night. A Draconid meteor would have implied a draconian disposition of its dispatchers, and this would never do. (Whew!) Perhaps there is a universal convention which instructs worlds to endeavor to be polite when uncloaking before a naive world. Considering NASA’s rather poor taste in symbolism when it commenced its alien-hunting project on the 500th anniversary of Columbus’s discovery of America, NASA could do well to take this sage advice to heart. 2. A 1994 article in Nature magazine began with the statement: “On 9 October 1992, a bright fireball appeared over West Virginia, travelled some 700 km in a northeasterly direction, and culminated in at least one impact: a 12.4-kg ordinary chondrite was recovered in Peekskill, New York.” (1) When one draws a line to represent that “700-kilometer” flightpath on a map, one finds that Washington DC is parallel to the line’s exact midpoint. How convenient for the U.S. capital that it should occupy the best possible geographic location from which to watch the fireball move like nobody’s business (8 mi./sec.) up the northeast corridor. But then, the High Resolution Microwave Survey was a federally funded radio-astronomy project. What’s more, it turns out the fireball began its 700 km atmospheric journey at a point in West Virginia that is adjacent to the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), one of the main facilities tapped by HRMS. The Peekskill fireball might as well have waved at the SETI scientists as they calibrated their instruments that night. 3. The car the Peekskill meteor hit belonged to Michelle Knapp who turned 18 on October
12, 1992. (2) Maybe it was just a coincidence that this teenager reached her age of majority on that bi-momentous and celebrated day, or maybe it wasn’t. Maybe it was a rhetorical question to mankind: “All grown up are we?” 4. Maybe it was just another happy coincidence that the right or impact-corresponding side of Michelle Knapp’s license plate read “933”, which numbers gave notice of Shoemaker-Levy 9’s appearance in 93/3, or March the following year. Then there is the name of the event, Peekskill, to consider. The fact that a car’s long and narrow signal-light had been pulverized from one end to the other by a meteor, which impact left the bordering chrome on two long sides of the signal-light essentially alone, tends to refute the random nature or cosmic luck theory. No, it was more like “Here’s a small peek-at our- skill, baby.” The remark, if that’s what it was, would have referenced those short videos incessantly aired in 1990-1 during the first Iraq war, the ones showing the Pentagon’s (then) new Patriot missile hitting or missing Saddam Hussein’s airborne SCUD missiles. Now, a single salient coincidence like 21 comets auguring the 21st Century is one thing, a thing that can be forgotten or even laughed off as “one of those things.” But when twenty-five such coincidences happen together, that is certainly something else entirely. What’s interesting is that the ET investigators at Ames didn’t know a whole bunch of “intelligent signals” when they actually fell on them. Did NASA’s ET investigators really miss the (alien) humor? If it makes anyone feel better, it is clear that the designers of these inter-world overtures did not want to make things too easy for SETI scientists. That would have been too simple. It seems that providing less than conclusive scientific proof of their co-existence was very much part of the plan. Offering too much in the way of proof too fast would have changed our world
overnight, massively interfering with the natural history of our species. So they’d manage to get their two cents in to whomever would listen, but they weren’t about to change the status quo. I guess when you’ve been tinkering around for one or two billion years, you can get away with this sort of thing (the average age of half the stars in our galaxy is 1.5 billion years older than our Sun).
In 2013 the world saw a third meteoritic salvo. The Chelyabinsk super-bolide was even more “in our face” than the 21-comet salute of 1993-4 was. It was probably more conspicuous than a five-inch wide meteor aimed at a five-inch wide car tail-light. Shortly after dawn on February 15, 2013, a 60-foot meteor exploded flash-bang style high above the Russian city of Chelyabinsk. The energy released by the explosion was equivalent to about 500 kilotons of TNT, or 20-30 times larger than the atomic bomb detonated at Hiroshima. With an estimated initial mass of 12,000–13,000 metric tons, and measuring about 20 meters in diameter, it was the largest natural object to enter Earth's atmosphere since the Tunguska bolide event of 1908, which flattened a remote 770 square mile forest area in Siberia. The Chelyabinsk bolide is the only meteor confirmed to have resulted in a large number of injuries. More than two thousand Russians were injured when the shock wave from the explosion shattered many of the windows in the Russian city. Around 1,500 of them applied for medical assistance. Fifty-two were hospitalized. Although a few came very close to death, remarkably nobody died. Unlike the asteroid known as 2012 DA-14, which was first spotted in February 2012 and nearly grazed Earth’s atmosphere later that same February 2013 day (say, there’s a coincidence
involving meteors for you: two record-breaking asteroids in one day!), the Chelyabinsk meteor- bolide was a complete surprise. It blew apart about 18.4 miles (97,400 feet) above the Earth’s surface. Even so, some 7,200 buildings in six cities across the region were damaged by the shockwave. If it had exploded a few seconds after it did, it might have easily killed a million denizens of the Russian city. Indeed, the explosion appears to have been set off with very precise timing, because how else could thousands have been slightly to seriously injured without a single death being caused? Could that have been just luck, or was it a kind of all-knowing skill? The DA-14/Chelyabinsk double asteroid event of February 15, 2013 has never been treated in the media as anything but random and unrelated accidents of nature. As far as I know, I am the only person to ascribe these events, and the two previous ones mentioned earlier, to an extraterrestrial intelligence. A few magazines and radio talk shows have published my articles or interviewed me on the subject, but to no great effect. It’s all a little hard to fathom, I suppose, and none of it is what anyone could call cricket, but facts are facts, after all. So it should be no great surprise that the SETI experts at NASA-Ames weren’t having any of this. Why, it’s not “scientific,” that’s all. With few exceptions, the UFO posse was (is) not all that interested in meteor events for any reason, mainly because no UFOs were (are) involved, or so I imagine, and perhaps partly because we’re dealing here with IFOs, which are reasonably well identified flying objects. Compared to 49,999 UFO cases, these meteor/comet/asteroid impact events are in a completely different class. The alien overtures were made available not just to one or a handful of people, but to billions. The stories were scientifically documented by teams of top scientists,
published in mainstream newspapers and magazines, and aired on network TV news shows. They became the subject of documentaries. At least fourteen videos were made of the meteor in flight, from North Carolina to the shores of the Great Lakes. Both the meteorite and the car it impacted were exhibited in the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, one of the great museums of the world. SL9, for its part, became the lead story in almost every television news show in the world for a week. Nobody is raising much doubt about Chelyabinsk/DA-14 actually happening either. There is something thunderously true about these intelligently crafted events. It is as if a million voices – not one of them human -- were trying to make something known to us. But humans are if nothing else an incredulous and self-assured species. We often delight in pooh- poohing and disbelieving evidence even when it is placed in front of us. As I was forced to accept this in the months and years following these events, I knew that I was alone and divorced from the world, though I wouldn’t trade my alienation for anything, because now, at last, I have something to believe in. It is as if a blinding light has reached down from an empyreal height and snatched me from the material world and transfixed me inside a pool of light on some netherworld. Although I am not strong or worthy enough to see into the concealing darkness that surrounds me, I sense that I am not alone, that to every side of me exist vast and powerful presences. There are so many questions: how much of the galaxy or universe do they patrol? Did they create the universe -- our universe, that is? Are we considered a threat or merely a disappointment? Are we being held at arm’s length because we are considered less than
civilized? We did murder or kill a few hundred-million of our own last century, to say nothing of other species with which we share the planet. Who is the intelligence responsible for these events, from where do they direct these missives, and for what purpose? Whatever the right answers to these questions happen to be, these ingenious and loquacious beings cannot be allowed to think that we are so blind and half-witted, so self-impressed and indifferent about what goes on around us. It’s not as if they haven’t demonstrated how they might blow up something, or a lot of somethings, if we keep blowing off their “intelligent signals.” It’s simply unacceptable, scientifically, and in terms of risk, for us to know and care so little about the first intelligent nonhuman species we’ve encountered. Surely, such righteous ignorance and incuriosity will be our undoing. Unless I miss my mark, when an alien species decides to uncloak, even a little bit, it is just about the most important thing to happen. So where are the headlines, the documentaries, books and articles on this world-changing development? Well, they’re a little hard to find but they are out there (they all have my name attached to them). As for the U.S. government, the most you’re going to find in the public domain on this subject is a recent interview of President Obama on the Ellen DeGeneris talk show. In January 2016, President Barrack Obama appeared on television with a six-year-old girl named Macey Hensley. The scripting of the interview suggests that the purpose of the segment was to allow the president to allude to our species having been indirectly contacted by extraterrestrial agencies.
The relevant discourse went as follows: Macey: Is there really a book of secrets? Obama: That’s a secret.
Ellen: Like what kind of secrets would you like to know? Macey: If aliens are real. Obama: Well, what do you think? Macey: Well, after watching some TV shows, I think aliens are probably real. Obama: Golly, okay. Ellen: Which TV show was that? Macey: I think it’s called “America’s Book of Secrets.” Obama: There you go … Well, the truth is, Macey, we haven’t actually made direct contact with aliens yet. But when we do, I’ll let you know. Did you catch it? “No direct contact.” This leaves indirect contact, which is the main finding of my books, articles, radio interviews and documentaries on the subject. Other than this, I will say that I have been given several plausibly deniable hints by certain anonymous members of our federal government that my discovery is being taken quite seriously, at least by some in the government. The reader will have to trust me on this, because in every instance these grey eminences have been very careful not to leave behind anything I can use. Hey, no problem. I understand. Speaking for myself, and to the aliens in question, let me say that I have really enjoyed our little chats, and hope to pick up where we’ve left off very soon.
End
[1] Nature Magazine (Vol. 367, 17 Feb. 1994) “The orbit and atmospheric trajectory of the Peekskill meteorite from video records” by P. Brown, Z. Ceplecha, RL Hawkes, G. Wetherill, M. Beech & K. Mossman
[2] Gannett Suburban Newspaper (13 October 1992) “Meteorite’s landing spot a star
attraction” by Bruce Golding
Herbert Eyre Moulton (1927 - 2005)
Actor, Author, Baritone, Director, English-Professor, Speech-Coach, Historian, Theologian.
Professional photo taken during his U.S. career as a singer for MCA Records.
His professional name back then was Herbert Moore.
Actor, Author, Baritone, Director, English-Professor, Speech-Coach, Historian, Theologian.
Professional photo taken during his U.S. career as a singer for MCA Records.
His professional name back then was Herbert Moore.
Making Firefox with Clint
By Herbert Eyre Moulton
The bit part I played in Clint Eastwood’s Cold War adventure melodrama FIREFOX was one of Clint's first times out as both director and star. In it he plays an American pilot disguised as an ordinary businessman and sent to Moscow to steal a new supersonic fighter plane.
This was Vienna 1981 --- we were living in Sweden at the time, but this didn’t stop me from trundling down to Johann-Strauss-Ville (a.k.a. Vienna, Austria) every chance I got --- for theatre work, school radio recordings, translations, or what you will.
This particular assignment was definitely of the what-you-will variety, with myself as a KGB apparatchik hovering ominously in the middle background while “Our Clint” is being interrogated by a cool, polite, and deadly Soviet customs official regarding certain suspicious-looking items in his luggage --- the usual anti-American, anything-to-be-mean hard time those boyos used to specialize in. All I was supposed to do was stand there glowering, but I fear I did considerably more than that, and I’ve got a home video-clip of the scene to prove it. It could serve as a model for all time of how prominent a bit player in the background can be, if he has a mind to, and is sneaky enough to see his chance and take it.
My bit being so miniscule, such an old ham like myself --- sugar-cured, hickory-smoked, pineapple-glazed --- naturally felt it could use a bit of fleshing out, which is precisely what I proceeded to do, by the simple expedient of staying right on camera the whole time, naughty, unprofessional, but devilishly effective. All it took was swaying back and forth ever so slightly on my two little cloven hooves, whilst staring into the camera with doubt and suspicion in my eyes, real Spy-Who-came-in-from-the-Cold-stuff ... Powerful, stark, menacing.
But not everybody saw it that way, and my performance did not go completely unnoticed. At length one of the camera crew spoke up rather pointedly: “Clint, please tell that gentleman to stand still ... bobbing back and forth like that, he’s making me dizzy.” A tiny reprimand, and it did no good whatsoever.
Clint for one, being much too preoccupied with his end of the scene and his interrogation, nodded and went on to say nothing but give me a tiny smile. So, accordingly, there’s “Old Herbie” or “Air-Bear”, as my college friends used to call me, in that key opening reel, beginning 21 minutes into the motion picture and going for another full one-and-a-half minutes (the black-haired and elegant gentleman behind the Soviet military official), swaying back and forth, back and forth, gently, quietly, like a padded pendulum, frowning his Filthy-McNasty-Tovaritsch frown, all the while ...
To show you what a fine gentleman and colleague Clint Eastwood truly is, he came over to me afterwards and --- the very pineapple of politeness (to borrow Mrs. Malaprop’s phrase), thanked me for doing the scene with him. Hmm, doing it? Dear Hearts, it looks from this end like I was doing my damndest to ruin it, though I’d swear a great and terrible oath that such was never my intent.
Alas, Firefox turned out to be one of the biggest proverbial and monetary duds of Clint’s career. Purest coincidence? As in W.W. Jacobs’ classic horror story “The Monkey’s Paw”, maybe, maybe not. But given my track record before or since, who knows? Mine wasn’t much a part as parts go in “Firefox”, but was it sufficient to jinx the whole operation? If that be the case, sorry about that, Clint. Tough luck that it had to happen at such a vulnerable stage in your endeavors. It could have happened to a worse film and as anyone who reads these chronicles can tell --- could, and did.
Were the fates even then getting me warmed up for a pre-destined role as plague-carrier sui generis? Stay tuned.
I only knew that in the bad old days they used to toss types like me overboard to placate the angry Gods causing all the shipwrecks: “And Jonah said unto them, take me and cast me forth into the sea, for I know that for my sake this great tempest is upon you.”
I guess I’m lucky I’m still more or less intact.
Let’s see, how things stand now? I shot my first motion picture in Ardmore Studios in Bray, Ireland, as a seaman, with dear Cy Knapp. Between that film (1961) and Firefox lay three thousand concerts, maybe one hundred stage productions and a few dozen commercials, one or two episodes in a local TV-series, not counting the radio-programs.
But as far as the motion pictures go, one vanished into the Bermuda Triangle as if it never existed, the other internationally distributed, but still a moderate flop --- 2 films, 2 flops, a perfect score. Where would the Moulton Menace strike next?
The body count continues. Stay tuned.
All joking aside, of all the celebrities I have had as colleagues Clint was the most supreme gentleman of them all. Alan Rickman, for his part, was a very pleasant and soft-spoken intellectual, Mickey Rourke the cool buddy-type character,
David Warner the friendly thespian, Zsa-Zsa Gabor the temperamentful diva par excellance,
Viggo Mortensen the consummate professional.
Clint? He was, remains and always will be the prince of politeness.
The Past
By Alexandra H. Rodrigues
June 2016
By now this is all “The Past.” I wrote this letter in the 1980s but never did give it to my husband.
In retrospect I often feel guilty. Was I not required to love my husband – till death do us part?
The person I lived with at the time I wrote that letter was no longer the one I vowed lifelong attachment and love to. He had changed so drastically.
So I ponder and I forgive myself for my sidestep and change of attitude toward him. He was no longer the person I had married. No longer the ideal husband or great father to our son. Sure, the traits that now surfaced had been already rooted in him when we met. Luckily his good sides stayed in the forefront for many years.
He is dead now -- RIP -- I constantly try to organize happenings from my past. It does not really matter any longer.
Would I act differently if given the chance to relive where I morally went wrong? I doubt it. One cannot jump over one’s shadow.
Life changed, not for the better, when Alzheimer’s and personal weaknesses took their toll.
Here is the letter:
Dear Husband,
I had hoped it would not come to this but I truly do not want to be part of the present set-up any longer. Here are the main things that irritate me:
Your drinking (including having a bottle in your briefcase and sneaking a slug when you believe I do not notice). I am afraid to let our son be alone with you or have you drive him after you had had some drinks. Several times I found cigarette butts on the carpet in the living room or next to the garbage can in the kitchen.
The TV will be your only choice of entertainment and I have to go upstairs since the music bothers you, the lights bother you. This way the living room is taboo for me after 6 p.m.
You do not care to socialize and would not even stay in touch with your family without my friendly reminders.
You avoid any true communication and make believe all is well, while even a blind hen can see that it is not.
You forget what we tell you and on top of it accused me of not paying for a car repair. You had forgotten that I dished the money out the same evening after you had picked the car up.
At this point I had stopped writing this letter. Guess I knew already then that I would not give it to my husband. He could also turn rather violent, and in a way I must have been afraid of his reaction.
Where had the good times gone? Why had I not paid attention to earlier signs? Now, when I try to put all the loose ends together many incidents come to mind. Unimportant when looked upon as a singular happening, but fitting perfectly into the big picture of “Changes caused during the passing of time.”
By Alexandra H. Rodrigues
June 2016
By now this is all “The Past.” I wrote this letter in the 1980s but never did give it to my husband.
In retrospect I often feel guilty. Was I not required to love my husband – till death do us part?
The person I lived with at the time I wrote that letter was no longer the one I vowed lifelong attachment and love to. He had changed so drastically.
So I ponder and I forgive myself for my sidestep and change of attitude toward him. He was no longer the person I had married. No longer the ideal husband or great father to our son. Sure, the traits that now surfaced had been already rooted in him when we met. Luckily his good sides stayed in the forefront for many years.
He is dead now -- RIP -- I constantly try to organize happenings from my past. It does not really matter any longer.
Would I act differently if given the chance to relive where I morally went wrong? I doubt it. One cannot jump over one’s shadow.
Life changed, not for the better, when Alzheimer’s and personal weaknesses took their toll.
Here is the letter:
Dear Husband,
I had hoped it would not come to this but I truly do not want to be part of the present set-up any longer. Here are the main things that irritate me:
Your drinking (including having a bottle in your briefcase and sneaking a slug when you believe I do not notice). I am afraid to let our son be alone with you or have you drive him after you had had some drinks. Several times I found cigarette butts on the carpet in the living room or next to the garbage can in the kitchen.
The TV will be your only choice of entertainment and I have to go upstairs since the music bothers you, the lights bother you. This way the living room is taboo for me after 6 p.m.
You do not care to socialize and would not even stay in touch with your family without my friendly reminders.
You avoid any true communication and make believe all is well, while even a blind hen can see that it is not.
You forget what we tell you and on top of it accused me of not paying for a car repair. You had forgotten that I dished the money out the same evening after you had picked the car up.
At this point I had stopped writing this letter. Guess I knew already then that I would not give it to my husband. He could also turn rather violent, and in a way I must have been afraid of his reaction.
Where had the good times gone? Why had I not paid attention to earlier signs? Now, when I try to put all the loose ends together many incidents come to mind. Unimportant when looked upon as a singular happening, but fitting perfectly into the big picture of “Changes caused during the passing of time.”
Nasty, Slithery, and Short
By Eduardo Frajman
“For the nature of power is, in this point, like to fame, increasing as it proceeds; or like the motion of heavy bodies, which, the further they go, make still the more haste.”
Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan Ch. X
I am a purple worm. I glide in silence across a two-dimensional surface of black hexagons, powered by an invisible force that requires no propulsive movement, not the undulation of the snake nor the peristalsis of the earthworm. I glide and I eat and I grow. I’ve been in this world only a handful of seconds, grown only a smidgen, when a blue-and-white megaworm lunges before me, forcing me to collide into its body. I die.
The time before this I was orange. The time before that I was green. Next time I may be any one of seven colors, chosen at random by the system, but I am always the same worm. My segmented body is perfectly regular, vertically symmetrical, its only salient features the two cartoon eyes at the front end, black circles inside white ones, which move but only slightly in their eternal quest to follow the arrow that is controlled by the mouse that is controlled by the hand that is controlled by me. In every life I guide my worm avatar as it glides across the world, driven by only two goals: survive and grow. My life may end at any moment. It may last mere instants, or stretch to five, ten, twenty minutes. In either case it will be a life of “continual fear” and “danger of violent death,” a life, as Thomas Hobbes would have it, “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”
Such it is in this world I’ve chosen to temporarily inhabit, the world of Slither, the multi-player online game I am playing (http://slither.io). It’s the purest, most perfect incarnation of the Hobbesian state of nature I have ever encountered.
Hobbes sought to outline the proper workings of society by unveiling the core aspects of the human condition. “Nature,” he surmised, “hath made men so equal in the faculties of body and mind as that, though there be found one man sometimes manifestly stronger in body or of quicker mind than another, yet when all is reckoned together the difference between man and man is not so considerable as that one man can thereupon
claim to himself any benefit to which another may not pretend as well as he.” With these words Hobbes did nothing less than launch modernity into the world. We are all, in this sense, his children.
Yet, his understanding of human nature was deeply flawed, his political theory reliant on two crucial misconceptions about human psychology. First was his belief in the uncontested supremacy of selfishness. “From this equality of ability,” he claimed, “ariseth equality of hope in the attaining of our ends. And therefore if any two men desire the same thing, which nevertheless they cannot both enjoy, they become enemies; and […] endeavour to destroy or subdue one another.” Second was his notion of human beings as isolated, solitary creatures: “men have no pleasure (but on the contrary a great deal of grief) in keeping company where there is no power able to overawe them all.” In a state of nature, he concluded, without law or society to control them, isolated and selfish individuals would forever be ensnared “in that condition that is called war, […] a war as if of every man against every man.”
Thanks to our understanding of our own biology, our evolutionary lineage, our observable behavior, we can categorically state that Hobbes’ view of natural man was incorrect.1 Human beings, like all apes, are social animals, and natural human life, for as long as humans have existed, has primarily taken place within families and kin-based groups. While it is true that humans, like chimpanzees, have always sought to subdue and destroy one another, they have not done so as isolated individuals, but as competing
bands, then tribes, then peoples. Hermit loners exist, but they are the exception, as are sociopaths and serial killers. Indeed, the Hobbesian state of nature is all but unimaginable. Recent attempts to portray what a world of constant war of all against all would look like, in post-apocalyptic novels such as Cormac McCarthy’s The Road or films like the Mad Max series, fall invariably short. Even in the bleakest, bloodiest circumstances, loyalty, compassion, and love bloom everywhere.
Not so in Slither (which I do not endorse in any official capacity and am not affiliated with in any way whatsoever, per secula seculorum, amen). In this two-dimensional world there are no groups, no family, no compassion, and no love. There isn’t even the self-interested cooperation found in most multi-player games. You move, you eat, you grow, you die. There is nothing else. Hobbes believed that fear of death would eventually force right-thinking individuals into abandoning the state of nature for the state of “the social compact,” but fear of death, while a fundamental element of Slither, for death means you must return to your initial puny form and start over, carries less of a sting when one’s avatar can be reincarnated ad infinitum. The comfort of eternal recurrence, and the safety of the virtual, afford me the opportunity to live in a version of Hobbes’ nightmare. It is an exhilarating, addictive experience.
I am yellow now. My worm has a name, which I have given it: EFH. All worms have names in this world. There are many of us. I can’t tell how many. We exist together on the circular plane and never stop moving. The “small beginnings of motion within the body,” declares Hobbes, “are commonly called endeavor. This endeavor, when it is toward something which causes it, is called appetite, or desire.”
We all look essentially the same. Many sport solid colors, like me, because we are playing the free version of the game. The rest, who have achieved special status by accessing it through Facebook or Twitter or other some such inanity, have customized worm avatars, painted in simple designs – white stars on a blue background, the American, French, Italian flag – or with a distorted face – one Cyclops eye instead of two, a creepy smiling face, and, most recently and incoherently, the head of a snail. Such accouterments provide no advantage in terms of gameplay.
As I materialize there is no one else in the immediate vicinity. Slither does you this small initial kindness, a few instants to get your bearings. The tiny map on the bottom-right corner shows my position in the circular, uniform plane. I am closer to the edge than to the center, off to the top left, the northwest. I head southeast, then, towards the crowded middle region and danger, for I am here to play, as are all the other worms.
I’m tiny at first, a tiny yellow maggot. The background of hexagons is littered with shining pellets of different sizes, which disappear as my worm touches them with the top of its head. Each pellet that I consume elongates and enlarges my body. The score is displayed on the bottom left of the screen. The higher the score the larger the worm. Score and girth are one and the same. The score quickly rises from two to three digits. I can sway now, oscillate my midsection.
A red worm is here. It’s smaller than I am. If I can see it, it can see me. I have not yet reached the size to intimidate small-fries like this one. It circles me searchingly, judging my response. “Men,” cautions Hobbes, “live without other security than what their own strength and their own invention shall furnish them.” My finger tenses on the mouse. All players on Slither have a power, one and only one, besides their movement
and their bodies. Holding down the mouse’s button will make the worm’s body glow and accelerate. Most players use “glowing speed” in bursts, to lunge towards or away from an enemy, to beat it out of a tasty morsel. A few play the entire game at high speed overdrive, Dom Toretto style. I prefer the lower pace, the more cautious life. The red worm has placed itself next to me. We’re moving in parallel lines now, its head slightly ahead of mine. Its intentions are clear. It means to speed up, turn abruptly, and kill me.
Of course Red wants to kill me. Although I’m not gunning for it right this instant, I wouldn’t mind it at all if Red died as well. In the state of nature the only good is what is good for me: “The notions of right and wrong, justice and injustice, have there no place. Where there is no common power, there is no law; where no law, no injustice.” I know this and Red knows this and we now the other knows it.
If the top of my head touches any part of Red’s body, or any other worm, no matter how big or small, I die. Much like in the state of nature, “the weakest, has strength enough to kill the strongest.” This separates Slither from most other multiplayer games, in which the most skilled combatants are virtually invincible except when fighting against each other. In Slither, as in life, skill and practice will help you, but they can only take you so far.
I could lunge towards Red, but that’s not my style. I like to be patient, which pays off more often than not, in my judgment. Red’s body lights up. I press down on the button. My yellow body ignites as well. Red turns, but I’ve got the jump on him. I rush headlong, my body straight, as Red executes its plan. It’s master, man or woman, boy or girl, somewhere, anywhere on the planet, knows what’s coming. It’s too late for Red, who can’t stop its momentum and crashes into my side. Red is dead. Where its body just
was, there is now a cluster of multicolored balls of red light. I swing my body towards them and consume them by tapping them with my head.
The glittering remnants of dead worms are the priciest sources of nourishment, the primo stuff, that which everyone desires. A single tiny pellet floating in the black is worth three, five points. An ember of dead worm can be worth twenty, fifty, a bushel of them hundreds of girth points. Strike upon the untouched, glistening carcass of a large opponent and you can go from minuscule to massive in seconds. You start out a tiny, pathetic maggoty thing and, as you eat, become a massive, twisting, twirling, slithering monstrosity. A thousand points will earn you a nice, flowing, svelte form. By five thousand the game must shift perspective to allow you enough room to see where you are maneuvering. Reach fifteen thousand and you are one of the big boys in town and the crowd of pipsqueaks to which you used to belong now follows you around to see what you’ll do and have to swerve to avoid your massiveness. They look so small you are tempted to dismiss them as harmless. But they are not harmless. You touch one, no matter how small, and you die.
And die you will, eventually. There is no victory in Slither, no lasting victory at least. The game goes on forever.
After consuming Red I’m dragging behind me a beautiful thousand-point frame. I wobble my head to make my body swirl like a ribbon. The top right of the screen shows me the top ten current highest scores. Somewhere in this place there are bodies carrying ten thousand, eighteen thousand points, slithering, always slithering across the surface, looking to get larger, always larger. Somewhere, the scoreboard tells me, there’s a
gargantuan thirty-nine-thousand pointer, no doubt with a host of pretenders swarming around it, either aiming to kill it or simply waiting for it to make a mistake.
I move this way and that looking for them, looking for the feeding frenzies that offer the most nourishment. “In the nature of man,” claims Hobbes, “we find three principal causes of quarrel. First, competition; secondly, diffidence; thirdly, glory. The first makes men invade for gain; the second, for safety; and the third, for reputation.” Reputation, such as it is, entails having your name on the high-score bar, for as long as you can keep it there. Nobody knows who I am, of course, so glory is almost completely internal. I want to be bigger, and bigger, though nobody will ever know it. I want to be the biggest I can be.
One time I reached nineteen thousand points, I was on top of the leaderboard, the largest creature in the world. Dozens of small worms hovered around me hungrily, like a pack of hyenas. I swerved and looped to avoid them, I killed one, then another, then a third. Then I died and lost everything. Why play again after that? What else is there? Well, sometimes you see a forty-thousand-level worm, sometimes a fifty-thousand. Once, just once, I saw a red behemoth who, through luck and skill and perseverance, reached eighty thousand points. I spent a long time looking for it, avoiding the attention of the big worms and the gingerly attacks of my peers. I looked and looked until I found it. It stretched endlessly in beautiful coils and curves, too big to ever be fully straight. It went on and on. Someday I’ll be that big, I told myself. I followed Big Red Giant until, inevitably, it burst into countless balls of red, which I, along with a dozen vultures like me, ate with relish. “It is consequent” to the state of nature, Hobbes reminds us, “that
there be no propriety, no dominion, no mine and thine distinct; but only that to be every man’s that he can get, and for so long as he can keep it.”
A bright-green Cyclops, eight hundred points or so, zips around me, looking for an opening. I twist around myself, using my body as a bulwark against its attack. Cyclops comes at me, undeterred, I spin away again, then again, until Cyclops misjudges a pass, crashes against me and dies. I turn to consume what remains. My score swells to two, then three thousand. My confidence swells at well. Bring on the giants! Once more I point my head towards the central regions, except a rainbow-striped pipsqueak appears out of nowhere and blocks my way. I die. The screen fades to black, slowly though, to allow me a fleeting view of my own remains, purple and sparkling, becoming fodder for other worms, my mortal enemies.
What do I learn by living in the Hobbesian state of nature? I learn that life is short and that, though fate doesn’t always favor the bold, only by being bold will you find favor. My daughter plays Slither with the utmost caution. She hides on the edges, away from the crowds. She never kills, not because she doesn’t want to but because she never dares. Her body grows slowly, so slowly. I urge her to enter the fray, to do something, to live. “You can’t blame me for not wanting to die,” she answers, and she’s right. I can’t blame her. She is content with no glory, just living as long as she can, and this is fine in its way. Until she’s spotted, and pursued, and murdered. “That’s so mean!,” she complains to her unknowable assailant. But it isn’t, not in Slither, it’s just life. I try to use Hobbes’ words to counsel her: “because there be some that, taking pleasure in contemplating their own power in the acts of conquest, which they pursue farther than their security requires, if others, that otherwise would be glad to be at ease within modest
bounds, should not by invasion increase their power, they would not be able, long time, by standing only on their defense, to subsist.” She snorts. If I’m too old to know anything, imagine how ignorant Hobbes has to be.
I am purple again. The pickings are plentiful here. There’s no one around. One hundred, a hundred fifty. I enter into a scuffle with an American Flag, bigger than I, he thinks he’s so hot. I kill him and gobble up his remains. Four hundred. Six. Eight. As I seek more action, I run into an undisturbed cluster of orange lights. Probably a worm that crashed into a giant, who didn’t even notice. Eleven hundred. I’m big now. I have length and girth to protect me. A striped brown bully has encircled a blue, smaller than it, and waits for it to die. A red snail head gets in on the action. So do I. Brown Stripes is dead. We all rush to feed. Snail Head, the biggest of us all, is dead. A Creepy Smile rushes rashly into the fray and dies. So much food, all around me.
I get bigger and bigger. Three thousand. Thirty-five hundred. Four, five, six thousand. When the feast is done I extricate myself from the scrum. I’m followed constantly now. Can’t let my guard down. I catch a glimpse of another battle, I rush in again. Again I’m lucky. I feed and feed and survive while so many die around me. Eleven thousand. Fifteen. Maybe this is it, the great game I’ve always pined for, in which I grow endlessly, in which I reach thirty, forty, sixty thousand. Why not? Why not me? Why not a hundred thousand? Two hundred! I’ll live forever. I will, and I’ll get larger and larger, more and more powerful, forever. I am giddy, entrapped by my own desire, “a perpetual and restless desire of power after power, that ceaseth only in death.” About some things Hobbes was undoubtedly right.
I glide, seeking glory. I run into a brown giant. We measure each other up, each looking for an advantage. Brown is cautious, like me. We stay close to each other. If I get him I’ll pass twenty thousand for sure. Twenty, then thirty, for the first time ever. He floats next to me in naïve complacency. The moment is coming. I’ll get him. I make my move just as a snail head, a tiny little thing, appears out of nowhere and blocks my path.
I die.
I disintegrate into shimmering life-giving marbles.
My mind is brought back to the non-Hobbesian world. My back aches from sitting. My fingers are cramped. Time to get up. Time to go make dinner. Time to stop playing.
I don’t want to, says my desire. I won’t go. “One more life,” I promise myself.
RIGHT! WE'LL HAVE A PARTY!
from the autobiography "DAMN THE DEPRESSION, ANYWAY!"
Written by my father the late great
Herbert Eyre Moulton (1927 - 2005)
who worked as MCA-Record’s Show-Star Herbert Moore. He also conducted the Camp Gordon Chapel Choir during the Korean War, toured with his wife, the operatic mezzo-soprano Gun Kronzell, around the world as “The Singing Couple”. This true story takes place in the posh, spiritually rich but financially poor 1930’s. The picture here to the right is of my father many years later, during a party in the 1960’s (how fitting), drinking wine, chatting with his good friend, the famous Swedish opera tenor Nicolai Gedda.
Now, fasten your seatbelts. Step into the time machine. Get ready to visit the culturally endowed relatives living the posh life back in the Illinois that was, sometime in the 1930’s.
As long as anyone can remember, our home had always been THE HOUSE OF HOSPITALITY. Through thick or thin, palmy days or the Depths of the Depression - between the extremes of my father Big Herb's practicality and Nell's "To Hell with Poverty - we'll sell the pig!" liberality, we always managed to make every visitor feel happily at home.
Most of the regulars at this snug little oasis of ours were survivors of a picturesque world that, since the Stockmarket Crash of 1929, had evaporated fast. Their families had once held sway in a score or more of vast old turreted wooden-frame mansions which still ornamented the town, left over from the Gilded 1880's, a few of which still stand to this day, plaqued (as they say) as Historical Landmarks.
One of these - Eastbourne - had from the mid 1890's been my Dad's family home, last occupied by my Uncle Harper and his peripetitic family - three sons and his great billowing Southern Belle of a spouse, Clara by name, but known to all and sundry (all except us, that is) as 'Honey". They blowsily occupied the old manse until late in the 1930's, when it was unfortunately demolished. To this day it forms a marvelously gloomy, House-of-Usher background for a lot of my earliest memories - fifteen huge, high-ceiling rooms, many with fireplaces. Of these, the room I remember best was the library, a museum really, cluttered as it was with bayonets, shell-casings, dress-swords with sashes, handguns, even spiked officer's helmets from the old German Imperial Army, just the thing for our boyhood extravaganzas inspired by the historical movies we saw on Saturday afternoons. These were souveniers of the time in France in 1917-18 by my Dad Herbert Lewis Moulton and his two younger brothers, Wes and Harp.
The rest of this spacious old mansion contained family and servants' quarters, hotel-sized kitchen and laundry facilities - Eastbourne had been a popular cross-country inn until my Grandfather bought it to house his lady-wife and brood of six children, plus servants that included at least one live-in nanny. One of them was a wonderful black Mammy, Maisie - pardon the lapse! - with her daughter Rachel, my first experience with folk of other colors, and a delightful one or was, too. (Rachel, grown to young womanhood, was my baby-sitter when I was a nipper.)
Further amenities included a billiard room, a glazed-in conservatory (south side, of course), and a large lofty attic filled with memorabilia of untold splendor, a porte cochere, and two pillared porches, which Honey in that booming Texan foghorn used to call Galleries, much to Nell’s unconcealed disgust: “Haw-puh! Frank! Leeeeeeeeeeee! What yawl doin’ on that gall’reh?”
On the sloping, wooded lawns were the remains of a croquet- and a tennis-court, outbuildings where the cows and the horses were billeted (named Chummy and Princess, and Duke and Lightning, respectively) and by the time we began playing in it, a slightly ramschackle summer house.
People can talk all the like about the delight about the ante-bellum Southland, but its post-bellum northern counterpart, based, not on slavery, but on industry and commerce, had a no-nonsense charm of its own. It was in settings such as these that was played out on that long, in retrospect lovely American twilight up to the start of the first World War, which is celebrated in plays such as O’Neill’s “Ah, Wilderness!” – tea-dances, ice-cream socials, masquerades, and amateur family theatricals, with house-music provided by all five of the Moulton boys, with sister Minnie at the piano. After the war, the twilight lingered on spasmodically until the grand old memory-drenched house was sold off and demolished. Even then, in the late 1930’s, we’d gather a carload of friends and drive over on a summer evening to pick basketfuls of the fragrant lillies-of-thze-valley which still flourished in a corner of the original garden.
It was the dispossessed heirs of these once proud dynasties, the greying sheiks of yesteryear with nicknames like “Babe” and “Bunny” and “Wop”, with their ex-flapper Shebas, all raucous voices, middle-age spread, and clouds of perfume with names like Mitsouki or Emeraud, who used to crowd our little dining room on Saturday evenings (the table top decked in an old army blanket) for intense penny-ante poker sessions, sometimes using matchsticks for chips, laughing at off-color jokes way above my head and puffing their Old Golds and home-rolled “coffin nails”, while the Budweiser flowed and soda crackers got crumbled into bowls of Big Herb’s special chili-con-carne, to the accompaniament of Paul Whiteman records or Your Hit Parade on the radio-phonograph hard by in the living-room.
I loved these gatherings in my parents’ cronies – Big Herb’s out-of-work business colleagues or American Legion (Forty-and-Eight) buddies and their wives or lady-friends. Many of them had been the blithe and breezy Charleston-dancing, hipflask toting young marrieds, who (I was told); used to switch partners on weekend treasure-hunts, and in that still infamous Crash had lost everything but their social stature (whatever that amounted to) and their sense of humor. Thus had John Held, Jr. given wa to the late Scott Fitzgerald.
To me these people were as fascinating as visitors from another galaxy, caught in what today would called a time-warp. Authemntic “Twenties-Types” (if one thinks about them now) and I couldn’t get my fill looking at them – everything they did shone with enough of the glamour of lost wealth which set them apart from everyone else we knew (God, was I that much of a snob at the age of nine or ten?).
Special fun were those evenings which suddenly turned musical, like the time when a lady with hennaed hair unloosed one of Delilah’s arias from “Samson” in a rich boozy contralto, then huddled at the keyboard with a lady friend to harmonize “Sing to Me, My Little Gypsy Sweetheart”. (Nell later reported that they were both sharing the same “beau”, who happened to be our family dentist. (What a sensation that was!)
So the poker sessions rolled merrily along, spiced now and then with one of the men getting sobbing drunk and passing out on the livingroom couch, or one of the married couples indulging in a strident battle which mesmerized me even while being hustled out to my bedroom by one or the other of my parents. Boy, it was as good as having a movie-show right in our own living room. Besides which, they were all exceedingly nice to me, slipping me a shiny new dime now and then or taking time out to show me card tricks or draw pictures, or sometimes work with me on my pappet theater or Erector Set. One of our occasional guests was the cartoonist Dick Calkins – Lt. Dick Calkins, as he signed his Buck Rogers in the 25th century newspaper strip. One Saturday eveing, though half-sozzled, he spent a good hour painstakingly drawing cartoons of Buck and his girlfriend Wilma Deering on facing pages of my autograph book and dedicated to me alone. (Naturally, treasures such as these eventually disappeared – gone, alas, like our youth too soon.)
Thee smoky, sometimes emotion-charged pow-wows weren’t quite the proper fodder for the local newspapers, but there were plenty of other tidbits lovingly provided by Nell at the drop of a phone-call.
from the autobiography "DAMN THE DEPRESSION, ANYWAY!"
Written by my father the late great
Herbert Eyre Moulton (1927 - 2005)
who worked as MCA-Record’s Show-Star Herbert Moore. He also conducted the Camp Gordon Chapel Choir during the Korean War, toured with his wife, the operatic mezzo-soprano Gun Kronzell, around the world as “The Singing Couple”. This true story takes place in the posh, spiritually rich but financially poor 1930’s. The picture here to the right is of my father many years later, during a party in the 1960’s (how fitting), drinking wine, chatting with his good friend, the famous Swedish opera tenor Nicolai Gedda.
Now, fasten your seatbelts. Step into the time machine. Get ready to visit the culturally endowed relatives living the posh life back in the Illinois that was, sometime in the 1930’s.
As long as anyone can remember, our home had always been THE HOUSE OF HOSPITALITY. Through thick or thin, palmy days or the Depths of the Depression - between the extremes of my father Big Herb's practicality and Nell's "To Hell with Poverty - we'll sell the pig!" liberality, we always managed to make every visitor feel happily at home.
Most of the regulars at this snug little oasis of ours were survivors of a picturesque world that, since the Stockmarket Crash of 1929, had evaporated fast. Their families had once held sway in a score or more of vast old turreted wooden-frame mansions which still ornamented the town, left over from the Gilded 1880's, a few of which still stand to this day, plaqued (as they say) as Historical Landmarks.
One of these - Eastbourne - had from the mid 1890's been my Dad's family home, last occupied by my Uncle Harper and his peripetitic family - three sons and his great billowing Southern Belle of a spouse, Clara by name, but known to all and sundry (all except us, that is) as 'Honey". They blowsily occupied the old manse until late in the 1930's, when it was unfortunately demolished. To this day it forms a marvelously gloomy, House-of-Usher background for a lot of my earliest memories - fifteen huge, high-ceiling rooms, many with fireplaces. Of these, the room I remember best was the library, a museum really, cluttered as it was with bayonets, shell-casings, dress-swords with sashes, handguns, even spiked officer's helmets from the old German Imperial Army, just the thing for our boyhood extravaganzas inspired by the historical movies we saw on Saturday afternoons. These were souveniers of the time in France in 1917-18 by my Dad Herbert Lewis Moulton and his two younger brothers, Wes and Harp.
The rest of this spacious old mansion contained family and servants' quarters, hotel-sized kitchen and laundry facilities - Eastbourne had been a popular cross-country inn until my Grandfather bought it to house his lady-wife and brood of six children, plus servants that included at least one live-in nanny. One of them was a wonderful black Mammy, Maisie - pardon the lapse! - with her daughter Rachel, my first experience with folk of other colors, and a delightful one or was, too. (Rachel, grown to young womanhood, was my baby-sitter when I was a nipper.)
Further amenities included a billiard room, a glazed-in conservatory (south side, of course), and a large lofty attic filled with memorabilia of untold splendor, a porte cochere, and two pillared porches, which Honey in that booming Texan foghorn used to call Galleries, much to Nell’s unconcealed disgust: “Haw-puh! Frank! Leeeeeeeeeeee! What yawl doin’ on that gall’reh?”
On the sloping, wooded lawns were the remains of a croquet- and a tennis-court, outbuildings where the cows and the horses were billeted (named Chummy and Princess, and Duke and Lightning, respectively) and by the time we began playing in it, a slightly ramschackle summer house.
People can talk all the like about the delight about the ante-bellum Southland, but its post-bellum northern counterpart, based, not on slavery, but on industry and commerce, had a no-nonsense charm of its own. It was in settings such as these that was played out on that long, in retrospect lovely American twilight up to the start of the first World War, which is celebrated in plays such as O’Neill’s “Ah, Wilderness!” – tea-dances, ice-cream socials, masquerades, and amateur family theatricals, with house-music provided by all five of the Moulton boys, with sister Minnie at the piano. After the war, the twilight lingered on spasmodically until the grand old memory-drenched house was sold off and demolished. Even then, in the late 1930’s, we’d gather a carload of friends and drive over on a summer evening to pick basketfuls of the fragrant lillies-of-thze-valley which still flourished in a corner of the original garden.
It was the dispossessed heirs of these once proud dynasties, the greying sheiks of yesteryear with nicknames like “Babe” and “Bunny” and “Wop”, with their ex-flapper Shebas, all raucous voices, middle-age spread, and clouds of perfume with names like Mitsouki or Emeraud, who used to crowd our little dining room on Saturday evenings (the table top decked in an old army blanket) for intense penny-ante poker sessions, sometimes using matchsticks for chips, laughing at off-color jokes way above my head and puffing their Old Golds and home-rolled “coffin nails”, while the Budweiser flowed and soda crackers got crumbled into bowls of Big Herb’s special chili-con-carne, to the accompaniament of Paul Whiteman records or Your Hit Parade on the radio-phonograph hard by in the living-room.
I loved these gatherings in my parents’ cronies – Big Herb’s out-of-work business colleagues or American Legion (Forty-and-Eight) buddies and their wives or lady-friends. Many of them had been the blithe and breezy Charleston-dancing, hipflask toting young marrieds, who (I was told); used to switch partners on weekend treasure-hunts, and in that still infamous Crash had lost everything but their social stature (whatever that amounted to) and their sense of humor. Thus had John Held, Jr. given wa to the late Scott Fitzgerald.
To me these people were as fascinating as visitors from another galaxy, caught in what today would called a time-warp. Authemntic “Twenties-Types” (if one thinks about them now) and I couldn’t get my fill looking at them – everything they did shone with enough of the glamour of lost wealth which set them apart from everyone else we knew (God, was I that much of a snob at the age of nine or ten?).
Special fun were those evenings which suddenly turned musical, like the time when a lady with hennaed hair unloosed one of Delilah’s arias from “Samson” in a rich boozy contralto, then huddled at the keyboard with a lady friend to harmonize “Sing to Me, My Little Gypsy Sweetheart”. (Nell later reported that they were both sharing the same “beau”, who happened to be our family dentist. (What a sensation that was!)
So the poker sessions rolled merrily along, spiced now and then with one of the men getting sobbing drunk and passing out on the livingroom couch, or one of the married couples indulging in a strident battle which mesmerized me even while being hustled out to my bedroom by one or the other of my parents. Boy, it was as good as having a movie-show right in our own living room. Besides which, they were all exceedingly nice to me, slipping me a shiny new dime now and then or taking time out to show me card tricks or draw pictures, or sometimes work with me on my pappet theater or Erector Set. One of our occasional guests was the cartoonist Dick Calkins – Lt. Dick Calkins, as he signed his Buck Rogers in the 25th century newspaper strip. One Saturday eveing, though half-sozzled, he spent a good hour painstakingly drawing cartoons of Buck and his girlfriend Wilma Deering on facing pages of my autograph book and dedicated to me alone. (Naturally, treasures such as these eventually disappeared – gone, alas, like our youth too soon.)
Thee smoky, sometimes emotion-charged pow-wows weren’t quite the proper fodder for the local newspapers, but there were plenty of other tidbits lovingly provided by Nell at the drop of a phone-call.
The Musician
By Alexandra H. Rodrigues
This is the story that has made its rounds over the years. Again and again I am fascinated with it. It has so much truth to it and always invites to ponder.
The locations and timeframes change in the different stories and are of no importance and are fictional.
Penn Station, New York City. More than 600,000 people moving through it daily. It is 5 o’clock on a Thursday afternoon. A dreary grey winter day outside. It is not a day to inspire happy thoughts. Till – they rush to catch the train to Long Island that will bring them home after a tiring day of work.
Beautiful, classy tones of music greet them. One young man follows the sound. On a blanket, on the floor near the ticket counter, a middle-aged man is playing the violin. The young man stops for a minute, throws a dollar bill into the dish and hurries on. The violinist has made his first dollar for the afternoon. He was playing music from Bach, well-suited for the day.
Ten minutes later a kid about ten years old runs up to the musician, his young eyes full of wonder. The mother orders him back and he obeys regretfully. A few other kids stop, but none for long.
The musician played for 45 minutes. A few quarters and another dollar bill find their way into the dish.
After that, the violinist carefully and with a loving gesture wraps his violin to protect it. There had been no recognition, no applause.
The musician had played the identical music to a sold-out house in Washington two days prior. Price per seat: $100. The violin used at Penn Station and also in Washington has a value of $3.5 million.
I keep asking myself the same question whenever I stumble anew over the story. The same virtuoso, the same instrument. Why the poignant difference in reception? Are recognition, gained glory and surroundings what make the enormous difference? Is it that the minds of the passersby at Penn Station are not on music at that time? Is it that only the people who truly understand music go to concerts?
Questions are manifold and so are the answers. I am still trying to figure out the deep-rooted explanation. The how-come and the why.
Are our minds on overdrive as we rush through our daily lives?
How many opportunities do we miss this way?
By Alexandra H. Rodrigues
This is the story that has made its rounds over the years. Again and again I am fascinated with it. It has so much truth to it and always invites to ponder.
The locations and timeframes change in the different stories and are of no importance and are fictional.
Penn Station, New York City. More than 600,000 people moving through it daily. It is 5 o’clock on a Thursday afternoon. A dreary grey winter day outside. It is not a day to inspire happy thoughts. Till – they rush to catch the train to Long Island that will bring them home after a tiring day of work.
Beautiful, classy tones of music greet them. One young man follows the sound. On a blanket, on the floor near the ticket counter, a middle-aged man is playing the violin. The young man stops for a minute, throws a dollar bill into the dish and hurries on. The violinist has made his first dollar for the afternoon. He was playing music from Bach, well-suited for the day.
Ten minutes later a kid about ten years old runs up to the musician, his young eyes full of wonder. The mother orders him back and he obeys regretfully. A few other kids stop, but none for long.
The musician played for 45 minutes. A few quarters and another dollar bill find their way into the dish.
After that, the violinist carefully and with a loving gesture wraps his violin to protect it. There had been no recognition, no applause.
The musician had played the identical music to a sold-out house in Washington two days prior. Price per seat: $100. The violin used at Penn Station and also in Washington has a value of $3.5 million.
I keep asking myself the same question whenever I stumble anew over the story. The same virtuoso, the same instrument. Why the poignant difference in reception? Are recognition, gained glory and surroundings what make the enormous difference? Is it that the minds of the passersby at Penn Station are not on music at that time? Is it that only the people who truly understand music go to concerts?
Questions are manifold and so are the answers. I am still trying to figure out the deep-rooted explanation. The how-come and the why.
Are our minds on overdrive as we rush through our daily lives?
How many opportunities do we miss this way?
Colenton Freeman
Atlanta’s Gift to Opera
Article by Charles E.J. Moulton
The gift of singing made all the difference in Colenton Freeman’s life.
Such chances were not easily obtained for African-American young males in the early 1970s. However, through the grace of God, his family, teachers and mentors, he was able to pursue and achieve excellence.
They were short on cash, the Freeman family. It was a simple life, but Ms. Freeman saw how talented the boy was. This was all about the boy’s future and the talented mother supported the superbly gifted young man in his will to succeed. It made all the difference.
So it came as no surprise that the single mother in Atlanta, Georgia, supporting her young son Colenton in his endeavors, saw this natural born creativity getting nourished and blossoming into perfection. Accordingly, she allowed the boy to learn how to play the trumpet, the violin and the piano. He sang in the school chorus, played in the school band, received an oil painting set and an Olivetti typewriter, and, along with his sister and brothers, a set of World Book Encyclopedias for Christmas.
All in all, the creative little boy, already a skilled academic, became a true Renaissance Man even before coming of age.
The mother was not the only one that nourished his talents, however. His grandmother, Mrs. Annie Mae Morgan brought him to the community of the West Hunter Street Baptist Church, where he started taking piano lessons with Miss Deleicia Maddox. This woman conducted the Children’s Cherub Choir, which turned out to be a real treat for the young boy. Colenton sang in all the choirs, even the adult ones and he was damn good at it.
So, accordingly, Colenton Freeman was on a roll. As with so many musicians and singers who have made it to the top, the Baptist Church inspired him. He played the piano for Sunday School. So well, in fact, that the Reverend Dr. Ralph David Abernathy decided to make the 16-year old the Assistant to the Minister of Music, paying him the handsome wage of $ 20,00 every Sunday. Not bad for the son of a single, hardworking mother. Not bad even for a high school student back in the 1970s. But there was more. Much more.
In 1972, Colenton sang in a University Summer Chorus and met a man named Billy G. Densmore, who was a tenor and sang in this chorus as well. As fate would have it, Colenton was given a seat next to this man. Densmore was an Atlanta City Public Schools music teacher at an elite High School which was 97 % white. The 3% black students were the créme de la crème of prominent and wealthy African-American families. Densmore loved Colenton’s voice and told him that he could develop his already obvious vocal talent if he came to his school.
Colenton said no, knowing how excellent his own, all-black high school already was. It had a new building with an excellent, music teacher named Harold Hess who happened to be white and was adored by all. Hess had put on productions of musicals like “West Side Story” and “Porgy and Bess” at the school.
Leaving was not an option. Mr. Densmore, however, was persistent.
Still, Lady Fortune kept on penetrating the boy with hints.
Densmore made it a point to ask Colenton at every rehearsal if he had changed his mind yet. As a result, Colenton started avoiding Densmore at rehearsals, but a man’s destiny is a journey of discoveries.
One day, Harold Hess announced that he was leaving Colenton’s high school in order to work on his Masters degree at Indiana University. As a result, Colenton decided to follow Densmore to his school, Northside High, which years later became Northside School of the Performing Arts. Because Colenton’s decision to attend Northside was very last minute, strings had to be pulled in order to get the young boy admitted and the high school student began the journey of discovering Opera, Italian Art Songs and German Lieder. The already fantastic voice developed to include a magnificent high range with easy full-voice high D’s.
Through Densmore, Colenton came in contact with famed conductor Robert Shaw, who chose him to sing “Comfort Ye” from Händel’s “Messiah” with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra at a Christmas Concert at the age of 16.
With all this going on, the question which college to attend seemed logical. Instead of choosing Julliard, living in the dauntingly difficult Big Apple, Colenton chose Oberlin Conservatory in Ohio.
It turned out to be a good choice. He spent the next five years there, studying voice with the great tenor and vocal pedagoge Richard Miller. Later he went on to study at the Indiana University School of Music with the well-known Wagnerian soprano and famed voice teacher, Margaret Harshaw.
Colenton, this ambitious young kid from Atlanta, was going to make it, all because his mother had believed in his abilities. At age 25, he worked at the San Francisco Opera with the likes of Leontyne Price, Luciano Pavarotti, Placido Domingo, Leonie Rysanek, Birgit Nilsson, James King, Jess Thomas, Reri Grist, Anja Silla, Simon Estes and Margaret Price. He started out in a leading role in an opera he had sung as a student in Bloomington, Indiana, “The Cry of Clytemenestra” by resident composer and professor of composition John Eaton. Colenton sang the world premiere in Bloomington with subsequent performances in New York.
When San Francisco “Spring” Opera decided to produce the piece, they chose four singers from Indiana to come to San Francisco and Colenton was one of the four. It was such a big success that the head of the San Francisco, Maestro Kurt Herbert Adler, requested an audition on the big stage singing standard repertoire.
Colenton did and Adler offered him a contract for the Fall Season which included covering Pavarotti as Radames in “Aida”, covering Domingo and Franco Bonisolli as Don José in “Carmen”, singing both Arturo and Normanno in “Lucia di Lammermoor”, two small roles in Shostakovich’s “Lady Macbeth” with Anja Silla in the titel role and the role of the Messenger in “Aida” with Big P. The “Aida” was to be broadcast live by satellite to Europe. What a fantastic opportunity for the young man.
Colenton Freeman was both thrilled and nervous at the same time.
After San Francisco came a last minute offer from the Hamburg State Opera to come and replace Vladamir Atlantov as Don José in “Carmen”. The gifted tenor did not know what to do, so he called famed bass-baritone, Simon Estes who advised him to go for it.
“What should I ask for?” Colenton asked Simon.
Simon gave him a price, but added to take it even if they offered less.
Simon was flabbergasted that Hamburg without hesitation agreed to pay an unknown singer so much money. The one performance pleased the Hamburg Opera so much that Colenton was offered another show. The enthusiastic young tenor phoned home from his European hotel, calling friends and family about the success. As a result, he ended up paying one entire performance fee of 4000 Deutsch Marks for the hotel and phone bills.
How ironic that his loving and supportive mother died in January of 1982, just as his career took off. Brilliant artists are spiritual people, though, and I am sure that Colenton knew that his mother’s soul was there with him on stage when he sang Alfredo in Verdi’s “La Traviata” in Carmel Valley. Because of the evident emotion in Colenton’s voice as a result of his mother’s passing, during a musical run-through of the opera, the conductor came up to him and said: “That is some of the most beautiful singing I have ever heard in my life.”
The love Colenton had for his mother filled his voice with beauty and inspiration.
Gratitude turned into spirit, spirit turned into artistry, artistry turned into success.
After spending the summer with his family, he went to New York to audition for an agent at Columbia Artist. The agency ended up taking him on as a young singer with conditions. The conditions being that they would work together for two years and see how things go. It ended up becoming four exciting, yet difficult years. In fact, like many young singers living in New York, he had to get a temporary job to make ends meet. He was a very good typist and was able to get constant work at Law Offices, Banks, etc.
He was offered a permanent position at Chemical Bank, working for a female Vice-President. Colenton’s always honest and sometimes even cheeky attitude came exploding out, reminding him of his mother’s constant reminders to control this honesty.
Colenton thanked the boss of the Chemical Bank for the offer, but told her:
“You know, you treat me special now because I am an artist and temporary. However, if it became a permanent situation, you would start to see me differently and I could not live with that.”
This self-confidence, however, was the attitude that gave him his Carnegie Hall debut singing with two orchestras, making his Carnegie Recital Hall debut, singing with the Santa Fe Opera, Glyndebourne Opera Festival, the Bellas Artes in Mexico City, Opera Orchestra of New York, Chicago Lyric Opera, among others.
Still, the work was not enough to live on 12 months in the year. He would be singing these glorious operatic roles for 3 months and then going back to the office.
He invited his boss at the International Center for the Disabled in New York to hear him sing the tenor role Calaf in Puccini’s “Turandot” at the Boston Concert Opera. At the office on Monday morning, he told Colenton how much he enjoyed the performance and then added: “My colleague, who came with me, leaned over during the performance and said: how could you even possibly give that man a letter to type?”
What was the phrase “Old Blue Eyes” crooned, one that actually proved to match this situation? “If you can make it there, you can make it anywhere.”
Colenton not only was making it in New York City.
He was turning his success into a triumph.
After 4 years in New York and being released from Columbia Artist, because they felt they could not give his career the time and care it needed, he was advised to come to Europe and try his luck there. He won a grant from the Astral Foundation in Philadelphia, which financed an “Audtion Tour” of Germany for 3 months.
In fact, the very doctor who had attended the Turandot performance in Boston helped him write the grant proposal. He contacted German agents and auditioned for them when he arrived and was sent on several auditions. A grueling, but exciting experience.
Arriving in Germany three months before, he finally got an offer for a “Fest” contract at the Stadttheater Giessen, he brought with him a splendid proverbial treasure chest of operatic gems. Mind you, he had already sung at some important places and the best he could do was a small German theater in the middle of nowhere? On one hand, he was relieved to finally get a job, because he did not want to return to America empty-handed. But, he felt that he should be singing in Munich, Hamburg, Berlin or even Cologne. But, Giessen?
Well, he said yes to the offer, thinking he could change his mind later if he wanted to. The tenor returned to New York in the middle of December. After several weeks, the agent from Munich called him to talk about the terms of the contract with the Stadttheater Giessen. She was so excited about the roles they offered.
He would make his debut as Rodolfo in Puccini’s “La Boheme”, then Alfred in “Die Fledermaus”, Lionel in “Martha”, the title role of “Idomeneo” Melot in Wagner’s “Tristan und Isolde” and L’amante in Menotti`s “Amelia goes to the Ball” with Menotti as guest stage director. It all sounded good, until she told him what his monthly salary would be. He had really no idea about salaries and life in Germany. Only, the amount they offered did not sound like enough.
So, he told the agent, “I want more!”
There was silence and then a flabbergasted:
“How much more?”
The answer: “A thousand D-marks more,” came as a surprise to say the least.
“Mr. Freeman, Giessen is a small theater. They cannot pay that kind of salary. And this is your first German contract.”
He then said:
“Well, I am not coming, if I do not get more money.”
Colenton Freeman put his goals and talents on this high roulette-wheel-like bet, knowing that his brilliant abilities would have him win in the end. So, she said she would relay the message. The next week she phoned and was almost hysterically excited:
“Herr Freeman, they said YES to your conditions!”
Colenton again had won over professional opera directors by being honest, cheeky and self-confident. So, he ended up here in Europe, travelling a long, glorious, exciting and sometimes difficult ride of operatic bliss.
This gift of singing made all the difference in his life. Such chances were not easily obtained for African-American young males back in the early 1970’s. Through the grace of God, his family, teachers and mentors, though, he was able to pursue and achieve excellence. He was never taught to feel inferior in any sort of way. He came from very humble beginnings, but always given the very best that his family had to offer. Also, his church family was constantly supporting him morally and financially. Pursuing the operatic road led directly to his international career and his arrival in Germany, back in 1986.
In many ways, he is still the little boy from Atlanta, Georgia. Although, he has been fortunate in his adult life to experience life at it’s best, he has remained true to who he is and true to his background. He can sit down at a dinner table with royalty, wealth and power and enjoy a 6-course meal with a place setting consisting of 10 pieces of silverware, eating caviar, drinking Chateau Margaux wine and the next day eat a simple Southern meal of fried chicken, cornbread, collard greens, potato salad, fried corn and squash casserole and be just as happy and content.
Today, he sings a lot less. He devotes his life now to teaching young up and coming future talent. He has taught students from all over the world, including Japan, Korea, China, Italy, France, Spain and, of course, Germany. He also teaches those who just like to sing and want to have better control over their voices. He helps to prepare young people for the entrance auditions at conservatories and universities in Germany where he resides.
This work is also fulfilling, he tells me, although naturally different from his previous life on the stage. He does not have to worry about his voice anymore. He is concerned about the voices of others.
There are two main lessons we learn from the way Colenton Freeman always has and always continues to manage his career: persistence always triumphs in the end. Above all, however, we learn that if a child’s talent is supported by a loving parent, this love can turn a passion, an inner will to blossom, into a glorious future.
Parents have the huge responsibility to nurture their children’s talents well. The children will eventually thank them for it in ways they can never begin to comprehend.
I can only say, being a singer myself, that having a vocal pedagogue with this kind of experience feels like winning the lottery three times over. During my time working as a baritone in Hamburg, we met at a Voice Teacher Conference at the Music Academy. Colenton, my mother, the experienced international operatic mezzosoprano Gun Kronzell (1930 – 2011), and myself really hit it off and I have kept contact with him even after my mother’s passing. Professional interest turned into a heartfelt friendship and a heartfelt friendship turned into a prosperous collaboration.
And you know what?
The greatest thing is this: Colenton Freeman is not just a man with a wonderful voice.
He is a wonderful person.
A Modern Orpheus
- The Making of the film "Dead Flowers"
By Herbert Eyre Moulton
(1927 - 2005)
Written in 1994
“A lyrical film, a flop ...”
So wrote the Austrian film magazine DIAGONALE about “Dead Flowers” three years after the fact. And this was really tragic, this flop, one of the few movies I’ve ever been associated with that was truly all of a piece, with no nonsense and no camp about any portion of it. It was only the second work by the brilliant young Austrian writer/director Peter Ily Huemer, who divides his time between his native Vienna and his adopted New York, where he lives and works.
Huemer’s first work, the film noir “Kiss Daddy Good Night”, had been shot in New York and was just as much a success as “Dead Flowers”, made in Vienna. Financially speaking, let it be said, it was a failure. It stands today as a thoroughly fascinating modern retelling of the old Orpheus and Eurydice myth, transplante to the industrial outskirts of the city and its robust working class, a totally integrated work, in turns endearingly funny, raunchy, somber, spooky, and disturbing. Huemer, known as a man of understatement, is a thoughtful and indeed lovable “Mensch” of infinite patience and kindness, especially towards his chosen players. And with what care he chooses them, too. His casting sessions are famous for their thoroughness. Mine lasted well over half an hour and consisted mainly of thoughtful pauses and groping for the answers to his many searching questions, some of them personal, some seemingly irrelevant, many of them psychological: What animal would you like to be, and why? What would you do if a child of yours was in serious trouble/ mixed up with drugs/ killed in an accident? What would you do to try and prevent it, if possible? Have you any cruel impulses, surpressed or otherwise? Questions like that, a baffling, mentally stretching half-hour ... and then no word of the results for weeks.
In fact, I’d quite forgotten the whole incident when the agent handling it phoned and said I’d been cast as Mr. LeMont, a rich, powerful executive at the United Nations, in some way mixed up with arms smuggling. As a bonus, Mr. LeMont would speak in my own dulcet tones, Chicago-Deutsch and all, without being dubbed later by some low-Viennese kraut-head, as so often happens.
LeMont’s only daughter Alice is the Eurydice of the tale, who was killed in a traffic accident two years before and comes back mysteriously from the underworld to fall in love with the hero, or anti-hero, Alex. And never has Eurydice had a more unlikely Orpheus, laconic, rough-appearing, almost primitive, but with a huge heart and tender nature, by profession with the harrowing of hell with his shirttail hanging halfway out.
Alex lives with his dotty old grandmother (Tana Schanzara, who received an international prize for her delicious portrayal), a grandma who talks to herself when not addressing the image of her dead husband in his illuminated closet-shrine. Whenever she happens to stumble, out in her garden, she just has to lie there on her back like a tortoise, squealing and calling out until somebody, Alex usually, appears and helps her to her feet again.
Into this odd little household comes my daughter, Alice/Eurydice, whom Alex has picked up one night hitchhiking on the highway, bruised and soiled as if she’d been in an accident. This is a haunting performance by the American actress Kate Valk, whom in the idiotic way of moviemaking I have never ever met, while I was filming, she was onstage in New York.
Alice is a figure of mystery, and is already being stalked by a sinister network of agents from Hades, headed by a sadistic creep named Willy deVille, in mauve Liberace-type outfit and dark shades. The flight of the young pair, Alice must be returned to Hades whence she escaped, is packed with danger and excitement and ends up in a truly scary night-sequence in a shut-down zoo. There she gets separated from Alex and is abducted by deVille.
Now deeply in love, Alex breaks out in a desperate search which leads first to Alice’s father, who only compounds the mystery. And that’s where I come in, out of the butler’s pantry for once, and into a top position in the UNO-City-by-the-Danube. I’m first seen in the parking lot there, getting into my big expensive car to drive to my big expensive home in Grinzing. On the expressway I’m increasingly aware of Alex tailing me in his van. Once at my place, he gets himself zapped unconcious by a couple of goons in my employ – Blues Brothers types, only evil, and comes to my cellar where I’m enjoying his getting roughed up, that is, until he mentions his quest for Alice. At which, I get up and come forward to inform him that she has been dead these two years now, the victim of a traffic accident, which Alex, of course, finds incomprehensible. After a moment’s consideration, I order my gorillas to set him free.
LeMont had only a couple of scenes, but these were as meticulously staged and filmed as if it were a major role in a top-budget thriller. Peter guided me through them with great patience and understanding. For the interrogation in the cellar he took me step-by-step, phrase-by-phrase, until, speaking of my dead daughter, I was almost choked with emotion – this tough, amoral, affluent wheeler-and-dealer.
For the chase on the expressway, the traffic was blocked off so that I could race down the wrong way, for a more advantageous shot, the camera whirring away just at my right elbow and Peter directing me from the back seat: “Okay, Herbert, now look in the rearview mirror to see if he’s gaining on you – now speed up a bit – glance at the side mirror, speed up slightly again – shift in your seat – another glance in the mirror – excellent, Herbert, super! That’s it, CUT! Thank you very much!”
Alex’s quest culminates in a foggy rowboat-crossing of the Danube/River Styx – Huemer’s screenplay follows the old legend faithfully, and is studded with intriguing details like Alex meeting a dead pal, just recently killed in a train accident involving the express from Salzburg, the “Rosenkavalier”. He inquires how it was that Alex died – Alex tells him he’s only visiting. Then, in an unforgettable encounter with The Boss, who turns out to be a transsexual Bulgarian woman in a dark suit and boy’s haircut, he learns that, in order to get Alice freed again, someone else must die in her place ...
This little detail is neatly dispatched by dear old Granny, once Alex gets back to the other side.
A fresh viewing of our “Dead Flowers”-video (recorded off the air) convinced me that this is nothing short of a minor masterpiece which deserved a far happier fate than a few prizes and citations from scattered film festivals, followed by a week in a grotty little cinema in Vienna’s 9th district. There, except for a couple of teeny gigglers, my family and I were the only audience that dismal Saturday afternoon – after which it folded up its petals and crept into oblivion.
Some days later, wretchedly true to form, advertising posters began blossoming in streetscars and buses and on railway platforms – just one more example of too little/too late, as if purposely being sabotaged by the insensitive slobs in charge of promotion and distribution. No doubt they were already launched on something much more commercial, something reeking of sentimental schmaltz, but profitable. Peter’s only printed comment: “Da ist man schon einige Zeit angeschlagen – You can be pretty hard hit for a while after that.”
As for the ultimate fate of Alex and Alice, one can only hope there’ll come another oppurtunity some day to re-live this haunting and fascinating picture. Given half the chance it still has all the makings of a genuine cult-film.
Will there be a David-Bowie-Street in Berlin?
By Charles E.J. Moulton
They flock in droves to Hauptstrasse 155 in Berlin-Schöneberg, laying flowers on the pavement in front of the megastar’s former flat. They listen to his music in order to calm down their sorrow. The legend, who sold 140 million records world wide, died on Sunday night, January 10th, 2016, of liver cancer, two days after his birthday. Since then, his Berlin-fans have launched a movement to inspire the city to name a street after the star.
Politician Daniel Krüger doesn’t exclude the possibility that this could become a reality, “but first in five years, according to state law”.
It would make perfect sense. Berlin meant a great deal to David Bowie. He spent many formative years here that shaped his musical career, recording the famous Berlin Trilogy at the Hansa Studios, changing Rock history forever and still keeping a safe distance to his own fame. On his 57th birthday, his friend Ricky Gervais joked: “Isn’t it time you got a real job?” Bowie mused: “I have one. Rock God!”
This wit was Bowie incarnate. He was the intellectual art collector with a brilliant mind and still the tongue-in-cheek-rebel with a brave heart. The director of Bowie’s Broadway-Musical “Lazarus”, Ivo Van Howe, told reporters Bowie broke down during rehearsals back-stage last year, but still spoke of writing another musical, soon enough.
A David-Bowie-Street in Berlin would most certainly make many fans happy, perhaps even give young rockers enough guts to try to make it as musicians.
The Life and Times of Voyager
Television Review by Charles E.J. Moulton
We could be watching Harrison Ford running through the wilderness hunted by U.S. Marshalls, we could be following Charlton Heston lost in the future hunted by apes or just following Thelma and Louise on their road toward crime and debauchery.
Then again, we might be travelling with Captain Kathryn Janeway and her crew lost 70 000 lightyears from home.
However we choose to experience our lust of joining mutual seekers of the journey, the result of that search is the same. The road is the way.
We all love seeing people travel, but why are we drawn to stories about seekers?
If we don’t travel ourselves, we do so through others. That conveys movement and there’s nothing we love so much as movement. Many people are lost, many people hope to find something real beyond that proverbial rainbow. Then, of course, there is the afterlife. We really belong somewhere else: in heaven with God. Every life we lead here on Earth really brings us back to work on some task or solve some problem.
“Star Trek: Voyager” ran for seven seasons and the reason for its success is the fact that it really is an extended road movie. So, here it is: a team of space explorers is sent out on an away mission, prepared to be away a couple of months at the most. Among them are talented prisoners on parole, fresh graduates and experienced veterans. The ship, however, gets catapulted through the galaxy 70 000 lightyears from home by mistake and so the crew has to find another way home.
On their way home, they encounter a hundred species, visit hundreds of distant planets and ultimately change the course of time.
The fascinating aspect in general is the eternal question we always ask ourselves every time we read a book or watch a film: what if? What would a world based on interstellar communication look like? What might aliens look like? What would their world be like? We know how it is to travel between New York and Rio, but what would a world look like that is based on travelling between planets on a regular basis. Roddenberry continues on a very old tradition that Homer, Voltaire, Melville and Verne dwelled in: the journey.
Captain Janeway is a future day Don Quixiote. Encountering barbarians and killers just as much as benevolent philosophers on her seven year odyssey, she perseveres in spite of incredible setbacks. Actress Kate Mulgrew’s uncanny resemblance to Katherine Hepburn got her the job portraying the famous thespian in a one-woman show. It is also Mulgrew’s almost painful and ruthless, Hepburnesque, honesty that keeps the spaceship going and eventually takes the weird and wonderful crew home to Earth, eventually happy, eventually joyous.
Robert Beltran’s extraordinary mixture of internal depth with an angry command, as First Officer Chakotay, gives Janeway’s Sherlock her conscience of an eternally wise Watson. In more ways than one, we here have a resiliant team that would not survive as a singular unit. Even when they are stranded alone on a lonely planet, their almost marital team inspires Chakotay’s Adam to create an unusually resistant Eve. Only toward the end of the episode, when Janeway gives in to her quiet seclusion, are they saved to return to Voyager. Adam and Eve again, willingly unwilling, become Bill and Hillary.
Robert Picardo breathes life into The Doctor in a role that couldn’t be more different than his most famous portrayal as the Cowboy in “Innerspace”. For those of us who followed Voyager through its journey, the holographic doctor’s love of opera he presents created episodes like “Virtuoso”, where Verdi could be introduced to viewers and aliens alike alongside simple songs like “Someone’s in the Kitchen with Dinah”. The Doctor also becomes an author, a husband, a commanding officer and an advocate of human rights. Wonderfully holographic.
I remember seeing Tom Paris-portrayer Robert Duncan McNeill in a Twilight Zone-episode named “A Message from Charity”. Since then, he has come a long way. His matter-of-fact-way and almost functional form of acting grew in time and became a real jewel of storytelling toward the sixth and seventh seasons of Voyager. McNeill’s very American truthfulness is sympathetic and his cute and constant reparté with Harry Kim in the Captain Proton episodes are worth while to say the least.
Jeri Ryan’s looks have been described as worthy of expressions like “Va-Va-Voom”. Although rather sterile a role, she manages to unify moments of tenderness with a cyborg’s hard battle for individuality as “Seven of Nine”. Tender episodes such as “Someone to Watch Over Me” give us that sweet sneak-peeks of viewing other talents emerge other than looks and strong acting. Her duet with Picardo makes the listener wonder what she would do as the vocalist of a big band. Maybe she already is one. If that is the case, a fellow big band vocalist like me would like to hear her perform songs like “Fly Me to the Moon”.
No Star Trek-ship is complete without a Vulcan. So it is actor and Blues-singer Tim Russ that gives us his constant concentration as Tuvok. The moments when Tuvok is allowed to step outside his own controlled boundaries, however, are the most memorable. Russ is allowed to become a tender and angry soul, happy and enthusiastic, and we find much more beneath that controlled enigma.
Shakespearian actor Ethan Phillips turned Talaxian tour-de-force and Janeway-Alter-Ego Neelix into a weirdly wonderful Pumbaa-like caleidoscope of alien and gastronomical wit. I know he has spent years doing Star Trek, but I also know he is a playwright and the owner of a Master’s Degree in Fine Arts from Cornell University.
UCLA-student Garrett Wang became everybody’s favourite little beginner as Ensign Harry Kim. His smart and honest portrayal was believable enough to inspire people to review the episodes in which he played the focal part. He is and remains Voyager’s charming conscience.
Roxann Dawson created a feisty, angry character with a sensitive core in B’Elanna Torres. As with many of the portrayals in Voyager, we see the development with the oncoming years. We, as actors, do grow with our assigments. Roxann presented superior theatrical skills even in her first episode in addition to being what you could label as versatile and supremely interesting.
Jennifer Lien’s work as Kes unified strength with tenderness. Of all the characters in Voyager, hers is the most feminine, the one with the most thespian introspection.
On the surface, Star Trek Voyager is a sitcom, a soap-opera set in space. At a closer glance, it is a deep and heartfelt plea to enjoy the knowledge the ride itself provides. It is the discoverer’s dream, the seafarer’s love for eternal wisdom.
As I said, we are all seekers and we all love to see that other enjoy seeking, as well.
Rocking for Christ
By Charles E.J. Moulton
“It would be nice to walk upon the water, talking again to angels on my side ... all my words are golden, so have no Gods before me. I'm the light.”
Was that a saying by the great St. Francis of Assisi? Maybe that was a quote from a book by Deepak Chopra? I could tell you that was Albert Schweizer. We could tribute Socrates, Plato or St. Paul with those words, the Pope or even the Dalia Lama.
All of that sounds plausible, doesn’t it?
Well, guess what?
It was Alice Cooper, back in 1971, during the hayday of his dark rock career.
Wait a minute, rewind the tape. Alice Cooper? The shock-rocker? Wasn’t that the villain of rock ‘n roll, the guy that spent and still spends his life performing explosive hard-rock theatricals filled with electric chairs, guillotines and bleeding dolls? Wasn’t that the guy that agitated more provincial housewives than Charles Manson?
What does Alice say about all this?
“It’s just electric vaudeville.”
Then why do we think rock ‘n roll isn’t just a show?
Because back when the music style first launched, it was a rebellion.
Ten or twenty years later, academics like Freddie Mercury turned the music-style into a Vaudevillian melodrama. But it doesn’t end there.
“If you listen clearly to all of my lyrics,” Alice says, “the warning is clearly written on the box. Don’t follow the dark side. It’s not a good idea. I am just playing the villain of rock ‘n roll. I invented him, like Shakespeare invented MacBeth.”
Keep on reading, though. Now it gets really interesting.
“As the son of a Baptist pastor, I grew up in the church, in religious surroundings. My father got the whole villain-of-rock-thing. He dug it. He just didn’t dig the lifestyle that went with it. The drugs, the alcohol, the excess. It killed a lot of my colleagues.”
The faithful Christian churchgoer Vincent Damon Furnier was born February 4, 1948, a Cold-War-Kid, the son of a preacherman. His social life as a child was centered mainly around church activities. It was this life that made his conciously living Christian soul confess not belonging to this world. Vincent’s creative decision to invent a new kind of Captain Hook in a rocking world of Peter Pan-characters was a testament to his artistic freedom.
His show was an invention, mere storytelling, not a credo.
Accordingly, Alice Cooper’s original band colleagues were art students. They were academics, just like the members of the band Queen. To Alice and his band, something was missing in other rock concerts of the time: there were no creative theatricals to go with them. So the canvas they painted for themselves, creating the fictitious antagonist-like and character-drenched show called “Alice Cooper”, sprung from a need to actually add some dramatic flair to the popular streamline. The canvas they chose was similiar to the framework the English teacher Stephen King’s chose for his work: the birthplace of the horrific and perilous playground of lost souls: guillotines and ghosts. Maybe the era of the 1960s inspired them. Maybe the pain of Vietnam inspired the escapism, the creative outlet.
Cooper’s love of art really came alive when he met the surrealist artist Salvador Dali back in 1973. Dali liked Alice so much that he created a holographic artwork of the rocker, worth $ 2 million today, exhibited in the Dali Museum in Figueres, Spain.
Believe it or not, what Alice says about his own show – and about creativity in general – makes perfect sense. As an artist myself, I know that’s what we do. We tell stories.
The fictitious tale in itself is a warning: it ends badly. Alice gets punished, Vincent goes home. The actor takes off his make-up, just like I do after a show, and kisses his wife good night. The fact that it’s rock ‘n roll and not opera, heavy metal and not Shakespeare, is irrelevant. Edgar Allan Poe told us about the tell-tale heart, Verdi told us about what happened to the punished court jester, Alice Cooper told us the story of what happened to the extravagant crook. So don’t kill messenger.
According to Alice, the theatrical message leads home to Vincent, the faithful churchgoer. “Choose God and not the Devil,” Alice has been quoted as saying. “I created a vaudeville show with a villain. Even the bible has villains. Me? I believe in Jesus Christ. I believe in the eternal soul and in the afterlife.”
If it is just a show, then the distinction between what is public and what is private, what is professional and what is personal, becomes an even more important.
“If you live the same life on- as off-stage, that’s a really bad sign.”
Foreboding warnings from his peers show us the way where not to go. It is where some rockers went in order to make us believe their public personas were private, as well. Canadian talk-show host Jian Gomeshi from Studio Q, who also interviewed Alice back in 2011, mentioned conducting an interview with Johnny Rotten from the Sex Pistols. In that interview, Johnny treated Jian rudely throughout, only to transform into his real and private personality as John Lydon in the commercial breaks.
“Was that okay?” John Lydon asked Jian in his Cockney accent.
Alice Cooper could only confirm that this two-faced act was a part of the show. He called Lydon’s behaviour “the ultimate rock swindle.”
The man who created Alice Cooper learned the hard way how to separate his true self from the on-stage-personality. He had 27 television sets at his house, he was an alcoholic. It was, therefore, all the more amazing that his sober lifestyle came as a complete surprise.
During the beginning of his career, Vincent spent lots of time with the likes of Jim Morrison and Jimi Hendrix. He’d never drunk a beer before, but soon he was consuming a bottle of whiskey a day. He called Morrison and Hendrix his “big brothers.” Both are quoted by Alice as “living the same life on- as off-stage,” constantly drunk or high on something.
In fact, they thought it was necessary to live up to that rock-star lifestyle.
“Somebody is going to die here,” were Alice’s words, “but it’s not going to be me.”
Vincent was a constant church-visitor during his spiritual awakening. The pastor seemed, in his mind, to speak to him and him alone, again and again. It was almost a pain to go to church and hear the sermons back in the early 1970s, but Vincent Furnier knew in his heart that he had to go there. His intuition demanded it.
The medics called Alice’s recovery, in quote, “weird” and, indeed, “a divine miracle.”
When his doctors asked him, in the clinic, how many alcoholic relapses he’d had, Alice could truthfully say that he’d had none at all.
“A Christian is a soul who is constantly being sculpted by God,” he admitted, “and given hints by the creator in how to become a better person.”
In Joe Cocker’s case, becoming sober was a matter of life and death – and Christian faith helped him get there, as well. Bono, the lead singer of U2, did not need an addiction to find God. He believed, anyway. In fact, he was quoted in saying that his stardom was given to him by God himself. The band, Bono said, simply wasn’t good enough to succeed on its own. God had to have been the catalyst.
Bono even continued by pointing out that, “Jesus was his hero.”
Vincent, alias Alice, says that becoming sober was “like winning the lottery three times over – it just doesn’t happen.”
Not only did Alice Cooper remain sober, he also turned this spiritual renewal into a charitable enterprise, giving other unfortunate souls the chance to change, as well. Today, Alice Cooper’s project “Solid Rock” helps improve the lives of mistreated youths. Underprivilaged children from broken families are taught how to sing, play guitar, bass and drums. Alice goes out and performs with them, live on stage. His belief in Christ, the eternal soul and rock ‘n roll boosts the confidence of thousands of delinquents.
How many lives could Alice change if given the chance? Could he have prevented the hospitalization of the elderly busdriver, beaten up by two 14 year-olds, who told them to leave the bus? Could “Solid Rock” have boosted the confidence of the drugdealing teenager, who now serves his second term behind bars?
We must unlearn our preconceived conceptions about rock ‘n roll.
Rock fans are aging alongside their heroes and even Bryan Adams is performing for a crowd of fifty year-olds. Vincent, the faithful husband, would rather go home to his wife instead of to a strip-club. He claims that “everyone will find Christ eventually” and would “choose God any day”. He plays golf with his buddy Bob Dylan and appears in Christian talk-shows. So what was this about Alice Cooper being scary?
Being a Christian, though, he goes on, makes it harder because of the constant pressure to be perfect. Show business is creative, technical and organizational work, but it is not a show reality. If the ideas are sung, painted, written or danced, they are creative outlets, the ideas of the soul at work. Behind the skill, though, we find years of hard work. Out of 10 hours of stage rehearsals, 9 are dedicated to music.
Going back to a former comparison, we find Stephen King, the guru of horror stories, whose showmanship is also combined with devout faith. He told the press repeatedly that he has faith in God. A self confessed family man, a loving father and a completely dedicated friend. Mick Garris from Toronto, Canada, in fact, back in December of 2000, wrote: “Few would guess what a happy, childlike, loyal and generous man the Big Guy is.”
He goes on to say how hilariously funny Stephen is, a joy to be around, very local, very unaffected and very much just “Steve” to his pals. Not at all the horrific master of the macabre that he became when he writing his books.
Orson Wells played Shakespeare’s MacBeth. Playing a bigot villain didn’t mean that he really believed in being incestuous or in practicing witchcraft.
Vincent Furnier’s creative choice resembles the choice Sir Anthony Hopkins made when playing Hannibal Lecter. He could go back to Malibu Beach and be a private person, an intellectual or just a beach bum, after the show.
A storyteller, the prodigal son that found God in his heart, the good samaritan who helped the underprivilaged and didn’t even ask anything of them in return.
I have the advantage of being an actor, an author and a singer. I am, like Alice and like Stephen, a storyteller, as are we all, artists or no artists. So I know exactly where Alice is coming from. People love stories and we love telling them. No more. No less. I know that the roles I play are part of my stage persona. I know that the stories I write are part of my creativity. When I make up a story about a killer voodoo prince, it is just a story. When I portray a villain, it is only a portrayal. Me? I am really a nice guy.
I have been in show business since I was 11 years old. That is a career that has been going on for 34 stage years by now. In Bizet’s “Carmen”, I played Zuniga, a misogynistic killer. I was an evil vampire in Polanski’s “Dance of the Vampires”, an egocentric record producer in “Buddy – the Musical” and the mean Uncle Scar in “The Lion King”. That doesn’t mean, however, that I am an egocentric, evil, mean killer in my private life. I have played that killer lion, that bloodthirsty vampire, that psychopathic murderer, that coldhearted husband, that bastard record producer, that evil king, that village idiot, that mean bandit, that butchered deer, that death row prisoner and that mean ghost, maybe just to warn people not to become like that. Maybe that’s the point of art: to point a finger to what is. Nobody would ever think of coming to me after a show and asking me why I wanted to kill Simba.
Drama has to meet romance, darkness has to be filled with light, truth has to meet reality, classic has to meet rock, souls have to meet, people have to put aside their preconceived conceptions in order find out what lies behind the surface.
We tell gruesome stories, we tell stories that are uplifting and positive. Alice is one of those forerunners who went through hell in order to tell us how he found God.
It also goes to show that most of us have a completely different view of what rock ‘n roll was or is to Alice Cooper in the first place. It just goes to show that the people that complained about his performances never really listened to the actual lyrics.
“I just play the villain of rock ‘n roll,” he concludes. “It’s not really who I am.”
Touché, Alice. Touché.
Now go back to church and dig up that undiscovered treasure, turning it into your reality and uncovering what might be revealed as true spiritual gold.
Praise Jesus, Alice has seen the light.
“Everyone carries a seed of love within them, even villains do.
The real secret is nourishing that seed and blessing every other life with its power.”
- Anonymous
The Monarch of Human Dignity
Article by Charles E.J. Moulton
Tony Robinson’s strolls through British history have become a valuable part of the popular education of Britons. These documentaries are more than just small presentations of little known fact or merely televised outlines of historical trivial pursuit. We are dealing with a consummate artist here and that should give us food for thought.
Thanks to YouTube, we are today able to flip on any laptop and consume hours of material on any given subject. There is no reason for ignorance. It is therefore more than recommended that we type in Robinson’s name into the search machine and let him tell us the stories, completely embellishing them with deep truth.
Robinson offers us the backdrop of history. He lifts the curtain of intellectualism and dry fact and shows us the action of the true play on the stage of the real past, what really might have happened. That sounds like a cliché, but, in this case, the cliché is true. Swedish foreign correspondent, journalist, author and historian Herman Lindqvist, in his documentaries, has done the same for the Swedish population: he has inspired the masses. Robinson might not be the sole author or researcher of his work here, but he certainly gives his audience that personal touch that triggers inside us what the Germans like to call a veritable “Aha-Experience”. History ceases to be rhetorical or theoretical. It becomes alive, sizzling, vivid, vibrant, exciting.
People are exciting and we’ve always been people, haven’t we? Never statistics on a blank page. Moreover, through the likes of Robinson and Lindqvist, we realize that we all are human. All of us, regardless of social stature, are human. Historical personalities were more than just stuffy old codgers on thrones and in palace ballrooms. They were as selfish, as loving, as hating, as confused and as passionate as we are today or ever will be. Celebrities or not, monarchs or not, famous or infamous or just plain ordinary blokes, if we paint the picture of a humane society, we realize that people are always going to be people. The only thing that makes a person truly royal is the shape of his dignity. That is the only true royalty I know.
In “Britain’s Real Monarch”, Tony Robinson paints such a picture. Edward IV, according to theory, had to have been an illegitimate child, a bastard son. His father was away in battle during the five week period in 1441 when the conception had to have taken place. If the official version of a conception in May of 1441 is true, we are dealing with an unheard of eleven month pregnancy.
Subsequently, the real bloodline of the British monarchy never sat on the throne. Why? The official father couldn’t have been there at the conception itself at all. The House of Plantagenet, if we trace history back to the roots, would be able to claim the full right to rule Britain. So where’s the real King of England, by bloodline?
In Australia. He knows he is a Plantagenet. He is a Lord by ancestry, a father, a grandfather, and the inhabitant of a small town downunder. He knows now that the bloodline can be traced to his real origin, but wouldn’t dream of going back to London to fight for the right to reclaim his family’s requisite of ruling the nation. In fact, he wants Australia to become a rebublic. He is no monarchist. He is one of the few republican aristocrats.
Now, as Tony points out at the end of the documentary, if history would have granted the real bloodline to remain on the throne, we would have had a King Michael of Plantagenet in the Buckingham Palace. An ordinary Hanover woman named Elizabeth would have been loafing to the supermarket to get her groceries in order to cook dinner for her husband Philip before her bridge-buddies came over for tea.
Take that thought and elaborate on it. The divine bloodline of monarchs is an illusion. That doesn’t mean that there shouldn’t be a monarchy. I am a monarchist, a believer in role models. As Whitney Houston sings in “The Greatest Love of All”: people need someone to look up to. There are such things as the DNA-strings of excellence, Mozart and Einstein had them, but give any given person with a normal or above average intelligence a privilaged youth, train them from infancy to become rulers and they will be. Good ones? Who knows? But rulership is learnable. Other things can be acquired, as well. I have heard it said that anyone who experienced the very same things as Al Capone did, under the same conditions, mind you, would also make anyone turn into the same kind of criminal as he was.
Is that true? It might be just as true as the privilaged princess who had never seen a poor person or never even knew what it was to be poor. She couldn’t even be blamed for telling her aide that the population should eat cake when they had no bread. The French population, however, went crazy, and beheaded her.
Ignorance, is it evil? No, it’s just ill informed. A director of mine, in my capacity as a stage performer, once told me: “When two opposing truths meet, a tragedy is born.” The French Revolution was a tragedy born out of the spark of two very adverse truths colliding. No, it was a train wreck with 20,000 executions as a result.
There is, however, no such thing as the divine right of monarchs. History is accidental, hanging by a thread, and singular events such as the conspiracy to cover up an illegitimate king can change the course of that history. Status is won by hard work and sometimes by circumstance. Fame and celebrity are won by situation, they don’t define the integrity of any given person. The true monarch of England could have been sitting on his throne right now. In that case, the person we know as Queen Elizabeth could have turned out to be the normal little lady we passed yesterday on our way to work.
I’ll take that thought even further. If we could not all become the best or worst we could become in any of our given lives (yes, read that again!), then what would be the point of it all? Life is God’s workshop that we embark on in order to learn something.
The effort counts.
There is a bit of Jesus and a bit of Hitler in us all.
Mickey Rooney was the biggest star of the 1940’s. Toward the end of his career, though, the greater portion of the public had never even heard of him. Did that mean that he was less valuable a person after his career had dwindled down? No. On the contrary. Rooney remains an icon. We shouldn’t measure our lives according to our current social stature. When Queen Elizabeth II brushes her teeth and goes to bed at night, what does she think about herself? Does she tell herself, every night, I am the Queen of England, I am important because I am a monarch and my people are not important because they are not monarchs? No, she probably complains about a headache. Maybe she had a fight with her husband this morning, maybe this made the day quite difficult for her, maybe she can’t walk as well as she was able to once and long just to sleep. Maybe her supper was delicious and she will talk to her son about it. Maybe she asks herself if she still knows the speech she has to hold tomorrow at the House of Lords by heart or if she has to go over it once more before the breakfast tomorrow.
I firmly believe that people first and foremost are private people, that the official picture of a so called famous person is a false one. We all have private thoughts, we are all private personalities, we are all souls. Status is almost entirely circumstantial.
We live in a time unbelievably soaked and steeped in the lie that we matter only if we have a thousand likes on Facebook. Only fame makes us truly worthy? Bullshit. Where? Famous for what? That, at least, is the illusion social media is handing us on that tweeting silver platter. But what then did Vincent van Gogh, the gifted loser, think of himself? He sold only one painting in his life. In fact, his brother bought that painting. Nowadays, his work sells for millions of dollars. Was he less valuable as a human being because he had no money back then? After all, he never experienced his own fame. When he shaved himself in the morning, were his feelings less important because his work wasn’t displayed in the Louvre?
Franz Schubert, whose songs are now sung by realistically speaking every single academic voice student in the world, died with only 31 florines to his name. In fact, his musical composition of Goethe’s poem “Erlkönig” was sent back, by Goethe himself, to the wrong Franz Schubert with the complaint that the composition was mere trash.
Nikola Tesla, whose name today is synonymous with brilliant science, died alone in his New Yorker Hotel room 3327. Did he have fame and success during his own lifetime? Maybe so. That didn’t prevent him from dying alone, though. Robin Williams’s fame and fortune didn’t prevent him from killing himself, either. Fame is no answer to any problem and when it does arrive, life doesn’t change as much as we think it should. Per Gessle of Roxette once said: “We work all of our lives to become famous. When we do become famous, we don’t change at all. Others do, though.”
Basing your life on creative endeavor can be a smart move, though. That way, when fame arrives, you won’t be sad if it goes away again. Fame, as Kate Mulgrew (as Captain Janeway) pointed out in the Star Trek: Voyager-episode “Virtuoso”, is fickle. You might think that fame will be there forever once it arrives. You might be wrong. I said, might.
In his autobiography “Moonwalker”, Michael Jackson shared with us his experiences of a situation where he overheard fans asking themselves if that really was Michael Jackson over there, before finally coming to the conclusion that it couldn’t be him at all. Why would he be here, they asked themselves? Michael asked himself, why not here? Why not anywhere? He was somewhere on Earth at any given situation, so why not here?
There is a photo of Michael backstage with 70,000 fans behind him in the audience, before a show. At that moment, Michael is private, unaware of the camera clicking in his direction. At that moment, we see the real Michael, not the star. Those are two different people. Even Robbie Williams uttered a thank you to his assistant on a CD, claiming that others were as much “Robbie” as he was himself. The idea that famous people are too good to be true comes from the idea that people are unworthy if not renowned. Opera-celebrity Mirella Freni was known to travel to work by using the subway, before singing her million dollar shows as a star at the opera. Luciano Pavarotti walked out unnoticed through the main doors of the concerthall one midday, because no one expected to see him there. Alec Guiness, the man of a thousand faces, was so anonymous as a private person that no one ever hardly noticed him privately at all. Anthony Hopkins is known to stroll about Malibu as a beach bum between projects.
We’re all private somewhere. Even Queen Elizabeth II cries from time to time.
It must be said that I believe in every person making the best of his or her life, becoming the most he or she can be. I do not believe in the divine right of kings. I believe in the divine right of anyone doing something good or anything good of his or her life. I believe in the eternal soul. There are people who would have become great kings and never got the chance to be so. There are people who were kings and did a terrible job at it.
The consensus is that we are all unique, all valuable, all special, whether famous or infamous or not famous at all, and that we all need someone or something to look up to. If we believe in reincarnation, it is likely that we all were in positions of power and fame at some point in some life. If you’re not famous and want to be, work to become so. Just remember that even if you aren’t famous right now, you’re still a special person without fame.
You matter, regardless of stature.
After all, no one can be you – as good as you are.
I am the descendant of the Eyre Barons of Eyreville in Ireland. The last aristocrat to call himself a Baron of that bloodline was Giles Eyre. My father always said, however, that the real aristocrat in that marriage was his wife. Integrity, accordingly, is a characteristic that has nothing to do with royal bloodline or aristocratic ancestry. Like dignity, true monarchy is dependant on one thing alone: dignified compassion.
Article by Charles E.J. Moulton
Tony Robinson’s strolls through British history have become a valuable part of the popular education of Britons. These documentaries are more than just small presentations of little known fact or merely televised outlines of historical trivial pursuit. We are dealing with a consummate artist here and that should give us food for thought.
Thanks to YouTube, we are today able to flip on any laptop and consume hours of material on any given subject. There is no reason for ignorance. It is therefore more than recommended that we type in Robinson’s name into the search machine and let him tell us the stories, completely embellishing them with deep truth.
Robinson offers us the backdrop of history. He lifts the curtain of intellectualism and dry fact and shows us the action of the true play on the stage of the real past, what really might have happened. That sounds like a cliché, but, in this case, the cliché is true. Swedish foreign correspondent, journalist, author and historian Herman Lindqvist, in his documentaries, has done the same for the Swedish population: he has inspired the masses. Robinson might not be the sole author or researcher of his work here, but he certainly gives his audience that personal touch that triggers inside us what the Germans like to call a veritable “Aha-Experience”. History ceases to be rhetorical or theoretical. It becomes alive, sizzling, vivid, vibrant, exciting.
People are exciting and we’ve always been people, haven’t we? Never statistics on a blank page. Moreover, through the likes of Robinson and Lindqvist, we realize that we all are human. All of us, regardless of social stature, are human. Historical personalities were more than just stuffy old codgers on thrones and in palace ballrooms. They were as selfish, as loving, as hating, as confused and as passionate as we are today or ever will be. Celebrities or not, monarchs or not, famous or infamous or just plain ordinary blokes, if we paint the picture of a humane society, we realize that people are always going to be people. The only thing that makes a person truly royal is the shape of his dignity. That is the only true royalty I know.
In “Britain’s Real Monarch”, Tony Robinson paints such a picture. Edward IV, according to theory, had to have been an illegitimate child, a bastard son. His father was away in battle during the five week period in 1441 when the conception had to have taken place. If the official version of a conception in May of 1441 is true, we are dealing with an unheard of eleven month pregnancy.
Subsequently, the real bloodline of the British monarchy never sat on the throne. Why? The official father couldn’t have been there at the conception itself at all. The House of Plantagenet, if we trace history back to the roots, would be able to claim the full right to rule Britain. So where’s the real King of England, by bloodline?
In Australia. He knows he is a Plantagenet. He is a Lord by ancestry, a father, a grandfather, and the inhabitant of a small town downunder. He knows now that the bloodline can be traced to his real origin, but wouldn’t dream of going back to London to fight for the right to reclaim his family’s requisite of ruling the nation. In fact, he wants Australia to become a rebublic. He is no monarchist. He is one of the few republican aristocrats.
Now, as Tony points out at the end of the documentary, if history would have granted the real bloodline to remain on the throne, we would have had a King Michael of Plantagenet in the Buckingham Palace. An ordinary Hanover woman named Elizabeth would have been loafing to the supermarket to get her groceries in order to cook dinner for her husband Philip before her bridge-buddies came over for tea.
Take that thought and elaborate on it. The divine bloodline of monarchs is an illusion. That doesn’t mean that there shouldn’t be a monarchy. I am a monarchist, a believer in role models. As Whitney Houston sings in “The Greatest Love of All”: people need someone to look up to. There are such things as the DNA-strings of excellence, Mozart and Einstein had them, but give any given person with a normal or above average intelligence a privilaged youth, train them from infancy to become rulers and they will be. Good ones? Who knows? But rulership is learnable. Other things can be acquired, as well. I have heard it said that anyone who experienced the very same things as Al Capone did, under the same conditions, mind you, would also make anyone turn into the same kind of criminal as he was.
Is that true? It might be just as true as the privilaged princess who had never seen a poor person or never even knew what it was to be poor. She couldn’t even be blamed for telling her aide that the population should eat cake when they had no bread. The French population, however, went crazy, and beheaded her.
Ignorance, is it evil? No, it’s just ill informed. A director of mine, in my capacity as a stage performer, once told me: “When two opposing truths meet, a tragedy is born.” The French Revolution was a tragedy born out of the spark of two very adverse truths colliding. No, it was a train wreck with 20,000 executions as a result.
There is, however, no such thing as the divine right of monarchs. History is accidental, hanging by a thread, and singular events such as the conspiracy to cover up an illegitimate king can change the course of that history. Status is won by hard work and sometimes by circumstance. Fame and celebrity are won by situation, they don’t define the integrity of any given person. The true monarch of England could have been sitting on his throne right now. In that case, the person we know as Queen Elizabeth could have turned out to be the normal little lady we passed yesterday on our way to work.
I’ll take that thought even further. If we could not all become the best or worst we could become in any of our given lives (yes, read that again!), then what would be the point of it all? Life is God’s workshop that we embark on in order to learn something.
The effort counts.
There is a bit of Jesus and a bit of Hitler in us all.
Mickey Rooney was the biggest star of the 1940’s. Toward the end of his career, though, the greater portion of the public had never even heard of him. Did that mean that he was less valuable a person after his career had dwindled down? No. On the contrary. Rooney remains an icon. We shouldn’t measure our lives according to our current social stature. When Queen Elizabeth II brushes her teeth and goes to bed at night, what does she think about herself? Does she tell herself, every night, I am the Queen of England, I am important because I am a monarch and my people are not important because they are not monarchs? No, she probably complains about a headache. Maybe she had a fight with her husband this morning, maybe this made the day quite difficult for her, maybe she can’t walk as well as she was able to once and long just to sleep. Maybe her supper was delicious and she will talk to her son about it. Maybe she asks herself if she still knows the speech she has to hold tomorrow at the House of Lords by heart or if she has to go over it once more before the breakfast tomorrow.
I firmly believe that people first and foremost are private people, that the official picture of a so called famous person is a false one. We all have private thoughts, we are all private personalities, we are all souls. Status is almost entirely circumstantial.
We live in a time unbelievably soaked and steeped in the lie that we matter only if we have a thousand likes on Facebook. Only fame makes us truly worthy? Bullshit. Where? Famous for what? That, at least, is the illusion social media is handing us on that tweeting silver platter. But what then did Vincent van Gogh, the gifted loser, think of himself? He sold only one painting in his life. In fact, his brother bought that painting. Nowadays, his work sells for millions of dollars. Was he less valuable as a human being because he had no money back then? After all, he never experienced his own fame. When he shaved himself in the morning, were his feelings less important because his work wasn’t displayed in the Louvre?
Franz Schubert, whose songs are now sung by realistically speaking every single academic voice student in the world, died with only 31 florines to his name. In fact, his musical composition of Goethe’s poem “Erlkönig” was sent back, by Goethe himself, to the wrong Franz Schubert with the complaint that the composition was mere trash.
Nikola Tesla, whose name today is synonymous with brilliant science, died alone in his New Yorker Hotel room 3327. Did he have fame and success during his own lifetime? Maybe so. That didn’t prevent him from dying alone, though. Robin Williams’s fame and fortune didn’t prevent him from killing himself, either. Fame is no answer to any problem and when it does arrive, life doesn’t change as much as we think it should. Per Gessle of Roxette once said: “We work all of our lives to become famous. When we do become famous, we don’t change at all. Others do, though.”
Basing your life on creative endeavor can be a smart move, though. That way, when fame arrives, you won’t be sad if it goes away again. Fame, as Kate Mulgrew (as Captain Janeway) pointed out in the Star Trek: Voyager-episode “Virtuoso”, is fickle. You might think that fame will be there forever once it arrives. You might be wrong. I said, might.
In his autobiography “Moonwalker”, Michael Jackson shared with us his experiences of a situation where he overheard fans asking themselves if that really was Michael Jackson over there, before finally coming to the conclusion that it couldn’t be him at all. Why would he be here, they asked themselves? Michael asked himself, why not here? Why not anywhere? He was somewhere on Earth at any given situation, so why not here?
There is a photo of Michael backstage with 70,000 fans behind him in the audience, before a show. At that moment, Michael is private, unaware of the camera clicking in his direction. At that moment, we see the real Michael, not the star. Those are two different people. Even Robbie Williams uttered a thank you to his assistant on a CD, claiming that others were as much “Robbie” as he was himself. The idea that famous people are too good to be true comes from the idea that people are unworthy if not renowned. Opera-celebrity Mirella Freni was known to travel to work by using the subway, before singing her million dollar shows as a star at the opera. Luciano Pavarotti walked out unnoticed through the main doors of the concerthall one midday, because no one expected to see him there. Alec Guiness, the man of a thousand faces, was so anonymous as a private person that no one ever hardly noticed him privately at all. Anthony Hopkins is known to stroll about Malibu as a beach bum between projects.
We’re all private somewhere. Even Queen Elizabeth II cries from time to time.
It must be said that I believe in every person making the best of his or her life, becoming the most he or she can be. I do not believe in the divine right of kings. I believe in the divine right of anyone doing something good or anything good of his or her life. I believe in the eternal soul. There are people who would have become great kings and never got the chance to be so. There are people who were kings and did a terrible job at it.
The consensus is that we are all unique, all valuable, all special, whether famous or infamous or not famous at all, and that we all need someone or something to look up to. If we believe in reincarnation, it is likely that we all were in positions of power and fame at some point in some life. If you’re not famous and want to be, work to become so. Just remember that even if you aren’t famous right now, you’re still a special person without fame.
You matter, regardless of stature.
After all, no one can be you – as good as you are.
I am the descendant of the Eyre Barons of Eyreville in Ireland. The last aristocrat to call himself a Baron of that bloodline was Giles Eyre. My father always said, however, that the real aristocrat in that marriage was his wife. Integrity, accordingly, is a characteristic that has nothing to do with royal bloodline or aristocratic ancestry. Like dignity, true monarchy is dependant on one thing alone: dignified compassion.
Price for Freedom
By Alexandra H. Rodrigues
Generations pass. Memories turn into history. On Memorial Day many people dig into their families’ background. Facts become legends and are offered to their offspring.
While sorting some really old photos, Helga recalled what she had been told by family members throughout the years. The tidbits reached back to her grandfather and here is what Helga remembered. She looked at the calendar. It is now 2016. She is going back generations in time.
It was 1938, the year when Austria and Germany merged to yield to the power of a new leader: Adolph Hitler, the monster ruler who became responsible for the death of millions of people. One day, during that year, Otto, Helga’s father, found himself on a big ocean liner, which was cutting the foaming waves with professional grace. He leaned on the railing and stared into the vastness between sky and water. Less than 24 hours ago he had nodded a sad goodbye to his homeland Germany. It had been grandfather’s decision that Otto should leave for America.
The news of the growing crisis had quickly reached Otto’s hometown, Potsdam, a quaint little city of Prussian influence adjacent to Berlin. Adolph Hitler was steadily gaining power and fear had mounted that their family, being from Hungary, with Jewish blood on the mother’s side, would come to suffer under the new regime. Already, Otto’s father’s job as an elementary school teacher was on the danger list. Carefree gatherings with friends had turned into hushed conversations with politics the major topic.
Otto’s hand went to the pocket of his double-breasted tweed suit. He had been entrusted by his father with a reasonable amount of money and the words:”Get established son so that we may come to join you.” The responsibility weighed heavily on Otto. Once in New York he had found a job in a restaurant. There he
met Ellen, Helga’s mother and they had two children. Helga, born in 1941 and Mark born in 1942 Otto had become an American Citizen and during World War II he decided to join the Army. His parents had been able to join him in the States with one of the last boats bringing in refugees. Otto died in combat at Normandy in 1944.
Helga, now 75, came across some pictures of the funeral. The Purple Heart and other medals were still mounted above their fireplace, and somewhere in the attic was a carton that held the American flag from the casket.
Helga knows that her grandparents had missed their son every day till their own passing in 1961 and 1972. Together with her mom and brother they all would go and visit the military cemetery many times. But they had displayed pride when the talk came to the happenings of those times. Gratitude to have escaped the Nazi regime remained a given all their lives. It seemed as if Otto had felt the need to repay his new homeland with his services. Mom had never married again, she held dad’s memory dear to her heart till her own death in 2001. It had been her wish to see the 20th century and she did. She was 81 years old.
Helga’s brother had died during the Vietnam War, a loss that threw Ellen into depression.
She had been married for over 30 years and her son George was pursuing a career in politics.
Time to try to put all those lose ends together and write them down for my own children, Helga thought, and so she did.
By Alexandra H. Rodrigues
Generations pass. Memories turn into history. On Memorial Day many people dig into their families’ background. Facts become legends and are offered to their offspring.
While sorting some really old photos, Helga recalled what she had been told by family members throughout the years. The tidbits reached back to her grandfather and here is what Helga remembered. She looked at the calendar. It is now 2016. She is going back generations in time.
It was 1938, the year when Austria and Germany merged to yield to the power of a new leader: Adolph Hitler, the monster ruler who became responsible for the death of millions of people. One day, during that year, Otto, Helga’s father, found himself on a big ocean liner, which was cutting the foaming waves with professional grace. He leaned on the railing and stared into the vastness between sky and water. Less than 24 hours ago he had nodded a sad goodbye to his homeland Germany. It had been grandfather’s decision that Otto should leave for America.
The news of the growing crisis had quickly reached Otto’s hometown, Potsdam, a quaint little city of Prussian influence adjacent to Berlin. Adolph Hitler was steadily gaining power and fear had mounted that their family, being from Hungary, with Jewish blood on the mother’s side, would come to suffer under the new regime. Already, Otto’s father’s job as an elementary school teacher was on the danger list. Carefree gatherings with friends had turned into hushed conversations with politics the major topic.
Otto’s hand went to the pocket of his double-breasted tweed suit. He had been entrusted by his father with a reasonable amount of money and the words:”Get established son so that we may come to join you.” The responsibility weighed heavily on Otto. Once in New York he had found a job in a restaurant. There he
met Ellen, Helga’s mother and they had two children. Helga, born in 1941 and Mark born in 1942 Otto had become an American Citizen and during World War II he decided to join the Army. His parents had been able to join him in the States with one of the last boats bringing in refugees. Otto died in combat at Normandy in 1944.
Helga, now 75, came across some pictures of the funeral. The Purple Heart and other medals were still mounted above their fireplace, and somewhere in the attic was a carton that held the American flag from the casket.
Helga knows that her grandparents had missed their son every day till their own passing in 1961 and 1972. Together with her mom and brother they all would go and visit the military cemetery many times. But they had displayed pride when the talk came to the happenings of those times. Gratitude to have escaped the Nazi regime remained a given all their lives. It seemed as if Otto had felt the need to repay his new homeland with his services. Mom had never married again, she held dad’s memory dear to her heart till her own death in 2001. It had been her wish to see the 20th century and she did. She was 81 years old.
Helga’s brother had died during the Vietnam War, a loss that threw Ellen into depression.
She had been married for over 30 years and her son George was pursuing a career in politics.
Time to try to put all those lose ends together and write them down for my own children, Helga thought, and so she did.
Memories of the War
By Alexandra H. Rodrigues
The renaissance was the historical period of the 1400s and 1500s. I should know some solid facts about it, but I don’t - and I blame my history teacher in Germany for that. Yes, I do remember his name: Mr. Lipke. He was tall, skinny with a wooden leg and a glass eye. We made a lot of fun of him and now that I am a grown up, I recognize that we gave him a harder time than he gave us. He is the cause for the mental block I have when it comes to history. The year was 1942 it was during World War II when I was assigned to Mr. Lipke at my school in Berlin Germany. History classes were mainly focused on our “Great Leader” Adolph Hitler. I had managed to stay in school thanks to the help by some of our friends, but I knew that any small mistake could have had unpredictable, horrible results on my family’s future. My father was at that time already in France, having had to leave our home in Austria because of his Jewish background. Mother and I had come to Berlin and had managed so far to avoid letting anybody know why my father had left. I got away without having to wear the Jewish star. I am only glad that nobody, not even Mr. Lipke, thought of connecting my failure in history classes to anything but a dumb mind. I did not even prepare for the history classes. Why should I make an effort, waste my time, if I would not get good grades anyhow. The problem ended when in 1943 I was evacuated to Vienna and on my return put into a school in Potsdam a quaint little town near Berlin with the prominent castle Sanssoucci, the former summer residence of the King of Prussia
This brings me back to the years shortly after World War II in Berlin. I was 13 years old when it ended.. All of us who had survived the terror of the air raids and the street fights during the last gruesome days, were now yearning for the enjoyments and pleasures of good life. A lot happened though before we could breathe easier.
Never will I forget the day when the first Allied troops approached. We heard their guttural shouts coming closer and getting louder and louder. Then we saw them. Chasing ahead like hoards of animals. Filthy, bearded, tired and smelling of manure We tried to hide but did not know where. My aunt and uncle put me in a bed in their dinghy, moldy cellar apartment. They covered me with blanket and when the soldiers rushed in, ready to satisfy their sex drive by raping, my uncle motioned to them that I am very sick. It worked, thank God. Most German women made themselves look real ugly with torn kerchiefs around their head. But the soldiers did not care Raping was going on all around us. My mother came up with a different solution. She dolled herself up in a pretty dress, high heels, lipstick. A high ranking officer claimed her. Treated her well and even provided my family with food.
As mean as those invaders were, they were quite nice to children I remember being dressed in a red jumpsuit
The red is the color for the Soviets and was to show the admiration for the troops. A group of kids from my street met at the corner and together we marched for about fifteen minutes to the place where the mess halls had been erected. Then we stood in line and some soldiers dished out soup to fill our containers. It was fat and greasy soup, not easily digestible for our hunger ridden intestines but better suited for the inhabitants of the Ural mountains, the homeland of these soldiers. With the fat swimming in layers on top of the soup the dish was still steaming when we got home.
It was obvious that these ground troops had no education, no culture All they knew was the cold and mountains of Siberia. Some displayed a childlike curiosity when coming across a novelty. I remember on soldier sitting on a closed toilet seat, my music box on his lap. This blood thirsty, looting and raping soldier suddenly had turned into a little boy in awe with a new toy. Another soldier had noticed the gleaming handle on the toilet and motioned his friend to get up. He opened the toilet seat and pulled the handle. The flushing noise scared both of them out of their wits. To our relief they both rushed away.
For many of us, a bicycle was the only means of transportation in those days. Now with the Russians confiscating everything nothing was save. My bicycle was old, rusty but still relatively well working “Put it into the attic and cover it with blankets” my aunt advised but I could not make myself carry it up 4 floors. I still needed it that day. So I leaned it against the house wall, taking my chances.
Another group of “Hurrah” screaming soldiers appeared shortly thereafter. Like the ones before they were Mongols. They had come on brand new bikes. Beautiful. Their first way was up into the attic. Instinct told them that it was there where people tend their valuables. They found nothing in our attic, others had been up there before and cleared it out already. They needed a deal. So they took my old bike and left me a shiny new one. Figure it out.
Finally Berlin was divided into four sectors and we were lucky to become occupied by the Americans. Among the four groups, Russian, French, British and American we felt like we had won the lottery.
The American mess hall had been opened at a coffee shop close to our house, far closer than the Russian kitchen had been. As it was summer, the American soldiers would take their meals inside and outside. Many finished their rations only halfway and left the rest on the tables. We climbed the wooden fence and dumped whatever we found into the paper bags we had brought with us for that purpose. Occasionally the MP military police would chase us away but they never put a hand on us. Surely they felt sorry for us. They could see how under nourished we were.
Our spirits got a damper when in 1948 the East was cut off from the West leaving West Berlin stranded like an Island . It was called the Berlin blockade. The American, British and French sectors were surrounded by Russian occupied areas.. The Airlift came to our rescue. Airplanes, compliments of the American Air Force, were assuring us day by day that provisions for our daily needs were flown in steadily. Those planes crossed the air corridor between Berlin and West Germany many times a day.
I remember the dried potatoes that tasted like rubber, the powdered eggs, and the dried vegetables. Not really delicacies, but we were immensely grateful nonetheless. After all, it was more and richer than anything we had been eating during the last years of the war. Amazingly we survived on dandelion salads from the yard, homegrown potatoes and pumpkins, rare quantities of goat’s milk and a six-ounce piece of meat a week. I do not remember anybody suffering from obesity in those years.
The noise of the airplanes shattered our windows and the boom from the planes breaking through the sound barrier was often deafening,. For us Berliners it was like a sound of music as it assured us of a decent meal each day and gave us confidence that we were not forgotten.
I recall having been given my first chewing gum during that time. Never had I seen one before. When I told my mom she asked : “Where is it” “Oh gone, I ate it!” Mom explained to me that I should not have eaten it but she was not mad. We both laughed.
Twelve years later, then living in New York after having been sponsored to come to New York and fly for an American Airline, I married an American. He really had been in Berlin during the occupation after having landed in Normandy. He spread the story that he had met me and that I was so cute, with pig tails, that he had promised my mom and me to come back, would sponsor me and marry me once I became of age. “And so I did” he would say to anybody he had told that story too. He was so happy that most people believed him.
Although I did not like history when I had to study it in school, I did live it.
We visit the ancient Mayan culture and hear ancient love poetry.
In a way, this is also creative non-fiction.
A real person wrote this for a real loving heart,
very real to the soul, creatively, thousands of years ago.
TO KISS YOUR LIPS
BESIDE THE FENCE RAILS
Put on your beautiful clothes;
the day of happiness has arrived;
comb the tangles from your hair;
put on your most attractive clothes
and your splendid leather;
hang great pendants in the lobes of
your ears; put on
a good belt; string garlands
around your shapely throat;
put shining coils
on your plump upper arms.
Glorious you will be seen,
for none is more beautiful here
in this town, the seat of Dzitbalché.
I love you, Beautiful Lady.
I want you to be seen; in
truth you are very alluring,
I compare you to the smoking star
because they desire you up to the moon
and in the flowers of the fields.
Pure and white are your clothes, maiden.
Go give happiness with your laugh,
put goodness in your heart, because today
is the moment of happiness; all people
put their goodness in you.
A depth of memories in the lake
by Alexandra H. Rodrigues
In Berlin, we lived on a suburban side street that leads from the station, past imposing villas, to a charming lake. I remember walking as a 4 year old child, hand in hand with my mother, around that lake. A nearly 90 minute walk – long and tiring for a toddler.
The memories being evoked by this lake are manifold. Here are some of the most poignant and for me unforgettable ones.
One chilly fall day, a friend of my mother with her 3 year old daughter, had joined us for the walk. I was about 7 years old at that time. Snowberry bushes were flaunting their white berries, those little balls that make a popping sound when you step on them. So we kids got busy entertaining ourselves, while running ahead of our mothers, down the sloping path toward the lake. Joey, the 3 year old, was so cute and exhilarated. Her little ears red from the biting wind and her eyes sparkling . She was practically hoarding the berries and throwing handfuls at a time on the floor to step on them, giggling with delight when they popped . I had gotten tired of the game and returned to the grown-ups, who had been in no rush to catch up with us. We could see Joey and called for her to wait for us but she had continued running downwards, with berries rolling ahead of her. What happened then was utter tragedy. She had obviously not paid attention to the rim of the lake and – yes, she had drowned. The vision of that never left me.
Happy were the years of skating on that lake, in old style with skates you had to screw on to your shoes and if you lost the key to the mechanism you were out of luck. I was a good skater and did both figure skating, by copying other already advanced skaters and speed skating, which allowed me to conquer the lake in 20 minutes. With 16 I got my first professional skates. White, made from finest leather and glistening steel skates with knife sharp edges, all in one piece. I trained a lot, paid money for teachers and wanted to become a professional skater. I had just applied to a chorus skate group in Garmish in the Alps, when I fell and broke my right leg. A miss- diagnosis nearly cost me my leg and needless to say a career in skating was over for me. I did skate till late in my fifties, when I again fell and cracked several ribs.
I remember the little sandy beach where we would go swimming; during the war in waters that surely were polluted. I remember the top of the lake colorful from oil spills. As a matter of fact I
learned to swim there. I had been morbidly scared of the father of my friend Mary. She was playing in the water with a light, large rubber ball. Jokingly I hit the ball and it floated away. Her dad had gone to get us some food and I feared he would be mad to be told of the missing ball. So I steeled myself and behold, I swam, yes swam with all might and caught up with the ball and returned it… Fear of punishment had overcome fear of drowning.
An old ruin of a small castle gave plenty of food to my imagination about ghosts and weird creatures and I always begged my mother to let me play there for a little bit. I doubt that the grounds around the ruin were safe but then, what was safe during the war years?
Memories, oh yes, so many ! All bringing back an action filled childhood.
To mind comes the time, when I announced in kinder garden, that my mother and I had been picked up the past Sunday by a policeman. I had forgotten to mention that he was my mother’s date and went walking with us at the lake. Just picture the looks of the kids and the teacher.
There was the well known garden café The Alte Fischerhuette- (the old fishermen hut), now a hotel, owned by a famous tenor, who once celebrated in Rome, Paris, Vienna and Tokyo, decided to sing only for his guests in this establishment.
I used to go dancing there as a young girl on weekends and always on Pentecost.
I remember the guttural, victorious shouts of the Russian troops coming across this lake when they invaded Berlin. Our bodies were shaking with fear and relief simultaneously.
When I bundle all my memories about this lake together, good and bad, my fondness for it remains.
Then life went on! I flew over many waters as a Flight Attendant.
The red sea, the dead sea, the Atlantic, the Pacific, the green waters of Bermuda and on and on.
Lakes, Oceans and Rivers were surroundings I tried to live close to at all times.
One day I will sit down and write an essay with the title “Memories in the Great South Bay”
I have fifty years to pick from as I lived here in Massapequa for all that time.
Memories are made of good and bad times.
The Great South Bay holds many of these for me.
Oracle Earth
By Raymond Greiner
Working as an archaeological researcher unveils discoveries mixed with complexities. I was summoned to this institution of learning as an instructor, teaching knowledge I attained from data gathered relating to humankind’s historical pathway. Time and archaeology fuse solving mysteries of the past.
The year is 3080CE, and since human conception, changes have been staggering and monumental, comparing past developed cultures has little resemblance to present-day social order. The learning institution I am assigned is Elysium School, located on an island in the South Pacific. It’s a magnificent place, offering isolation from the smoldering remnants of previous eras.
I greet new students: “My name is Christopher and I prefer to be addressed using this name. I am not a professor, and disfavor being referenced as such; I am here to learn, as well as teach. We all are students. I am fifty years old and have been an archeological research scientist since age twenty, and have traveled the globe
sponsored by an Alliance to seek precise comprehension of the human species during its journey to this place in time, uncovering details associated with historical events, their causes, and overall impact to be used as planning tools for the future. I am genetically engineered, as are all of you. Genetic engineering has become the standard for population expansion, in place for nearly three hundred years, and has proven effective as redirection from historic dysfunctional behavior that previously dominated human habitation.
“Our archeological team was dedicated to scientific research and revealed details how human evolution flourished, then declined, and crumbled into chaos. Members of our team have been assigned to communicate knowledge acquired from our discoveries, opening discussion as application toward continual social development.
“Our studies disclosed excessive population expansion was influential in contributing to cultural decline and its results. Population had escalated to nearly twenty billion. Currently, global population is under ten million, adjusted by a series of catastrophic events generated by ethical misdirection.
“To stimulate discussion, I propose to begin each lecture with student’s questions, designing presentation content based on these questions. If I am unable to answer particular questions it will become our collective effort to research for answers. Today is our
introduction day, and tomorrow we will begin in earnest toward understanding and learning. I anticipate our interaction to be a fruitful experience.”
The next day I requested students with questions to rise and identify themselves.
The first student stood and spoke, “My name is Jerrod. Christopher, our class welcomes you, and the opportunity you offer us. We have lived at Elysium School since age six and aware that as we approach maturity, we will return to our place of origin. We have received curricula exposing historical events that radically altered planetary physiology, causing intense decline and disarray. War-dominating eras and catastrophic cosmic events lead to inability for global social order to find balance, which included loss of food production and distribution. What we seek is clarity, explaining why and how contributing declination factors were initiated and evolved.”
I responded, “I should say, Jerrod, your question is complex and may end our questioning period, at least temporarily, because it will take much time to detail what our archeological team revealed that relates to your question. However, I won’t discourage continued questioning, because as details unfold, new thoughts will create additional questions and all inquires must be addressed.
“The genesis of the warring era is a good beginning. My colleagues and I conclude as human evolution gained momentum, it opened opportunity for change, which provoked errors, effecting ability for social cohesion. Ancient cultures showed minimal confrontation compared to occurrences after civil redesign, perceived to be a better place. Humans resembling us today are identified as ‘modern human species’ and represent a fraction of the human timeline. The earliest hunter-gatherer cultures were smaller in number and geographically dispersed. Hunter-gatherer models required unity with natural criterion, forming societies sustained by natural earthly provisions. This system worked extremely well for a very long time. Neanderthal thrived in excess of 300,000 years, existing long before the modern human species appeared. Modern civil design changed social course, identifying early historic cultures as primitive. In my opinion the term ‘primitive’ is inappropriate because historically, ancient hunter-gatherers displayed civilized behavior equal to, or greater than, the new approach, which fell away from early human cultural unity. This new direction opened a series of issues forming the beginning of a downward spiral toward social collapse.
“The essence of the new societal design was to reduce or eliminate challenges hunter-gatherers confronted. Land ownership and strict border identities were established. Cities formed,
generating class distinction and social separation. These changes centralized survival needs and this new, urbanized social profile became dependent on larger scale agriculture as its means of support.
“An efficient distribution method was needed. Barter was used in early stages, then money was created. Money’s installation caused radical changes. Housing and land attached monetary values, as a demonstration of wealth, or lack of it. Over time, money’s power evolved into limitless influence. Government taxation of property, goods and services increased the power of money. This original new civil concept became misguided, shifting to governmental ambitions. Money equated into a lever of control, placing the overall benefit of the populace on a lower rung of importance. Government leaderships became manipulative. Fear of border encroachment fostered need for military enforcement, marking the beginning of large-scale warfare. Agricultural tools were reshaped into weapons. Harvesting sickles were converted to swords and hauling carts transformed into war chariots. Sumer had a standing army as early as 3000 BCE. These infused social intricacies and opened new direction that continued for thousands of years into the future, expanding far beyond what early cultures could have ever imagined.
“Does anyone have further questions at this point?”
A young woman stood and identified herself, “I am Samantha. Christopher, what I obtain from your presentation is the door toward war and convoluted social disorder opened when agricultural development expanded sufficiently to support urban lifestyles, which, by design, lent itself to a need for a monetary system, leading to perceived need for government. Added border instability created predictable results. How could this new social design not recognize potential for chaos this development represented?”
“Your comment and question are worthy and I often asked this question. However, beyond the outline presented are underlying forces, causes and reasons why war, armies and power appeared to be in order. Human psychology was not well understood during these times, and much of what occurred was spontaneous viewing confrontation as resolution. Humanity uniformly shares similar intellectual patterns. Archeological findings reveal these patterns were directly instrumental during modern social design development intervals.
“Human genes mix compassion with a desire to harm and conquer. The conquest genes surfaced as dominant. The power of money moved to prominence as the wealthy discovered manners to exploit those less fortunate. From this base came war’s manifestation. War intensified, developing more powerful
weaponry. As time passed, war eventually reached a point where its psychology turned upon itself, victimizing our species wholly. New countries evolved, spreading geographically, forming separate cultures and establishing new boundaries as intolerance escalated stirring increased conflict. Technologically advanced weapons were developed, capable of killing millions in an instant. Countries became fearful of each other; making it imperative they develop these powerful weapons as a means of defense. Eventually, one of these lethal weapons was activated, and the range of death and destructiveness was a shocking reality, revealing consequences these weapons were capable of. Agreements were then sought to curtail the use of these weapons although governments continued to develop and expand arsenals.
“The fear of these weapons created brief lull in war. Then, fanatical leaderships reactivated them. The effects were beyond imagination, and opposing countries were nearly destroyed, as these arsenals were unleashed, leaving minimal survivors. Many died from after effects, which caused atmospheric disruption, radioactive fallout and food contamination. Cancer deaths increased from radiation exposure. The world’s population continued its downward spiral for more than two hundred years, with survivors clinging to life in any fashion they could contrive. Over long spans of time, tribes and clans formed and gained back self-sufficiency by
reinstalling agriculture on a lower, more manageable scale to serve smaller population groups. From this point, realization of social errors was vividly apparent. Scattered tribal units unified toward species advancement, recognizing need to redesign human genetics, which was identified as the impetus of war mentality. This was a challenging task, and because of civil reversal, less knowledge was available toward methods for genetic redirection, although the reasoning was valid and this change appeared to be the only hope for species survival.
“Decline and social failure was implemented by genetic imbalance, allowing evil and selfish dispositions to gain control. It was clearly evident that genetic restructuring offered opportunity to emphasize compassion as a means for overall betterment.
“Any new questions at this point?”
Samantha stood again and asked, “Christopher, how did these few survivors engender high numbers of genetically designed people?”
“This change was the most compelling of our archeological team’s mission, leading to present social status. Through unification with other surviving groups, an Alliance was formed, designated to seek expansion void of historic domination and control. Psychological and technical knowledge that related to this effort was salvaged from remnants of metropolitan zones. Genetic engineering
is not test tube procreation: It develops over long spans of time through careful partner selection, choosing those displaying characteristics offering greater potential for a balanced and harmonious future. Love and compassion genes become dominant. Humanity reacts exactly as all earthly life forms conforming to environmental conditions, which forms foundations for future development.
“Prior to our current era, the power of money was the predominant societal influence becoming incorrectly directed by corruptive greed. Land ownership and border encroachment sensitivity initiated aggressive social behavior in a quest to conquer and control, which propagated war environment. Those living within this condition embraced it, viewing war as its tool. As weaponry sophistication advanced, it became apparent war offered no solution only continuation leading to near global human annihilation. The widespread devastation and aftereffects forced survivors to reconnect to Earth’s natural offerings. Land ownership and money had no influence, as they realized their only hope for a continued existence was to discover methods of obtaining water, food and shelter among elements from a natural state, stimulated by recognizing a need for unity with natural surroundings. Urban areas, previously heavily populated, were unlivable with polluted air, soil and water, and new social structure was only possible by
distancing from contaminated zones, learning to survive through detachment from previous conditions. Survivors learned the importance of blending with the Earth, complementing its elements in an embrace of frugality, melded with conservation. What the historic failed culture identified as ‘primitive.’ Nature’s perfection is illustrated when studied closely, revealing uniformity and balance, extracting necessities, in an effort to achieve longevity through reproduction.
“So, here we are, with a new set of principles unrelated to the previous warring era. Elysium School is your temporary residence, and many similar schools are dispersed throughout the world. Your parents sent you here at a very early age allowing a concentrated learning opportunity from the best teachers available to gain essential knowledge toward assimilation into the society of your birthplace. You are learning the rudiments of life applied in the small villages of your origin. These villages are located in temperate latitudes for ease of growing food, offering abundant rainfall, which is a basic source of life. There are no local roads or vehicle access to the villages. Residents and visitors are moved to nearby locations using Alliance-sponsored transport, and then walking to the village location. Isolation was considered necessary and influential in unison with the original concept’s success. In the beginning early inhabitants carried tools necessary to build dwellings and raise
gardens. These pioneers were schooled at an early age in all aspects relating to this challenge. They were educated at Peace School in the central region of what was previously The United States of America. This country no longer exists, destroyed by massive atomic attacks from opposing philosophies with ambition to destroy this country. This occurred hundreds of years prior to Peace School’s establishment.
“These early students learned self-sustainability and, as they advanced, gained additional survival skills. They numbered two hundred, equal male and female, all with exceptional intelligence, genetically oriented toward compassion and non-confrontational behavior, combined with specialized physical skills and abilities. These pioneers partnered and raised families, becoming self-sufficient. The Alliance of that era named this group ‘Pilgrims of Tranquility.’ They killed no animals and raised hemp to be processed for clothing. They also learned natural plant food sources. This group worked as a team in every manner. They met frequently planning their future. Solar power allowed communication with the Alliance. In addition, the Pilgrims kept journals, which are required reading for all current students. No prominent leader was assigned and monetary systems were unnecessary. They read books, transmitted electronically. They learned music and played various instruments as a source of
entertainment and social interaction. Initially, skeptics viewed this concept as unworkable, but it proved otherwise over time. This model is applied to villages located throughout the world and when you come of age, will return to your respective villages.
“Are there any additional questions?”
One student stood. “I am Sara, and would enjoy reading the journals of the ‘Pilgrims of Tranquility’ and their lives. Where can I find these journals?”
I responded, “They are at the library under ‘archives.’ These journals will give insight I am unable to give as a teacher.
“Your group is nearing final stages of your curriculum and from here forward you will engage in counseling, explaining details of the new life you are about to enter. Your parents will be your final teachers and guides and will influence you more than anyone. I am available at any time for any reason to discuss thoughts relating to your venture forward.”
Sara found the journals of The Pilgrims of Tranquility and began reading a passage written by one of the pioneers:
“My name is Marlene, and I share my life with my partner Caleb. We are among a group chosen to participate in an experimental life pursuit, in opposition to previous design that nearly destroyed itself, driven by orientation toward war. Excessive population growth combined with over consumption caused
inability to discover social equilibrium. Our group was formed and educated at Peace School from infancy to young adulthood. Our teachers and guides at Peace School were the main instrumental to our success.
“Our number of original participants was two hundred, one hundred males and one hundred females. Males and females lived in adjacent barracks and shared each day studying and working toward a common goal. As we matured we established partnerships.
“We settled in five separate communes and continued to learn self sufficiency. No monetary system is used. Our strength and influence comes from applying unity to all phases of daily life.
“Globally, many remained in the old social design. Atomic weapons no longer existed but those living in the old culture’s design were entrapped in a system influenced by over consumption, material wealth and social separation. This old philosophy applied the axiom of ‘survival of the fittest,' which was responsible for escalation of war. Our commune life does not embrace ‘survival of the fittest’, which was responsible for the escalation of war. Our communal life does not embrace the ‘survival of the fittest’ logic, recognizing that some will perform to a higher degree than others, but often those who may display weakness in one particular
function will achieve efficiency in another. We have witnessed frequent occurrence of this as we developed as a community.
“Alliance leaders express we have set an example for future communities similar to what we have proven successful.”
Sara was astonished, and reading Marlene’s journal caused her to realize that she and her fellow students are attached to something unique and very important to the future of humanity.
My class met for its final gathering. Sadness loomed over students and teacher, both knowing this would end their time together.
I spoke, “I am certain you all feel melancholy, as do I, knowing this represents our final meeting. Dramatic change is on your horizon and what you have learned at Elysium School is important, but represents minimal knowledge compared to what you will learn from here forward. Your parents are highly skilled and will guide you into a life of self-reliance and subsistence. You will be impressed at the efficiency of your community. Knowledge gained at Elysium will blend with genetic traits merging with daily life developed over generations among those who have proven a system opposing previous destructive eras.
“It would gratify me to receive correspondence describing how your lives are impacted by what you have learned here and what you will learn when you return to your settlements. It will be a
grand day when you arrive back to your place of birth. There will be celebration, music, and fine food will be served. That day will never be forgotten. I wish I could share that moment with you.”
Sara rose, with tears in her eyes. “Christopher, its important to us that you are aware of our depth of appreciation for your lessons. This bond is felt by all of us and it is my pledge to communicate what occurs as we venture into our new life.”
The remainder of the class stood and clapped and I could barely hold back tears. It was a sensuous moment.
The students left within a week to return to their respective villages. They arrived at Elysium School ten years ago and had not seen their parents since that time. They corresponded using electronic mail, documenting experiences and progress. Quality academic preparation is a vital contributor toward communal symbiosis, which forms the foundation for communal development. It is imperative that these young men and women approach their future with knowledge reaching beyond raising crops and daily manual work. They are now prepared academically, increasing strength to cope with challenges, which are certain to appear. No cities remain in these current times, and over many years restructuring urban zones has been attempted and always failed.
This new simplistic design reconnects components lost during warring and overconsumption eras, plagued with greed orientation
and extreme overpopulation. Altruistic rebirth embraces Earth’s reverence, in praise and spiritual synchrony. Growing food, carrying water, gathering firewood for heat and cooking and weaving hemp into fabric heightens social presence, forming a bonding link, enhancing a sense of personal worth lost during previous societal impairment, influenced by excess, and government’s drive toward domination. Confidence is gained through knowledge, framed by desire to become self-sustaining, outlined in opposition to historical failed social formats.
Message from Sara: “Christopher: My dear teacher and friend. When you spoke of life’s escalation upon return to our birthplace, I failed to comprehend its magnitude. To imagine the impact of what you attempted to explain is impossible. This experience exposes an entirely different view revealing meaningful direction. In brief, it’s like receiving a beautiful surprise each morning when I awaken. I would not appreciate the worth of this experience without Elysium School’s curriculum learning of the labyrinthine pathway, leading to this opportunity.
“I work in our family garden and also contribute tending our communal garden. My brother is a master hemp artisan converting hemp into cloth for clothing. We grow and preserve organic foods and place great importance on meals and their preparation. We have two wells with hand pumps to serve the community and carry
water. Our small houses are heated with woodstoves and we have composing toilets. Solar panels provide power for our community center, where we have access to electronic communication used for research and to send messages to the Alliance and also friends.
“The most stimulating time is the evening, when village members meet in the communal area as a means of celebrating the day’s achievements, including discussions of daily work and plans for the next day. Everyone plays a musical instrument, and several are chosen each evening to perform. Music creates an ideal mood for the day’s conclusion.
“Christopher, I may never see you again and this saddens me. Your teachings penetrated us at Elysium School. I wish you could meet my parents; they amaze me displaying knowledge to gain the most from our simplistic life.
“Please write when you have time. I would enjoy hearing from you to learn about your new classes. Your devoted student, Sara”
A few days later Sara received a message from Christopher.
“Dear Sara: Such a joy to receive your message. I am delighted to hear your life is tracking as it is. Teaching centers my life, offering a sense of value. All those years in the field with fellow scientists culminated to this place and time and I am grateful. Student interaction offers meaning, and the satisfaction and I receive is equal to what I may give.
“The Alliance encourages teachers to spend a week each summer visiting community sites to rendezvous with former students and give presentations on various subjects, including status at Elysium School. I plan to visit your community this coming summer, planning to stay a week. It gives me something to look forward to and also a break from academia.
“I will give you date and time when the arrangement is finalized. What a grand day it will be to see you, meet your parents and learn of your life. Christopher”
Christopher was transported to the trailhead to Aspen Village on the morning of June 10th and Sara was waiting as his guide.
“Christopher, I’m over here, I estimated your arrival time. This is so wonderful; I can’t believe you’re really here. I’ll carry your large pack and you carry the smaller pack. It’s a two-hour hike to the village. My parents are beside themselves to meet you. You will stay in the guest room at the community center. Everyone has been talking about your visit. It’s so exciting for us.”
Smiling, Christopher hugged Sara. “I am excited to be here. It’s a beautiful place, so many aspen trees.”
Sara said, “My parents names are Edward and Sally Morgan. They wanted to come, but I asked them not to because I wanted our first meeting at this place to be teacher and student reuniting. I feel
so good about your visit. So much to talk about, to see and discuss with everyone.”
The two started up the trail, a slight uphill, and then flattened out. It was a warm day, and many birds and wildflowers were along the trail. Sara talked as they hiked, explaining details of the village and its functions.
“Several volunteered to prepare a celebration dinner held at our communal meeting house and a few older residents will speak, expressing appreciation for you arranging time to travel to our village. It’s all everyone talks about.”
Soon the village came in view, a beautiful setting. Small houses scattered in a dale among aspen. As they approached a man and woman greeted them, introducing themselves as Edward and Sally.
Shaking Christopher’s hand Edward said, “Christopher, Sally and I are delighted you were able to visit. It’s all Sara has talked about for days. You will enjoy this place and we look forward to anything you share with us.”
Christopher said, “I am honored to meet you both. This is a rare opportunity and will be a memorable one.”
Sally said, “Christopher, we will show you your room at the communal center and then tour the village and you can meet everyone. It’s a beautiful day and we will have lunch at our house. You’ll meet our son William at the hemp shed where he works daily
sorting and processing hemp. He’s responsible for tending the hemp field, receiving assistance during planting and harvest.”
Sara made introductions and served as tour guide, the residents were abuzz about Christopher’s arrival and happy to meet him. A wonderful celebration dinner was held at the communal center, and after the dinner Christopher spoke.
“Greetings! This has been a day to remember. It’s my first visit to a village and it’s exciting for me.
“I was never offered opportunity to live in a village. After my education the Alliance assigned me to a team of archeological researchers and I spent thirty years pursing this endeavor, studying the meandering evolutionary road of humankind. Your daily living pattern is similar to mine as an archeologist. Our research group reflected what your village life demonstrates, a complete team effort.
“Many contributing events and issues have influenced our direction divulging a central question: How can we, as a species, blend more uniformly with the planet and ourselves? We recognized the need for adjustment, bonding within our environment as opposed to shunning it. As society developed to what was perceived a modern design, it attempted to redirect environmental conditions toward greater personal ease of living, distancing from physical challenges required, coexisting with Earth.
“We are cognizant of the series of events causing near self-destruction, and these events clearly stimulated installation of improved guidelines created through Alliance-inspired wisdom.
“Our new approach mirrors nature’s design. Ancient cultures also unified with earthly cycles. Typically, credit for our success is given to the Alliance for this new direction; however, Earth’s presence revealed purpose, and the Alliance recognized the importance of its natural rhythms, establishing a philosophical base forming a synthesis as opposed to resistance. Earth knows exactly what it is doing, where it has been, and where it is going. Our planet is our spiritual Oracle as we follow its lead. As with all life forms, we mutate to conditions in an effort to sustain and expand as a species in companionship with Earth.
“Near the end of my student’s curriculum, I requested communication describing how their lives unfold as they adjust to new challenges. Many responded, but Sara was especially diligent describing vividly all involved in her daily life. Her communication inspired me to visit and touch your lives in this beautiful village. I am pleased beyond my ability to express and will remain forever grateful for your wonderful hospitality. Thank you all.”
The villagers cheered and the entire event was fulfilling and meaningful. Christopher returned to teaching and the village
returned to its routines. At this space in time tranquility, harmony and balance have been discovered and longevity prevails.
Long ago, when The Pilgrims of Tranquility were beginning to establish this new model, the Alliance and the Pilgrims shared much doubt and apprehension. The complication of large-scale genetic design seemed insurmountable, and no clear course appeared. Many on the planet at that time remained trapped in the old system and its intense, dysfunctional complexities. The Pilgrim’s success by example was the eventual influence that activated expansion. They discovered methods of complete self-reliance, and learned new techniques toward detachment from the old system. Their intelligence expanded creative new ideas and goals. They worked as a unit, pertaining to ambition toward a better world for the future.
Christopher sent Sara a copy of the journal describing The Pilgrim’s first year living in their commune. Also included a photo of Caleb and Marlene before they had children. They looked so young and vibrant, standing at the entrance of a domed house. Sara put this photo on the wall in her room. It gave her comfort maintaining her memory of reading of Caleb and Marlene’s life, and formed a higher connection with these two historic pioneers of peace and tranquility.
In the days following Christopher’s departure, Sara became more astute to her life and its value each day. She felt more attached
to the animals and birds that shared her life. A meadowlark was singing on a high limb of an aspen tree. A doe and fawn, unafraid and accustomed to human presence, were grazing near a couple as they hoed their garden.
Sara had been educated at Elysium School but this new classroom was of a higher dimension, with greater purpose, in a cradle of love and meaning that could not be taught in a typical school setting. White, billowy clouds filled the sky, opening with patches of blue. Nearby was a catbird perched in a thorn bush, as a stick bug sat motionless unseen by the keen eyed catbird, all combining to create Sara’s world, as she felt the energy of Earth’s beckoning hand, showing clear direction toward the future.
Music and Me
By Alexandra H. Rodrigues
Music and me have a love-hate relationship. I would have needed a good ear and understanding for music to fulfill lifetime dreams. At the age of four, I joined a local dance and gymnastics school in my hometown Berlin. I did well. I became my teacher’s pet and already at that oh so young age picked up on celebrity airs. I danced in the Midsummer Night’s Dream and went for a joyride on actor Kurt Meisel’s motorcycle. At age 11, I was accepted to the Berlin Opera and at age 12, I was let go with the comment, “She has no ear for music.” Ouch, that hurt. But I had known it along, just did not admit it.
Music lessons at school were demeaning. I could not sing a simple song, could not hold a tune. I got failing marks through all grades. Oddly enough, when evacuated to Vienna – the City of Music -- during the second World War, I earned a B-plus in music. I sang the song “Ein Jaeger aus Kurpfalz” – a hunter from Kurpfalz. I can still remember every word of the song.
I love to listen to good music. I attended many opera’s like Tannhäuser and Twilight of the Gods, and concerts by Mozart. I idolized the Schumann’s Traumerei and Schubert’s Forellenquintett.
A dear friend of mine was Charles Kalman. He passed away last year. He was the son of the Hungarian born Operetta King Emmerich Kalman. His wife, Charles‘ mother, Vera Kalman was said to be the richest woman in Germany. Charlie was a composer himself. And a good one I might say. This, not based on my knowledge of music, but on the crititiques I’ve read about him. My husband and I socialized frequently with Charles and Gerda while they lived in New York. Gerda was my friend from Berlin. It was through her that I came to meet Charlie. We spent many hours listening to Charlie presenting new and older musical pieces -- mostly his own creations -- for which he asked our opinions. I went by my feeling and Charlie never came to know that I was not a very valid critic.
He played on his father’s Steinway concert piano. When he and Gerda permanently moved to Munich, Germany, the piano stayed with us. No problem. It looked quite impressive in our living room in the Bronx. A few years later, we moved to Long Island and the piano came with us. Now it was totally out of place, and we had to squeeze by whenever we wanted to pass it. I let my chiropractor have it with the promise that he would never sell it. We had a big fallout years later and I do not know what has happened to the piano. I have tried to forget about it, but I still get upset when I remember.
Gerda Kalman passed away many years back and Charles married Ruth, the widow of Herbert Jarzyk, who composed the soundtrack for the movie Kommissar.
Another incident that I relate to the music world was my encounter with Maria Callas, the famous opera star. As a flight attendent, I rescued 50 velvety dark roses from the overhead rack of the Pan American plane. The roses had been given to Maria Callas by the Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis. I had been assigned to serve first class and Maria Callas.
When she got ready to leave the plane in Teheran, I removed the roses intentending to hand them to her. She motioned with her bejeweled hand that she did not want them. We had a layover in Teheran, so I took the roses, and while the sun was setting on the mountains near my hotel, I looked at the flowers and wondered about the idiosynchrosies of celebrities.
So as one can see, music has had some influence on my life. Surely different than for true music lovers, but it gave me stories to tell. I envy people who are very musical --people who live with and for music. But I have made the best of it. For me, poetry has become music and that will have to suffice.
LET’S GO ROCK SOME OPERA!
Essay by Vocal Pedagogue Charles E.J. Moulton
The famous mezzosoprano vocalizes before her performance, meditating, warming up physically, training her breathing, making sure that the high notes as well as the low notes are there. She has to reach a range of well over two octaves tonight and the audience is waiting for her to sing. That is reason enough to be nervous, no doubt. Without her vocal technique, though, it wouldn’t work. This is routine.
Is this the account of the normal workday of an established primadonna at the Metropolitan Opera in New York? No, this is pop star Annie Lennox on tour, warming up with the excersises given to her by star vocal coach Katie Agresta. Like hundreds of other established pop stars, like Bon Jovi and Cindy Lauper, she has spent hours in the 119 West 88th Street studio performing vocalises.
So, why is it that so many of us miss that? Because the cultural education today either is lacking or only partial. A publisher I spoke to recently claimed that, in this informed time, it is superfluous to address the issue because 1) it is evident to all musicians and 2) the categorization can’t be changed. But if all individuals think that way, humanity would still be living in caves and hunting animals with spears. Misunderstandings, false stereotypes, categorization and clichés dominate even, or maybe especially, the artistic field. The problem is that there still is a lack of openness. Culturally active musicians know crossover is common, but raising cultural awareness outside of the field also raises sociological decency.
The issue must be addressed.
As a baritone working all my life in most artistic areas, I have had the questionable privilage of seeing people making wrong assumptions in both camps. Working with my peers on a vocal arrangement of a pop song, originally performed by the King’s Singers, I saw opera singers grant themselves enough reason to discard the music and laugh at it, just because of the style. However, its merit sometimes outweighed many modern atonal pieces, pieces regarded as high culture because of its established acceptance.
Likewise, many pop- and musical-artist speak of operasingers as “fat people who just sing”, whereas operasingers speak of musical-artists as “actors who can’t sing”.
These are lies.
I am here to tell you that.
But the lies don’t stop there. Shows like American Idol claim that anyone can become a singer, but the criteria for singing professionally are so high that these singers never ever could hold a career. So, media helps nourish the lies.
The grey zones between the styles are getting bigger. Back in the old days, when rock ‘n roll was new and youth culture meant bubble gum and pelvic gyrations, classical musicians received their gold stars in society’s pretty book. Pop stars sometimes got more attention, but the operatic performers received all the credit.
But was it ever really like that?
No. Classically trained artists have always existed in every genre. In fact, more pop stars have a classical training today than is believed to be true. That’s why artistic quality can be viewed completely independant of genre. Qualified artists exist in every style. Not only do I believe in this hypothesis, but more importantly: it is easily proven.
Musicians, like myself, know that Neil Sedaka graduated from Julliard and that Ravel wrote pop songs under a pseudonym. We know that Elvis Presley had a fully sung two-octave range in many of his tunes and that Caruso had a pop hit during World War I.
We have to know the facts. We are musicians and we want work. Accordingly, we sometimes find success in other genres, such as classical mezzo-soprano Reri Grist, who was a Shark girl in the orginal West Side Story, but who also appeared at Covent Garden.
That is the problem: these facts stay within our profession.
To us, this is so evident that we discard anything else as a cliché.
To a person who only listens to opera, the categories are strictly defined and artists never travel between genres. The difficulty is this: they see music as an elitist, hierarchical artform, one where classical musicians stay classical and pop musicians stay pop musicians. These people still regard The Beatles as young people’s music, even though it is fifty or sixty years old. They will only listen to Wagner and they shake their heads when they hear a Gershwin tune. If you are such a person, read on. You are about to wake up.
Competition breeds excellence, a financial crisis breeds diversity and invention. That is why, during these hard times where creative work is a rare commodity, there is an increasing need to branch out. Artists need to be versatile in order to survive.
Not getting a job as an actor? Do you write? Teach? Do voice-over-work? Dance? Well, have you studied voice? If you have, what genres do you sing? Opera? Classical? Musical? Swing? Pop? Rock? Heavy Metal? This is no joke. If you are good, you do it all.
Evidently, the singer that masters all of these genres will get more jobs.
The more, the merrier.
With a solid classical training, a voice is able to master anything. Not only do the artists themselves feel this way, the theatrical directors are casting musicals like The Phantom of the Opera, Oklahoma or Into the Woods with classical voices. If you work in a repertory company, you have to be able to sing everything. And I really do mean everything. An opera singer will always have several musicals in his theatrical assignment list. There might even be a run of Tommy or The Rocky Horror Show among them. He will probably even be asked to sing a pop-concert for the theatre in addition to his Verdi, his Mozart and the occasional atonal opera.
On top of that, opera singers are today promoted like pop-stars. There is no big difference in the PR done for Cecilia Bartoli and the promotion for Annie Lennox.
Think about it.
Okay, we have established the need for versatility and the rocksingers who study for Katie Agresta. But does this also account for instrumentalists? Of course, the list of pianists with a solid classical training, for instance, is long. Among them are Elton John, Joshua Kadison and Billy Joel. The latter named comes from an old family filled with musicians. His father was a classical pianist, his brother is a famous conductor and Billy himself is credited in warming up with Chopin and Mozart before shows. Rock-guitarist Yngwie Malmsteen has written symphonies for the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra, copies Bach and has recorded workshops for YouTube about the art of studying phrygian scales. Paul MacCartney has written oratories. He even paints, but that, of course, is another story.
But classical training among popular musicians goes back an even longer way. Scott Joplin was a classically trained pianist. Here, we enter a grey zone. Joplin’s Treemonisha and Gershwin’s Porgy & Bess, for the most part, have to be cast with opera singers. The demands are simply too high for non-trained voices. Stylistically, however, we are talking about African-American music, jazz and the like.
Other artists have entered this grey zone: Leonard Bernstein, with his West Side Story, and Barbra Streisand, with her classical album, are among them.
Furthermore: don’t forget that Steven Tyler starts out with a high C in his Aerosmith song Dude (Looks Like a Lady). The high C is naturally not of the same calibre as Pavarotti’s, but Tyler has to sing it two-hundred times a year. Of course, he needs Katie Agresta to survive. Otherwise, you would find him professionally dead.
Okay. So, rock goes opera, but does opera go rock?
Yes, of course.
Wagnerian tenor Peter Hoffman became Germany’s top Musical Star during the 90’s. From there on, he started singing rock ‘n roll. He still never forgot his classical training. Freddie Mercury wrote numerous songs for Monserrat Cabellé during the last century and I am sure she learned how to groove from Freddie. And don’t forget the Pavarotti & Friends-concerts. Naturally, again, many of the popsingers that sing with Luciano here lack a real classical training and when the tenor sang a popsong he lacked the certain bounce of a rocksong. The point, however, is that the grey zones are widening. Where does one genre begin? Where does the other end? German operasinger Lars Oliver Rühl, leading Tamino at the opera in Gelsenkirchen, started out as a rocksinger.
That leads us to a third category. The musicians who are famous for mixing up the two. Norwegian Soprano Dollie de Luxe released a series of recordings in 1984, where she morphed Mozart with the Rolling Stones. The most exotic combination is her intermingling of Verdi’s Rigoletto with the rock-song Sex, Drugs and Rock ‘n Roll. Finnish vocalist Tarja Turunen follows in her footsteps in our age.
Much of the preconceived conceptions of music has to do with how old a music style is. A contemporary of Mozart was credited in complaining about how awful “this modern music” was and “Thank God for Bach”. Strawinsky’s Rite of Spring was a disaster because of its atonality, Carmen flopped because of its theme.
Of course, it is natural for people to accept the artform that has a few years of history behind it. Remembering that, however, we have to look at how old popular music is. It came to us, in reality, with the Afro-American tradition of the slaves singing Negro Sprituals on the fields. That became Ragtime, Jazz, Swing, R & B, Rock ‘n Roll, Hip-Hop and Disco. In that respect, Lenny Kravitz is playing music that is four hundred years old.
Classically trained opera conductor Askan Geisler told me, full of admiration, about the instrumental jazz improvisations in a club.
“That’s a whole different thing,” he told me. “They make up this stuff as they long and they never forget their classical training.”
We have to remember that music works both ways: Verdi’s tunes were whistled by Italian janitors on the streets of Milano, Mozart’s biggest successes as an adult were performed for a lower middle class crowd.
In conclusion, we see that nothing is what it seems. The borders of music are like the borders in life: there are endless grey zones and no one can say where the one style ends and the other begins. The most professional fun I ever had in my thirty years on stage was during my time as 1st cast Big Bopper in the Hamburg production of Buddy. Between two shows, I flew to Vienna to sing Raphael in Haydn’s The Creation.
Next time you see a rockstar sing his song, remember that he probably is studying classical voice with Miss Agresta. Instead of discarding him as an autodidactic nitwit, use these words to present him instead:
Ladies and gentlemen, tonight’s performance of rock music is presented for your pleasure by our lead tenorial vocalist with a four gentlemen orchestra and a chorus of three sopranos.
Change the world of music, use the idiom from one style to describe the other genre.
We are left with Duke Ellington’s famous words to round things off:
“There are only two kinds of music: good music and the other kind.”
How right he was.
Let’s go rock some opera!
Lasting Influences
By Alexandra Rodrigues
It suddenly came to me. Sandy hit and left me with half a house and the loss of many cherished antiques and heirlooms. When going through the house and looking at what was left, my comment to my son was, “This is terrible, but it could be worse.”
He had expected me to cry and cuss and it surprised him to see me so relatively calm. Guess having been through the War where my family had lost everything and when I was branded as “enemy of the Volk” because my dad was Jewish, let me see disasters like Sandy with a grain of salt. Also having my son next to me, when experiencing the Sandy disaster, consoled me.
In addition, the past had nearly prevented me from ever being a mother. This had nothing to do with war but was caused by an incident when I was about four years old. A happening that imprinted itself on my developing mind. My Aunt Edith died at the young age of 32. I’d heard how she had adored and loved me. Too young to be told true facts about her illness, I picked up only bits and pieces. We had all lived I the same villa, and her boyfriend visited frequently. It was said that he might have been at fault. After having been operated on at the hospital, Aunt Edith had gotten out of bed unsupervised. She fainted and never regained consciousness.
Her portrait hung in our living room over a well-worn red leather chair. Her story occupied my mind for a long time. Sometimes I even wondered if maybe she was my mother as there was so much secrecy around this tragedy. While growing up, my mind fabricated the story that she had been pregnant, had encountered complications and after being cut had died. I never was told if what I was thinking had any substance. The topic never came up despite visits to her grave many times. However, due to this tragedy I was consumed by an irrational fear of becoming pregnant. Even after having gotten married, my husband and I agreed not to have children. I never said, “I cannot have children.” But many friends and relatives assumed that to be the case. At 38, I suddenly realized that soon it would not be up to me to have a child. That scared me more than any danger from giving birth. Pregnancy followed and with natural birth being promoted for the first time, I took lessons in La Maze, had an easy pregnancy, and gave natural birth.
After that, my fear reverted to avoiding full anesthesia and prefer a saddle block if need be. Amazing how experiences at a very young age can influence a lifetime.
By Alexandra Rodrigues
It suddenly came to me. Sandy hit and left me with half a house and the loss of many cherished antiques and heirlooms. When going through the house and looking at what was left, my comment to my son was, “This is terrible, but it could be worse.”
He had expected me to cry and cuss and it surprised him to see me so relatively calm. Guess having been through the War where my family had lost everything and when I was branded as “enemy of the Volk” because my dad was Jewish, let me see disasters like Sandy with a grain of salt. Also having my son next to me, when experiencing the Sandy disaster, consoled me.
In addition, the past had nearly prevented me from ever being a mother. This had nothing to do with war but was caused by an incident when I was about four years old. A happening that imprinted itself on my developing mind. My Aunt Edith died at the young age of 32. I’d heard how she had adored and loved me. Too young to be told true facts about her illness, I picked up only bits and pieces. We had all lived I the same villa, and her boyfriend visited frequently. It was said that he might have been at fault. After having been operated on at the hospital, Aunt Edith had gotten out of bed unsupervised. She fainted and never regained consciousness.
Her portrait hung in our living room over a well-worn red leather chair. Her story occupied my mind for a long time. Sometimes I even wondered if maybe she was my mother as there was so much secrecy around this tragedy. While growing up, my mind fabricated the story that she had been pregnant, had encountered complications and after being cut had died. I never was told if what I was thinking had any substance. The topic never came up despite visits to her grave many times. However, due to this tragedy I was consumed by an irrational fear of becoming pregnant. Even after having gotten married, my husband and I agreed not to have children. I never said, “I cannot have children.” But many friends and relatives assumed that to be the case. At 38, I suddenly realized that soon it would not be up to me to have a child. That scared me more than any danger from giving birth. Pregnancy followed and with natural birth being promoted for the first time, I took lessons in La Maze, had an easy pregnancy, and gave natural birth.
After that, my fear reverted to avoiding full anesthesia and prefer a saddle block if need be. Amazing how experiences at a very young age can influence a lifetime.
Making Music
Reflections over my career and life as an artist
Published letter / article to 'STÄMBANDET' - The Magazine for the Swedish Vocal & Speech Pedagogue Association from 2003.
By Gun Kronzell-Moulton
Operatic Mezzo-Soprano, Concert- and Oratorio-Singer , Professor of Solo Voice at the Vienna Academy of Music and the Performing Arts. English translation by Herbert Moulton. Further translations and additions by Charles E.J. Moulton
Dear Colleagues!
I'm delighted to have a chance to write to you again. It's been over ten years since my last article. At that time I told you about my work in Vienna as Professor of Voice at the State Academy of Music.
Now I intend to take you on a little journey of reminiscence, hoping to touch on some of the people who have influenced me most as human being, singer, and pedagogue.
During my student time in Stockholm --- up until 1958 --- I was privileged to work with many fascinating people:
One of these was Ǻke Nygren, unforgettable for his lessons in Speech Technique, as well as for his uncanny ability to remember each and every student he ever had. Shortly before his death he attended a recital of mine at Waldemarsudde, after which he came back, shaking with laughter: "Have you seen the mistake in the programme?"
What they had done was write 'Rangström's The Only Student (Den Enda Studenten)' instead of 'The Only Hour (Den Enda Stunden)'. A fortnight later he was dead from a heart attack. A splendid and unforgettable man.
Wilhelm Freund was an unbelievably fine teacher of German Lieder, as well as an outstanding personality. Every time I travelled down to Germany he asked me to bring him some Pumpernickel and Harz cheese.
Bernhard Lilja taught Solfeggio Ear Schooling at the Academy and was one of my very favourites, not only for his splendid instruction, but also because his lessons were always so hilarious. We roared with laughter through most of them.
From Isa Quensel I learned a great deal --- a magnificent woman full of temperament and a passion for fair play. She was a fabulous actress and speech pedagogue and I know I would never have become such a successful actress as a singer if it hadn’t been for Isa.
My final year in Stockholm brought me to the legendary Russian pedagogue Madame Andrejewa de Skilondz: a fascinating atmosphere steeped in Russian culture provided by her two round little sisters, an Angora cat and a Pekingese on a silken cushion. Surely many of you are with the many intriguing tales about the Madame, who, when still very young, sang with Caruso.
Torsten Föllinger, my dear old friend and collegue, whom I met during a course being given by Professor Josef Witt in Stockholm, has, with his tremendous enthusiasm and knowledge of human nature, always meant more to me than I can say.
Part of my income during my student days came from church music. Often I'd go to various organizations and ask if I could sing at a church service or concert. Many times, especially out in the country, I came home with a sack of coins from the collection!
Naturally all the student concerts at the old Academy were worth hearing: almost every week a delightfully mixed program of classics. One concert I recall in particular featured Georg Riedel playing his famous double-bass. Lasse Länndahl is another one.
In 1959 a Ruud Scholarship enabled me to travel down to Wiesbaden to study with Professor Paul Lohmann, one of the individuals who influenced me most. I still use many of his exercises in my work. The extraordinary thing is that, after so many years, their meaning suddenly becomes so crystal clear that you know precisely what he wanted from them. Paul Lohmann was a true sorcerer, with a vast amount of humour.
With every new engagement I took pains to find a teacher with the wisdom to guide my voice in the right way. In Bielefeld there was Herman Firchow, who, besides being a source of valuable advice, had a family who soon were among my best friends ... and good honest friends are something we all need.
Every Sunday during these three years in Bielefeld found me working at Bethel, the renowned institution for mentally handicapped children. This provided a perfect balance with my work at the theatre and gave my life a secure and solid meaning.
The four succeeding years at Hanover were the busiest of all, with my repertoire expanding to include many of the great Wagner- and Verdi-roles such as Ortrud, Brangäne, Eboli, Ulrica, Abigaille, Azucena, and Preziosilla .
At the same time --- in order to keep the voice healthy and fresh --- I studied Brahms Lieder with the legendary pianist Sebastian Peschko, who had been the regular accompanist of Heinrich Schlusnus. He had me write down everything we did together, and for this I shall be eternally grateful as these notes have been a source of untold benefit ever since.
As voice teacher in Hanover I had Otto Köhler, a worthy colleague, then seventy years of age and still singing splendidly at the opera. Sometimes we did vocal exercises for four hours together --- Heaven! Later, when I was engaged in Graz and at the Volksoper in Vienna, I went to Kammersängerin Hilde Zadek, who always came to all my premieres, and has continued to do so to my student concerts in Vienna.
Quite soon after our son Charlie's birth in September of 1969, I was asked to create the role of Adriano in a new production of Wagner's RIENZI, with the strongly imaginative Stage Director from Vienna's Burg Theater, Adolf Rott --- a marvellous role and a fantastic assignment, but extremely dramatic and taxing for the voice, especially so soon after my caesarean! So, I turned to Professor Eugenie Ludwig (Christa's mother), whose wondrous head resonance exercises brought the voice clear up to the high C, even with a heavy cold!
In Graz we shared a two-family theatre house with the Australian soprano Althea Bridges, and her Danish-born husband. And precisely in September 1969 each of us gave birth to a son at the very time we should have been appearing as Leonora and Azucena in a new Trovatore-production. You can imagine how popular that made us with the management!
We spent the ten years dating from 1974 in Göteborg, where I was engaged at the Music Acedemy, and, with my husband, wrote and staged a Children's Play named LONG LIVE THE TROLLS! , where Charlie also had his professional stage debut as the clumsy troll Klampe-Lampe. I also taught disc jockeys on the Stena Line-ferries, as well as teachers to Chinese immigrants.
Besides all that, I jumped at a day's notice at the Gothenburg Opera into the role of Ulrica (Mamzelle Arvidsson) in Verdi's MASKED BALL, singing it in Swedish for the first time, after having already performed it in both German and the original Italian. Added to that, there were every summer intensive church music courses, hard work, but fun and rewarding.
All these varied activities gave me a ready-made and invaluable backlog of experience when I was made a fulltime Professor of Voice at Vienna's State Academy of Music and the Performing Arts in the autumn of 1984 --- this, after a trial lesson before some thirty voice teachers --- both gratifying and rewarding .
At first I was so taken with all the various nationalities around me at the Academy that I took on a class of twenty different students, but with the passage of time I narrowed it down to only those I myself had prepared or who had convinced me of their future potential .
Entrance examinations in Sweden are considerably more difficult than in Austria, as we Swedes are a singing people with a singular feeling for speech and song. However, it's also clear that to sing German as, say, Fritz Wunderlich did is indeed wonderful. He once confided that he sang German as if it were Italian!
Since the fall of the Wall our problems have been entirely different here. Russians, Poles, Bulgarians, Romanians, Croats, Slovenes, and the like are all extremely talented and musically prepared, but with so little money that the barely come up to the existence-minimum.
To return now to some welcome visitors:
Torsten Föllinger sometimes journeys down here to help us achieve more vocal freedom, as well as self-esteem.
The Russian basso Nesterenko gave a course for our students, an outstanding singer, who also presented me with a book of exercises for the bass voice, which had been used in Russia since 1915.
Ingrid Bjoner was also here a few years ago for a seminar and impressed everyone with her depth of understanding, especially for individual students.
For a few years I had a brilliant young Hungarian girl as a student, who suddenly became Luciano Pavarotti's right hand and general Girl Friday for a period of seven years, travelling with him the world over. Thanks to her, not only did I have free tickets for his concerts and opera performances, but also had many opportunities to meet with him and attend some of his rehearsals, not only instructive but endlessly fascinating.
The positive advantages of living in Vienna are not so much the old-fashioned teaching and traditions, but the enormous bill-of-fare readily available in terms of international concerts operatic performances, theatre and dance events of every possible type. We have also enjoyed several visits by Kjell 'Mr.Choir' Lönnâ and his large, delightful and enthusiastic singing ensembles. Besides performing 'Haus-Musik' in the Swedish Embassy (as I have done numerous times), the success they scored in St. Stephen Cathedral verged on the sensational. Then, too, Stockholm's Radio Orchestra, Drottningholm's Baroque Ensemble, and also the Maestro Eric Ericsson, with whom I sang in the 50's, all of whom have concertized here to great applause. And it's always a joy to meet with any of them are my old colleagues from home.
My husband Herbert Moulton has long been associated with ORF School's Radio, as well as with both English-speaking theatres, the International (where he played everything from Shakespeare to Wilder and Orwell and the Uncle in Charlie's Aunt) and Vienna's English Theatre, the latter serving high-quality performances from London (Ayckborn, Shakespeare, Christie) or the States (such as Second City) for large and distinguished public. He has a versatile background in all fields of art: as a playwright and actor , singer of everything from simple folk tunes to 'Grand Opera' and has done commercials and been in films with the likes of Audrey Landers, Alan Rickman, David Warner, Clint Eastwood and Zsa-Zsa Gabor.
Inspired by all this and early stage-work as well as years of concerting in his back-pocket, our son Charles E.J. Moulton's career has advanced from theatre projects and small roles in Vienna's Chamber Opera (Offenbach, Gershwin, Vives, etc.) to a two-and-a-half year's run of Roman 'Rosemary's Baby' Polanski's Broadway-destined World Premiere 'Grusical' DANCE OF THE VAMPIRES, written by Webber-collaborator Jim Steinman . At present he is playing the first cast role of The Big Bopper in Hamburg's long running musical BUDDY in Germany, from which he recently took time off to fly down to Vienna for two concerts as bass-soloist in Joseph Haydn's THE CREATION (once in the Haydn Museum, the baroque house where Papa Haydn wrote the piece) then to Sweden for a tour of church concerts with famous Swedish all-round saxophonist Johan Stengård, followed by a most rewarding week at a Master-Class outside Oslo in Norway, a seminar featuring the eminences of Ingrid Bjoner and Håkan Hagegård . He spent a half year cruising the Caribbean and Mediterranean seas as a singing soloist, after which he joined the company of Jesus Christ Superstar in the Bad Hersfelder Festival. Before joining the Dutch Stage Holding Corporation to play Scar and Pumbaa in Disney's THE LION KING in Hamburg, he was soloist with the city’s Mozart Orchestra, performing Rossini and Bizet.
One great blessing for me is having had the good fortune to meet and get to know a magnificent Franciscan monk in Salzburg back in 1953. He has ever since enriched my life with good advice and the deep understanding that a true Christian vocation can provide.
As a resting-place next to the productive lives that we all have enjoyed, mine is, has been and always will be my home town of Kalmar. This city, with its grand 12th century castle and seaside lifestyle and my many friends and relatives, has been my lifelong summer-home and will always be so. Since my 1998 retirement I have enjoyed not only more freedom as a pedagogue and singer but as a globetrotter as well, travelling not only more to Sweden but to my friends in Germany, Hungary and Ireland as well. Living in Vienna, Austria is, on the other hand, also a blessing. I can, therefore, heartily welcome you here and to my Studio in the second district with all God's blessings.
As I think back over my life, I see now how tremendously important it is to never lose sight of why we do what we do. Why we are engaged in Making Music. This is not only a nine-to-five job. If it were we might as well stand as cashiers in a mall. It is an attitude, a vocation, a life-style. We search for the deepest part within us and dwell within its mysteries, taming our technique, bettering ourselves as people to make us finer as artists, generously sharing with others the benefits of our experience, giving our public love and joy with it all and leaving our hearers nobler with the experience. Art is calling forth emotions and making people believe in life again. As such, and if done right, this is the noblest of all professions.
What is the Meaning of Life
By Alexandra H. Rodrigues
I feel like I am working with the “Black Cat Analogy.” Let me quickly quote:
Philosophy is like being in a dark room and looking for a black cat.
Metaphysics is like being in a dark room and looking for a black cat that isn’t there.
Theology is like being in a dark room and looking for a black cat that isn’t there, shouting : ”I found it!”
"Science is like being in a dark room and looking for a black cat using a flashlight." - By Irreverent Monk
What are we looking for? The meaning of my life? Of your life? Of my dog’s life?
The life of a Dinosaur or of a New York City Rat?
We have the habit to believe that the world spins around us, with us in the center and us being the center. Well just think how many worlds it would take to spin around everybody in our Universe.
So let’s start again. The meaning of which life is in question? That of a flower? Surely a flower is meant to please us with fragrant smell and vibrant color. That of a tree? Its purpose is to give shade when the sun is too strong, to give wood to make a fire, to give fruit –But stop! It also gave the first forbidden fruit!
Was it meant to tempt Adam?
An animal? Is the meaning of a pig’s life to be slaughtered and served with an apple in its mouth to be eaten by men?
Are most dogs meant to befriend us? What do we mean when we say “It’s a dog’s life.”
Who is to judge? There are specks of evolution being passed on from generation to generation striving for the ultimate perfection in eternity. Which is what?
As a teenager I read, Kant, Nietzsche and Schopenhauer. Their long winding sentences are tempered with the same question. I was only 16 years old when I worked myself laboriously thru the enormous volumes of those books, not really sure what I was hoping to find.
Having finished those enormous works, I did not know any better.
Tom Dooley, Mother Theresa, and Jesus are just a few names of non-movie celebrities coming to mind among many who accomplished great deeds. Who or what gave them their drive? Are Meaning and Purpose identical?
Maybe we are toys for an Almighty power. Possibly the very earliest attempt of cloning.
Is the true meaning of life written in the stars?
Still at a loss, I am closing with a saying by Eckhart Tolle:
You are the universe, expressing itself as a human being for a little while.
The Rigoletto Caper
By the Late, Great
Herbert Eyre Moulton
(1927 - 2005)
Posthumous foreword by his son Charles E.J. Moulton
When I was 11 years old, my father and I spent our first of three vacations in Copenhagen, Denmark. These trips became gastronomical and cultural highlights for us both. In fact, they were one of the many reasons why I became an artist in the first place. Rossini's "Il Barbiere di Siviglia", Tchaikovsky's "Nutcracker" and an uncut version of William Shakespeare's "Hamlet" in the Danish language: all of these extraordinary pieces became my own experiences, figuratively speaking, by my father's artistic side, because of his happy-go-lucky, natural way of approaching highly artistic pieces.
The production of "Hamlet" at the Royal Danish Theatre, though, received its humorous announcement through one of the charming ladies in the box office. When we picked up the tickets for the evening, she told us that "Hamlet" was "a very good Danish play". I grew up, listening and watching Shakespeare plays and the like, at the time. Thus: I, too, laughed.
My father reacted in his charming Mid-Atlantic idiom, responding with a charming smile: "Well, Madam, it is also a very good English play."
In retrospect, I see that my father was the best of both worlds. His fine combination of high intellectualism and self depricating wit: that was his trademark.
The story that you are about to read, written by his own hand sometime in the 1990’s, took place when he was a young boy, newly adolescent, his courage and schutzpah driving the nuns at the Catholic school of St. Cuthbert's crazy. The mixture of high culture and wit, well developed when I was child, was very present already when my father was a boy.
His artistic and educated upbringing, nonetheless, came from a genuine parental interest in knowledge persay, not in the arrogant showing off of the same. His mother Nell Brennan Eyre was a eccentric, wonderfully enthusiastic lady, who loved chatting with people over a glass of beloved Irish whiskey. His father Herbert Lewis Moulton's tranquil manner probably gave my father his gentlemanly charm. It made it possible for him to experience becoming the witty storyteller persay, becoming the intellectual bon-vivant that he remained for the rest of his life.
He convinced people with self-irony and love, a creative urge and an excellent idiomatic articulation, that art and high culture can be the most fun you've ever had.
Art, in fact, is in eye of the beholder.
That is why, during our vacations in Denmark, we went to the movie house and saw films like "War Games" (in English, with the computer’s voice in baffling Danish) and "For Your Eyes Only" on the days following our operatic visits. We liked fast food and haute cuisine, high drama and decorative entertainment.
Our excursion to see "For Your Eyes Only" was especially witty. We were sitting in our favorite Italian restaurant close to the opera house, when I saw an announcement in the daily paper that Roger Moore's new Bond film was out. I had to do a little bit of convincing to persuade my wonderful father in going to a certain cinema called "Colloseum", but in the end he gave in.
So we asked the Italian waiter where the Colloseum was.
The waiter answered, surprised: "The Colloseum is in Rome."
We assured him that we knew that, but that we meant the cinema. He answered with a sneer: "Oh, you don't want to go there!"
Anyway, we got there in the end in spite of Italian arrogance. Even though we accidentally ended up in a wrong part of the complex, watching the beginning of a Terry Thomas flick dubbed into French, we did see Roger Moore as James Bond in "For Your Eyes Only" - and we loved it.
So, there you have it. My father's legacy: intellectual wit on a global level with Italians in Denmark, Americans watching British movies dubbed into French. He lived culturally and intellectually, telling people to keep their eyes on what character traits are most important when it comes to any form of artistic endeavor.
Creativity and inspiration, threefold, fourfold, a dozen times and eternally.
I have my mother, the operatic mezzo-soprano Gun Kronzell, and my father Herbert Eyre Moulton, actor and author, singer and teacher, to thank for the fact that I love being creative. Just like they were.
Now, sit back and enjoy the ride.
We're in Glen Ellyn, Illinois, and the year is 1940.
Herbie? Take us back in time.
THE RIGOLETTO CAPER
Opera freaks are best when taken young. In my case, I was all of eight when this peculiar virus struck, and, for good or ill, it has been raging on and off ever since. Even at that tender age, you learn to cope. Just as your nearest and dearest have to learn, as well.
For instance, from that time on, all Saturday activities had to be planned strictly around the Metropolitan Opera Saturday matinee broadcasts, which began, for us in the Midwest, at 1 p.m. That affected eveything everything from my regular household chores (50 cents a week, nothing to be sneezed at back in the 30's) and helping my parents with their marketing (our local term for shopping) for the week, to excursions, to places like museums in town, the zoo, friends you drop in on, and attendance at mega-events like birthday parties, hayrides, and PET & HOBBY Shows.
But the real crunch came with the cheery mayhem of Saturday afternoons at our local flea-pit, the Glen Theatre. (By some miracle it's still standing!) When forced to choose, let's say, between Lily Pons in "Lakme" from the Met, and --- at the Glen --- something like Laurel & Hardy in "Way Out West" or W.C. Fields in "The Bank Dick", with the added inducement of a Lone Ranger or Flash Gordon serial episode, the choice was too bitterly heartbreaking to be borne.
To tell the truth and shame the Devil, as my mother Nell used to say, my precocious operatic know-how wasn't much use to me in those days. On the contrary, it was almost a hindrance, if not a handicap. To most "normal" folks, it set me apart, not "Queer" exactly, but, ya know, "different", even "Snobbish". This, I guess, is why I compensated for it by my constant clowning around around and showing-off.
But there was this one occasion --- a day in late Autumn 1940 --- when my Opera Virus led directly to my most shining hour in that crowded, bustling, rather smelly double-classroom in St. Cuthbert's Parochial School in our Chicago Suburb, when I actually won respect from (a.) my peers (Surprise and Enthusiasm) and (b.) my chief adversary and esteemed sparring partner, Sister Gaudeamus (grudging, but genuine).
This was a Big Day for me --- serendipity, I guess would be the word, and I've been wanting to use it for a long time --- one of the few tussels, intellectual or otherwise I ever engaged in with "S'ster" and actually emerged the undisputed winner. And all thanks to my Opera-Mania.
Now, in order to present as full a view as possible of this more-than-memorable happening, we'll rewind a bit to fill in the background of what I like to call "The Rigoletto Caper"...
For all their inexperience in worldly affairs, the good nuns at St. Cuthbert's held very definite opinions about what did or did not constitute suitable entertainment. Almost anything later than Ethelbert Nevin's "The Rosary" or more substantial than "The Lady or the Tiger" was automatically suspect --- either elite, seditious, or high-hat, or a combination of all three. Even Nell's beloved narrative poem "Evangeline" by Longfellow had a prominent position on Sister's Index of Forbidden Books (unofficial, of course), being labelled by her as "purest bouzwah" and "preposterous", insulting if not downright heretical. Poor Mr. Longfellow, just because his heroine loses her lover Gabriel, and after years of unsuccessful searching, takes the veil, only to find him again, dying in a hospice in plague-racked New Orleans. He then expires in her arms, in a scene guaranteed to make the wrestler Bruno Sammartino burst into tears ... Preposterous, maybe. But heretical? No way! Sure it's sentimental, enough to make a totempole weep --- but what's wrong about that, S'ster?
Closer to home, our own pre-teen affection for the verve and teasing humor of entertainers like "Fats" Waller and the Andrews Sisters was also shot down in flames: "smut" being the epithet used to describe the boundless joy that "Fats" radiated, and "silly sensuality" for the sprightly melodies and close harmonies of Maxine, Laverne and Patti.
"Your feet's too big!"
Smutty?
"Roll Out the Barrel!"
Sensual?
Were we occupying the same planet or what?
As a last-ditch attempt to stem the rising tide of "Smut" and "Sensuality", a weekly series of "Music Appreciation Lectures" was launched, in spite of the fact that most of us --- our folks, anyway, already appreciated music very much.
Never mind! S'ster was a fully qualified missionary to the Philistines, and once her hand was on the plow, there was never any turning back. Armed with a dozen or so scratchy old 78's and the big wind-up Victrola dominating one corner of the classroom, she intended to instill into us Yahoos a knowledge and respect, maybe even an appreciation of the Classics, or know the reason why. We were thus treated to endless snatches of symphonies, and odd scraps of semi-classics, preferably of an edifying nature: the Intermezzo from "Cavalleria Rusticana" or "In a Monastary Garden", each plentifully garnished with S'ster's none-too-accurate program notes.
On this particular afternoon, on a day when I hadn't yet been ordered to leave the room, Sister had elected to give us gems from Verdi's "Rigoletto", suitably laundered, naturally, when it came to the Duke of Mantua's more libidinious exploits. Despite occasional wisecracks from the rowdier elements of the class, it was going fairly well --- that is, until S'ster mispronounced the name of the hired assassin Sparafucile, which rolled out of her as "Spa-ra-FOO-chee-lay." Hooray! At last a chance to put my opera-freakdom to positive use, and, by the same token, maybe even the score with S'ster a few much-needed points.
My pudgy hand shot up: "S'ster! S'ster!"
A weighty pause ...
"Yes, Herbert." The tone was weary, resigned. "What is it THIS time?"
You got the first part of it right, S'ster ..."
(Noblesse oblige:) "Well, thank you very much indeed."
"But I'm afraid you made a mistake with the assassin's name. It's not 'Spa-ra-FOO-chee-lay', as you said. It's 'Spa-ra-foo-CHEE-lay."
"Well, of course," and her sneer was marked with a regal toss of her hood, "you WOULD know."
A faint smell of blood in the atmosphere, and the boredom that had drugged the class till then started to disperse.
"Yes, S'ster, as a matter of fact, I would."
I was in the driver's seat for once and could afford to put my foot down on the throttle:
"Strangely enough, I went with my Mom and Dad to an operatic performance last night at the Civic Opera House ---"
"Yes, yes, yes. I know where it is and what it's called."
The spectators were now on the edge of their desk-seats (not too comfortable), all eager attention.
I went on with my advantage: "And the opera happened to be that same 'Rigoletto' you've been talking about --- starring that famous American baritone Laurence Tibbett in the title role ..." All of a sudden, I was a 12-year old Milton J. Cross --- amiable, knowing, professional --- charming millions of fans on a Saturday matinee broadcast. "... with Lily Pons, the lovely French coloratura soprano as his daughter Gilda. The tenor was ..."
I was cut off in mid-sentence. "All right, then, perhaps ..." Her tone was both gracious and dangerous, one I knew only too well. "Perhaps you'd like to come up here in front of the class and take over?"
"Oh, S'ster, could I?"
There was a murmur of interest from the spectactors, now totally wide awake.
I waddled up to the front of the room where Sister and I got caught up in a grotesque little pas de deux, changing places. At last, she lowered herself with great dignity into a nearby chair. I perched on the edge of her desk, of her DESK!, while the others in the class, friend and foe alike, all leaned forward to catch every exquisite detail of the slaughter. I looked into the sea of expectant faces --- well, not a sea, exactly, more like a puddle, and I began.
"So, as S'ster has been trying to tell you ---" (Loud throat-clearing from Sister's direction) "The court-jester Rigoletto meets this hired assassin one dark night on his way home from work at the palace, a really creepy type named Spa-ra-foo-CHEE-lay ..."
Again, sound-effects from the sidelines where the dear lady was now breathing noisily through her nostrils. I ignored these and went on lining out Victor Hugo's dramatic story. My tale grabbed my listeners as nothing Sister ever said could. As I went on, really in the spirit of the thing, I noticed how she was sitting there with her eyeballs rolled back in her sockets, like that famous marble statue of Saint Teresa of Avila in ecstacy. Her face in its stiff linen frame-work resembled a baked tomato about to burst.
When I finally arrived at the final tragic moment, when Rigoletto discovers the body of his dying daughter in the sack --- all his fault, I belted out his tearful cry of "Ah! La Maladizione! --- The Curse!" And I gave it my all ... Wild applause from the audience, a few of them, my best pals, naturally, even giving a cheer and a whistle or two. (At this, Sister looked as though mentally taking down names.)
Drunk with triumph, I was about to repeat the howl, but was cut off this time quite sharply: "That will DO, Herbert. Thank you."
Just then, the recess bell rang setting off the usual stampede out to the playground. Sister waited till it had subsided, then said in a cool, steady tone: ""Humpf, interesting, Herbert. Perhaps you really DID go to the opera last night."
I feigned being shocked and hurt. "S'ster! When did I ever lie to you?"
She started to answer, thought better of it, then brushed me aside as she started out. "Recess," she said, going forth, majestic even in defeat.
From then on, the Music Appreciation Hours grew less and less frequent, and were confined to safe composers like Stephen Foster and Percy Grainger. I myself was never asked to take over a class again, and the subject of opera was avoided altogether.
A temporary victory for our side, but only a minor bleep in a long but, on the whole, merry little war --- not to be mentioned with the real one brewing overseas. Ours brought a few, as well.
Good Old Times
By Alexandra H. Rodrigues
Out of my ever-growing repertoire of memoirs,
I picked a time period from 1971 to 1972.
I was 38 years old then and my husband Ray was 47. We were expecting our first child after eleven years of marriage and we were happy; with some exceptions.
On November 9, 1971, I began to write “the story of my life” to my unborn child. Why? Well, as a child, I had been exposed to the grief that followed the death of my favorite aunt, who lost her life from an ectopic pregnancy. A shock that left me afraid of childbirth.
When I got pregnant, I was first diagnosed as going through menopause. This by a young , ambitious gynecologist. An old-fashioned family doctor, our company doctor in Rome, corrected the facts. Both my husband and I were crew members with an international airline at that time. Our life was to change drastically.
Here we go. Really I don’t know where to start or how.
“Hallo Baby! Right now you are hardly more than an idea, in the very beginning of your being. I am four months pregnant and still in the process of becoming acquainted with the concept of YOU. You have been extremely good till now, although I really don’t know how much you have to do with it so far. I didn’t get nauseous during these four months and my belly is only protruding just a little at this point, just enough for me to be aware that you are growing. I still fit into my regular wardrobe, except those dresses with the tight waistline. This morning I put on my purple wool slacks and a loose purple sweater.
Nobody would be able to tell that I am carrying you. Don’t get me wrong, I ‘m not ashamed of you but, I have always been very concerned about my figure. From childhood on I have been watching my mother fighting a battle with overweight. I did anything to stay slim and trim. Anyhow, after I became a stewardess, I had to go for a weight check once a month, and thus kept easily in line. I only stopped flying a month ago.
Sorry Baby. I am straying again from what is motivating my outpour. I get lost in all those little details, all those little things I want you to know.
It’s quite clear in my mind, why I am sitting down to write to you but it is not quite as easy to put it into the written word.
You and I have still a struggle ahead of us, to bring you into this world as a happy and healthy human being. Hope and confidence is what I have to instill in myself several times a day. There are many things that could go wrong. Your daddy is just as worried as I am. If we make it, you and I, then part of it will go to his credit. A big part.
I am a nervous person by nature, and I worry if I can carry you for the entire nine months. I can only pray that you won’t be stillborn or have a birth defect. There are several factors stacked against us two. I am already 38 years old and you are my first child. They say that flying does something to your physique. I have been flying for 13 years by now. I smoke like a chimney, and scientific reports keep warning pregnant women of the added danger. Of course, that is something I should not do although I do not inhale. According to my doctor and to his surprise my lungs are clear, still nicotine goes into the bloodstream. You see, you have already to find out that I am not perfect.
I did give up drinking. Before I knew about you, I used to have at least three or four cocktails a day. It had become a habit after I forced myself off tranquilizers about five years ago. Drinks became a more acceptable substitute.
There I go in details already again. All right, I’ll try to give a reason for what I am doing. You see, I believe that you, as part of me, have a right to know all about me and your father. Not now, that would be impossible, not even when you are very young. Truthfully, I have no idea when you will read this, but I hope that one day you will. It is impossible to predict what the future will hold. What relationship will develop between you and me, between you and your father. Whether all three of us will be alive when you read this. Yet without hope and trust, it would be useless to go on with anything. One always fears the worst but hopes for the best. It is that what makes us tick. Carrying a life, like I carry you within me, is the most creative act in the world. It would be foolish not to have faith.
This is followed by 38, narrowly typed pages of an autobiography.
A few minutes ago, my son Ray, a 42-year-old, handsome man, left my house to go back to his wife and 7-year-old son. He has no idea about this 1972 letter to him. Thank God there was no need for him to read it yet.
God willing I will fiish this idea, to which I gave birth just before I gave birth to you my son, this year 2016. It will be a X-mas present for Raymond and myself as well.
High Old Times in the Threadbare ‘30s
By the late and great Herbert Eyre Moulton (1927 – 2005)
http://about.me/hmoulton
Considering the perilous state of everyone’s finances during the 1930’s --- at least everyone we knew --- and recalling our own feast-and-famine cycles, the wonder is that we managed to take in as much grand entertainment as we did. But then, I was an only child (born July 1927) and no problem to be taken any where my parents went. Obviously I was also smart enough to grow as fast as I could so that these excursions of ours could grow ever more festive. Before anybody realized it, they consisted of at least one carefully chosen opera each season, plus operettas, musicals, stage plays, and, two summers running (’33 and ’34), the marvels of the Chicago World’s Fair, A Century of Progress.
We were determined to miss as little as possible. Damn the Depression, anyway! Naturally, there were the usual sour comments from the local Babbitts: Who did we think we were, anyway? Going to plays and operas, with so many people on relief?
“Oh, don’t mind those old horses’ neckties!” my mother Nell advised. “They’re only jealous. Such Slobs ICH KABIBEL!” (She’d once had a Yiddisch speaking suitor.) “Now, let’s see what’s playing next week, what we can afford, that.”
Something affordable would always turn up --- there was so much to choose from. And if the tickets cost too much, there was always some way to blarney our way past the Manager. “Honey-Boy, remember, I’m not Irish for nothing!” On such occasions, my Dad, Big Herb, would either look the other way or simply pretend he wasn’t with us.
Those were the days of Vaudevill, so we were able to bask in the glow of dying embers. One of my first Show-Biz memories was of Sophie Tucker, all in white, being driven onstage in a white-and-gold open limousine, attended by flunkies in matching livery. They escorted her down to the footlights. “Some of these days/ You’re gonna miss me, Honey”.
I was absolutely transfixed.
There were, as well, lots of live radio broadcasts originating in Chicago, like W-G-N’s popular Soap “Bachelor’s Children” --- we wrote in and got free tickets several times. Got the cast’s autographs, too, and a write-up in our local newspaper, The Glen Ellyn News. So much for the Babbitts.
There were also hour-long radio dramas like the version of “A Farewell to Arms” with no one less than Helen Hayes as Catherine, script in hand, loving, emoting, and finally dying beautifully, all into the microphone. Just think: The First Lady of the American Theater, not ten yards away from us and all the better because it hadn’t cost us a red cent!
The same went for the nightly free summer concerts in Grant Park. We took in them all, or some of them, anyway. And Nell got more articles printed in the paper. Living Well is the Best Revenge!
On athletics and sporting events we didn’t waste much time --- wrongly perhaps, and I the figure to prove it. (Sorry, Jocks!) I did like to go swimming, with my pals at the Wheaton pool in the next town, riding our bikes and devouring candy bars the whole way. There was also skating on Lake Ellyn, the best part of which was the hot cocoa with marshmallows in it at the boat house. That, and chatting up the junior high school girls. And the Hell with the Hans Brinkers outside falling on their bottoms!
We did make an annual pilgrimage to Wrigley Field each summer, mostly to humor Big Herb, an inveterate Cubs fan. They very seldom won a game, but my Dad was convinced they would, and the Pennant, too, if only we’d keep thinking Positive Thoughts. So we did ... meanwhile, the Hot Dogs there - they were just about the best in town.
Well, in 1938, Big Herb’s beloved Cubs finally won their Pennant, and, bless him, he hurried home as fast as he could just to tell us the News in person. It wasn’t just “Gabby” Hartnett’s last minute Grand Slam Homer that had turned the tide --- our own good wishes and positive thoughts had also played their part. Right, perhaps they had ... Nothing like keeping everyone on the Home Front happy and content.
Like most families, we had our share of seasonal traditions and these we kept religiously. Christmas vacation always meant one thing in certainty: a trip to the Chicago Stadium for Sonja Henie’s spectacular Ice Revue --- breathtaking costumes and orchestrations, Olympic skaters, and hair-raising comics-on-ice like Frick and Frack, and, the peak of the program and always dazzlingly beautiful: Sonja Henie herself, solo, a cherubic blond dream in a short glitzy skirt and spinning and wafting her way through Liszt’s “Liebestraum” --- Man alive! Now that was magic! That, ladies and gents, was a star to conjure with!
The Stadium of W. Madison St. was likewise the setting for another family tradition, this one in summertime: Ringling Bros., Barnum and Bailey’s Circus! Three rings continuously alive with clowns and their exploding flivvers, acrobats and tumblers, magicians and live animal acts, and a bevy of pretty ballet girls, fluttering vast butterfly wings a hundred feet up, hanging from the ceiling by their teeth! (Ow!) And at the Grand Finale, having to stop your ears when somebody got shot out of a mammoth cannon. (I never quite grasped the charm of this.)
Yet another amicable tradition: celebrating my parents’ Wedding Anniversary every February 27th, getting launched with a three-way “Kram” (Swedish for “embrace” – we called it simply a Hug-and-a-Boo.) Then a slap-up-dinner at a fine downtown restaurant --- Henrici’s or, better, still, the Berghoff, where the Wiener Schnitzel and Tafelspitz, AND the home-made Lemon Meringe Pie are to die for. This would be followed by a stage show, whatever happened to be playing that appealed to us all. One year, it was “The Hot Mikado”, another: “Porgy and Bess”, and the last such occasion in the ‘30’s (“Good riddance!” was Nell’s send-off-comment): the wonderful comedy “Life with Father” with Percy Warum as fulminating Father Day, and Lillian Gish (Yes!) as the gentle, slightly pixilated mother, heading a company said to be far superior to the popular Broadway original.
Another season brought Noel Coward’s witty Spook-Comedy “Blithe Spirit”, featuring the deliciously dotty Estelle Winwood of the lace-curtained hair-do, wide-set eyes, and pixie movements, along with Dennis King, old-time operetta idol, and the chic but incomprehensible Annabella. We hoped her husband Tyrone Power could understand her better than we did.
A farce my parents loved was “Leaning on Letty”, with the loose-limbed Charlotte Greenwood, whose post-performance display of rubber-legged acrobatics brought down the house. An incredible display, much loved.
Then there was the dark andd melancholy Sylvia Sidney in a stage version of Nell’s beloved namesake “Jane Eyre” (her father had been born an Eyre of Eyrecourt in County Galway, where Charlotte Bronte, the author, once settled, taking that family’s name for her own heroine). One reason for Miss Sidney’s melancholy might have been having the show stolen from under her by that delicious character actress Cora Witherspoon in the cameo role of Mr. Rochester’s complaining cook.
Another star turn, and one deemed by some of Nell’s bitchier lady friends as quite unsuitable for young Herbert’s innocent ears, was Clifton Webb’s waspish “The Man Who Came to Dinner” --- not for school-boys, and, consequently, relished all the more by this one. We also revelled in “Pins and Needles”, a political revue put on by members of the international Garment Workers Union in New York --- their spoof of an old-fashioned mellerdrammer was achingly funny and remains so in memory today.
“Achingly funny” wouldn’t half describe Olsen and Johnson’s zany “Helzapoppin’”, which gave a new meaning to madness, but it sure took a lot of tolerance to reconcile this kind of thing with the dignified Auditorium. What counted was the great old theater was being used as such. It surely was for the next production, which came at the very close “Dirty ‘30’s” --- “Romeo and Juliet” starring the most glamorous and famous pair of lovers of the time, Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh. We all thought it was the most sumptuous and thrilling Romeo possible, but it’s now reckoned the biggest flop of the Oliviers’ otherwise distinguished career. It played in the theater I shall always love more than any other --- Louis Sullivan’s masterpiece, and I write about it with a reverance reserved for very holy places.
I was and indeed still am deeply devoted to this historic old theater which dates from 1889 and which played such a seminal role in my life. And when it was threatened with demolition in the early ‘40’s, my personal sorrow was so profound that I wrote critic Claudia Cassidy a lament for its apparently inexorable fate. She published it almost in full in her Sunday column in the Chicago Sun --- Fame! And at the tendenage of 15, too. But thank God and a lot of marvellous people, the Auditorium managed to survive after all and is now enjoying a new lease on life as part of Roosevelt University --- restored to its pristine splendor as a protected Historical Monument.
It was there that I had my first real theatrical experience, a musical extravaganza in every sense of the word, “The Great Waltz”, music by Johann Strauss the Younger, book by Moss Hart, and featuring the soprano Marion Claire. It was she, as wife of the Music Director of W-G-N, who, in Spring 1953, auditioned and hired me for my first nationwide broadcast, commenting to the others in the control room: “We must find something that shows off his beautiful diction.”
As for “The Great Waltz” itself, very little I have seen since --- this was 1936, remember --- has ever approached it for sheer theatrical magic, now, during the introduction to the Grand Finale, the bandstand with orchestra, moved swiftly and silently upstage as far as it would go, crystal chandaliers descended from above and pillars slid out from the wings on both sides. Thus, in a matter of seconds, what was just another set downstage for a bit of dialogue, was transformed into the grandest of ballrooms, crowded with handsomely dressed couples waltzing to the beautiful Blue Danube. This was Glamour. This was Theater. This was an Epiphany, and I never quite got over it.
Let’s get down now to the operas my parents took me to in the 1930’s, after a quick glance back to the dark days of October 1929, when, by supreme stroke of irony, the stockmarket crash that triggered the Great Depression, neatly coincided with the opening of Samuel Insull’s brand new, twenty-million dollar, Art-Deco Civic Opera House. This soon came to be known as Insull’s Folly, and for it, his Civic Opera Company had abandoned the historic and still viable Auditorium, home of Chicago opera for four decades. Luckily, Chicago opera is now flourishing again.
In the ‘30’s, the only opera being performed at the Auditorium (probably the best acoustics in Christendom) was that of Fortune Gallo’s San Carlo Company, an excellent troupe of first-class artists from home and abroad, performing standard repertory at “popular” prices a few weeks at a time before moving on to the next city. My first opera was their “Faust”, with a nice chubby Marguerite named Belle Verte, and, as Mephisto, the company’s resident bass, Harold Kravitt (these names have been flashed solely from memory). There was even a “white” ballet between the acts. It was all totally new to me and it left me hooked for life.
My second night at the Opera, again the San Carlo, was Bizet’s “Carmen”, starring the Russian mezzo Ina Bourskaya. The trouble was that particular Saturday night an American Legion convention was in town, and Big Herb, a faithful, if not fanatical Legionaire, was all set to spend the evening with some of his buddies at Mme. Galli’s Italian Restaurant on the Near North Side --- a rollicking occasion reminiscent of Laurel and Hardy’s classic “Sons of the Desert” convention, which also took place in Chicago. All well and good, but what about my Carmen? I’d been looking forward to it for weeks. As curtain time approached, with the merriment showing no signs of abating, I began to twitch, and then to panic. Was I the only one who remembered our date at the opera? Nothing for it, but to burst into tears and create such a scene that the festivities ended then and there. We got to the theater just in time to miss Carmen’s Entrance and Habanera, but the important thing was we got there, period. And a terrific experience it turned out to be.
Besides my tearful brouhaha at Mme. Galli’s, what I remember most about that performance was Act IV and the hardy little band of 5 or 6 supers, got up as matadors and marching round and round in the pre-bullfight parade --- in one side and out the other, then a dash backstage and in again, at least four times, each appearance getting a bigger laugh and louder hand than before.
Then, for the final scene --- Brouskaya resplendent in gold lace, tier after tier down to the ground, with a matching mantilla held in place by a jeweled comb and blood-red rose. What impressed me most was the moment just prior to her death --- she made a frantic Sign of the Cross, then turned and rushed upstage to meet her lover’s naked knifeblade --- this desperate, dramatic Sign of the Cross, then hurtling hurtling to her doom. Boy! That was Destiny with a capital D!!!
Watch Out
By Alexandra H. Rodrigues
The little church mouse was shuddering as it flitted thru the rooms of the funeral home. Something odd and sad was going on. Sure, this place was never resonating with happy and cheerful noises but today…
Two corpses had been brought in yesterday. Both of them had been embalmed and fixed up to look their best for open caskets.
One was the fifty-year-old Chief Surgeon of the University Medical Center. He had succumbed to a massive heart attack. There were many mourners in his room.
The guest book was filling up and the conversation was held in the commonly hushed tone of this establishment. Flowers were decorating the chapel in abundance. The wife of the deceased was calming a young boy of about twelve years old, while her tears were streaming down her own cheeks.
In the other room lay the dead body of a young girl. About 16 years old. Very pretty with brown hair and cute tilted up nose. This room too was filled with people. Schoolmates, relatives and the heartbreaking sighs of the parents made the atmosphere in this room even more unbearable.
The little mouse felt bad for all of them. It had heard the story.
The surgeon was operating, removing the tonsils from the girl when it happened.
The hospital staff panicked and concentrated on tending to the doctor. All the while the girl fought for breath and ultimately choked and died.
The mourners from the surgeon’s room made a big circle around the mourners from the girl’s room.
It will be difficult to look for justice.
Cells
By Karen King
We must all make sure we are not locked in our personal prison cells, “safely” shut off from
the world. It is always good for us to have our own company and recharge our “cells”, but do
not lock yourself in a permanent, impenetrable prison cell, where no one can enter and you
cannot exit. You will soon become isolated and lonely from your self-inflicted prison
sentence. You will be miserable and stuck in the past and your future will only look bleak.
Our cells replace themselves all the time. After seven years, all the cells in your body will
have been replaced and you will be a completely different person physically. You will more
than likely be a very different person emotionally and spiritually as well with all life’s
challenges.
We all change as life’s experiences shape us and, hopefully, we will become better people as
we learn through our numerous experiences. Sometimes it seems that we have too many
challenges thrown at us in all directions and we struggle to manage. We can become irritable
and aggressive towards innocent victims. This is neither fair nor the best way forward, but it
is hard to be objective at times though as life lashes out at us, like relentless rain throwing
down.
Hopefully, we will release ourselves from our prison cells as our body’s cells change. We
will become wiser, emotionally stronger as we evolve into more patient, caring and loving
people as we reach out to others and touch their lives.
If you look at this world, you will see cell upon cell, row upon row, town upon town and
country upon country of cells. People will be looking out from their prison cells, sad, but
hopeful, wondering if there is an escape for them. They look out of their dull and smeary
windows, desperately cleaning them with their hands, looking for a way out, hoping they will
be rescued by something… someone.
Isn’t it time that we all throw our windows open, unlock our cell doors and take a step outside
to meet each other, before it is too late? Let’s all celebrate our changes, join together and
support each other as one as we all learn and grow together.
Karen King Copyright February 2016
Open Your Mind
By Alexandra H. Rodrigues
I have never seen a sunset so red. This is a ball of fire from within. The heavenly body is on the verge of being immersed into a crusty cloud. – Slowly this spectacular does change with the weakening light, while patches of threatening storm clouds begin to fight for space on heaven’s tent.
Fringes surround the clouds and create forms that temper the mind. I see clusters of insurmountable shapes, architectural designs that exceed human imagination. What just minutes ago was a mild breeze erupts into a threatening storm. The sun has fled to other regions letting fierce clouds display their show. My view encumbers all that is engulfed by an ocean of trees. High ones, strong ones, all their crowns covered in heavy foliage. The roots of those tree giants must be enormous
Images emerge of leaves, pasted like lace onto a purplish red, velvety background. Still another crown blends into a grayish blue cloud, magically producing the taste of blueberry whipped cream in my mouth.
The scenery changes constantly while I watch this spectacular display of nature. The dark clouds glide behind the trees. A dimly winking, azure blue sky showcases feathery rims with pink layers in cotton candy fashion. The sun had spared some of its illuminating energy to perfect this display. The clouds keep moving pushed by the winds and blend with each other into the sky.
Then all sunlight is gone and I search for the moon. For now a curtain of solid darkness ends the show. Nature’s actors are busy to prepare the night the. A new cast of actors at the firmament performers of the just ended day.
The utter blackness is an intermission that allows one to reflect on the drama in nature.
My mind visits with the highest branches of the trees. Intuitively I hear their whisper as they softly touch each other, coming peacefully to rest in the now wind still calmness of the fallen night. They prepare for another day to strive towards heaven. –
I too will now go and rest, leaving the moon- show to be enjoyed at another time.
The experience that had just tantalized my senses has blanketed me in peace and gave rise to gratefulness for the presents that nature has in store for us .
Forgiveness
By Karen King
This is a hard thing to do and, often, we feel that the culprit does not deserve our forgiveness
as they have done us such emotional harm, caused either by physical or emotional abuse. It
is, however, something we must do for our own happiness and health or the pain will slowly
eat away at us like a Cancer, from the inside out. When we forgive that other person’s
behaviour, we are not saying it is acceptable and that we wish to be treated like this again, for
we must make sure we put our own boundaries in place to gain the respect we deserve, but
we are saying we want to move away from the situation and on with our lives. In this
manner, we have all learnt from the experience and, hopefully, the future will be more
peaceful and joyful for all parties concerned.
If you give yourself and the person the gift of forgiveness and they continue to drain, be
insulting or ruin your life, distance yourself from them and the situation. If possible, cut
them away from you by imagining cutting chords between their stomachs and yours to add
strength to your aura. Ensure the physical distance between them and you is increasing and
spend time on your own to heal and become yourself fully once again.
Sandcastles
by Kirk Dodge
“Would you stop throwing that damn wet ball against my clean wall!” Art rasped in a
voice marinated in 50 years of Bulleit Rye and Kent Menthols. I smiled at him and
waved, “How ya doing Mr. Childress?” As Mom later told me, Art found it hard to stay cranky at me. I was one of those kids who just never thought it was about me.
‘Cause . . . it wasn’t.
Afternoon showers soak Grand Bahama Island most every day around 3 p.m. during the summer. In the spring of 1968, Donny and Maggie retreated from the coming storm in Detroit and, with my brother and me, moved into a 12-story apartment building on the beach at Lucaya. At nine years old and being a bit too young for the casinos and beach bars, I settled on a future as a major league baseball shortstop. Knowing that the Tiger shortstop, Ray Oyler, couldn’t buy a hit in a brothel, I figured my future was secure. My preparation began that summer. Art played the role of historian.
Hitting a baseball always seemed easier than fielding a baseball. So my tennis ball and I became fast friends. I would dutifully throw it against the cinder block stucco wall that surrounded the swimming pool filtration equipment on the parking lot side of the building. No problem. Every afternoon for hours I would emulate the sharp angle of an infield hit, scoop it up, and throw it over to Tiger first baseman, Norm Cash, for the putout . . . 6 – 3 for you fans scoring at home. The beauty of this little game of mine was simple; I rarely made an error.
Not so at our new school, St. Paul’s Methodist. “Humbled” was a verb I came to learn
very well that spring. Mom was a school teacher and took a job teaching middle school English at an American Catholic School on the island. Her school, Mary, Star of the Sea, didn’t really fit the Ayn Rand devotee of the late 1960s and yet they hired her immediately upon seeing her diploma in philosophy and classics from the University of Michigan. Sister May Alice had no clue that she had just hired her first radical libertarian subversive. Things were about to get very interesting for the Italian nun from South Philly.
Being thoughtful, Mom sent my brother Glenn and me to the British parochial school on the other side of town. She knew full well how hard it could be for kids to have a mom teaching in the same school. Her mom had done exactly that to young Margarethe Bjornson. Schooled in the same building where her mom taught may have been the first of multiple PTSD episodes she endured as a young schoolgirl. Grandma was a tough cookie; tougher than hardened molasses. Maggie was on the receiving end of that setup from kindergarten right up to the ninth grade. She escaped to high school fully hardened to the ways of the world in more ways than one.
St. Paul’s Methodist School came as quite a shock to a kid who spent all nine years of his life being told he was utterly brilliant. Methodist, as in the one and only method of
schooling the young children of the British Empire, included morning chapel, merit
cards and badges, the Queen’s English spoken precisely, and your multiplication tables memorized to 12 unless you wanted to be struck by a tennis ball in the chest if you became inattentive during math class. A morning Bible reading follwed by a thorough indoctrination in the superiority of Britain as a colonial superpower would, on occasion, strike this young Detroiter as fairly preposterous. For instance, being told that the Kingdom stood alone during the Battle of Britain while the Americans sat on their arses didn’t really go over very well for a family born and raised in the Arsenal of Democracy. As Dad liked to point out, if it weren’t for Henry Ford and Rosie the Riveter, these dear sweet folks would be seiging “Heil Hitler” between visits to their departed family at the nearby concentration camp. A battle of patriots to say the least – patriots who all happened to settle on Grand Bahama Island during the mini-boom of the late 1960s.
In 1955, the British Parliament had passed the Hawksbill Creek Act. The Act established a port authority which governed the large, natural harbor bisecting the western half of the island. It mandated that there would be few taxes of any kind for 99 years. However, levying a 20 percent duty on all goods (except peas and rice) that hit the docks helped fund the roads, sewers, and utilities that provided the kickstart that the island economy needed. With only a hundred residents in 1955, the island population swelled to over 30,000 by the time our family arrived in 1968. The government funded a series of elementary schools that dotted the small villages of the island. More importantly, the three parochial schools fully integrated themselves racially and religiously from day one.This was free enterprise of the first order.
This island represented a refuge for my increasingly cynical parents. The assassination of President Kennedy in November of 1963 traumatized the nation. My parents seem to take it even harder. Dad knew the military from the perspective of a JAG officer in the Army. He became aware of some nasty secrets – stuff they saw in the course of their work. The idea that a social misfit like Lee Harvey Oswald had pulled off the assassination by himself struck this former prosecutor as patently absurd. To both Donny and Maggie, watching the aftermath of LBJ cloaking himself in civil rights and twisting the movement into a government transfer program seemed beyond grotesque. Watching their native Detroit become the laboratory hothouse for a running series of government planning efforts was the last straw. Quite simply, they gave up on America. At least the America that LBJ led into Vietnam and his domestic government planning utopia. By late 1967, our family was fully committed to a pullout – a pullout from America.
This is that story.
Methodry
“Abigail Johnstone” – the name, not the person – appeared at the top left corner of the chalkboard in our classroom. Across the top of the board, Mr. White listed the subjects we’d learned during the 1967-68 school year: arithmetic, reading, writing, etc. Below each subject was a number. The score for each student in that subject was there, out in the open for everyone to see. For the 24 kids in the class, 24 scores in arithmetic, reading and writing. In the aggregate, Abigail was first. I was 21st – not exactly an utterly brilliant performance for the future Tiger shortstop. We arrived in March and I managed, in three short months, to land myself in the cellar, more like a Washington Senator than a Detroit Tiger.
The best part? There was no pattern to the ranking of students. You couldn’t group
them by race or religion or nationality. There were probably more girls at the top of the list, but there were exceptions randomly distributed everywhere. This was a true meritocracy. By the way, Abigail Johnstone not only sounded Bahamian; she looked it. Lean and pretty with big, bushy pigtails, you could imagine generations of Abigails cleaning their husbands’ catch of the day, steaming up the peas and rice, baking the Johnnycake and making more Johnstones and Farquarsons and Pinders. Except this one would go to college someday.
St. Paul’s Methodist School made itself such that the Queen would be proud. Kind of
like Americans in the south think of themselves as more patriotic than the average
American (horseshit). The Methodists in England came from their “west.” Being so far from London, they seem to work a little harder at being British.
Methodists in many ways are like Baptists in America, except they can read. Stern in
temperament, knowing how to have fun was not something they seem to master or
cared to master. It probably didn’t occur to them. They were too busy perfecting themselves, their children and their workdays. Margaret Thatcher was a Methodist. That explains a lot. She was a Methodist whose father owned a grocery store. Geez, that would have been exciting. No wonder she would lecture her Cabinet on the price of a gallon of milk. Upper crust Tories must have loved that speech. Hell, those guys probably never saw a kitchen, much less a grocery store. It’s no wonder she finally succumbed to a “no confidence” vote. Those Tories had absolutely no confidence in their ability to endure so much fun and laughter. Let’s just say that these Methodists at St. Paul’s came by their stern, exacting personalities naturally – naturally drilled up their backsides one shilling at a time.
I used to wonder how they reproduced. Did they schedule time for it during the day?
Did they grade it? Did they practice? Could you earn a merit badge? Spontaneous romance and “grinding,” as the Bahamians like to call it, seemed a far off homework assignment for these Methodist teachers at St. Paul’s. It wasn’t enough that you completed your work assignment accurately and punctually and in ink. Cursive writing which was blotted or crossed out earned a terse admonition of “points deducted, young man!” In order to earn the prized merit card, everything must be nothing less than perfect. Five cards in a week earned you a merit badge.
The school divided its student body into four “houses” across all “forms” (grades to us
Americans). As a nine year old, I entered the second form in March, having just left
third grade in America. The four houses derived their names from the most famous of the British explorers: Schackleton (blue), Mallory (green), Hillary (red), and my house, Hudson (yellow). The merit points led to a yellow badge for yours truly, although not as often as I thought I deserved. Every term, the points for each house were tallied and added to the other house’s totals in athletics and drama. Everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, counted for something. Either it was added to your tally or, God forbid, it could be deducted from your total.
Morning chapel provided an excellent opportunity for me to have points deducted. It’s not that I rejected the Christian faith completely. It just seemed to interfere with my opportunities to debate the great issues of the day with my buddies. Issues like the relative value of marbles – milkies vs. cat eyes; the superiority of American football over rugby and soccer; who was prettier: Kim Goodwin or Roselyn Abrahams. These were profound subjects worthy of extensive debate. The Methodists disagreed.
As point totals went, let’s just say two points forward and one point back seemed to be my natural rhythm. Did I learn? You betcha. When your mother is a school teacher, this whole education thing you do as a kid is kinda the family business. You can’t be a total putz. So, I began to learn my cursive letters a bit more elegantly. I scored high in reading, owing mostly to the long articles in my Dad’s copies of Penthouse and the Miami Herald sports section. Mostly, it was the multiplication and division of fractions that haunted me. I didn’t plan to own a grocery like Mr. Roberts (the Iron Maiden’s father). Why did I need to know how to price milk in pints, quarts and gallons? But learn I did. Repeating this stuff for another year would have been far worse. The more I thought about my name appearing 21st on that chalkboard, the more determined I became. Hell, let’s admit it – by the time we moved back three and a half years later, I was fourth in the form. The methodry worked.
Tiger Art
Art Childress hailed from the thriving metropolis of Owosso, Michigan, population
14,779 and dwindling by the hour.
As for many taxpayers, America was losing its charm and nowhere more so than in the Wolverine State. Art finally waved the white flag of surrender in 1966 and landed a job as the property manager for the Rivera Towers apartment building on the south shore of Grand Bahama Island. Our paths crossed the first time he identified the culprit throwing a wet tennis ball against his pristine stucco wall.
You cannot see the irrationality of others until you see it in yourself. Occasionally, Art
would caution me to do as my mom would say, “Your mom is not being critical, she
loves you. That’s how moms make sure you do right. . . “ Thinking back to that “clean
wall”, maybe Art endured more than his fair share of criticism from his mom. I wonder ‘cause he sure seemed committed to keeping that wall clean.
As a young boy, Mr. Childress seemed cranky and more than a bit didactic. Still, instead of berating me for making a mess of his wall, he decided to distract me with an oral history of baseball. In his manager’s apartment, his shiny aluminum Philco pulled in the Atlantic Braves broadcasts from West Palm Beach, Florida – their spring training home. With their announcer, Dizzy Dean providing the sound track, Art colorized baseball as few would hear it. Granted, this long-time Tiger brought a certain homespun bias. Best hitter of all time? Ty Cobb, of course. Best second baseman? Charlie Gehringer with his .320 average, 2800 hits and League MVP in 1935. Best catcher? Mickey Cochrane. Best slugger who served his country honorably? Hammerin’ Hank Greenberg. Well, you get the idea.
Art saw in me what a priest sees in a soul that might be saved. For me, baseball still
hung in the balance with football, and Art simply could not stomach the idea that a
young baseball soul might be lost. With the help of the Tigers playing some very, very
good baseball in the summer of 1968, Art had his convert. The Braves moved to Atlanta only two years earlier – (part of my education was learning how they migrated from Boston to Milwaukee to Atlanta). Dizzy Dean had played for the St. Louis Cardinals.
As the Cards marched to the National League pennant that season on the back of Bob
Gibson, old Art couldn’t resist pointing out that Dizzy Dean was the best pitcher but only in the NATIONAL LEAGUE during his career. The Tigers (of course) offered the best pitcher in all of baseball during the World War II era. Harold “Prince Hal” Newhouser, who won pitching’s Triple Crown in 1945, led the Tigers as they beat the Chicago Cubs for the World Series.
Each day passed and soon school started again in the Bahamas in September. Art kept me off that stucco wall with his personal narrative on the history of the American pastime. Learning American baseball in the Bahamas was kind of surreal when you think about it - but he did manage to keep his wall clean. Eventually, he’d throw those hard infield grounders to me himself. The old coot actually started to like me. In the end, when the Tigers clinched the pennant, I think he considered me his good luck charm. This husky little Tigers fan in-the-making actually could make him laugh as I personally narrated my own stylish fielding and throwing. And Art had forgotten how to laugh.
The Tigers spotted the Cards a 3-1 lead in the ’68 World Series; then the two Mickeys
took over. The occasionally sober Tiger manager, Mayo Smith, made the first of a couple of brilliant moves. Beefing up the batting order meant moving Mickey Stanley from the centerfield to shortstop. Presto, the Tiger infield batting average instantly made it above the Fahrenheit boiling point.
Next, old Mayo pressed Mickey Lolich into pitching the seventh game. This meant
Lolich could do something historic. Not only would the Tigers rally from down 3-1,
Lolich would pitch and win three complete games in one World Series. Old Mr. Childress ouldn’t believe how good it all was. Late in Art’s life, as he was living with cancer, which I only learned about later, his beloved Tigers won the World Series. Plus, he saved one more soul from Yankeedom. Tiger Art 1 – Yankees 0.
Less is More
Within ten years of the passage of the Hawksbill Creek Act, the northernmost island in the Bahamian archipelago saw its population mushroom from a mere 100 to over
30,000 sun-kissed inhabitants. How? In a world where we debate endlessly how to alleviate poverty and create jobs, how did this little outpost do it?
The natural assumption would be that it was all tourism. This was logical given the
sunny temperate weather, cool night breezes and squeaky, white sand beaches. Yet,
throughout the ‘60s, as Grand Bahama grew and changed, tourism never reached 50% of the island’s domestic economic output. British Petroleum built a large oil transport center, which employed a steady 500-800 workers. Syntex built a pharmaceutical plant which added another 80-100 jobs to the island. A large cement plant, which predated the Hawksbill Act, continued to employ a steady crew of 50-60. The only other significant employer was NASA, which built the Gold Hill Tracking Station for the Cape Canaveral rocket launches. No single employer or industry explains what happened on this 100-mile long stretch of coral and southern pine.
During this time, Daniel K. Ludwig of Denmark reigned as one of the world’s great shipping magnates. He lived part-time on the island, mostly checking on his shipping businesses in the Caribbean basin. Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball retreated to the island frequently in search of privacy and seclusion, yet the wealthy really didn’t discover
Freeport/Lucaya in droves. If an economy ever came to be defined by a broad, wide and deep middle class, it was Grand Bahama Island of 1963-71. Maybe the greatest irony for our family arose in comparing it to Detroit during this same time period.
Our old home town had grown to be America’s third largest city in 1950 with a middle
class powerhouse the world could only envy. Detroit was marked by the highest median household income and home ownership of any major city. What followed can only be described as a seemingly endless string of crony mayors from both political parties who allowed Detroit to become an experimental urban laboratory for government planners of all stripes and persuasions.
Urban Renewal obliterated sixty square blocks of stable residential and commercial
property owned mostly by long time African-American families. Later known as Lafayette Park, it became another of Detroit’s once mighty neighborhoods reduced to
blight and abandonment. "Model Cities" concocted by LBJ’s War on Poverty managed to move the poor into new parts of the city. Meanwhile, another half million Detroiters took the government’s subsidies and simply left.
Many would say racism and corporate greed fueled the demise of Detroit. Of course,
Detroiters struggle with the idea they carry more racial amicus curiae and avarice than the good people of Chicago or Boston or Pittsburgh. In Detroit, if there was an urban planning experiment to receive funding, they tried it: city income tax, commuter tax, low income housing, the People Mover. If the government funded it, the crony mayors tried it. In short order, the city residents figured out they weren’t welcome, because in fact, they weren’t. As in life, sometimes when it comes to government, less is more.
Civil Disobedience
Rooted in the writings of Henry David Thoreau and then blooming into the flower of
Mahatma Gandhi and eventually Dr. Martin Luther King, our world elevated itself
mightily from their common moral high ground. Racial discrimination rightly thrust
itself into the American consciousness during these same 1960s. Grand Bahama provided an illuminating and intriguing vantage point despite being just a mere sixty miles off the Florida coast.
Slavery predates Jesus of Nazareth. The freedom he offered through the Kingdom of
God transcended slavery as chattel. He offered freedom at a deeper level. Freedom
from our own flawed humanity took liberation to a new, higher moral and spiritual
plain. In every direction, people sought greater freedom and dignity. Breaking out of
the shackles seemed all the rage in the 1960s. Everyone got into the act, even the students at St. Paul’s Methodist.
What were we thinking? Bologna sandwiches on white bread with butter – and we
didn’t love them?
“Do you know how little we had during the Second World War?”
“Do you know we didn’t even have sugar or fruit or orange juice?”
Geez, no, I didn’t and, by the way, that was twenty-nine years ago and you really can’t
blame me. I’m eleven!
Only one option existed. I’m going to lead these fellow eleven-year olds to some decent food. We’re going to town – to Burger King. Not my best planned act of civil disobedience.
When virtually all of the eleven-year olds disappear from an elementary school,
chances are high the teachers will notice. It just doesn’t happen often enough to slip
past them. So, waiting for us at the front of the line? You guessed it. A direct descendent of the first King of Scotland; our stern, inchoate but loving headmaster, Eric “The Red” Williams. Yep, there he was, all 6-foot-3-inches and 225 pounds (16 stone for you true Brits) smiling at his seventeen wayward Fourth Form eleven-year olds. Caning was reserved for yours truly. You need to plan a crime to feel the full arm of the law. I received it and managed not to cry or yelp. I actually felt sort proud; an odd reaction for the son of a school teacher.
I wondered if the real, genuine protestors felt the same way. The year before, it was Dr. King who was shot and then Robert Kennedy, the brother of the slain President. Our parents couldn’t help but question the civil unrest broadcast on TV each night. These people must be partially right – some of this must be justified.
Race in America can appear as a two dimensional issue. America mixes race and slavery into a toxic brew that haunts us to this day. Elsewhere in the world, racial discrimination exists. It took America to bind slavery into racial discrimination. Not so in other countries. In the Bahamas, the pecking order works in a simpler way:
Bahamians look down on Jamaicans.
Jamaicans look down on American Blacks.
American Blacks down on Haitians.
Bermudians look down on everybody.
By 1970, Bahamians seemed intent on gaining independence, but it didn’t involve race and it didn’t involve civil disobedience. It was their country and they were free to do their will. That’s exactly what they did. Foreigners were deported. The island economy came to a standstill. Non-Bahamians saw their work permits revoked. Capital fled. It was now their country – poorer, but free of foreigners.
It was all over.
The middle class disappeared. In time, you were either a tourist or a Bahamian, or
eventually a narco drug lord. Grand Bahama went the way of Detroit. Like a sandcastle, it just washed away. Such a shame – twice in one childhood.
Attracted to Risk
A twelve-story apartment building on the south beach of Grand Bahama sure seems like the wrong place for a nine-year old boy to play. And it was. Designed like many Bahamian apartment buildings, the front door to each unit opened to an exterior, outside hallway. Problem! Then, the elevator stack was wrapped on the outside with a staircase that candy-caned itself to the roof of the twelve-story building. Problem!
Probably not the best choice for young families with young children.
For moms and dads who dreamed of living on a beach of beautiful, squeaky, white sugar sand, they found nirvana at Rivera Towers. Weekends included all these young families picnicking around the lawn that joined the open breezeway lobby to the beach itself. With seven units on each floor and families in the larger two and three bedroom units, there were lots of kids for play and mischief.
Why did that roof seem so interesting? As a nine-year old, I wondered if you could see
Florida from there – (that would be a “no”). The locked door at the outside staircase really didn’t slow us down. It did require climbing around the wooden door jam that Art Childress built to prevent residents from doing exactly what we did. That would be climbing up onto the railing and around the outside of that wooden door and door jam.
Lucky for us that we didn’t slip or lose hold and fall the twelve stories down to the grass landscaped entrance. That would have been a sight . . . splattered nine-year olds landing right outside the apartment leasing office. I do wonder if my extreme acrophobia might just stem from scaring the shit out of myself and then carrying and blocking that memory into a place that I can no longer access.
Sean Connery wrapped up the filming of “Thunderball” in 1965 with the help of the
divers from UNEXSO about a mile down the beach from Rivera Towers. Few movies
stimulated scuba diving like “Thunderball.” Moviegoers watched Connery and Claudia Auger canoodling among the sea fans and coral and assumed they could do the same with a few lessons.
Dad and I took to scuba quickly and completely. Starting with the twelve to eighteen
foot reef dives and graduating to wreck dives on sunken ships and grotto cave dives.
Donny and I tried them all. Only when the depths exceeded 100 feet did Dad bow out
and let his now eleven-year old son keep going. Guided diving trips on Grand Bahama
from UNEXSO replaced Little League and Boy Scouts.
Below one hundred feet, double tanks allow you twenty to thirty minutes at depth to explore and then to fully decompress as you rise. Off Grand Bahama, beginning at eightyfive feet, the ocean floor begins to noticeably drop until at approximately one hundred ten feet, it goes vertical. Going over that edge gives you the feeling of being suspended over the pitch dark ocean floor and provides a very genuine rush of adrenalin. That euphoria makes the dive worth the hassle of decompression. Dad disagreed. Also, we decided not to tell Mom about the sharks, that poor woman had enough to worry about.
Let’s talk sales. The kid needed some walking around and scuba cash. Selling newspaper subscriptions door-to-door would be the slow, safe way to win a sales contest. The top ten subscription sellers won an autumn weekend in Miami to watch the Dolphins host the Cleveland Browns. I opted for the accelerated sales strategy, writing all of my parents’ and grandparents’ friends in Detroit and suggesting they might want an off-island subscription (worth three times as much in sales contest credit). Let’s just say I won this trip going away . . . and pissed off all the older newspaper boys. I did enjoy every last envious smirk. Photographed at the top of the stairs for the Air Bahamas flight to Miami, I needed to stand on my tippy toes to appear as tall as the other winners.
Memories of that weekend with the Dolphins at the old Orange Bowl seem dim. The
Browns dumped the ‘Phins 28-0. What I do remember was fellow newspaper man, Harry Palm, upchucking his eleven twelve-cent burgers from the White Castle hamburger joint onto the moving escalator at Jordan Marsh in the North Miami Beach Mall.
Watching the poor janitor chase the befouled escalator step rising, rising, rising and
then disappearing again and again is a memory I probably should block. Winning remains the best part. With winning, came confidence.
Perhaps, I developed too much confidence. I don’t know how to sail. Even a rudimentary understanding of sailing escapes me. Therefore, the decision to sail our friends’ sunfish to the west end of the island seemed highly suspect, particularly for an eleven-year old. Compounding matters, I chose the week of my parents’ annual anniversary vacation for this poorly conceived sailing excursion. Not content to drive my parents a little cuckoo, I gave my grandparent babysitters full-on angina. When they couldn’t see their grandson on the southern horizon, the shit was definitely going to hit the fan. And I knew it. How did I manage to reverse tack my way to a half mile off shore? I didn’t know how to sail on a whole new level.
Let’s just say Grandpa Don, with the wrath of Hades, greeted his favorite grandson upon swimming the sunfish (with the rope line in my mouth) back to the Rivera Towers beach. I guess my only fear was of my grandparents’ reaction once I solved this self-created problem. Grandma Sally usually overlooked my transgressions, but not that night.
What was the attraction to risk? Probably the completely irrational mindset that nothing bad would ever happen to me. As fate would have it, that changed later.
Back to Mom, our first subversive libertarian radical. While Dad chummed up the Bahamian officials in the process of strategically selling them his new condos, Mom would occasionally stand in the Winn Dixie parking lot changing Bahamian money into American dollars for the Haitians. Dad’s protection from his Immigration and Customs buddies gave him little comfort when Mom was loudly challenged at one of their weekend cocktail parties. However, this didn’t stop old Maggie. Her mission wasn’t subverting the value of the Bahamian currency. No. Rather, she saw in these poor Haitians a proud people who simply wanted to send American dollars back to their families. "You risk taker Mom.....carry on, Maggie!"
Dad had a knack for naming condos. Fairway Manor seemed a touch too baronial for
what he actually built on the 16th hole of the Ruby golf course. Seriously, Dad? Edelweiss Chalets? Let’s try that one more time.
He really hit his stride with the Edelweiss Chalets at the corner of Santa Maria and Nina Boulevards. This drew in the local government officials who never thought they would live in an neo-Austrian condo project on the beach in the Bahamas – a regular marketing impresario, that old Donny.
If your two favorite stories are “The Sound of Music” and “The Godfather,” you are psychologically predisposed to name your landmark condo project Edelweiss Chalets and fill it with croupiers and mildly corrupt local officials. “Bless Our Homeland Forever.”
“Keep your friends close, keep your enemies closer.” Such was the attraction to risk.
As I write these memoirs of childhood days in the Bahamas, a small, copper boating tub with a makeshift sail made landfall in front of The Delano Hotel on Miami Beach. Five bedraggled, sunburned Cubans and a frightened teenage girl, still dazed from their 36-hour journey, sat next to their makeshift craft. The bar maids from The Delano served them water and non-alcoholic mixers, while tourists with iPhones snapped pictures of the sailors’ grinning mugs and their crazy little craft. It reminded me of the Haitian shipwrecks Dad and I explored with scuba gear in the Bahamas, mailboats with too many Haitians on board that made it close enough to the beach that these risk takers could swim or walk the rest of the way. In many ways, the world sees this every day.
In short order, American politicians will condemn these beneficiaries of our “Wet Feet – Dry Land” policy for Cubans seeking asylum in America. Some politicians will demonize them as illegal immigrants. Others will wait until they’re multi-millionaires and vilify them for their financial success. I prefer to admire their attraction to risk and a country that rewards it. God Bless America and every damn risk-taker who found their way here. We wouldn’t be America without them. We’re lucky.
(C) Copyright Kirk Dodge 2016
Slaves to Society
By Karen King
Many of us are slaves in society. We work for a pittance, trying to make ends meet. I have
heard that 5% of the world owns 95% of the wealth. So, while the rest of us are struggling to
pay our bills, others earn silly amounts of money. I ask, are they so much more intelligent,
worthy or more talented than, say, the writing fraternity?
It seems it’s easy to publish if you are already famous, but if you are not, then you are
pleased if people bother to read your poetry or buy your books. Often you have to self-
publish or publish through a publisher for vast amounts of money. Is this fair when you have
so much talent to give society? Many of us struggle to do what we enjoy or, more likely, we
have a day job to enable us to afford to write our poetry. Still, poetry is something we have
to do and we try and benefit society with our words.
Just think, next time you see someone with the latest design gear, ask yourself if this is what
life is all about and if you truly think they are happy for, surely, happiness comes from inside
through the expression of our soul and not from outside, material goods? They feel that
happiness can be bought and do not understand that it just comes about through following
your soul’s path. I, personally, feel that many people have sold their souls to “fit in” and
“keep up” with other people, like it is some sort of competition. They do not wish to follow
their souls and find inner peace and happiness. In a way, perhaps they are also slaves to
society?
Karen King Copyright February 2016
As Time Goes By
By Alexandra H. Rodrigues
In front of me is a letter from the Department of Veterans Affairs, Long Island National Cemetery, Farmingdale, NY 11735. It is from November 8, 1993, directed to Mrs. Del Zappala, 222 Sullivan Street, New York, NY 10012.
It reads:
Dear Mrs. Zappala: I have enclosed a map of the cemetery with the section and grave location of your husband, Richard A. Zappala. The burial was conducted on November 4, 1993, and the remains placed in grave 1378A.
The information you provided on the ‘Certificate of Monument Date’ will be utilized to order the headstone. Once the headstone is received in approximately 0-12- days it will be installed. We will mail you a post card once the stone has been installed.
If we may be of any further assistance please contact Annette Bianco at 516-454-4949.
Sincerely, Mike Cariota, Cemetery Director.
This letter was in a file, which my husband Raymond Rodrigues, had kept. He too has passed on in the meantime. As a matter of fact, he too is buried in a Military Cemetery, but he is at Calverton, New York. I would have preferred him to be in Farmingdale, as this is much closer to my residency; however in 2010 there was no longer any space available in Farmingdale.
“Do the dead know when we visit them?”
One day in the future I will join him at Calverton. This is a thought which is not exactly pleasant to me and oddly erroneous too. I am not even an American Citizen; I came from a country, Germany, where my husband won his medals of war, including the Purple Heart. Just like my entire life can hardly be called traditional, this too falls under the heading “Idiosyncrasy. “
Richard Zappala was my husband’s nephew, the son of his oldest sister Hilda. When I met him, he was already in his second marriage to Del Zappala. He had gotten hurt during a maneuver while in the Service and thus was buried with Military honors.
I remember Richard as a pleasant personality, heavyset, a smoker and drinker and always full of jokes. I knew him for nearly 30 years but only met him at family gatherings, maybe once or twice a year. Del his wife was a charming Blonde, a good singer and somebody nice to have around. As I understand she was many years older than Richard, maybe about 15, and she was the bread winner. She loved Richard dearly and gladly accommodated his aimless lifestyle. In old times Richard was said to have been on road shows as an actor, but I cannot remember him ever working while I knew him. His failure to make a living obviously contributed to the break-up of his first marriage to Sybill. He died at the early age of 53, succumbing to a heart attack while food shopping.
Del died many years later. During my last phone conversation with her she mentioned that she was working on her blood pressure, which was at stroke level and that we would get together when she felt better. Well she did have a stroke shortly after this call and died several months later. Her body was sent to her family members someplace at the outskirts of Pennsylvania. At this point nobody, being that there is only Mary, my sister-in-law, who did not know the answer when being asked, knows the address. Unfortunately, Mary Petit, my sister-in-law had a fall-out with her son and their connection has broken off. Mary’s daughter, Diana passed away July 2011, following a devastating fire in their house in Jersey and also suffering from Liver cancer. Richard Zappala also had had a sister, Dorothy. She too died from cancer a few years after him. There are no offspring from either Richard or Dorothy. Mary’s son Mark however has two children, Tiana and Garrett, and I am contemplating to possibly send them a copy of this write-up in the near future. I myself am of advanced age and the term “In the future” will be chiseled into “Near future” by me from now on.
In the “very near future” I will compose a write-up about my own family. Luckily I have kept pictures, letters and hearsay anecdotes since my early youth. Maybe my grandson, Adam, now 7 years old, will one day take the notes into his hands and venture on a trip into the past.
People and happenings, otherwise forgotten, will live on in the written word!
From: THE OWL
A Chapter from Raney Tables’ Booklet on the History of FLORA’S ISLAND:
WHY SASSACUS IS SIGNIFICANT!
By David Seerman
There were others: fearless, unrepentant. But there, too, were more others:
peaceful, patient. However, there was only one who pitched his teepee at both
outposts and that was none other than Sassacus. It made him a heroic leader, a
powerful sachem. History’s slimy scribes firmly suggest he was motivated by
greed and bloodlust, a strong suggestion that he bore a distinct hatred of the British
settlers and the contesting Mohegan and Narragansett tribes. He is portrayed as an
avenging butcher, a patriarch of a rather large, amorphous band of vicious
heathens. Like your typical scapegoat, he was sensationally demonized, a beaded,
blackhaired savage rising head and feathers above his fellow cutthroats, inspiring
tribal usurpations and initiating surprise attacks, brutally killing then desecrating
the bodies of beaver traders and missionaries and renegades and British envoys and
brigands for no other reason than this kind of mundane, serial butchery remains sui
generis to the indigenous cultures of the Old Land .
A small registry of sane voices object to such incendiary language an
indictment by Richard Mather almost 400 years ago that the Pequots were the
accursed seeds of Canaan, being a typical call for genocide but
the historical perspective at the time was exceptionally clear: a holy war in the costume of a holy
pogrom was necessary to cleanse the New England coast of the singular blight
blocking British upward mobility, British trade and traffic, British forts and
settlement, and that blight was Sassacus and the Pequots, an old Algonquin phrase
meaning, ironically, the Destroyers.
Sassacus befriended the Dutch when necessary and worked with the British,
being a principled position of last resort. It was one thing to instigate tribal warfare
or to shear away Pequot lands and to put a strangle hold on fur trading, but it was
quite another thing altogether to put a whomp on the wampum that was the Pequot
pride and source of their power. That there was a lot of cutting going on in those
days went beyond irritation. Those steel drills applied by the British in small
Massachusetts Bay manufacturing plants cut quickly through the white whelk and
purpled quahog shells and cut the value of wampum to an unacceptable level. Yet
another Smallpox epidemic, this one in the winter of 1634,
right smack in the middle of his command, cut the population of the Pequots nearly in half, and deals
cut prior and during Sassacus’ short reign were either ignored or broken. A great
strategist, how many options did Sassacus have in a cage?
In a pinfold? In a fire pit?
He tried making one last deal. In October 1634, sensing trouble from the
subservient Narragansetts and from the Dutch, he sent an emissary out to his
British competitors to talk about relinquishing land, attaching 400 fathoms of
wampum for good measure. But today’s defeat was yesterday’s betrayal . And so
how much free will can he exert when the enemy is closing in from all sides?
When there was no one to trust or turn to? His nephew, Uncas, and his reformed
wolf pack, the Mohegan breakaways, were cutting into the holy dance, the bands
were disbanding, new alliances were forming favoring the British, souring on the
Dutch. What’s a responsible leader to do? How does one make the cut, keep the
faith, pool the dwindling resources of a pragmatic people being given the squeeze
by ally and alien alike? This writer believes a conspiracy was at play in the large
woodland playgrounds of Southern New England. Sassacus was the sole
impediment to the British form of a final solution and the British found a way to
execute their plans by planning to execute all that they found. It was no surprise
that religion championed their Public Relations pitch, a holdover from European
wars of late, or that cash and acreage crowned their connivance.
The great cook off, May 26, 1637, needed a commemoration. The torching
of 400, some say 700, Pequots, mostly the infirm, the women, the children, like all
great birth dates, required a candle to set the festivities in motion. Governor
Winthrop’s journal crystallizes the event, the Pequot slayer cake serving as the
centerpiece of a major American holiday. Forget the damned turkey, put away the
silver, hide Rockwell under a rock, put the candle into position, one candle, plus
one shiny, decorative epistle of human transgression, a clear missive of what we all
were about to become: ....was ordered to bee kept a day of publicke thanksgiving to
God for his great m'cies in subdewing the Pecoits.... The man couldn’t stop; he
couldn’t help himself. The word M’cies,
Oh, the sanctimony of all that we hold dear was out of the bag:
A day of thanksgiving kept in all the churches for our
victories against the Pequots, and for the success of the assembly....
Free enterprise was not free. Somebody alway has to pay and pay. Winthrop
wanted Southern New England for his own playground, including Flora’s Island. It
was Sassacus’s role in the annals of history to pay for this white outreach with his
life, his subjects to pay with their lives and their freedom and, yes, even their
name, henceforth illegal and subject to severe penalty if ever uttered among the
Pequot slaves held in dire servitude for decades after. To imagine your name, what
you are, where you came from: verbal contraband. There were so many other firsts
or close seconds it’s hard to find a place to start. Identity theft as we’ve begun to
identify with it may have started here; slavery as we’ve fondly come to understand
it in America may have started here; Regional genocide has a place at this table as
well. Thanksgiving, too, as we’ve come to treasure it in all its hypocritical rotgut
may have started here; Mass penury, i.e., homelessness, the homegrown variety,
may have started here. Indian reservations, as we’ve come to accept it, may have
started here as well.
It all boils down to Sassacus, his unique courage, his unique stature, his
unique way of holding 26 tribes and their sachems together, if ever so briefly.
My fascination with Sassacus is a small token of depreciation in comparison to the
overwhelming homage, brutal in its full flower, garnered from the likes of
Governor Winthrop right down to Uncas, with every other settler and Indian
mashed in between.
Historical documents clearly identify Sassacus as one of the bad guys ( a
malignant, furious Piquot ) and later, more erudite scholars, clearly point to him as
one of the good guys
(a renowned warrior and a noble and highspirited man.)
But history aught not make assignations in such a topical manner. It’s an insult to the
caliber of the subject. We’re not, after all, determining placement in a tribal
popularity contest. Most likely to succeed: Sassacus. Most likely to be tallest:
Sassacus. Most likely to scare the shit out of peers and pawns alike: Sassacus. Most
likely to kick British ass: Sassacus. Most likely to be beheaded: Sassacus!
History’s all askew. Let’s look at it from a more piquant summit. Like Albert
Camus says about old Sisyphus: One must imagine Sassacus happy.
Alone in his element, the primeval forest, the largehorned
buck, the branching rivers, the eternal sea, and then not alone, surrounded by his kin, his
heritage, the supple encouragement of his Dutchslaughtered
father, the great sachem Tatobem. I see him traversing the tight Mohawk trails looking for
sympathy, any kind of familial support. But I find it impossible to imagine
Sassacus and his brother and a small band of survivors in semisupplication,
Asking for help from higher beings of a lower order or lower beings from a higher order. It
didn’t suit him. He was hardly one to solicit help from others. I prefer, and I have
no reason to doubt, that he took his fleeing band of warriors to safe retreats. Why
he would end up begging for refuge with the Mohawks makes little logistical
sense. I’ve no doubt the probability of his death at the hands of these royalist
loyalists wins the percentage game. I do have doubts that Sassacus was so
desperate that he lost his head, so to speak. But he was more clever than that. I
must give him credit for that. I must see him in that light. Given the great rivalries
that existed and his broad knowledge of tribal customs and dangerous liaisons, I
suspect he might have disappeared into a more invisible world, a world later
conjectured by Cotton Mather to be rooted in Doemons and Witchcrafts , though
more likely he could have just traipsed off deep into the thick forest and far, far
away from history itself living outside the collection plate we know as time. He
would have been hunted down had he done that of course. He knew he wasn’t to
come through this maelstrom alive, especially after escaping from the Fairfield
Swamp Fight that decimated most of the remaining warriors of his tribe.
Under cover of a great and surprising fog, he and few ragtag stragglers
escaped, but could they escape from history, elude time? He was destined to be
murdered. He knew about the ordinance of fate and welcomed its approach. But it
had to be on his own terms. The Mohawks. How easy it becomes for history to roll
out the simple, logical fact that he was beheaded as soon as he arrived. It’s hard to
buy. Why didn’t he escape to Flora’s Island? He could have lived out his last
remaining days in relative calm with relative ease. He visited the Island frequently.
The best shells for making wampum came from the northern shores of eastern
Long Island. The Pequots were given annual tribute of thousands of fathoms of
wampum by vanquished tribes to defray the cost of trade with the Dutch. Some
texts insist that Sassacus tried to find refuge with the Metoacs of Northern Long
Island after the carnage, but the subservient Metoacs (the Montauks being the
largest affiliate tribe) were so ingrained with resentment, they offered no quarter.
In this writer’s estimation, I think Flora’s Island would have been a perfect
refuge, a last ditch stand for the last standing free East Coast Indian until King
Phillip tried his hand to handle the glad handers decades later. Through the fog of
war, the actual fog, I see Sassacus hauling up his remaining canoes onto the
Island’s dark sand at Rosabella Beach. I see his small but fierce campaigners,
brutally decimated and marginally alive, scoring bloody indentations on the
beachhead, weary but proud, trekking towards higher ground. Finally, I can see
them in counsel somewhere along the peak on Barton’s Hill, planning their next
move. Sassacus is smiling. He knows this is the end. The Owanux have won, and
this is the end. Through the deep mist of a warm spring evening, he hears with
perfect clarity the thrum of waves crashing along the shoreline of the beach below.
He holds, loose in his mammoth hands, the wampum he at one time hoped would
secure their escape, but any idea of an escape to Sassacus is now but an
ephemeron. There is life and there is death and after, there is the great world of
imagination which is the one true release where escape is truly possible.
Long after, I imagine him following me along the water’s edge. I walk
further up the slope and then I turn to face him. I see him; it is him. Majestic.
Calm. Tall....so very tall. The invitation is clear, the possibilities of historic verity
free from corporeal conditions. The sheaths of wampum are draped in his upturned
hands. I accept the offering, break the seal. “Are we so very different?” I ask. He
remains silent, solemn. The articles of faith lay shimmering in his dark and
upturned hands.
Mental Illness
By Karen King
There are many forms of mental illness – depression (often as a result of bereavement from
the loss of a loved one, loss of a job or relationship), anxiety, claustrophobia (fear of enclosed
spaces), agoraphobia (fear of large, outdoor spaces), PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder),
autism and anorexia to name but a few. Our brains can no longer function properly. It can be
like we are trying to function through a sea of mud. All of these forms of mental illness are a
challenge in our lives, making the most mundane of tasks difficult to complete. Some of
these mental disorders have to be worked with as they are part of the sufferer’s lives. This
includes someone suffering from Autism (a mental disorder which makes the person
“different” from the rest of society. Autistic people be very intelligent if on what is known as
the “higher end” of the Autistic spectrum. This is known as “Asperger’s Syndrome”. Often,
these unusual individuals say things in a most unfortunate manner with an aggressive tone of
voice. They cannot relate to others and do not react in a “socially acceptable” manner. They
might pull faces or make noises when they should be keeping quiet. They might ask
questions at inappropriate times. They do like routine, get confused easily and tend to be
slow. These unusual individuals, when they find their niche, fly high and do extraordinary
well in life. They are often good at the more technical side in life, such as IT, Maths and
Science, where extreme detail is needed.
Some conditions can be worked with and, in time, the side-affects will become manageable
and the condition may disappear altogether. These conditions can be treated in a number of
ways, sometimes by medication or by a less invasive way, such as therapy. Hypnotism, Reiki
and acupuncture are good example of giving the patient a sense of well-being whereby the
trauma is no longer experienced and the symptoms are also treated, thus ending the suffering
for the client. Anxiety, depression, claustrophobia, agoraphobia, PTSD and anorexia are into
his category. All of these conditions are often triggered by something else. For example, the
person suffering from depression can become agoraphobic or suffer from anxiety.
If you are suffering from depression, you will lack motivation to conduct everyday tasks. It
is hard just getting out of bed in the morning as you dread the day ahead, wondering how you
are going to cope and how challenging it will be. Our brains feel foggy, you feel in shock
and unable to concentrate. A state of misery can follow us around all day and cannot be
shaken off. We find it hard to function properly and may stay in bed or around the house for
extended periods of time to escape from the world. The sufferer may eat or drink to excess or
rely on prescribed medication in order to number their pain. In extreme instances, suicide
could be attempted in an effort to escape from the world, other people and ourselves.
Mental illness can destroy our lives and, if left untreated, can lead to dreadful consequences.
It is a disease which tends to be taken more seriously these days. Many people suffer from
this debilitating condition, often as a result of the pressure from society. Too much is
expected and too soon. This could lead to serious illnesses, such as cancer (the disease most
prevalent in society due to undue stress, unhealthily foods, alcohol and tobacco) and possibly
death.
We are not achieving anything by rushing around, apart from making ourselves physically
and mentally ill. I think we need to be more patient and kinder to each other and ourselves.
We will then feel happier, healthier, more peaceful and better able to cope with the
challenges in life. It is time for us all to wake up and start communicating with each other,
meditating, enjoy time being creative and get outside in nature to find our true and already
complete selves.
Karen King Copyright February 2016
At the Airport
By Alexandra H. Rodrigues
Planes, planes, planes – People, people, people.
Metallic, disembodied voices announce arrivals, departures, or, more often than not, delays over the loudspeaker of the International Terminal.
At the ramps, all types and sizes of aircrafts run up their engines before they swing up into the air and wing through the sound barrier.
People don’t walk; they hustle. Some hurry toward the entrances, others rush toward the exits, from left to right from front to back. They push and pull suitcases and cabin luggage ahead or behind.
If you take the time to watch closely, you will find myriad emotions hidden in the ongoing commotion. The airport is a stage for drama stored up till finally being released, right here, where thousands of people part and meet.
Near a check-in counter, kneeling on the stone floor, a small boy blonde and blue-eyed is happily playing with a toy plane. He’s unconcerned that people might trip over him. The father is busy with filling out travel documents. Only now and then he shoots his son a stern glance. The cheeks of the little chap are flushed with excitement. Soon for the first time he will be in a real airplane. Together with his Daddy he will fly to see Grandma. What he doesn’t know yet is that he will have to stay with Grandma for a long time. His parents have gotten divorced. His mother is in prison and his father does not have the time to raise him.
Coming down the steps of an airplane, just arrived from Lisbon, a Granny disembarks. She is shakily stroking the pleats of her black native costume. Her wrinkled face shows the stress from an adventure so different from her usual rhythm of life in Calleta, the quiet fishing village at the outskirts of Madeira. Her frail, shrunk body trembles with excitement and expectation. She looks around timidly, searching. Momentarily her faded water-blue eyes light up. A husky man lifts his Texan hat from a receding graying hairline and welcomes her with outstretched arms. Her son! Her little Juca! Tears of joy enhance her weathered face while the man places a soft, tender kiss on her wrinkled face.
At the departure gate, a young couple lingers in tight embrace. The girlish figure of the woman shakes with hysteria. They’ve only been married for one month and now he has to go into the service. A kiss and yet another kiss is exchanged while they cling to each other. Then the young man tears himself away. Straightens his youthful shoulders and walks stiffly to the gate. She remains glued to the large window, her nervous breath painting ringlets on the glass while she watches the plane disappear on the horizon. Tears begin to wet her face.
At the gift counter, a flaming redhead is sampling gold bracelets and sure enough an apparent sugar daddy, pulls out his wallet. It says “Bermuda” on their baggage tag. The young lady knows the odds. She is going to get as much out of the trip and out of him as possible.
There is scene after scene starring on the airport stage. The noise of the planes becomes mere background music to the performance of human emotions.
During my 25-year career as flight attendant, I was often asked, “What is your favorite place?” My answer was and is, “Massapequa. Long Island, New York.” It is there I spent the best hours of my life. It is where I rooted myself after much turmoil in my youth and where I now live with my memories.
Mother-in-Laws
By Karen King
These can be so annoying. If you are a woman, you are very lucky if you get along with your
Mother-in-Law because, usually, no one is ever good enough for her Son. If her Son is her
only child, she may want him married off, for fear that he will not be able to look after
himself on his own. You will have to come up with the goods – the perfect Wife, Mother and
housewife... If not, she could well come between you and cause trouble. If the Husband
doesn’t keep this under control, it could end in major problems and, possibly, divorce! The
Husband will have to put you first if he wants their marriage to work.
If you are a man, you will probably not understand the close relationship between Mother and
Daughter. You may feel jealous or confused. You may not understand how they can talk
about so much or even understand what they are talking about! It could be something you
wish you had with your wife and you might start to wonder what is wrong with your
relationship. Or, you might simply be relieved to have a break and have some time to
yourself or with your friends.
Either way, remember that all family is important, but you mustn’t let anything get between
the bond of Man and Wife or things will start to falter and could break down forever if not
discussed and quickly remedied. Once the thread starts to fray, it may become irreparable
and, very likely, break forever. So, please take care, remember your promise and do your
best to work through your problems as a couple together for nothing is perfect all the time
and some things are worth fighting for.
Karen King Copyright February 2016
This is a typical German Kaffeeklatsch. The translation, literarily is
coffee gossip. The beginning of the “Real Housewives?” My mind
is delving into:
Thoughts on Conversation
By Alexandra H. Rodrigues
I do remember the event that took place in our house once every month. My grandmother would make sure that every pillow was in place. Four settings of cups, saucers and cake dishes were tastefully arranged around the table where my Grandma and her three guests would sit. At 2:30 the kettle with water wa