Animals
by Voltaire
What a pitiful, what a sorry thing to have said that animals are machines bereft of understanding and feeling, which perform their operations always in the same way, which learn nothing, perfect nothing, etc.!
What! that bird which makes its nest in a semi-circle when it is attaching it to a wall, which builds it in a quarter circle when it is in an angle, in a circle upon a tree; that bird acts always in the same way? That hunting-dog which you have disclined for three months, does it not know more at the end of this time than it knew before your lessons? Does the canary to which you teach a tune repeat it at once? do you not spend a considerable time in teaching it? have you not seen that it has made a mistake and that it corrects itself?
Is it because I speak to you, that you judge that I have feeling, memory, ideas? Well, I do not speak to you; you see me going home looking disconsolate, seeking a paper anxiously, opening the desk where I remember having shut it, finding it, reading it joyfully. You judge that I have experienced the feeling of distress and that of pleasure, that I have memory and understanding.
Bring the same judgment to bear on this dog which has lost its master, which has sought him on every road with sorrowful cries, which enters the house agitated, uneasy, which goes down the stairs, up the stairs, from room to room, which at last finds in his study the master it loves, and which shows him its joy by its cries of delight, by its leaps, by its caresses.
Barbarians seize this dog, which in friendship surpasses man so Prodigiously; they nail it on a table, and they dissect it alive in order to show the mesenteric veins. You discover in it all the same organs of feeling that are in yourself. Answer me, machinist, has nature arranged all the means of feeling in this animal, so that it may not feel? has it nerves in order to be impassible? Do not suppose this impertinent contradiction in nature.
But the schoolmasters ask what the soul of animals is? I do not understand this question. A tree has the faculty of receiving in its fibres its sap which circulates, of unfolding the buds of its leaves and its fruit; will you ask what the soul of this tree is? it has received these gifts; the animal has received those of feeling, of memory, of a certain number of ideas. Who has bestowed these gifts? who has given these faculties? He who has made the grass of the fields to grow, and who makes the earth gravitate toward the sun.
"Animals' souls are substantial forms," said Aristotle, and after Aristotle, the Arab school, and after the Arab school, the angelical school, and after the angelical school, the Sorbonne, and after the Sorbonne, nobody at all.
"Animals' souls are material," cry other philosophers. These have not been in any better fortune than the others. In vain have they been asked what a material soul is; they have to admit that it is matter which has sensation: but what has given it this sensation? It is a material soul, that is to say that it is matter which gives sensation to matter; they cannot issue from this circle.
Listen to other brutes reasoning about the brutes; their soul is a spiritual soul which dies with the body; but what proof have you of it? what idea have you of this spiritual soul, which, in truth, has feeling, memory, and its measure of ideas and ingenuity; but which will never be able to know what a child of six knows? On what ground do you imagine that this being, which is not body, dies with the body? The greatest fools are those who have advanced that this soul is neither body nor spirit. There is a fine system. By spirit we can understand only some unknown thing which is not body. Thus these gentlemen's system comes back to this, that the animals' soul is a substance which is neither body nor something which is not body.
Whence can come so many contradictory errors? From the habit men have always had of examining what a thing is, before knowing if it exists. The clapper, the valve of a bellows, is called in French the "soul" of a bellows. What is this soul? It is a name that I have given to this valve which falls, lets air enter, rises again, and thrusts it through a pipe, when I make the bellows move.
There is not there a distinct soul in the machine: but what makes animals' bellows move? I have already told you, what makes the stars move. The philosopher who said, "Deus est anima brutorium," was right; but he should go further.
Heartbreak Diagnosis
by Leah Moynihan
What causes a heart to break?
Of course a heart can not literally break, but figuratively speaking,
what are the causes and symptoms and how do you treat such a complex state as a broken heart?
An overused expression “My heart is broken”, but what does it really mean?
To set things straight, most people who say this do not know what they are talking about.
There has been multiple misdiagnosed cases of heartbreak. If one has suffered from it, then they would not say it out loud,
because it would be far too painful to admit, not only to others but mostly to themselves.
Hence why these people are only using the phrase for dramatic emphasis.
To really have a broken heart is detrimental.
To put it simply, it is like waking up and for a split second you believe it is Saturday but then you realise it is Monday.
Heartbreak is one thousand times worse and it lasts far longer. It is like every inch of your soul is being wretched from your very being. It’s like being held underwater and you don’t now when you will breathe fresh air again. It’s like walking in the darkness up the stairs and you miss a step and your heart plunges. Remorse, torment and anguish are all terms associated with severe cases.
The symptoms are as follows: mistrust of everyone, seeing other couples and being that person on the street who curses them, eating twenty tubs of chocolate ice cream while watching Bridget Jones' Diary and lastly, feeling extremely bitter at whoever broke your heart.
Now that we know the symptoms, what is the cure? That, I am afraid, is a convoluted question that the human race has been trying to determine for centuries. Time is often a clichéd term used in relation to this and I do not know if it is completely true that time heals everything. Heartbreak does lessen with time but it never truly goes away. It stays with you and it is always there looming at the back of your mind but it is something you learn from and helps you to develop as a person. It would be easy for me to suggest to stay away from triggers such as people or places but you should not live your life hiding either. The best cure is to simply accept the situation. Forget trying to fight it because it will only make matters worse. Acceptance is key. I also recommend doing things you like and this will keep your mind occupied and also, be with the people that make you happy and those who will be there for you. Most importantly, don’t be afraid to get your heart broken again because if you catch it once, it will make you stronger the next time. Don’t live in fear. That is the best advice I can give anyone. Just try stay positive, as hard as that may sound. Don't give up on love and don’t be afraid to get your heart broken again and again and again........ until you find someone who will finally heal it.
Myrna’s Story
By Raymond Greiner
Myrna Davis was born in 1950, and raised in an American mid western town. A beautiful child genetically influenced from her mother, which combined with her quick and agile mind. Myrna was chosen homecoming queen during her high school senior year savoring this prominent event. Myrna’s formative years bore the hallmark of a living Victorian valentine.
Popular males sought Myrna’s company during high school, as her Mother Dorothy served as self-appointed advisor.
Myrna received a scholarship from a nearby college entering her freshman year staying at the dormitory and returning home on weekends. Male attention escalated with frequent dates to campus activities. Bill Macgregor, the son of the local Chevrolet dealer made special effort to contact Myrna. Macgregor was a good-looking young man, also arrogant, and accustomed to having his way gifted a new Corvette each year from his father. Macgregor had a reputation for short-term relationships with young, beautiful women and on the continual prowl to seek a new trophy for his shelf.
Myrna eventually succumbed to Macgregor’s advances and a dinner date was established. Macgregor was scheduled to pick up Myrna at seven PM, arriving at seven thirty without a hint of apology. Myrna’s mother greeted Macgregor with a smile.
“William, it’s so thoughtful of you to invite Myrna to dinner.”
Macgregor nodded mumbling, “Nice to be here.”
Myrna looked ravishing, her dark auburn hair contrasting with bright, blue eyes accenting her intense beauty.
Macgregor reserved a table at the towns’ most lavish restaurant. During dinner he centered conversation on himself, explaining how he intended to
assume ownership of his father’s Chevrolet dealership when his parents retire to their Florida home. He detailed his plan to move into their mansion with ambition to expand the dealership increasing sales and profits. Myrna was unimpressed with Macgregor, his egocentric demeanor made her nauseous and uneasy. He showed no warmth or humor, never smiled or even a slight compliment directed at her.
Macgregor said, “Well, Myrna, how about us escalating our relationship a bit and move to a physical level.”
Myrna was silent for a moment, and then said, “William Macgregor, the son of an affluent auto dealer and a member of the gentry. During our dinner date you’ve dominated the conversation with incessant patter revealing a quest to increase your wealth when your parents retire. So, how am I to respond to this? Am I to feel honored, on a pedestal under a spotlight, overwhelmed by my good fortune of your interest in me? Why are we here, William? I want you to take me home now.”
Macgregor was stunned at Myrna’s reaction and at a loss for words. Anger then appeared on his face. “Alright, you ungrateful bitch. Do you realize how many women come on to me? They line up for my attention. You’re self-centered and think of yourself as beautiful. You really don’t do it for me.”
The valet brought the Corvette around and Macgregor got in on the driver’s side slamming the door. Myrna opened the passenger door and barely got inside when Macgregor screeched the tires lurching forward before Myrna was able to fasten her seat belt. Macgregor was silent, driving like a maniac, swerving in and out of traffic, speeding over seventy mph in a forty mph zone. He glanced at Myrna to evaluate her degree of fear. Then it happened. A truck pulled directly in front of them, as the truck driver incorrectly calculated the
Corvette’s speed. It was over in flash. Myrna’s head was driven through the windshield. The ambulance and police arrived pronouncing Macgregor dead at the scene; Myrna was unconscious and bleeding profusely from deep lacerations on her face, head and neck. Myrna was taken to the nearest hospital. After hours in the ICU her lacerations were stitched and her entire face bandaged with only space for her eyes and mouth. She remained unconscious and on a respirator. It was a horrid, tragic scene.
The year is now 2010 and a small medical clinic in a Kenyan village is a place of prominence in the village, with an attached room serving as a classroom to teach local children. A gray haired woman with a stethoscope hanging from her neck is tending a long line of patients. Dr. Myrna Davis healed from her tragic accident, returned to college, and received a medical degree. She is the most respected person in the village. Then one day she discovered a lump in her left breast causing concern. She traveled to Nairobi and x-rays revealed a tumor. She remained hospitalized, and received radiation and chemotherapy treatments and her cancer was diagnosed in remission avoiding surgery. Myrna became acquainted with a few of the doctors and nurses, who all knew of her work and clinic. Myrna looked dreadful without hair and an aging, deeply scarred face, but recognition of this woman’s achievements deflected superficial judgment. Dr. Davis was an iconic figure and professional respect for her was a vivid presence.
One morning while sitting on the side of her bed worrying about her clinic and her many patients Myrna was writing in a notebook. A nurse, Julia, and a friend, asked her what she was writing. Myrna told Julia it is her personal journal.
“Can I read it sometime?” Julia asked.
“Of course”, handing Julia the journal.
“It describes my early life, before Africa, telling of events inspiring me to commit to those entrapped in poverty. I’m also documenting my time in Africa and the experience with cancer.”
Myrna’s bedside phone rang, a familiar voice said, “Hello, Myrna? This is Monique; I received a call from Kalisha to inform me of your cancer. I requested a two-week leave from the hospital and they graciously allowed me time off. I’m at your clinic now and will begin to attend patients in the morning. Kalisha will help me organize. Please don’t worry I can handle this.”
“Praise God, I’ve been so worried. Kalisha is as qualified as any trained nurse and familiar with patient’s conditions. How can I ever thank you enough, you are my savior. I love you so much. My cancer is in remission and I should be back at the clinic before your two-week leave is up. Call me tomorrow to update me on things. I’m feeling pretty good today.”
Julia thanked Myrna for allowing her to read her journal. That evening she began reading Myrna’s story.
The Journal Of Myrna Davis: “As recovery progressed and bandages removed I could barely tolerate looking at myself in the mirror. The facial scars were horrid, and deep. My right eye muscles were damaged and the eye was stationary, adding to my disfigurement. Depression overwhelmed me, and my life seemed over. Prior to the accident physical beauty was my greatest asset carrying me to better places, opening opportunities. When I finally went home my parents were loving and supportive. This was helpful, but the anxiety was far too great to overcome and despair intensified.
“On my dresser was an envelope from New York City. One of my dorm mates was a photographer; she assembled a composite of photos submitting
them to a major modeling agency in New York City. The agency’s response letter said they were very interested in meeting me. Of course now such a notion was out of the question. My thoughts ended in a dead zone offering no clear path forward. It was a certainty social life would come to an abrupt halt, and it did. No more fixating stares from male admirers, mostly turn away looks, and women also distanced themselves. Women are drawn to pretty women, giving comfort to be seen with a beautiful friend creating social acceptance and identity.
“I healed enough to resume classes, which was extremely difficult. I didn’t return to the dorm, lived at home and commuted, shunning people as much as possible. Academic pursuits became my salvation, creating meaningful purpose, which allowed a small vein of life to flow forming a personal sanctuary.
“A few weeks after resuming classes an accident, injury attorney contacted me and scheduled a meeting. The attorney was Fred Johnson. He told me William Macgregor had a long history of speeding and reckless driving and advised me to file a claim against Macgregor’s estate. In his view it was a clear-cut case. I explained the modeling agency’s letter and he said it would be important regarding settlement since this opportunity is now void because of my disfigured condition. ‘I’ll seek a multimillion dollar settlement. Macgregor owned one third of his father’s dealership, and with his tarnished driving record no jury would refuse a large settlement. This case may take two years or more to settle but should go forward.’
“I agreed to the lawsuit and returned to my study routine directed toward a medical degree. The lawsuit proceeded slowly. McGregor’s father waged an expensive, drawn out battle to protect his assets. During this time
period I completed my medical school curriculum receiving a medical degree and assigned to a local hospital to serve an internship. This was my best time since the accident. My hospital associates differed from my college contacts, revealing no degradation toward me because of my appearance. I was beginning to feel a sense of my old self again. My previous physical beauty seemed less important as I became immersed in caring for patients and learning hospital procedures.
“The hospital where I was serving my internship a young black woman was also serving her internship. She was an exchange student from Johannesburg, South Africa on a scholarship grant planning to return to Johannesburg after her internship where she had been offered hospital residency. Her name was Monique Destivelle, and her father was French. Anti-government forces killed her father when Monique was a teenager. She lived with her mother and planned to reunite upon completing her medical training. Monique and I became close friends, and I looked forward to our meetings and discussions. She was delightful to talk with, and I enjoyed her French accent. She also was fluent in several native African languages from experiences during her father’s work as a diplomat. She often accompanied him to villages and towns as a child. Monique asked, ‘Myrna, have you read of Dr. Albert Schweitzer’s historic work in Africa? It’s such a wonderful and amazing story, how he and his wife established a small hospital in a very remote region of Africa now called Gabon. A fourteen-day trip up the Ocooue River to access the remote village they chose to build their small hospital in the spring of 1913. You must read his wonderful book The Reverence of Life. This book inspired me to pursue a medical career.’
“My friendship with Monique was like a gift from God, we spent all our spare time together involving deep, insightful conversations about our lives and choices we are facing. Monique was a brilliant woman; reading and study consumed her life. I read Schweitzer’s astonishing story describing the struggles he and his wife encountered. During Schweitzer’s time European influence was inundating the continent. I became captivated by the lives of this dedicated couple as they transcended barriers and challenges to establish a hospital for no reason other than to assist the oppressed.
“Anguish from my disfigurements dissipated; my life now is filled with hope and meaning. I have supporting parents, a solid career goal and a wonderful friend and colleague; although, dismay remains. Industrialized, economically driven cultures are plagued with ubiquitous over consumption, socially patterned in shallowness, image portrayal, revering material wealth with godlike status, separating from the oppressed. William Macgregor types have expanded in numbers. Selfishness is dominant. Humankind’s covetousness seems boundless.
“I received a call from Fred Johnson, and a settlement had been finalized. ‘Myrna, Macgregor had a large life insurance policy on his son with double indemnity upon accidental death, and the court was clearly in your favor from the get go. I initially tried for a ten million dollar settlement but was awarded seven million. The judge reduced the settlement amount. My fee will be ten percent; the balance will be deposited in your bank account. I’m gratified to assist you, creating potential improvement and opportunity to your life. Hopefully your future will be altered in a positive manner and it has been my pleasure to represent you. I’d enjoy an occasional message to inform me how you are managing your life as your medical career develops.’
‘Mr. Johnson I’m without words, and very grateful for your effort and achievement. I most certainly will keep you posted regarding my venture forward in life.’
“I was eager to discuss this event with Monique. We met at her small apartment.
“Monique, settlement on the Macgregor lawsuit has finalized at seven million dollars. I’m in a daze at this point. ‘Myrna, this is deserved, the suffering and effort to rise above your crisis may now open new dimension to your future combined with your medical skills. It’s exciting to think of the possibilities. Money is the source of most corruption, but also has the power of altruism.’
“I want to open a free clinic in Sub Sahara Africa, like Schweitzer. If I’m careful with the money I can build a clinic and write grant proposals for operating expenses. The clinic will exhibit validity to potential benefactors. I feel it’s possible, offering greater meaning to my life.”
Monique responded, “I’ll support you any way I’m able. It’s within the realm of reality. It can happen. I know you can do it.’
“After our internships Monique took the Johannesburg opportunity sharing an apartment with her mother, also as a support during her Mother’s aging years. I convinced her to take time and accompany me touring poverty stricken Africa to assess potential sights for my clinic. She agreed and the experience with Monique in Africa was monumental, a life-changing event.
“I had studied in depth the various regions of Africa and knew that someplace in Kenya would be my choice. Nearly fifty percent of Kenya’s populous is mired in absolute poverty. Many villages were without
educational systems or medical services. The next meal is a challenge and often not attained.
“We rented a car and traveled for many days to various locations in Kenya. We neither had seen nor could have imagined the degree of squalor we encountered. Children roaming streets with swollen stomachs from malnutrition, gleaning trash heaps for anything of the slightest value. One small boy kept repeating in broken English ‘Pepsi, Pepsi’. He had discovered frequently large, discarded, plastic Pepsi bottles would have a swallow or two remaining in the bottles and was ever watchful to discover this treasure. It was heart wrenching beyond description, tears formed in my eyes. As Monique and I spoke with this child, sorrow engulfed us. When I compared my ordeal to this child’s day-to-day struggle I felt a deep sense of guilt for feeling in such despair, consumed by self-pity. Kenya needed me and I needed Kenya.
“Monique left for Johannesburg and I concentrated effort on central Kenya about three hundred kilometers south of Nairobi. Several small villages were in this region and one particular village stirred my interest, Takula. The government red tape and paper work was overwhelming. I commissioned an enabler to assist navigate bureaucratic complexities to permit land purchase. Also by owning land, building and residence my visa became permanent. Building permits of various types were required. Within two months everything was in order and I began to seek a local builder. Before I left the US I contracted an architect to draft a plan for my clinic based upon research of similar clinics. Finally all was in place, and construction commenced. During construction I lived in a tent on my property.
“It was indescribably emotional witnessing my dream materialize, building this small clinic bringing medical services to the lives of many in
need. Villagers gathered daily to observe progress. I immediately began introducing myself explaining my mission. A young early teen girl named Kalisha visited each day and spoke English well. Kalisha was tall and strikingly attractive; her bright mind was clearly evident. Kalisha became my interpreter and guide. She schooled me on the native dialect, which was an immense help. After the construction was complete the organizational phase began and Kalisha became my paid assistant, an invaluable source relating to the entire effort. The clinic was named The Place of New Hope opening on June 1st 1982.
“I had not anticipated the dimension of this village’s need for medical services. It was an extreme awakening, also challenging to know where to begin. My building plan included a traditional school classroom attached to the main building. I would see patients until one PM and the remainder of the day taught children basic school curriculum. This became my routine, and also my passion.
“I wrote grant proposals in the evening, sending them to every source I could locate. With the evolution of the Internet this procedure became more efficient. In time responses provided enough funds to meet operational costs and basic personal needs.
“Monique married a fellow resident doctor, a Frenchman, Alain Bissonette. Over the years they have visited often and built a small house on my property planning retirement, envisioning becoming contributors in an effort to assist these beautiful people. As age descends on me such assistance is most welcome. Monique and Alain are gifted, dedicated physicians.
“Now I am fighting the invasion of cancer and am grateful to be in remission. Cancer tends to reoccur and I will do all in my power to prevent this.”
Nurse Julia returned Myrna’s journal the next day.
“Dr. Davis, your life has been a challenge few could imagine. I’m appreciative for the opportunity to read your journal. Reading details of your life exhibits power of persistence, discovering renewal revealing new direction and purpose. This is a compelling story. I’ll never forget reading of your life.”
Myrna returned to the clinic and was delighted to be back at her workspace and home. She greeted Monique and Kalisha, “I feel like I escaped from prison. I’m weak, but improving each day. Monique I am forever grateful for your help. Your presence erased my worries.”
That evening Myrna and Monique discussed their overall situation. Monique and Alain planned to retire next year, looking forward to moving permanently into their small house becoming active participants assisting in patient care. Myrna planned to expand her school and if Monique, Alain and Kalisha assumed most clinical duties it would allow Myrna to escalate her teaching ambitions.
“Monique, I must discuss something with you that has been haunting me.”
“Of course, tell me.”
“As I ponder my life’s unfolding arriving here with you at this clinic a sensation settles in my heart and mind. Contemplating my early life, William Macgregor, the horrid experience of the accident, the money from the lawsuit, our meeting and your introducing me to Schweitzer planting a seed leading us to where we are now. These events indicate spiritual influence, abstract, yet distinctly evolutionary generating from life’s natural occurrences. It seems impossible what we’ve experienced is coincidence.”
Monique said, “Myrna, I’ve never believed in coincidences, always felt destiny is pre ordained and our reaction to these energies embody manifestation of goals and achievements. This does emit spiritual presence as we serve the purpose and direction given us.”
Epilogue: The following year Monique and Alain moved into their small house. Myrna was grateful, as her patient count had become difficult to manage. Myrna performed some medical duties, but Monique, Alain and Kalisha carried the bulk of patient load. Myrna loved working with children, and this new support team created opportunity for greater dedication as a teacher.
At the present all is well in Takula village at The Place of New Hope clinic, as this dedicated ensemble formed a bond delivering love, harmony and assistance to many in desperate need. Myrna’s cancer did not return. Monique and Alain frequently express their joy living in their simple house and truly look forward to each day. Myrna sponsored Kalisha to attend advanced nurse practitioner training in Nairobi opening potential for a higher paying job. After Kalisha completed her training she returned to the village clinic telling Myrna this is where she chooses to remain. The word spread about this small clinic in a remote village in Kenya. Benefactors appeared from everywhere, and the clinic organized a food bank from monetary gifts.
Myrna’s was inspired from the effects of her crisis to rise above her disfigurements. When Myrna and Monique discovered a wayward child gleaning for drops of soda in discarded Pepsi bottles, their hearts were pierced, confirming promise to that child and promises to themselves activating ambition to improve the lives of those in despair.
As in Robert Frost’s elegant poem Stopping By Woods On a Snowy Evening states, “The woods are lovely, dark and deep but I have promises to keep and miles to go before I sleep.” The caregivers at The Place of New Hope clinic also have promises to keep and miles to go before they sleep.
The voice of destiny sings in varied rhythmic tones, often off key and out of tempo, like a catbird singing in a thorn bush. Then the sky opens and darkness becomes light as clouds of doubt vanish.
“I want to open a free clinic in Sub Sahara Africa like Schweitzer.”
Dr. Myrna Davis
Burns Night in the Lilac Town
By Herbert Eyre Moulton
(1927-2005)
This is the story --- more or less --- of what when two charming and resourceful young ladies quite flabbergasted our entire federation of chums, buddies, and miscreants raffishly known as The Anti-Decency League of Greater Chicagoland, or ADL for short, and this by dint of one of the most outrageous escapades that any of us had ever carried off.
It was back in the late 1940's, when most of us were only a year or two out of high school and intent on discovering new and original methods of shocking and, if possible, outsmarting the petty-bourgeoise, convention-strangled society into which all of us, quite without our consent, had been born. We had always. prided ourselves on our happy-go-lucky, nose-thumbing flaunting of the rules that had been laid down for us. But with this one coup-de-théâtre, these two accomplished doxies, Joan and Ginny (AKA the Duchess and her wily handmaid) set all our previous antics and accomplishments in the shade once and for all ...
How? By appearing in our midst one night with the most glittering trophies that any of us had ever seen or even dreamt about --- introducing into a nice normal Saturday night get-together a trio of handsome and virile Scots Highlanders in full marching regalia: kilted, sporanned, silver-buckled and complete with skirling bagpipes and tootling flute, recruited directly from Edinburgh's famed Royal Scots Marching Band, which earlier in the week had opened its first-ever engagement in America. For the record: Alex, Angus and Robbie.
This sudden, completely unexpected appearance on our home-scene, right "SPLAT!!!" in the middle of one of our pleasant but unexceptional bashes, sparked a night of almost barbaric plentitude, of impromptu Highland Flings and improvised Sword Dances (using our kitchen cutlery), of spontaneous Sing-Songs and Robert Burns poetry-recitations crowding one upon another, of toasts and Usquebaugh-quaffing unprecedented this side of Auld Reekie (Edinburgh to the uninitiated), of outlandish stunts like the communal conga-line "Colonel Bogeying" out the back door, down the stairs, around the corner, along the town's main drag, then through the street door, up the front stairs, and back into the apartment without losing a beat; and set dances with Angus as a most professional caller, leading up to the most sumptuous banquet any of us had ever wallowed in and which threatened to go on till daybreak --- then a grisly episode involving a temporary off-limits bathroom and a universal agony of bursting bladders and curses both loud and deep, and all to the ear-splitting squawling of a barage of bagpipes, like the Sorcerer's Apprentice, seemingly impossible to turn off. ("Sweet God," as my mother Nell moaned sometime during this surrealastic charade, "Is there no way to turn that one and his bagpipes off?!") --- mere blips, really, in an otherwise seamless montage of uninterrupted feasting-and-fun, the likes of which our everyday, dull-as-ditchwater suburbs have never experienced before or since ...
With its extended highs, and its alarms and excursions leading up to a pandemonium-blixted climax, this was an occasion that is still being talked about in the hushed, incredulous tones usually reserved for extra-terrestrial sightings or once-in-a-lifetime jackpot killings on one of those quiz shows forever cluttering up our TV-screens ...
And all due to the sheer persuasive chutzpah of our two vivacious vestals.
Wi’a hundred pipers
Who or what is a true Scotsman --- and how to become one when you'd like to be, but aren't? Questions such as these took on an urgent new impact one sunny autumn day in the late 40's when the Entertainment pages of the Chicago newspapers carried an annoncement intriguing enough to turn plain ordinary citizens (starting with our own suburban WASPS) into natives of Clydeside or denizons of Edinburgh Castle:
"SENSATION! THE PIPERS ARE COMING TO TOWN!"
And that was only the beginning. The text led off with a starting call-to-arms lifted from the old Scots Marching Song THE HUNDRED PIPERS:
"Wi'a hundred pipers an' a' an' a',
We'll up an' gi' them a blaw, a blaw!"
Aye, pipers such as those who'd soon be winging their way from Auld Reekie to the Windy City, where, for the first time ever, the celebrated Royal Scots Marching Band and Pipers would be performing a full program of marching-and-bagpipe music as featured in the legendary Royal Tattoo, a time-honored spectacle, which from time immemorial had been a fixture at Edinburgh's historic castle --- hair-raising, in-your-face skirling of bagpipes, bolstered by pounding drums and tootling winds and brass --- flashes of steel and silver, fur-trimmed sporrans bouncing like demented shaving-brushes on the brilliantly-colored kilts of Royal Stewart or Black Watch, with a full corps of skilled dancers offering a fantastic program ranging from set-dances such as reels, hornpipes, strathspeys and jigs. This truly once-in-a-lifetime happening, involving scores of skilled performers, heirs to centuries of stormy and dramatic history, from the earliest Viking raids, down through the tragic fortunes of Robert the Bruce, William Wallace and the doomed and romantic last of the Stuarts, Bonnie Prince Charlie, right down to the fierce "Ladies from Hell" of World War I --- would be opening shortly at Chicago's time-honored Stadium, erstwhile showplace of national political conventions and other forms of light entertainment from international sporting events to Sonja Henie's renowned Ice Revue and Ringling Bros.-Barnum and Bailey three ring circus. (Somehow my parents had managed to take me to them all!)
The annoncement had acted like a high-wattage volt of electricity on Scot and non-Scot alike, galvanizing, in our case, even the most comatose of our drones to hotfoot it to the W. Madison Street ticket-office. No matter which category of Scots- Americans, if any, one belonged to, the important thing was to be there and celebrate the occasion with as much ceremony and enthusiasm as possible, for who could say when an oppurtunity as rare as this would come our way again?
Three Categories of Scots-Americans
As for our own serried ranks, these could be said to fall, like Caesar's Gaul, into three separate categories, with varying pride and interest in what might be callled their Heathery-Hebridian Heritage ---
Heading the list would be the happy few who could call themselves The Real Thing, 100 % genuine Scots-Americans, beginning (in our own circle) with the indomitable Stephen clan, whose progenitor, organist-Sunday-composer-bon-vivant-and-munifiscent host, Robert M. Stephen, was born and bred in that most regal of cities, the classical Highland capital of Edinburgh. Thus, the birthplace of our beloved "Codgerkin", with his unstoppable train of richly rolled "R's", and his equally unstoppable free hand in pouring out brimming flagons of his signature Ballantine's, as he did almost every Sunday morning after church services at St. Mark's Episcopal, where I, often as not, gargled tuneful anthems, mostly of his own melodious composition ...
Besides the "Codg" were his gracious wife ("Herbert, I'm nothing but a cross old dame")and their two stalwart sons (my. self-appointed chauffeur-bodyguards) Robert M. Jr. ("The Baron") and his one-year younger brother George, equally brawny, but less flamboyant and more retiring, with a limp acquired, along with a Purple Heart, in a dust-up with General Rommel's crack desert-troops at El Alemain.
(Years later, I am pleased to say, the Baron, more expansive and baronial than ever, would hold an honored place in the world of higher education as one of the most popular and influential Professors of Political Science in America's midwest, with none of his sweeping humor or liberality diminished, and still eager to act as my unofficial bodyguard (whenever he thought I needed one.) As for George, that gentle soul later married a pleasant widow-lady of some means, and retired with her to Florida's West Coast, where he could really work at perfecting his golf game --- an original Scots institution (as you will recall.)
-------------------------
Getting back to those halycon days of the 40's, I remember those weekly post-church sessions at the Stephen's cosy, book-and-music-lined bungalow on Glen Ellyn's Annadale Avenue, with Lucille's freshly baked Scotch shortbread, Codger's generous hand at pouring out draughts of golden Ballantine's, and the boys' non-stop argle-bargle with me covering any topic from European History to our astonishing President Harry S. Truman, as among the most life-enhancing of my entire life.
Besides the bounteous Stephens, this upper stratum of 100 % Scots-Americans included, as well, assorted MacRaes, MacDonalds, and most notably, the gifted, mercurial, oft-infuriating, and highly disputatious St. Clairs, probably my family's closest friends in that part of the world, of a clan hailed in past days by no less than Sir Walter Scott in these words ---
"So still they blaze, when fate is nigh,
The Lordly line of high St. Clair ..."
It was their own daughter Joan who blazed highest and almost constantly, an electric storm in herself, and known to most of us as simply the Duchess, the Duchess of Sage, the surname being all that remained from a disastrous wartime marriage. Suffice to say that it was Joan, aided and abetted by her chum and closest confederate, the comely and quietly lethal Ginny Lee, who, all on her lonesome, rounded up and delivered into our midst the magnifiscent trio of Highlanders, whose sudden and fortuitous presence in our company was the motivation and raison d'être for this entire chronicle.
Now for the second category of Scots-Americans ...
This second stage of the tartan-tinged pecking-order would include what might be termed the loyal and patriotic half-breeds --- namely various Robertsons, Gregorys, Taylors, Leslies, Staufenbergs, and, last, but anything but least, my own family, by virtue of my paternal grandmother, Minnie R. Moulton, born Maria Ross Harper in Philadelphia in 1858, and descended (on the Scots side) from the Laings of Aberdeen, where since the 16th century (Mary Queen of Scots, Darnley, Knox!), they had been holding forth at the piquantly named Todholes-on-the-Pitgalvany. Another Philadelphia-Scots kinsman of ours was Samuel Ross, whose cousin Betsy gained immortality --- well, everybody knows how: sewing the first American flag for George Washington. (I do remember relatives of my Grandmother Moulton's generation speaking familarly.of "Cousin Betsy", so that, whenever glory was borne past in a parade, one or the other of them was bound to remark, "There goes cousin Betsy's handiwork.")
Rounding off our catalog: the Third Category, most numerous and most vocal of all, far too involved I their Scotsophilia to be considered mere Wanna-Be's, eager to investigate and, whenever possible acquire anything in the very least Scottish --- rainwear, broghams (big heavy boots for crossing sudden moors!), hand-woven tweeds, even the rough, hardy Harris, which in rainy weather always reeks faintly of seaweed --- hand-knitted goods, of course (cardigans, tams, long stockings, and all manner of tartan plaids, as colorful as sartorially possible: a perfect example of what they used to demean as a "run-on-sentence", okay?")
Even fonder were --- (and are) these all-Scots freaks of any of the myriad Scottish delicacies available, many of them in posh speciality shops, but also on the shelves of most upscale super-marts --- Scotch ham and salmon, shortbread and cakes of all breeds and sizes, teeth-shattering taffy and chunky marmelades (the best, laced with Whiskey!) and tinned broths and soups, even Haggis!
Likewise held in highest esteem: The Poems and Songs of Robert Burns (arguably the poet closest to the people's hearts). And for Scots and non-Scots alike, that greatest of Scotland's bequests to mankind, known both in the native Gaelic and the language of the Sassanachs: USQUEBAUGH, or just plain Whiskey, Water of Life. Internationally appreciated, nay, loved, no matter what the label --- be it Bell's, Dewar's, Johnny Walker, Glenfiddle, or any of countless magi names, never forgetting the jokey old chestnut listing the telephone number of His Holiness the Pope: VAT 69 --- Slainte! No matter what! (Does Irish Gaelic count at all?) Anyway, Bottoms Up! Glasses raised, as well, to any of the countless by-products as Drambuie and Scotch Mist, each in his own way a bit of Heaven.
Her Grace The Duchess Regrets
Ah yes, the opening night performance --- how to make as proud a showing as we could --- going smoothly enough, except for one small, but puzzling detail in a logistics operation roughly comparable to the D-Day landings in Normandy a handful of years before. Suddenly it became clear that the staunchest and most vociferous Scots-enthusiast hadn't signed up, had in fact inexplicably begged off attending the premiere, giving as an excuse the lamest in the catalog: "Due to a previous engagement." Prithee, WHAT "PREVIOUS ENGAGEMENT"? I know: DON'T ASK/ DONT TELL. (We never DID find out --- Frustrating is NOT the word!) By all this is meant (who else?) Joan, Duchess of Sage. This "lordly line of St. Clair", of which Joan was the young chatelaine, were perhaps the most interesting of all our many fascinating friends and asquaintances. They seemed to embody everything one imagines the classic Scottish temperament to be --- moody, dramatic, unpredictable, liable to switch in an instant from the darkly dour to highly charged exuberance with no warning-signal whatsoever --- yet singly or collectively such marvelous company that one gladly put up with all the rest of it, as one does (and gladly) with friends one truly cherishes. (Oddly enough, the Stephen clan were in almost every way, the exact opposite of the St. Clairs, and yet were just as "Scottish" of all their traits. Which is what makes Celts --- and my mother Nell was no exception --- brilliant sunshine one minute, a downpour the next. YOU try to figure them out --- but one thing is certain --- they are none of them dull. Infuriating, they can be (and often are), but boring? No way!
Joan's abrupt cancellation of her performance at the "Royal Scots" Premiere at the Stadium was all too typical of that demi-diva, whose imperious manner and regal eccentricity had, as already mentioned, earned her the soubriquet of Her Grace the Duchess (not yet 30 and already almost a Royal!). Hers was manner so formidable that any poor wretch heard muttering, White-Rabbit-like, "The Duchess! Oh! the Duchess! Won't she be simply savage?" could only mean, not Lewis Carroll's titled termagant, but the dazzler ensconced at the St. Clair family compound over on Glen Ellyn's wooded Riford Road. (In this account of that singular evening, when the Royal Scots Band briefly invaded Lombard-The-Lilac-Town, you will encounter two more of the St. Clair dynasty: Robert, Joan's brother, who, in this case, is merely a face in the crowd, and their mother (the Doyenne) Hazel, a gentle exception to everything already said about the Scottish temperament. Let me assure you that we have been every bit as puzzled as anyone by the quirks of the "pawky" Scots soul, my Dad and I, trying to keep up with my Irish mother's rapid changes of mood. Her saving grace was her blessed Irish sense of humor that never let her take herself too seriously. The winning formula: (and here's where the metaphors careen wildly off the tracks) Quicksilver VS. Dark storm-clouds: gloom, dark storm-clouds only occasionally relieved by shafts of sunshine. Anybody able to figure all that out, please let us in on that secret!
When the news of Joan's absense from the premiere-party became known, I believe we were all more than slightly relieved --- for once, somebody else might be able to get a word in edgeways. Besides which, she would doubtless make up for it the following Saturday when gracing the performance, with her favorite confederate, the lovely, but lethal Ginny Lee in attendance. Not for the first time would the query arise: what have the two of them been up to THIS time? For, as always when this dulcet duo was involved, something extraordinary, something quite outré would be afoot. And for those not quite familiar with that nifty little French adjective, here's what the Concise Oxford Dictionary says about it:
"Outré: Outside the bounds of propriety, eccentric, outraging decorum."
Talk about le mot juste!
As our tale unfolds, the appropriateness of this definition will become crystal-clear. For, as the old saying has it, thereby hangs a tale, not to belabor the French word-borrowings (but just one more?), one that holds the very raison d'etre of this entire narrative.
Aye, this was a happening that still lives in the collective memory as one of the boldest and most bizarre in the entire annals of the ADL, of Herbert-Parties, perhaps of the party going history of Greater Chicagoland, Subdivision: Western Suburbs. Once again the query: what had those two ornamental doxies, Joan and Ginny, wrought?
What --- to put it as simply as possible --- what they had wrought was introduce into a perfectly ordinary, normal Saturday evening Herbert-party a magnificent trio of virile and talented Scottish Highlanders in full parade dress, direct from Edinburgh Castle by way of the Chicago Stadium, complete with bagpipes and silver flute.
Was there ever such a spectacular entrance made into a gathering as this? COULD there ever be? And all because these two high-spirited and enterprising bimbos from Glen Ellyn, USA, got so carried away by the pulse-quickening, bladder-tickling spectacle they had been witnessing, an evening that so beggered every precious description and nullified every form of anticipation that, even before the final ovation had subsided, the two of them had hitched up their chic New Look skirts and trundled hurriedly backstage...
There, with adrenaline bubbling and adulation reaching orgasmic proportions, they gave themselves up to the melée of stamping, sweating Scots gladiators (or so they seemed to Our Girls), still vibrating from their three hours’ performance and the attendant triumph --- gave themselves up? No! They positively let themselves be engulfed, and, both girls babbling non-stop, they so enraptured three of the kilted hunks in particular --- namely Angus, the ultimate chauffeur-manager, Alex, prize piper and part time pianist-accompanist; and Robbie, star flutist and all of 18, a gentle ginger-haired gift for the Gods --- so enraptured and enchanted them that all three immediately dropped whatever plans they’d had for the evening and snapped up the girls invitation to journey forthwith, out to the western suburb of Lombard (Yep!! The promised goal:) Lombard , the Lilac Town, an ongoing party at the Moultons’ with Nell and the 2 Herbs, and all their works and pomps.
The Leader of the Band
By
Angela Camack
It is a clear April night in 1967 in New York City. Follow three pretty young women clipping along the sidewalk. One always walks a trace behind the others. If you watch her closely, you may notice that she sometimes laughs slightly after everyone else, or frowns slightly after everyone else. When secure, or after a drink, she can be very smart and amazingly funny, but much of the time she feels like she is walking on stilts in quicksand. You may see that her hands are clenched at times; she still occasionally bites her nails. You will notice her bright saffron Indian blouse, black miniskirt and black tights, the butterfly clasp in her dark brown hair, her huge green eyes and graceful walk. Her mind only sees that her body is curvier than what is trendy and her legs too short.
How did Eliza get in this predicament? By being the child of a small-town drunk, growing up chubby and spotty and in hand-me-downs. By being bullied at school and coming home to a father with a heavy hand when drunk and who insulted or ignored his children when sober. A mother who was too cowed and exhausted to intervene. A perfect recipe to produce a tongue-tied loner with shredded confidence, bullied in her home and out and ashamed everywhere.
But Eliza (born Ella) is brilliant, an honest-to-God off-the-charts genius, which got her a full scholarship at Barnard College. She has not looked back. She lost her baby fat, her spots and
some of her insecurity before her freshman year. She disappeared into the Barnard campus long
enough to watch everyone else, learning about what to wear, how to speak and how to act like a person who is normal in the world. New York City and Barnard are only two states away from her home, but the classes, the ideas, the talk, the theaters and galleries are a universe away. She began to make friends, dated and had two relationships that ended without (much) pain. She has worked every semester and summer, but this fall she will enter Columbia Law School. She plans to advocate for children’s rights. She owes it to other children, to watch out for the ones who will be kicked around by life much too soon. She has only herself, but is building her own path now, brick by stubborn brick. She knew she was starting to win her battle when she ran into someone from her high school while she was visiting the Columbia University campus, someone who put dissection frogs from the Bio lab in her lunch sack. He didn’t recognize her and tried to ask her out.
But back to Eliza (born Ella, but Eliza sounds kickier) and her friends/room-mates, Belinda, a law student, and Paige, an entry-level reader for a publishing house. Paige’s sister works for the agent for several rock bands. Part of her job is throwing the parties. She is responsible for providing food, drink, ice, substances of choice and pretty girls. The roommates often reap the benefits of this arrangement. Though the three arrive together, it is understood that they are not stuck together. All that is promised is that anyone who ventures out on her own will let the others know. Eliza has never gone off on her own. Sometimes it takes all her energy to feel normal among the singers, models, publicists and so forth that come to these parties. She still needs to walk slightly behind, laugh just a beat later.
The roommates grab a taxi and by 11 have arrived at the elegant Park Avenue address where the party is starting to boil. After winding through the crowd at the bar to claim drinks, they
enter the large living room. Couches and chairs are arranged in conversational groupings, and large pillows are scattered on the floor. One of the agent’s clients is performing. The group is staying over before leaving for their first American tour and is becoming famous. Not Beatles or Stones famous (and with the fear of becoming a few-hit wonder nipping at their suede booted heels), but enough to have had Top 40 hits and a respectably-sized pack of groupies trailing them.
The group is Swedish; their off-kilter English can sound charming, and their music is bright and optimistic. They don’t aspire to make music that is political or social or aim for psychedelic poetry. What saves the group from playing in dive bars (so far) is the lead singer. He is tall, with dark blond curls and blue eyes. His whiskey-and-cigarettes voice is a contrast to his baby face (sounding so much like blues that radio listeners occasionally think is an older Black man rather than a blonde kid from Stockholm). His slight awkwardness is endearing, as if he is still getting used to a growth spurt. Most important, he has what cannot be taught in any drama or music school in the world; he has something that compels you to watch him. Call it charisma, call it star quality, it is hard to define but easy to see. No matter who else on stage, he is the one your eyes follow. No matter if their music bounces and trills and the English lyrics sound like they were learned phonetically, by the end of every set he can spoon up the women and some of the men like Jell-O.
The three roommates claim pillows in the area around the band. “I looove this song,” coos a voice behind them. Her date is unhappy. “Please, they do crap. If rock was a supermarket, their
junk would be the strained peas. Look at that jerk up there. What a Swedish meatball. What is he trying to prove? Does he have a pair of socks stuffed down the front of his jeans?”
More people are crowding into the warm, smoky apartment as the set ends. A joint makes its first round. Eliza prays that nobody has the flu and tokes, briefly holding in the smoke. She
likes to keep her wits on nights like this, and the host’s expensive gin and imported tonic has already made her flushed and airy-headed.
The band puts their instruments away and joins the group. The lead singer drops his lanky frame onto the pillow next to Eliza, folding his long legs underneath him. “Did you like the music?”
“Very much.”
“I’m Theodor.”
“I know.” Oh, brother “I’m Eliza.”
“Eliza. What a nice name.” He cups her hand in his, graceful musician’s hands with fingertips callused from the guitar. “Liza, Liza, skies are grey/But if you smile on me, all the clouds will roll away….” he sings and trails off. “Gershwin.” He takes a smoke as the joint makes another circle. Eliza feels her flush deepen and fakes another toke. Her wits are already getting hard to keep.
Soon they are trading conversation as the party swirls around them. Band members join and leave, girls lean over him, hair swinging, but he stays. Often the movement of the party
separates them, as they circulate with other guests, get snacks or something to drink, but if she finds a seat he finds one next to her, folding his long body on the pillow like origami.
They feel comfortable right away, talking about his composing, his singing, his travels, her classes, her job at Columbia University’s Butler Library (a pastry store for smart kids). Soon he is laughing at the stories she tells about her job history. Soon other people are attracted to his laughter and are listening and laughing too.
She has found that turning unhappy things into funny things makes them easier. So, she tells stories about her job as an on-call psychiatric aide and the weekend when two delusional patients who thought they were John the Baptist kept fighting over the title. The restaurant that fired her when it became obvious that she was getting food poisoning after eating their food on break. The summer spent as a nanny in the Hamptons where she was chased around the pool by the husband and had to call for an ambulance when he developed chest pain. She is happy to be in command of the room, and of herself. (But she notices that Theodor sometimes laughs a beat after everyone else).
She feels the need to stretch, joins the line at the bathroom and then asks the bartender to give her tonic water, ice and lime, no gin. She can at least look like she’s part of the drinking crowd, which is getting louder and messier. Different types of smoke are clouding the air. She decides to step in the foyer for a few minutes, for a breather in more ways than one. She has held her own tonight, but it has tired her. Sometimes she does not know which is harder, the loneliness or the effort of being with people.
Drinking her drink, she feels two arms circle her waist, and almost drops her glass. “Found you!” Theodor. So she is the one he wants tonight. She can’t figure out why. She thinks back to her chubby, spotty adolescence, wondering if this is a trick, if at any moment, the band, the models, the agents and publicists, will turn and laugh at her presumption.
“I’m not going anywhere. I just needed to get away from the smoke for a second. I bet my eyes are red and my nose looks like a tomato.”
Theodor laughs and cups her face in his hands. “No. You are beautiful.” He kisses her. “And funny. More girls should be funny.” The kisses are very nice, but she is not so sure about the hand sliding down the front of her Indian blouse. She pulls away.
“I’m not going to lead you on, Theodor. I take things slowly.”
He kisses the tip of her nose. “Fair enough. I understand. We’ll go back. Ready for more smoke?”
“Ye gods, which kind?”
He happens to glance at her clenched hands. “You are nervous?” She opens her fingers. “Oh, no. I bite my nails sometimes. When I am nervous. Awful habit.”
He smiles and turns his hands over. The nails are bitten almost to nubs. “Performing. There is nothing like it. Like you are flying and taking everyone with you. You just have to remember not to think about crashing.” They go back to the party together.
By 2 a.m. the smoke is denser, the talk disjointed and the laughter shrill. Even Theodor’s energy is fading. They step out on the balcony. The cool, quiet air feels wonderful after the smoke and the noise. Eliza’s head briefly feels clearer until Theodor pulls her to his side. Danger. She gives in anyhow. “New York is a beautiful city,” he said. I love the streets. I love the energy; it is different than anyplace else. So many different kinds of people, from everywhere. Not like Stockholm, though. Even the stars are different. The trees, how the pavement feels. Stockholm is beautiful. Have you ever been?’
“No, but I’d like to. I’d like to go almost anywhere. Are you homesick?”
His grin returns. “I am desolate. You must cheer me up.”
“Aw, poor baby.” He turns her around and kisses her gently. Eliza wonders what would happen if she bit his full lower lip, just slightly. A shiver passes over his body.
“Can you change your mind about going slow?”
“Yes, I think so, yes.”
Theodor takes her hand and pulls her along behind him, barely giving her time to signal Belinda as they hurry along. Belinda does a double take; no, Eliza has never been the one to break away before.
His bedroom has half-packed suitcases. Two guitars and a mandolin are in the corner and sheet music is stacked on the desk. Sheets of staff paper are also on the desk, some erased and with dark slashes of comments in places.
Theodor is much more comfortable in the bedroom than she. He heads toward the bathroom, indifferently shutting the door, casual about whether it is shut or ajar. Eliza, on the other hand, firmly closes the bathroom door and runs the water during the entire time she is in there. Figuring the night’s acrobatics will earn her at least a glob of his toothpaste, she puts a dollop on her finger and “brushes” her teeth. Combing her hair, she takes a deep breath and hopes for the best.
Theodor is already nude and waiting. She notes that the unhappy listener from earlier in the evening was wrong about the socks.
Afterward, Eliza moves toward the side of the bed, damp, flushed again. Theodor takes her hand. “Will you stay tonight?” He turns out the bedside lamp and curves around her.
Eliza stays, but does not sleep well. The activity from the dregs of the party filters upstairs. The noises are different in this part of the city. She still cannot process what she has done, sleeping with a stranger and feeling only happy about it.
She moves away, not wanting to wake Theodor with her restlessness. He stirs anyhow, taking her arm. “Will you stay? Home is so far away tonight” ….. His voice trails off, into Swedish and back into sleep.
In the morning they make love again. Eliza showers and dresses right afterward, not wanting to embarrass them both by hanging around, but Theodor is not eager to see her go. (At least not yet.) Throwing on jeans and a T-shirt, he brings up coffee and croissants. They talk about
any number of things, the tour, the places he will go and what she knows about them, her job, her classes. How lovely the night had been for them.
He cups her face in his long musician’s fingers and kisses her. “So beautiful….” Eliza looks into his eyes and can see the boy who is homesick for Stockholm and bites his nails. But Eliza can tell that he is already moving on, to the tour, the next city, the next apartment, the next girl. Of course, the next girl.
She declines his offer to call for a car or even a cab to take her home, needing to be completely alone for a bit. She gets off the subway several stops early, hoping a walk would clear her head, which is still jumbled from gin, pot, smoke, adrenalin, confusion.
Back at her apartment, despite a headache and jittery feelings the walk has not cleared, she fixes coffee, needing to keep her hands and mind busy, but settled enough to face Belinda when she clatters into the apartment. She taps Eliza on the head with the Sunday New York Times, which does not help her headache at all.
“Eliza! I saw you! With the lead singer yet! Still waters run deep. Was it great?”
She doesn’t quite have an answer, but says it was. It was great. Belinda looks at her closely. “You OK, Eliza?”
“I’m fine, Belinda. Really fine.”
“OK. I’m here all day, you know. Me and the laundry and my Contracts book.”
For a week she had idle thoughts that he would come back. The sight of long legs in jeans, dark gold curls, the sound of a voice on the radio conjured him up, but she knew that one Saturday night was all she would ever have of him. But the night had moved Eliza one step closer to being fine, really fine. The chubby, spotty loner, bouncing like a bumper car between bullies at school and bullies at home, receded a little farther back into the past. The leader of the band had chosen her, had called her beautiful, had spent one of his New York City nights with her.
Eliza would still need to learn to find her worth in herself, not in the eyes of others, and to have some compassion for that chubby, spotty loner rather than pushing her away like everyone else had done. But she had time. You built your own path, brick by brick.
SIX LITTLE STORIES
By Durgesh Verma
{ 1 }
ONCE upon a time, villagers decided to pray for rain.
On the day of prayer all people gathered ... but only one boy came with an umbrella.
That's
FAITH!
-----------------
{ 2 }
WHEN U throw a baby in the air, she laughs because she knows U will catch her.
That's
TRUST!
------------------
{ 3 }
EVERY night we go to bed, without any assurance of being alive the next morning ...
still ... we set the alarms to wake up.
That's
HOPE!
-----------------
{ 4 }
WE plan big things for tomorrow in spite of zero knowledge of the future.
That's
CONFIDENCE!
-------------------
{ 5 }
WE see the world suffering, and marriages breaking
but still ...
we get married.
That's
LOVE.
--------------------
{6}
Now that U've been blessed, don't be stingy with the blessing, share this with some friends.
That's
CARING!
(Foto mía en Tudanca de Ebro, Burgos, España)
MIS DIOSES Y MONSTRUOS
In Spanish
By Daniel de Culla
André Gide nos dejó dicho: “todos llevamos un dios de bolsillo”, y yo añado: “y monstruos en el capirote; la cabeza”.
Hay dioses y monstruos de primera categoría y de segunda categoría, cantados y adorados a placer, u odiados, que crearon los cuentos, el refrán, y la anécdota de cualquier manera.
A veces, muchas, ensalzados en batallas y guerras; otras, impuestos por el crimen y la hoguera. Dioses y monstruos, todos ellos que quieren nuestro espirito enjaulado y nuestros cuerpos, sin duda, en la Buttercup Position (posición de ranúnculo), o posición del misionero (missionary possition); siempre esperando un paraíso de felicidad “absolutely zonked” (absolutamente mamados), y controlados por sus guardianes: ángeles, arcángeles, demonios, inquisidores, fuerzas represoras, a cual más y con más mala leche.
Clasificación de Dioses y Monstruos a la vez:
El Apostól Sri Svadasti, cantó: “There is Serenity in Chaos. Seek ye the Eye of the Hurricane (Hay Serenidad en el Caos. Busca ya el Ojo del Huracán).
De entre estos dioses y monstruos, de primera y segunda categoría, (si son recitados infinitamente, el primero será el último, y el último el primero), podemos citar a St. Hung Mung, sabio de la
antigua China, inventor del sagrado Caos; St. Mo-jo, espíritu encantador; St. Zaratud, Friedrich Nietzsche; St.Elder Mal, espíritu que refresca la experiencia; St. Gu-lik, mensajero de la Diosa Eris esotérica, figurado como una cucaracha: St. Yossarian: claridad y confusión están en él; St. Quixote ( Don Quijote, Cervantes); St. Bokonon (Kurt Vonnegut), abad de una religión ficticia practicada por muchos de los personajes en su novela Cat's Cradle (Cuna de Gato, novela de ciencia ficción. Muchos de los textos sagrados del bokononismo fueron escritos en forma de calipsos (estilo de música afro caribeña).
Entre los más mortales, siguiendo el slogan de Norton Cabal, S.F.: “Everybody understands Mickey Mouse. Few understand Herman Hesse. Only a hand ful understood Albert Einstein. And nobody understood Emperor Norton (Todo el mundo entiende a Mickey Mouse. Pocos entienden a Herman Hesse. Sólo una mano completa entendió a Albert Einstein. Y nadie entendió al emperador Norton), podemos citar a:
Apolo; Apiano, adoradores de un Asno; Apuleyo, quien se convirtió en Asno; Cambriles, el famoso Asno capuchino que levitaba y veía a Dios; Bufón, que cantaba las glorias del Asno como ninguno; Caco, ese ladrón formidable, lleno de maldad y de enredos; como, en un tiempo pasado, el famoso Luis Candelas, adorado y venerado en Madrid, Espàña; el Cíclope de un solo ojo, amado por los niños en sus cuentos; Onocentauros con dos lenguas, Onotauros, animales mestizos del toro y la yegua, signos de la Lujuria; Maquiavelo; Midas, quien nació con orejas de Asno; Príapo; Sileno; Thartac, el dios de los Heveos, con cabeza de Asno;Tirano, unos de los más procreadores del Mundo. Cuentan que nació, en la Prehistoria, en Tirano, localidad y comuna italiana de la provincia de Sondrio, región de Lombardía, en la frontera con Suiza, quien engendró a Hitler, Mussolini, Franco, y a tantos otros que en el mundo rigen el destino de los imbéciles y tontos bendecidos bajo palio, adoradores y benefactores, ¡benditos ellos¡ de la Burra de Balam, y de Borak, la Burra de Mahoma.
Yo, de quedarme, me quedo con Eris esotérica, diosa de la Discordia y la Confusión. ¡No hay otra ¡
Anécdota:
A las puertas de la Poetry Society, 22 Betterton Street, London, England, alguien me dio una hoja volante con esta enseñanza:
“Mucho saber del Cielo y sus dioses; de la Tierra y sus monstruos; pero poco saber del suelo, pues no has visto esa caca de perro que has pisado”.
***
Translation:
MY GODS AND MONSTERS
André Gide left us saying:
"We all carry a God in our pocket",
and I added:
"And monsters in the head".
There are Gods and monsters of first category and second category, sung and worshiped at will, or hated, who created the stories, the proverb, and the anecdote in any way.
Sometimes, many, extolled in battles and wars; others, imposed by crime and the bonfire. Gods and monsters, all of them who want our spirit caged and our bodies, no doubt, in the Buttercup Position (ranunculus position), or missionary position (missionary possition); always waiting for a paradise of happiness "absolutely zonked" (absolutely blow-jobs), and controlled by their guardians: angels, archangels, demons, inquisitors, repressive forces, which more and with more bad milk.
Classification of Gods and Monsters at the same time:
The Apostle Sri Svadasti, sang: "There is Serenity in Chaos. Seek ye the Eye of the Hurricane (There is Serenity in Chaos. Look for the Eye of the Hurricane).
Among these Gods and monsters, first and second category, (if they are recited infinitely, the first will be the last, and the last the first), we can quote St. Hung Mung, wise of ancient China, inventor of the sacred Chaos ; St. Mo-jo, charming spirit; St. Zaratud, Friedrich Nietzsche; St. Elder Mal, spirit that refreshes the experience; St. Gu-lik, messenger of the Goddess Esoteric Eris, pictured as a cockroach: St. Yossarian: clarity and confusion are in him; St. Quixote (Don Quixote, Cervantes); St. Bokonon (Kurt Vonnegut), abou of a fictitious religion practiced by many of the characters in his novel Cat's Cradle (Cat's Cradle, science fiction novel.) Many of the sacred texts of bokononism were written in the form of calipsos (style of Afro Caribbean music).
Among the most deadly, following the slogan of Norton Cabal, S.F .:
"Everybody understands Mickey Mouse. Few understand Herman Hesse. Only a handful understood Albert Einstein. And nobody understood Emperor Norton, we can quote:
Apollo; Appian, worshipers of a Donkey; Apuleyo, who became Donkey; Cambriles, the famous Capuchin Ass that levitated and saw God; Bufon, who sang the glories of Donkey like none; Caco, that formidable thief, full of evil and entanglements; like, in a past time, the famous Luis Candelas, worshiped and venerated in Madrid, Spain; the one-eyed Cyclops, loved by children in their stories; Onocentauros with two languages, Onotauros, mestizo animals of the bull and the mare, signs of Lust; Machiavelli; Midas, who was born with Donkey's ears; Priapus; Silenus; Thartac, the god of the Hevees, with the head of Ass; Tyrant, one of the most procreative of the World. They say that he was born, in Prehistoric times, in Tirano, the Italian town and commune of the province of Sondrio, in the Lombardy region, on the border with Switzerland, who fathered Hitler, Mussolini, Franco, and many others who rule the destiny in the world of the imbeciles and fools blessed under the canopy, worshipers and benefactors, blessed they, of the Balam’ She-Ass, and of Borak, Muhammad’ She-Ass.
My belief might be in the Esoteric Eris, Goddess of Discord and Confusion.
Anecdote:
At the gates of the Poetry Society, 22 Betterton Street, London, England, someone gave me a flyer with this teaching:
"Much to know about Heaven and its Gods; about the Earth and its monsters; but little to know about the soil, because you have not seen that dog poop that you have stepped on ".
MIS DIOSES Y MONSTRUOS
In Spanish
By Daniel de Culla
André Gide nos dejó dicho: “todos llevamos un dios de bolsillo”, y yo añado: “y monstruos en el capirote; la cabeza”.
Hay dioses y monstruos de primera categoría y de segunda categoría, cantados y adorados a placer, u odiados, que crearon los cuentos, el refrán, y la anécdota de cualquier manera.
A veces, muchas, ensalzados en batallas y guerras; otras, impuestos por el crimen y la hoguera. Dioses y monstruos, todos ellos que quieren nuestro espirito enjaulado y nuestros cuerpos, sin duda, en la Buttercup Position (posición de ranúnculo), o posición del misionero (missionary possition); siempre esperando un paraíso de felicidad “absolutely zonked” (absolutamente mamados), y controlados por sus guardianes: ángeles, arcángeles, demonios, inquisidores, fuerzas represoras, a cual más y con más mala leche.
Clasificación de Dioses y Monstruos a la vez:
El Apostól Sri Svadasti, cantó: “There is Serenity in Chaos. Seek ye the Eye of the Hurricane (Hay Serenidad en el Caos. Busca ya el Ojo del Huracán).
De entre estos dioses y monstruos, de primera y segunda categoría, (si son recitados infinitamente, el primero será el último, y el último el primero), podemos citar a St. Hung Mung, sabio de la
antigua China, inventor del sagrado Caos; St. Mo-jo, espíritu encantador; St. Zaratud, Friedrich Nietzsche; St.Elder Mal, espíritu que refresca la experiencia; St. Gu-lik, mensajero de la Diosa Eris esotérica, figurado como una cucaracha: St. Yossarian: claridad y confusión están en él; St. Quixote ( Don Quijote, Cervantes); St. Bokonon (Kurt Vonnegut), abad de una religión ficticia practicada por muchos de los personajes en su novela Cat's Cradle (Cuna de Gato, novela de ciencia ficción. Muchos de los textos sagrados del bokononismo fueron escritos en forma de calipsos (estilo de música afro caribeña).
Entre los más mortales, siguiendo el slogan de Norton Cabal, S.F.: “Everybody understands Mickey Mouse. Few understand Herman Hesse. Only a hand ful understood Albert Einstein. And nobody understood Emperor Norton (Todo el mundo entiende a Mickey Mouse. Pocos entienden a Herman Hesse. Sólo una mano completa entendió a Albert Einstein. Y nadie entendió al emperador Norton), podemos citar a:
Apolo; Apiano, adoradores de un Asno; Apuleyo, quien se convirtió en Asno; Cambriles, el famoso Asno capuchino que levitaba y veía a Dios; Bufón, que cantaba las glorias del Asno como ninguno; Caco, ese ladrón formidable, lleno de maldad y de enredos; como, en un tiempo pasado, el famoso Luis Candelas, adorado y venerado en Madrid, Espàña; el Cíclope de un solo ojo, amado por los niños en sus cuentos; Onocentauros con dos lenguas, Onotauros, animales mestizos del toro y la yegua, signos de la Lujuria; Maquiavelo; Midas, quien nació con orejas de Asno; Príapo; Sileno; Thartac, el dios de los Heveos, con cabeza de Asno;Tirano, unos de los más procreadores del Mundo. Cuentan que nació, en la Prehistoria, en Tirano, localidad y comuna italiana de la provincia de Sondrio, región de Lombardía, en la frontera con Suiza, quien engendró a Hitler, Mussolini, Franco, y a tantos otros que en el mundo rigen el destino de los imbéciles y tontos bendecidos bajo palio, adoradores y benefactores, ¡benditos ellos¡ de la Burra de Balam, y de Borak, la Burra de Mahoma.
Yo, de quedarme, me quedo con Eris esotérica, diosa de la Discordia y la Confusión. ¡No hay otra ¡
Anécdota:
A las puertas de la Poetry Society, 22 Betterton Street, London, England, alguien me dio una hoja volante con esta enseñanza:
“Mucho saber del Cielo y sus dioses; de la Tierra y sus monstruos; pero poco saber del suelo, pues no has visto esa caca de perro que has pisado”.
***
Translation:
MY GODS AND MONSTERS
André Gide left us saying:
"We all carry a God in our pocket",
and I added:
"And monsters in the head".
There are Gods and monsters of first category and second category, sung and worshiped at will, or hated, who created the stories, the proverb, and the anecdote in any way.
Sometimes, many, extolled in battles and wars; others, imposed by crime and the bonfire. Gods and monsters, all of them who want our spirit caged and our bodies, no doubt, in the Buttercup Position (ranunculus position), or missionary position (missionary possition); always waiting for a paradise of happiness "absolutely zonked" (absolutely blow-jobs), and controlled by their guardians: angels, archangels, demons, inquisitors, repressive forces, which more and with more bad milk.
Classification of Gods and Monsters at the same time:
The Apostle Sri Svadasti, sang: "There is Serenity in Chaos. Seek ye the Eye of the Hurricane (There is Serenity in Chaos. Look for the Eye of the Hurricane).
Among these Gods and monsters, first and second category, (if they are recited infinitely, the first will be the last, and the last the first), we can quote St. Hung Mung, wise of ancient China, inventor of the sacred Chaos ; St. Mo-jo, charming spirit; St. Zaratud, Friedrich Nietzsche; St. Elder Mal, spirit that refreshes the experience; St. Gu-lik, messenger of the Goddess Esoteric Eris, pictured as a cockroach: St. Yossarian: clarity and confusion are in him; St. Quixote (Don Quixote, Cervantes); St. Bokonon (Kurt Vonnegut), abou of a fictitious religion practiced by many of the characters in his novel Cat's Cradle (Cat's Cradle, science fiction novel.) Many of the sacred texts of bokononism were written in the form of calipsos (style of Afro Caribbean music).
Among the most deadly, following the slogan of Norton Cabal, S.F .:
"Everybody understands Mickey Mouse. Few understand Herman Hesse. Only a handful understood Albert Einstein. And nobody understood Emperor Norton, we can quote:
Apollo; Appian, worshipers of a Donkey; Apuleyo, who became Donkey; Cambriles, the famous Capuchin Ass that levitated and saw God; Bufon, who sang the glories of Donkey like none; Caco, that formidable thief, full of evil and entanglements; like, in a past time, the famous Luis Candelas, worshiped and venerated in Madrid, Spain; the one-eyed Cyclops, loved by children in their stories; Onocentauros with two languages, Onotauros, mestizo animals of the bull and the mare, signs of Lust; Machiavelli; Midas, who was born with Donkey's ears; Priapus; Silenus; Thartac, the god of the Hevees, with the head of Ass; Tyrant, one of the most procreative of the World. They say that he was born, in Prehistoric times, in Tirano, the Italian town and commune of the province of Sondrio, in the Lombardy region, on the border with Switzerland, who fathered Hitler, Mussolini, Franco, and many others who rule the destiny in the world of the imbeciles and fools blessed under the canopy, worshipers and benefactors, blessed they, of the Balam’ She-Ass, and of Borak, Muhammad’ She-Ass.
My belief might be in the Esoteric Eris, Goddess of Discord and Confusion.
Anecdote:
At the gates of the Poetry Society, 22 Betterton Street, London, England, someone gave me a flyer with this teaching:
"Much to know about Heaven and its Gods; about the Earth and its monsters; but little to know about the soil, because you have not seen that dog poop that you have stepped on ".
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.
Respect every thought.
Respect love.
Respect making love.
Respect procreation.
Think positive.
Life is a journey.
Always.
We need diversity.
Respect the eternal now.
Feel.
To illustrate, a story:
In 1990, the German pop group “Snap” released a multiple No. 1 hit song that became well-known for its catchy phrase “I’ve got the power!”
22 years later, in 2012, Jeffrey Metzig released a response to that song, a humorous YouTube-video with pop hits that whose lyrics could be misunderstood. Consequently, “I’ve got the power!” became “Agathe Bauer!” and “All the leaves are brown” sung by “The Mamas and the Papas” became “Anneliese Braun”.
This comical misunderstanding is like the world we live in: we hear and see something, but we misinterpret what we see and sometimes even mistake what we see for something else. God’s phrase from Neale Donald Walsch’s book “Conversations with God” fits in perfectly here: “You have all misunderstood me!”
It is therefore quite interesting to begin this article with the hit phrase “I’ve got the power!”, because that is exactly the point of that operation. In order to illustrate how international and pan-humane this entire force of action is, we begin, like Maria von Trapp in “The Sound of Music” on the Austrian hills, at the very beginning.
You know you have energy, you have an energy output. You also probably know that this energy is centred around your feelings. Scientists have found out that thoughts weigh something. This has been tested in laboratories. A prominent British psychologist also claimed that no thought ever comes without a feeling, even when we think it does.
Benjamin Radford from “Live Science” spoke about a Massachusetts doctor named Duncan MacDougall who, in 1907, tested the weight of six terminally ill patients before during and after death and found out that there was a consistent weight loss after death, more or less one of 21 grams on average.
There are pinacyanode bromide filters that can help you see auras, as well. Semyon Kirlian’s scientific photography from 1939 proved not only that auras exist, but that we can photograph them. This is no mumbo-jumbo, but the most important reality in life and the centre of all religions: our spiritual truth. It also is, if we are agnostics, atheists, panthesist, egyptologist deists or believers in an organized religion.
“You have all misunderstood me,” is probably the most imprtant divine phrase, because everything you do, yes, you reading this, every thought you think, every doubt you have, every conviction, every joke you tell, it all is proof of your feelings, your energy and the fact that you are more, much more than a body. Whatever you might think, you are a soul. Don’t say: “I have a soul!” Then you have misunderstood everything. No, you are a soul.
Having said that, we return to the energy part.
I will illustrate.
If you are sitting in a bus, for example, standing at a traffic light, and looking out at a pedestrian walking or standing on the sidewalk, turning his or her back toward you: gaze at that person for even only ten seconds, you will see that person turn around and look at you. There’s glass between you. The person wouldn’t hear or see you. That goes for any situation where you are looking at person from a distance. The reason, whether you like to admit it or not, is energy.
My wife and I had dinner with some good friends a number of years ago. It was a nice evening with good Greek food, delicious red wine and pleasant conversation. The subject of conversation came upon the subject of spirituality and I uttered:
“It is high time people trust what it inside them!”
The husband of my wife’s friend, my male counterpart, raised his eyebrows, lift his shirt and looked inside it upon his own chest and exclaimed:
“What’s inside them?”
The memory of this one event went bouncing around my braincells for quite a bit.
It told me that not everyone can relate to phrases such as “what’s inside them”. When people do relate to it, they wave the comment off with a joke. That, to me, is a lack of
insight.
So something better had to be coming along, something that everyone could relate to, making it possible to show people how close to God we all are, that our concious eternal energy never ever dies and that it always has existed.
In fact, that death is an invention.
Physical death exists, yes.
The soul, however, lives forever.
What then is the soul?
Can we feel it?
Yes.
Indeed.
That’s it.
We don’t only have souls.
We are souls.
That is our identity.
Soon enough, the answer came rolling along into my soul, coming from God knows where: the ether, the ancestors that already made the transition into the next world or from the almighty hints of reality. I encountered a basic fact. A tool I was taught how to use in acting class, which I pass on as a teacher in theatrical workshops on a regular basis nowadays.
Sense memory, using emotions in roleplay associated with the senses, and emotional memory, using feelings associated with emotional recollections, these tools are based on something we all have. Feelings are spiritual entities, the evidences of divinity, not just hormones and endorphines. If they were only the products of physical juices, they would not mean so much to us, the emotions. We would not be able to pick up energies from friends long gone and then meet them on the street an hour later. We would not be able to change our own lives for the better just by remaining calm. We would not hear long gone songs on the radio by chance that we talked about just the day before. The signs on the billboards and our favorite song wouldn’t fit so perfectly with the life of our moments.
Our emotions are our radar. Life is energy. It always comes back to us.
Remote controls, cellular phones, microwaves, radios, satillites, television sets: they send, transmit and receive energy. Uranium radiates energy. Even photosynthetis converts light energy into chemical energy and we have schools that work on proving that to us.
So why are there not more schools that work on proving how spiritual energy is sent, transmitted and received? Now, when we go into a room with a bad vibe, we don’t need any screams or yells to know that there’s been a fight in there. When we encounter a dominant or difficult person, he or she does not have to frown in order to scare us. We know that person is difficult just intuitively.
We transmit and receive throusand of feelings a day, even the people who say they do not believe in God believe in something, send something, receive something. Even atheists are emotional and thereby spiritual. Ergo: no one escapes God.
I really believe that everyone believes in God, they just don’t know that this is what it is that they believe in, because they give off spiritual energy. The bully on the playground has no idea how much harm he created in his buddy’s soul as he stood by the tree, being pushed back and laughed at: he gave him lifelong bad energy to endure. The artist on stage does not how much hope he gave his audience that other night: he gave them happiness along with careers and love-affairs and brilliant ideas.
Every single emotion means something and every single emotion has a repercussion.
So, why do we believe in all these scientific energies and reject our own? Because the other is scientific and our own is not? Are you so sure about that? Body heat is measurable, brain waves can be measured, emotional outbursts, tears and even laughter have been scientifically measured in energy-waves, not from the brain, but coming from the diaphragm. The soul weighs something. The energy that leaves the body upon the time of death causes a weigh loss. We see the proof of our own energy every day. A bad vibe makes one person cry. A good vibe turns into a career, a marriage or a life-time friendship. You look at someone from behind from the window of a bus and that person turns around and looks at you.
It’s in us all of the time, everywhere we go.
Why don’t we trust that?
Because we don’t trust ourselves.
We should.
And the fact that the soul is eternal is something we want, something sacred.
We trust the doctors, the lawyers, the clerics, the books, our parents, but we never trust ourselves. It is our next mission. If we begin trusting our feelings, and not what others tell us to feel or think, we can end all wars. No criminal has ever loved him- or herself. No dictator ever liked himself. Love yourself as your neighbor. That’s how everything starts.
Now, look at the world from God’s perspective. Call God what you want: the eternal creator, the creative intelligence, God, the Lord, Brahma, Allah, Manitou, pick any name. If you created everything, you created everyone of every confession. If you, as the Lord, are by nature of another world, you would not care what your children called you.
I know of the father of four daughters. The first daughter calls her father “Daddy!”. The second calls him “Papa!”. The third calls him “Father!” and the forth calls him by his first name, Mark. But he is still the same guy. With God, we are dealing with the same principle. We are dealing with the intelligence behind all of this, an intelligence from another source. That source is eternal, emotional.
God is above religions. We only created religions to reach him, but God is with us all of the time, anyway, whether we believe in him or not, whether we call him one thing or another. Denying him only means he exists. If he didn’t exist, we could not deny him. He is inside our emotions, our souls, our love, our eternity, and he is never leaving us.
You know yourself that you cannot really describe a feeling. If you went to a wonderful concert that made you feel good, could you really describe the concert to someone who wasn’t there? Haven’t we all experienced coming home from a great movie and telling our loved ones about it and getting only lame reactions?
“Hey, it was absolutely fantastic!”
Our friends and family smile and nod, but if they weren’t there, so what can they say?
God is beyond words, beyond rituals, he cannot be described. He has to be felt.
He is more than an emotion, but you can feel him, right now, right here.
In Aerosmith-frontman Steven Tyler’s book “Does the Noise in My Head Bother You?” the rocker describes sitting in the forest as a child, enjoying Mother Nature: “... all of this combined in one beautiful moment of me, feeling God, but then I’d met Her once before in the forest.”
Her, God, the source of all creativity, also has female energy, what Carl Gustav Jung called the Anima. So why shouldn’t God be a Her? God is beyond genders, anyway. And as Tyler also points out: there are no coincidences.
I do believe in Jesus being God’s son, in the resurrection.
Maybe I even knew him in an earlier life.
If we are eternal souls that feel him through our emotions, we have surely reincarnated loads of times. Haven’t you heard of little James, who proved his memories of being a crashed WWII-fighter-pilot. He knew his former lethal crash-sight and his sister’s nickname.
That also explains deja-vu. It all makes sense.
I also believe that God appeared inside or in front of many of the prophets of history.
I also believe that life is rich and versatile and that the Lord can appear in many ways.
I also believe that God is in our emotions.
So when you pray, pray to your emotions.
Trust your emotional God, that is a part of the eternal intelligence inside your feelings.
Many of us have lost touch with that.
Find what you lost.
Ask the questions.
There is only one answer, articulated in a thousand ways.
What was before the big bang?
What’s beyond the end of the universe?
How small can a part of something be? How big? When we go deep enough into the microcosmos, will we come out into the macrocosmos? And is all of that inside us?
Furthermore, is this just one of many universes?
We fall in love, make love, make children, who grow up, fall in love, make love, make children, who fall in love and make love and make children. The act of spiritual and physical love, be it physical or spiritual, is sacred, not sinful, and has to respected. It is peaceful and a better alternative to war. So when you’re at the movies next time, don’t cheer when the hero shoots someone down. Cheer when he embraces and makes love to his wife.
He is making a child.
In that way, we are all creators, like our God is, as well.
After all, God is love and always will be.
I will end this article with a tale that will serve as a reminder of spiritual truth. Maybe it will give the friend from my introduction a hint that more than just a heartbeat resides inside his chest. There is a spiritual educator I know, who teaches people about spiritual healing and how to perform various forms of meditation. During one of his group meditations, he suddenly felt the soul of a friend of his soar through the room. After the meditation, he called that man’s wife and asked if her husband had just died.
She asked him: “How on Earth did you just know that?”
My friend calmly answered: “Because his soul just floated through the room!”
Start trusting your inner God today.
Trust Her to help you and the ones you love.
It worked for the Roman officer that Jesus met in Luke 7:1-10, so why on Earth, or why in any universe, shouldn’t it work for you?
God lives inside you.
Trust that holy self.
Who by Fire
By Andrew Lee-Hart
1900
I looked at the pornographic picture in front of me and shuddered. What kind of mind could have produced such a tumescent, disturbing painting? Who would have thought that a still life could be so lustful and passionate?
Miriam looked at me, and smiled. In front of us was her startlingly grotesque painting; the apples and pears were overripe so you could almost see the juices seeping through the skin, whilst the bananas were unashamedly phallic. Everything dripped with fecundity and passion. She certainly had talent, but she intruded herself onto everything that she created, rather than keeping herself at a distance. She was only a housewife after all, attending my basic art course, for something to do in the evenings whilst she waited for her children to come along, which assuredly they would.
I coughed, feeling myself going red. “It is good” I told her, “you paint very well and have a great feel for colour. But you need to keep somethings hidden; your paintings are indecent, almost obscene. Sometimes I don’t know where to look”.
Her appearance hid her passionate personality; she always looked demure, smartly dressed in a dark blouse with her long brown hair held back with pins. She had dressed thus from the first day she turned up at my art class one Monday afternoon at Leeds Art School and the subsequent Mondays and Thursdays that she attended.
There was something about her I found unsettling; a cynic would say it was because she had far more talent than I could dream of, and perhaps that was the case. But then my paintings sell and I get invited to exhibit my work, and I doubted hers would. She was just so emotional; every time I stood close to her, examining what she was painting (still lifes mostly, and occasionally people, although fully-dressed of course), I could feel that passion, as if she poured out everything in her heart onto the canvas.
We bumped into each other one afternoon at the Leeds city art gallery. I was exhausted having walked along The Headrow; carriages and horses splashing me in the Autumn rain. It was only two o’clock but I could feel the dark coming on. I only had come in to get some shelter from the rain and dry off, but whilst I was there I had a look around. It was sometime since I had been in there, although I spent much of my rather alienated childhood in the gallery.
She was sat on one of the benches, looking at some Dutch master or other.
“Don’t you think this is a great work, Mr Smythe,” she called over. I wanted to avoid her, finding her so overwhelming, but I could not be that rude. And she interested me. Well more than that. I had often found myself thinking of her, and it was perhaps fate seeing her there. I smiled and sat down beside her, and we talked of art.
“I have never seen your paintings” she said, “I know you paint. Are there any here, in this gallery?”
I explained that this gallery regarded me as too modern, but in some of the smaller galleries there was some of my work. We talked some more, and then she left as her husband was due home from work; he taught Classics at the university.
“I come here a lot” she told me before she departed; “early afternoons. I look at the art and copy pictures. I know I am not very good but I want to improve, and that is the way apparently.”
And then she was gone, with a faint smell of perfume still hanging where she had sat close to me.
And so we became friends. I saw her in the art class, but there we had to be formal, whereas outside the class we could talk more freely. Any afternoon that I was free I would come into the gallery and invariably there would be Miriam. We would sit together as she sketched the paintings she liked and we would chat about art, Leeds and her home life. And afterwards we had a cup of tea in a tiny café hidden away behind the gallery.
I did worry about our being recognised, after all it is not done for a married woman to be seen munching on scones with an artist, however she did not seem bothered. But then she never gave the appearance of being unduly bothered about what people thought of her, unlike me, who worries about it all the time.
I discovered she was in her early twenties, only slightly younger than me, and as we came from the same part of Leeds, it was a wonder that we had not come across each other before. She was Jewish; her mother and father had come over from Odessa to escape the pogroms
in the late 1870s, and she was born shortly after they arrived in Leeds becoming part of the city’s Jewish community. But there had been a rift after she married a gentile.
“I met my husband at a concert; nobody approved of us, I was marrying out so my family were extremely angry, whilst his family do not like me, presumably because I am a Jewish although I go to their church and act the part of a good Christian wife.”
“Do you want more than that?” I asked her. She shrugged, and started talking about Rembrandt van Rijn. I could sense discontent in her. But perhaps it came out more in her paintings than in her appearance and in what she said. Was it her husband? Was she missing her family and her community? I felt that she must miss her people and her traditions. Certainly, when I was close to her I could sense her longing so strongly that it almost overwhelmed me.
The last Thursday that she attended the art class she was remote and seemed tense. Her painting was nothing like the still life she was supposed to be painting; there was no skull or guttering candle on the table in front of her, and everything in her picture looked sinister with a sense of foreboding. I looked at her working; her concentration was palpable. She said no word, and then as soon as the class had finished she was gone; she had not spoken to me once.
That evening I had just gone to bed, my thoughts of her as they so often were. And then there was a loud rapping on my door, and I froze, for a moment scared, wondering who had come to drag me away, but then I remembered where I was and put on a robe and went down to see who was at my door. Miriam stood there in the dark, a reticule over her shoulder, a
Gladstone bag by her feet. It was cold and raining. As soon as I opened the door she pushed her way passed me and into my house.
“What are you doing here?”
“I am leaving. Off to France to become an artist.”
“Are you mad, woman?” I asked her.
But no, she was not mad; she wanted to get away from her husband, the Leeds Bourgeois society. She was frustrated and bored.
“I thought I would say goodbye” she said, “there is a train due in a couple of hours, to London, and thence to Dover. You can come with me if you like” she laughed as she gazed into my eyes. I said nothing, just stood there, and then she was gone, soundlessly and without complaint.
1910
For a while I often thought of Miriam; imagined her living in a garret in Paris; chatting in restaurants on the left bank and sitting in the Louvre. I wondered if she would become a famous painter. Or perhaps she had given up and gone home, back to her academic husband. Most of all I wondered if I should have gone with her. But after ten years she had started to drift to the back of my mind; new lovers and friends had come into my life, and someone I had known only for a short while inevitably became less important.
I had soon stopped teaching art; most of my students’ paintings were execrable, and those who had talent soon learn to despise me and then quit. And none of them had the talent of Miriam. My paintings did okay, and I was featured in a couple of exhibitions in Leeds, but I could not rely upon them for money. After some indecision, I turned to book illustrating to make my living.
I was recommended to the publisher Chatto and Windus and they used me as one of their illustrators. It was not a great job, but the money was okay and at least it was art. And through them I started to illustrate some French works that they had commissioned, mostly editions of medieval French poetry which were very popular at the time. There was a new edition of poetry coming out and I went to Paris to meet the editor, Jean Boucher and to discuss how I would illustrate it.
We sat in a small room, part of the offices of Hachette publishers, in a rather obscure part of Paris. Boucher, was an older man who knew exactly what he wanted from his illustrator. I made notes as he spoke and gazed out of the window at the fog bound city below. I felt rather Bohemian being here and briefly imagined staying here to live. Could I survive? I had few ties in England and perhaps I would be inspired to get on with my painting.
“Oh” said Jean after we had finished talking about the volume of poetry, “a friend of yours works here, Madame Ullman. When I mentioned you were coming she asked me to send you to her. She does religious work.”
I had no idea who he meant, but walked into a large office at the end of yet another corridor, to see two men and a woman sat round a table with paper scattered about them.
“Welcome to the Roman Catholic press of France” said one of the men as I walked in, then the woman looked up and it was Miriam.
“Roman Catholic press? I thought you were Jewish.”
“I can be who I like; anyway it isn’t my only job. I only go in twice a week and illustrate various magazines and propaganda sheets they put out. Mostly I do my own painting.”
We were sat drinking wine in a homely café nearby. She had hardly changed in the last ten years; still smartly dressed, her skin still flawless and those eyes, ready to submerge you without warning.
“Don’t they know you are Jewish?” I asked curiously.
“Oh no. Well they don’t ask. I wear this crucifix, so it probably doesn’t occur to them.”
“Have you been back to England?”
“I visit my mother on occasion. She is a bit disapproving, but at least she does not talk to my husband so I do not need to worry about that.”
She took me back to the office where she worked, it smelt of polish and French tobacco. I looked through some of her illustrations. Garish I thought; lots of blood dripping from martyred saints, eyeless sockets and austere men and women being roasted alive. All rather macabre. She looked at me with an amused smile as I gazed at her work.
“What do you think?”
“Not what I expected, but you always could draw. Too much emotion though. You need to be distant. I have always told you that. You are too involved with what you paint.”
We arranged to meet that evening at a rather fancy restaurant near the Notre Dame. She walked in looking beautiful in a red dress and her hair up and pinned. We chatted between courses and she told me of her life.
“I lived with someone for a while, an American but then he went off. He was a writer, mentioned me in one his novels. I think he was married, but it did not matter. I am on my own now and have a small apartment.”
I loved being with her, and was in wonder that we were sitting together after all this time; eating a meal together and chatting like old friends.
She took me back to her apartment and we sat together on the sofa, drinking wine; her perfume was more sophisticated now, and her make-up subtler than when she was a Leeds housewife. The front room where we sat was austere with a few books on shelves and a large painting above a fireplace. The smell of paint was everywhere.
Miriam then led me through a door and into her studio where paintings hung in various states of completion. Some still lifes, I was glad to see, but also nudes. There was one in front of me; large, almost life size. The model looked at me directly with blue eyes; her skin pale, and her breasts surprisingly large.
“Do you like it?”
“Oh it’s you.” It was Miriam, beautiful and sexual. I was overwhelmed with it and with her; I wanted to look at it, but could not bear to do so.
We went back into her sitting room.
“Take the pins out of my hair” she commanded and I sat down next to her on the sofa. Ever so softly I touched her hair as my fingers gently searched. I came across a metal pin and slowly pulled it out with my right hand, holding her head steady with my left. I was very conscious of her body next to mine, and I gazed down at her pale neck, with a slight greyness close to her ear.
There must have been thirty or forty pins, and cautiously I drew each one out, not wishing to hurt her or to spoil the moment, I then put each pin on a small table beside me. I was careful and she never once winced although I must have caught her hair once or twice. There was a faint scent of lemon coming from her hair; maybe her shampoo or some kind of pomade or scent. I felt as intimate with her as I had ever felt with anybody. I loved feeling her head, slowly touching it as if I was her mother or her lover.
“I have finished” I told her, and she ran her fingers through her hair and found a pin I had missed and our fingers touched as I helped her to pull it out and put it with the others. I felt close to her but also self-conscious.
“I had better go?” I told her, “it is getting late”.
“Yes” she said getting up, “I am expecting a guest.”
The following morning I was on the train to Dieppe.
1922
The third time I did not see her; well not in the flesh. Her body, however was all over the walls of the very modern Galerie Bugada in Paris. In many of the paintings she was naked and unprotected; twisted on a cross, with a crown of thorns upon her head. In one a German soldier stuck a rifle with a bayonet on it into her side, in another a couple sat weeping below her feet.
Other paintings showed her being beaten by men with sticks, as she crouched down trying to protect herself, and one showed her carrying her cross whilst bystanders jeered at her and threw things. The largest painting; the focus of the exhibition, was another crucifixion; a stream of blood pouring down her legs, the sky a dark blue above her. On either side was another woman on the cross, both nude. I realised that they were also Miriam. Hung around Miriam’s neck was the star of David.
Crowds of middle-aged men looked at Miriam in her nakedness; some peered close pretending to be examining the brush strokes, whilst others leered and laughed. I heard the words “disgraceful” and “pornography” from a couple of young men, which surprised me. I was not sure what I thought. I found it very unsettling, and felt protective towards her.
There was no catalogue, and I wished there was, as I wanted to know what had happened to Miriam. I asked Monsieur Vachoux, the owner of the gallery, if he knew if Miriam lived in Paris, but apparently she did not. She had been into the gallery when the display was being put up and at the opening, but he had not seen her since.
“No doubt she will be here when the exhibition ends, in a month’s time. I believe it is going to Berlin where she lives. Her lover is a German writer I understand, nobody famous.”
I spoke to my friend Adele about the exhibition. Whenever I came to Paris to get away from my wife and children I would meet up with Adele and spend my time, when not meeting book publishers, naked in her bed. She had been to the exhibition two days earlier and did not like it.
“So how do you know her?” she asked me. It was towards the end of my stay, and I was beginning to remember why I would never leave my wife for her.
“I taught her, believe it or not. Feels like another lifetime.”,
“All very Jewish” Adele said, biting into some kind of pastry, with a slightly disdainful look. Suddenly her perfume smelt too heady and her lips looked too red. I could not think of a sharp rejoinder, so finished my coffee with a gulp and walked off, leaving Adele to follow me if she could.
I thought about the paintings a lot when I was back in Leeds. And I had a longing to see Miriam, to be with her and to talk to her. It was as if she possessed something that I needed, only she had a key to my secret self.
The Present
Her second husband was the German writer Franz Kurzweg, not read much nowadays or perhaps during any days. He was revolutionary and liked experimentation. Underneath it all there was probably a good writer trying to get out, but he never quite managed it, certainly not judging by the few books by him that I have found, but then my German is poor, so what do I know, and I cannot imagine anybody wanting to translate them into English.
I was a teacher by the 1930s in a grammar school in Leeds; teaching art and occasionally French when the French department needed a hand. My opportunities for going abroad were fewer, and I did not particularly want to travel as that part of my life was over. I was late middle-aged and respectable and if my married life was not brilliant, it could have been worse.
I enquired about Miriam from anyone I thought could know anything about her. I heard about a couple of exhibitions she held in Berlin and Cologne in the early 1930s. And then a friend told me that her paintings had been denounced as “degenerate” and “foreign” (code for Jewish) by a man whose name I cannot bear to speak or to write. And then I started to fear for her safety and hoped that she had got out. But she didn’t escape, she was one of the six million.
After the war ended I watched the documentaries and saw the pictures showing what the Russians found when they liberated Auschwitz and other death camps. Each skeletal figure could have been Miriam, or the bodies piled up like trash, ready to be disposed of. Presumably she was gassed or starved, or made to dig her own grave and then shot in the back of her head, all because of who she was. All because of who we both were.
When I left my parents’ house as a young man I had realised that nobody need know who I was; nobody need know that I was Jewish, who my parents were, anything about my past. I deliberately lost touch with friends from my youth and immersed myself in Leeds and the art world. I wanted to be free of my heritage.
I changed my name from Goldberg to Smythe and with a bohemian beard and relatively light coloured hair nobody ever guessed my origins, I managed to develop a posh Yorkshire accent and completely hid my Polish tones. On the few occasions that I bumped into someone I knew from my childhood I avoided them and was never recognised. I felt guilty about my parents, but they seemed immersed in the past; still speaking Yiddish and following their silly superstitions as if they were still in Poland rather than in a modern city in England; I wanted away from all that, and to an extent I was successful.
I was ashamed of having been born a small village in Poland and a member of an old-fashioned religion; of having been a poor immigrant, coming to Leeds in rags. After I left home I became respectable and a churchgoer, and later I married a gentile wife who gave me gentile children. All very well and at least I was safe, but it was not me, I had ripped out an important part of who I was.
I am not sure if Miriam guessed. When we spoke it was as if she knew, but she never asked me directly. It certainly did not occur to my wife, despite my being circumcised, and by the time I had met her my parents were dead so I did not have to lie about them.
One Friday night, the time was right, and I told my wife who I really was, and the following morning, and for the first time since I was a teenager I attended the synagogue. I wept as the ancient tongue was spoken, so familiar and yet mysterious. Some of the ceremonies might seem silly, and I certainly could not believe in a kind God, who loved his people, not now and not ever. But I was Jewish and these were my kin; I had rejected them for long enough.
THE MRS. MARDORF SAGA
By Herbert Eyre Moulton
(1927-2005)
As a professional actor, I have had the joy of working worldwide with the likes of Clint Eastwood, Alan Rickman and Larry Hagman. Being MCA’s star in the Dinner-Show-Scene in the 1950’s proved to be just as fun as conducting the Camp Gordon Chapel Choir during the Korean War. The joy of spending my later professional years creating student programmes for the Austrian Radio and becoming well-known as the commercial face for Viennese chocolate and continental banks crowned my career.
Not bad for kid from Glen Ellyn, Illinois.
I never forgot my roots.
Therefore, I will take you back to those good old days before Illinois was online. Back then, life was different. And I’ve often wondered: was it only during Depression times that people got so overly sentimental or has the economy nothing to do with it? I recall tears shed by my mother Nell and her lady friends, sitting in our Glen Ellyn house at 429 Taylor Avenue, on occasions both doleful and joyous. I always put down these lachrymose demonstrations as being a part of the territory, and on Nell’s part, pure Irish.
But others, as well. Menfolk, even myself included, often succumb. Turn on Puccini’s La Boheme and watch my reaction. Breaking down and having a good cry has always been a kind of release from the tensions of hard times, especially the 30’s in Glen Ellyn, as I remember them.
The very titles of the films saw at the old Glen can still tickle the tear ducts: Of Human Hearts, Valient is the Word for Carrie, Imitation of Life, Stella Dallas, Little Women, Dark Victory. Not to mention those that came later, such as the Lassie series. Anything to with animals, strays or otherwise made us awash in sentiment, most likely as a counterbalance to universal unemployment and businesses and banks folding up like lawn chairs.
Among countless birthday cards and scattered newspaper clippings, as well as documents about carnival prizes and Pet-and-Hobby-Shows, are a series of post cards, notes, booklets and prayers from the First Congretional Church Sunday School to which my devout Catholic mother sent me from 1931 to 1933. Our family was a living Ecumenical Movement. My father Big Herb was from old Protestant stock, Nell an intense “bead-roller”, all three of us dwelling splendiferous peace and harmony, decades before Pope John XXIII.
Nell and my redoubtable Sunday School teacher Mrs. Mardorf prepared me better for my Christian future than they knew. Although portions of this collection are sentimental, they still count as authentic Depression Days attitudes, the very stuff of our lives in those far-off, no doubt over-romanticized times. Anyone who has leafed through these Moulton family books has paused smiling, sometimes laughing at, for example, all the “We-miss-your-smiling-face”-bits and “Your-little-chair was empty”-quotes.
I seemed to have been absent a lot.
Of the contents in general, the common opinion has always been: “But what a legacy your parents have left you! These are priceless! They could never be replaced!”
Decades before Women’s Lib, here we have endearing and enduring evidence, as if it were really needed, of how strong a matriarchal a society America was in those days, and all the better for it.
Our sentimental saga begins with my immortal words:
“Now I go to Sunday School and I enjoy it so much!”:
MY FIRST DIPLOMA
This certifies that Herbert Moulton is promoted from the Cradle Roll Department of the Glen Ellyn First Congretional Church to the Beginner’s Department.
(Three impressive signatures) September 21st, 1931
So, I’d been attending that stalwart Cradle Roll Department for some time before I received my first diploma, which was accorded all the deference and respect such a document might receive were it issued from Oxford or Yale. Pinned to it was a lapel button with a toddler’s face and Beginner’s Department, which I still wear now and then for fun.
My entrance into that department, however, was accompanied with the usual childhood “disease”. Mine, luckily, were always of the mildest variety, beginning with ...
Glen Ellen News, Friday, September 30th, 1931
ILL WITH WHOPPING COUGH
Little Herbert Moulton of 429 Taylor Avenue, is quaranteened at the present time with Whopping Cough. At least, that’s what the sign next to the Moulton’s front door states. Luckily, this is an extremely mild case, due perhaps to the nine injections administered lately by the family doctor from Villa Park.
Nevertheless, Little Herbert will have to be quaranteened for at least another two weeks. He is grateful for all the phone calls and Get-Well-cards he has received and he and his parents hope it will not be long before he is his usual happy smiling self and out among his little friends once again.
Nell pasted the clipping into the Moulton Family Album and next to it, of course, the usual photo of the little patient, big as life and smilingly pointing to the quaranteen sign at the front door.
This caused a ripple among that same circle when Nell sent one them, Irene Marley from across the street, home in tears because of the quaranteen. A moment later came an indignant phone call from Irene’s mom, Myrtle, a strict Catholic-turned-Christian-Scientist.
“You don’t have to worry about Irene,” said Myrtle. “She’s God’s child. Nothing can happen to her.”
“Well,” countered Nell. “Herbert is Nell’s child and he is quaranteened by law because he has a contagious disease. Irene can come back and play when the sign is down.”
My light siege of illness (neither a whoop nor a cough, apparently) brought a nice post card from Mrs. Mardorf, ever on the job, bless her. It depicts two sad looking little urchins seated on either side of an empty chair and looking utterly despondent.
The printed message reads:
“Your little chair is empty
We miss your smiling face,
We certainly hope next Sunday
Will find you in your place.”
Note: even then people were seeking to put Little Herbert in his place.
And a personal note, of course, from Mrs. M.:
“Dear Herbert, we surely miss you at Sunday School and hope you can come back soon. It was so nice of Mother to call when you could not come. Lots of wishes for a speedy recovery from Mrs. Mardorf and the Beginner’s Department.”
I was no sooner back among my Little Friends when one of them, again Bold Irene, God’s Child, lured me into a nasty accident. Four months older than me, she was forever challenging me into feats of derring-do, this time to ride my three-wheel velocipede down the little hill in our yard. Well, of course I did, and of course, somehow I crashed against the edge of the cement sidewalk, causing a broken collar-bone and a lot of pain, as well as indignation from Nell.
Again, she dispatched my Dulcinea in floods of tears and rushed me to the hospital.
Back in the headlines once again:
Glen Ellyn News, Friday, November 6th, 1931
FALLS FROM VELOCIPEDE
Little Herbert Moulton, 429 Taylor Avenue, is once more on the village sick-list. He fell from his velocipede last Saturday and is suffering from a broken collar-bone and sprained wrist. He getting along nicely, however, and it is hoped he will soon be his happy self again.
Accompanying photo shows plump patient on the front walk, outrageously smiling, right arm in a sling, and left entwined round a broomstick – whether to fly away on or just to sweep the leaves away, who knows? Nell’s handwritten comment: “Just a little fall, but a big ‘airplane’ brace which I wore for three weeks.”
Lord, the woman tempted me.
And sure enough, a day or so later, our friendly mailman, Mr. Gorman, delivered the following from – you guessed it – Mrs. Mardorf and Co. Two tots in mini-cloche hats clutching buttercups on their way to a distant church:
“I think these tots are talking
As to Sunday School they‘re walking,
They’re wondering if they’ll see your smiling face.
For you’re missed when you’re away,
And I hear the children say
That they’re always glad to see you in your place.”
(Note: again that emphasis on putting me in my place.)
Dear Herbert, writes Mrs. M., we surely missed your little smile last Sunday and we were all sorry you were hurt. We want you to come back as soon as you feel able. We will be glad to see you. Love, Mrs. Mardorf
Christmas 1931, on 429 Taylor Avenue in Glen Ellyn, produced a pasted example of my own handiwork. It featured an extremely creepy bit of verse, as gooey as it was theologically bogus.
Back in the good old days of the Holy Inquisition it doubtless would have led to an extended session on the rack. The Sexist Propaganda machine had been working overtime:
“I know that God loves me, Mother dear,
Because you tell me so,
He loves me every single day,
And all the whole night thru,
I have never seen him, really,
Nor heard his voice, ‘tis true,
But when you hold me close,
I know he looks and talks like you.”
The next step is outright Worship-of-the-Mother-Goddess, or just plain old-fashioned American Mom-Adoration. And the Grand Inquisitor is already heating up the irons.
For this effort, we used flour-and-water paste and I was soon standing in a puddle of water, to my intense embarrassment. As I remember the actual Christmas foll-de-roll, though, it was all, in a word, glorious. Even the visit from St. Nick, who always polished off the sherry and cakes my folks had left for him by the fireplace, was impressed.
The first Sunday of new year, January 4th 1932, was the first Sunday in a year for the world and for America: Happy Nadir, Everybody!
But with The Mrs. Mardorf Saga, it was just a variation on an old theme.
For the first time, a certain crispness informs the greeting. But first the printed biblical bit – with a rather sugary picture picture of Jesus as The Good Shepherd – and the request: May we not count on you to be with the other children in Sunday School next Sunday?
And the weekly pep-talk from our Mrs. Mardorf continued:
We missed your little face this morning. I hope you are not ill for if you are I’d be very sorry. I will look for you next Sunday. Love from Mrs. M.
It did the trick.
Besides spending my life on the theatrical stage, I would later study theology, conduct the Camp Gordon Chapel Choir in Georgia and sing hundreds of church concerts.
At that point, though, the Glen Ellyn son of an Irish immigrant was more intent on laying in bed and reading Superman comics. Okay, and listen to my father’s opera records.
I took a longer look at Mrs. Mardorf’s enclosed picture of Jesus and his lost sheep painting with a caption:
The Savior said: My sheep hear my voice and follow me . – John 10:27
A subtle hint for little Herbert?
Now, with the breaking news of March 6th, 1932, we come to one of the landmark news items. The headline alone, if chanted over and over again, becomes a fine Mantra:
HERBERT MOULTON JR. IS ALIVE AND WELL
The Glen Ellyn News, Friday, March 4, 1932
Little Herbert Moulton, son of Mr. and Mrs. Moulton, of 429 Taylor Avenue, was reported to have been electrocuted on Wednesday by a live wire, which was absolutely untrue, but the rumor spread like wildfire and Mr. and Mrs. Moulton have had a constant stream of visitors and telephone calls from friends who heard of this report.
They are very grateful and appreciative of all the kindness, courtesy and sympathy shown by everyone in what seemed a terrible calamity and want them all to know that they have a new conception of the generous and sympathtic heart of all Glen Ellyn, and especially of little Herbert’s place among his friends and their parents.
How the story started no one knows, but young Herbert is alive and well, we are told.
I well remember the circumstances centering around this nugget. One of those horrendous ice-storms that devestate the Midwest along about March every few years. We’d been out somewhere in the car, and when we came over the hill and approached our house, we saw a crowd of people gathered outside the front door – all of them there to check out this story they’d heard about what Nell in her report so modestly called “a terrible calamity”.
There, my mental newsreel ends, but it’s obviously a true recollection.
Seven decades later, my friend Cal Potts in his Golden Oldies periodical The Gray Bard, reprinted it for kicks, and it got considerable feedback. Throughout, one detects the fine Irish-Florentine hand of Nellie Moulton.
Anything for publicity, some of the latest readers grumbled, even at the age of four. Reuters, Time, CNN, feel free to copy.
Springtime, 1932, Glen Ellyn, Illinois.
My happy, smiling face seems to have been missing quite a lot that season, for here’s the next number in the on-going Mardorf-Moulton website correspondence, 1932-style. The postmark is incomplete, but the sentiment is as ever compelling ...
The postcard depicts a forlorn landscape, and not for the first time we have a brace of tykes – umbrella, raincoats – gazing at a vast rainbow across a darkling sky, with a text that wouldn’t have been out of place in one of those highway Burma-Shave advertising series:
Did you ever see a rainbow
Lacking yellow, red or blue?
Well, your class is such a rainbow,
And the missing part is you!
And Mrs. Mardorf’s inevitable follow-up:
Dear Herbert, we missed you so today and hope you are not ill. Please come back soon for your little chair is so empty and we miss you so. Love, Mrs. Mardorf
It sounds a bit like Lilliput-Land, doesn’t it?
It must have been in May 1932 that the iron entered the soul of Mrs. Mardorf for good and all. Here’s the next, mimeographed with spaces left to fill in the names. Mother’s Day and the most unashamedly sexist effort yet ...
Dad could just as well have dropped dead years before.
The form, dialogue, is, of course, pure ancient Greek.
Dear Herbert –
Who do we love most of all in our home? I think it is mother!
(Subtext: And to hell with Dad.)
Who loves you most? I think it is mother!
Who gets you ready for Sunday School?
(The tone grows wearier.)
I think it is mother.
(Remember, repetition is one of the cardinal characteristics of Brainwashing.)
Does mother know what a happy time we have in our class every Sunday? We want her to know so we are asking that you bring her next Sunday on Mother’s Day. All the others are asking their mothers, and it would be so lovely to have all our mothers with us.
(And here comes the bottom line, the true nitty-gritty:)
Perhaps mother could not come and stay as long as we do, but we would be glad to have her for a little while.
Lovingly, Mrs. Mardorf
Rather obvious, wasn’t it?
Mom is welcome to come and hang out for a minute or two, and then get the hell out. Come, come, Mrs. Mardorf, that isn’t like you at all. Maybe, she was having a bad hair day. Not impossible, even with her.
The card was another flour-and-water-paste-up-job with a silhouette.
During this same summer of 1932, I was also enrolled in the Daily Vacarion Bible School at The First Methodist Church, playing no favorites, as always:
“My first school days,” writes Nell, “I learned many interesting things, had milk, and enjoyed it very much. Mother took me at 9 and came back for me at noon.”
All I retain from this is the memory of the milk and the vanilla wafers, and laying our heads down on the table afterwards for a little snooze, which had the walls rocking with our cascades of giggles.
In case an emetic is needed at this point, here’s the poem that was cut out of a daily newspaper and pasted next to the Mother’s Day masterpiece. This is one of the several that must have appealed to our editor, Nell – neatly typical of the early 1930’s, and well in keeping with the opening remarks I made about “Period-Sentiment”.
TO MOTHER
When my baby shoes were scuffing
Thru the years that used to be,
Many time you caught me bluffing
Just to keep you close to me.
Thru my sorrows you would cheer me,
Driving all my tears away,
And I feel your presence near me,
Mother mine, on Mother’s Day.
For my love for you increases
With the coming of each dawn.
Like the sun it never ceases
Though my baby shoes are gone.
- Anon. (as well it might be!)
Friday, July 15th, 1932 –
Well, I do remember birthdays in our cosy Sunday School.
Delicious home-baked cakes with lighted candles, fruit juice, and being allowed to waltz up to the front of the room where the paper birthday apple-tree stood, covered with paper-blossoms, and pick out one to take home and keep as a souvenir – which I did, for almost 70 years. Verses, too – first on the small tag attached to the blossom, complete with a song-bird:
Oh, Herbert dear, we’re happy,
That the rainbow is now complete,
Your Christian future shining,
Sunday School is sweet.
Inspired by this warm welcome, I admitted it. I just had to.
Herbert Eyre Moulton, son of an Irish immigrant and a Glen Ellyn salesman with ancestors that arrived with the Mayflower, was after all very happy to be back.
Just like Bogie told Claude Reins at the end of the 1942 film Casablanca:
“Louie, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship!”
Always reenacting scenes from the movies of my youth, I, in my later years, felt compelled to take Bold Irene to the side and tell her that I was looking at her, kid.
But I might have just told her that I, frankly, didn’t give a damn.
All in all, though, the romantic sentiment of those days gave me hope that humanity’s sense of wonder was a victory in itself.
HALLOWEEN
By Alexandra H. Rodrigues
Thoughts about Halloween
I see the Halloween decorations going up all around me. Yes, I put a few nasty dolls out too, but wonder. So much horror in the world. Tragedy hitting so many families, caused by humans and also nature.
Why do we add to it by celebrating evil images?
To put up pumpkins is fine, autumn flowers, cornstalks. The signs of prosperity. Maybe we, including myself, should think twice when we follow old tradition. The world has changed, we should too! /AHR
The Devil’s Castle
From a castle, secretly built, the devil ruled his hell.
For company, fallen angels served him well
In the dungeon, charred skeletons hung from a rake
Of those who had not been able the fire to take.
Mountain goats and hawks perfected the devil’s life
Year after year, he had a ball with Xantippe his wife.
He was sure nobody knew that to such heights he rose
On purpose this castle up on the mountain he chose.
Again and again flames from hell lit up the night
Then it happened at full moon with the night extra bright
Satan blinked, squinted and his vision got blended
In a flash his entire, so well-planned excursion ended.
Back to the old quarters of hell
He was commanded by moon’s heavenly spell.
Deep below he is meant again to reign
Forever forbidden closeness to heaven to gain.
Down there he now expects masses of the walking dead
Zombies of souls which their timespan on earth have met.
It is rumored, hell’s quarters are getting over crowded
As in the world the evil thrives, disaster daily abounded.
Hell’s fires already contribute to global warming
Fed with corpses from millions of lives, their ashes swarming
Let us not contribute to the devil’s secret joy
With corn stalks and smiling pumpkins an antidote deploy!
“It’s Getting Better All the Time: Rosemary’s Baby
(Book, Film, Miniseries)
Shows How Women Have Changed”
By Angela Camack
Ira Levin’s Rosemary’s Baby and the film it inspired, directed by Roman Polanski, have held up very well during half-century since the book’s publication and the film’s release. Both tell an absorbing and frightening story remarkably well. Both are also accurate and illuminating reflections of the time in which they were produced. Revisiting them, and viewing them as a picture of the time, shows how women’s outlook and behavior have evolved over the years, so much so that the events of the story could not take place now. An attempt to turn the book into a miniseries in 2014 was unsuccessful, partially because it was not believable that Rosemary would act in 2014 as Rosemary did in 1966. Comparing the behavior of the people in the book and film with the way women act now shows that women have become stronger and more self-reliant.
The book and the Polanski film are almost identical in plot and characters. Guy and Rosemary Woodhouse, an actor and his wife, move into a landmark Manhattan apartment building. Guy can be self-centered, arrogant and cynical. Rosemary is a mixture of naivety and New York City sophistication. She is focused on redoing the apartment and making a solid marriage. She wants a baby very much.
Both are estranged from their families. Guy is unconcerned, but Rosemary needs a father figure, and comes close to having one through her friendship with Hutch, a writer of adventure stories for boys.
Soon after moving, the Woodhouses meet an elderly couple, Minnie and Roman Castavet. They meet under terrible circumstances; a young woman who has been living with them, whom Rosemary has met, has jumped or fallen to her death from the Castavet’s apartment. Soon the Castavets begin to dote on the young couple, and while Guy and Rosemary initially find them laughable Guy soon befriends them and their friends.
Guy hits a rough patch when he loses a promising role to another actor. He becomes distant and abrupt to Rosemary. However, the actor suddenly loses his sight, and Guy gets the role. Elated, he apologizes to Rosemary for his behavior, wants to make a fresh start in the marriage and agrees to have a baby. They plan a “Baby Night,” with cocktails and a festive menu, followed by romantic lovemaking. During the meal Minnie Castavet drops by with two cups of chocolate mousse, which replaces the dessert that Guy forgot to buy. Baby Night is marred when Rosemary becomes very unsteady after dinner and must be put to bed. She has a nightmare in which she is being carried through her closet to the Castavet’s apartment, where she is raped by a monster. Upon waking the next morning, she finds she is covered with scratches. Guy admits that he had sex with her while she was unconscious.
Rosemary becomes pregnant. She initially sees Dr. Hill, upon the recommendation of a friend, but agrees to change to a famous obstetrician, Dr. Saperstein, who is a friend of the Castavets. The Castavets dote on her, giving her a foul-smelling lucky charm and an herbal drink that Dr, Saperstein feels is better than vitamins.
However, she has a miserable pregnancy, in constant pain that Saperstein assures her is just an expansion of her pelvic joints and will soon go away. She becomes isolated. Guy will have none of her suspicions that Dr. Saperstein is not treating her well. However, once Rosemary feels the baby move the pain goes away and she can finish her pregnancy with optimism.
Her friend Hutch becomes suddenly ill and dies. Before he dies, he wants to make sure that Rosemary gets a book on witchcraft that reveals that Roman Castavet’s father was Stephen Mercato, who was living in the Bramford when he was exposed as a practitioner of witchcraft. Rosemary begins to understand the events of her pregnancy; the doting Castavets, her isolation, the sudden appearance of both Roman Castavet and Guy while Hutch was visiting, all of which have been explained away by Guy. She also suspects Dr. Saperstein is involved and tries to return to Dr. Hill. He interprets her story as a delusion and returns her to Dr. Saperstein and Guy.
While they are taking her home, Rosemary goes into labor and is sedated by the doctor. When she awakens, she is told that the baby, a boy, has died. While recovering, she hears an infant cry. Following the sound, she finds that there is a passage through her closet and tracks the cry to the Castavet’s living room. A crowd has gathered around a black-draped cradle. Rosemary’s baby is hailed as Adrian I, the son of Satan. Guy has been complicit from the beginning, allowing Rosemary to be taken to the Castavet’s for impregnation. He has been rewarded for his participation with a successful career.
Much of this scenario depends on this cabal’s ability to control Rosemary. Consider that in the 1960’s many women were still deferential to their husbands. Many forswore jobs to focus on marriage and home. Add to that the doctor-patient relationship of the time. A pregnant woman, at a vulnerable time, was expected to be a “good patient” and take their doctors’ advice without questioning. With two such figures in her life, the still-naïve Rosemary was in a good position to
be led into trouble. She was following a path that had been laid out for her by social norms and would not begin to change until later in the ‘60’s. Although Rosemary seems unusually passive, and there were strong and assertive women in the 60’s, much of her behavior can be explained by what was expected of women.
Rosemary’s unquestioning reliance on her doctor allows her to believe that her pain will stop. As a result, Rosemary becomes isolated in her pain. She becomes increasingly dependent on Guy and the Castavets. She meets no one who can question why the Castavets shadow her or why Guy is so controlling.
Guy’s and Dr. Saperstein’s behavior is not only controlling but shows attitudes toward women and their influence. Both men show a mixture of contempt and fear towards women. Contact with other women who have been pregnant would have provided Rosemary with reassurance and advice and provide models of women who carried on normal lives through their pregnancies. Dr. Saperstein is dismissive of the support of other women. Rosemary is to call him, “not your Aunt Fanny,” if she has questions.
Guy’s attitude clearly emerges during a party Rosemary gives “for our old – or rather our young friends.” The party is an opportunity to announce her pregnancy and to see people she has not seen since her isolation began.
The guests are happy about her pregnancy, but many are shocked by her appearance.
Some of her women friends find a chance to talk with her in the kitchen. All know that her suffering is abnormal, and question Dr. Saperstein’s competence and empathy. Rosemary breaks down and begins to cry. Her friends close ranks, allow her to cry and to be comforted and make her promise to get a second opinion.
After the party, Rosemary tells Guy she wants a second opinion. He is furious at her friends. “They’re a bunch of not-very-bright bitches who should mind their own business.” Her friends have accomplished what Guy and Saperstein feared, bringing Rosemary out of her passivity. After the confrontation, Rosemary’s pain suddenly stops, and she feels the baby move (un-divine intervention?).
Rosemary may have felt less isolated had she worked after marriage. The book mentioned that Rosemary runs into “somebody she knows from CBS,” but we know nothing else about her work experience. She has jettisoned her working life, even though Guy’s work can be irregular. Most women now work after marriage and during pregnancy . Contact with others would have eliminated her isolated dependence on Guy and the Castavets and given her a feeling of self-reliance and independence. Would she have been less likely to passively accept what Dt. Saperstein tells her? She would also have funds to seek a second opinion, which Guy objects to subsidizing.
In addition to discouraging her from seeking the encouragement and advice of other women, Dr. Saperstein tells Rosemary not to read books about pregnancy. She is a “good patient,” following his advice without question. Patients today are much less likely to play the good patient role, instead becoming educated consumers and participating in their own care. With What to Expect When You’re Expecting and similar reliable books readily available, and lists of reliable websites about consumer medicine available on library websites, patients have more medical information on hand to help them understand their health and to help them make informed medical decisions.
Now look at the 2014 miniseries, which appears contrived and implausible compared to the book and film. Guy is a writer. Rosemary, a dancer, supports them. Guy is frustrated and blocked. The couple is devastated when Rosemary has a miscarriage. When Rosemary’s friend
connects Guy to a teaching job in Paris, they see the move as a chance for recovery and a new start. They move into a small apartment. Rosemary finds a snapshot of a couple in the living room. While studying the photo, she gets a “feeling” that something has gone wrong with the people who once lived there. She continues to wonder about what happened in the apartment and sets out to find more information.
While walking in Paris Rosemary’s purse is stolen. She chases down the mugger and retrieves her purse and another. She returns the purse to its owner, Margaux Castavet, who is so grateful for its return that she invites Rosemary and Guy to a party that evening.
Roman and Margaux Castavet are chic, rich Parisians living in a beautiful old apartment building. They take to the Woodhouses immediately, insisting that the party guests speak English and giving the couple a kitten. After the Woodlouse’s small apartment is destroyed in a fire, the Castavets give them an apartment in their building, rent-free, stocked with new wardrobes for both.
Soon after the move, Guy gets a better job and begins to write again. They are happy in the new apartment and agree to try to have a baby. When she confides this to Margaux, she gives her what will be a series of herbal drinks for her health. Although the night planned for conception is marred when Rosemary has a nightmare about being raped by a monster, Rosemary becomes pregnant. The Castavets continue to dote on the couple. Margaux, in particular, cannot keep her hands off Rosemary. constantly patting and caressing her, even kissing her on the mouth. When Rosemary becomes pregnant, they recommend an obstetrician.
Rosemary has a miserable, painful pregnancy. It does not stop her from going all over Paris to find out what happened to the couple in the picture. She goes to the police, Commissioner Fontaine, with her suspicions. Meanwhile, people around her come to sudden violent ends. A
candidate for a better job Guy wants kills herself during her interview. A priest claiming to have met the woman in the photograph Rosemary found warns her away from investigating, but dies suddenly. Her friend finds a doctor to provide Rosemary with a second opinion to investigate the cause of her pain but is killed in an accident before she can accompany Rosemary. Commissioner Fontaine becomes concerned enough about the suspicious deaths to investigate and warns Rosemary to keep alert.
Rosemary finds a secret passage in her closet. It contains many books on the occult. One notes that Roman Castavet comes from a family that practices witchcraft. She also discovers her late friend’s crucifix among Guy’s belongings and realized there may be a conspiracy that puts her and her baby at risk. She tries to get help from the doctor she planned to see for another opinion, but he leads Guy and her doctor to her. She goes into labor and taken to the hospital but is told she lost the baby.
While recovering, she hears an infant’s crying in the secret passage. Following the sound, she enters the Castavet’s apartment. She finds a celebration and a black-draped cradle holding, a baby, Adrian I. Rosemary has been impregnated by Satan, with Guy’s complicity. She agrees to mother the baby, while insisting on another name and the removal of black clothing and drapery.
You would expect to suspend disbelief when experiencing a story about a young woman’s impregnation by Satan, but little in Rosemary’s behavior leads the viewer to believe that she could be led into situations she mistrusts. A woman who has supported her husband and can chase down muggers would be used to taking care of herself, reading situations and making her own decisions, regardless of the attempts of others to influence her. She would not easily be led into the Castavet’s control. The Castavet’s largesse is far beyond what would be expected for the return of a purse. In addition to the apartment, the new clothes and Guy’s new job, the Castavet’s fawn over Rosemary.
Surely that would set off Rosemary’s alarm bells and cause her to back away from them rather than becoming a malleable tool for their plans.
Looking at the different dynamics of the Woodhouse’s marriage in the different versions of the story, one can see that a modern Rosemary would not be steered by her husband into dependency and isolation. The Rosemary of the miniseries would not defer to Guy. She has been the wage earner and his emotional support during their marriage.
In the book and film, Guy and Rosemary can seem like parent and child. Rosemary soon tires of the way the Castavets dote on them but follows Guy’s lead and continues the relationship. On ‘Baby Night,’ Minnie Castavet brings the couple chocolate mousse (it is easy to conclude by the end of the story that Rosemary’s mousse has been drugged to be sure she is unconscious for her impregnation). Rosemary eats part of the mousse but declines to finish, saying it has a “chalky under taste.” Guy is upset out of all proportion to the incident. “You took her mousse, now finish it. The old bat probably slaved all day over it.” Rosemary agrees to finish, but when Guy leaves the room she spoons most of it into her napkin. When he returns, she shows him the empty dish. “Do I get a gold star, Daddy?” Guy reacts similarly when Rosemary does not want to wear the charm given to her by the Castavets. “Come on, you took it, you should wear it.” Again, his anger is inappropriate to the situation. Rosemary agrees to wear the charm.
In the miniseries, Rosemary is far from childlike. She has been the wage earner in the family. Until their marriage deteriorates under the strain of her painful pregnancy and Rosemary’s suspicions of his involvement in a plot to hurt her, their relationship is one of cooperation and mutual emotional support, not a relationship where one partner is overbearing and the other accepts what is asked of her. It is unrealistic to imagine that Rosemary could not look after her own health and would rely on friends to encourage her to find a second opinion when she is suffering.
Despite her painful pregnancy, Rosemary is never the retiring waif of the book and movie. She has enough energy to play Nancy Drew, interviewing people and looking for clues about what happened to the former tenants. Someone with this energy and will would not passively accept that there are no alternatives to suffering. The plan to find a surrogate to bear a demonic baby under the control of others depends on finding a woman who will accept what the authority figures in her life (her husband and doctor) tell her and can be willingly let into being led into isolation from anyone who will show her that something is very wrong with her situation. The woman of the mid-60’s is much more likely to be this surrogate than the woman of the present. Too much has changed for women to make this scenario plausible.
Rosemary’s Baby will probably continue to provide readers and viewers with a good scare. Looking back on the story and its reflection of the early ‘60’s reveal that, despite problems and inequalities women still face, they have made progress. They are navigating the world with increased assertiveness and strength.
A Celebrity Named Gun Kronzell
By Charles E.J. Moulton
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.”
What does music mean to me?
By Colenton Freeman
Operatic Tenor and Professor of Singing
Music has been and continues to be the most significant part of my life, aside from God, who gave me this gift of music. In fact, music gave me life, a Muse, a profession and a purpose. Music gives strength, energy, inspiration, freedom, expression and has the power to heal. Music also means to me: beauty and enrichment for the soul.
I could not imagine a life without music. It has meant everything to me. It shaped and influence my life immensely and continues to do so to this very day.
I love all forms of music. Opera, classical, jazz, blues, sacred, musicals, pop, swing and of course, gospel. As a little boy growing up in the Baptist church in Atlanta, Georgia, I loved singing hymns. The music would permeate my very being and send chills up and down my spine. The sound of the pipe organ was grand and majestic.
I can get as much meaning and pure joy out of listening to a Puccini opera as I can listening to the soulful singing of the recently departed Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin. Both genres can move me to tears and give me joy, satisfaction, motivation and a feeling of gratefulness.
Yes, music is as vital to my well-being as food, drink, shelter, clothing, family, friends and good health. In fact, music can promote good health both mentally and physically. I always refer back to the famous song „An die Musik“ by the Austrian composer Franz Schubert along with his Austrian friend, the poet Fran von Schober when thinking of what music has brought to my life:
„Du holde Kunst, in wieviel grauen Stunden,
Wo mich des Leben wilder Kreis umstrickt,
Hast Du mein Herz zu warmer Lieb' entzunden,
Hast mich in eine beßre Welt entrückt.
Oft hat ein Seufzer, deiner Harf' entflossen,
Ein süßer, heiliger Akkord von dir
Den Himmel beßrer Zeiten mir erschlossen,
Du hold Kunst, ich danke dir dafür.
ENGLISH TRANSLATION:
You, noble Art, in how many grey hours,
When life's mad tumult wraps around me,
Have you kindled my heart to warm love,
Have you transported me into a better world.
Often has a sigh flowing out from your harp,
A sweet, divine harmony from you
Unlocked to me the heaven of better times,
You, noble Art, I thank you for it.
Why the Revolution of Modern Life
is Intelligent, Moral and Beautiful
By Thomas Dexter Kerr
It is an exciting and hopeful time to be alive. A revolution is sweeping the earth, increasing intelligence by allowing, enabling, inspiring ever more people to make more decisions in their lives. Modern systems that allow people to think more in daily life are well known. Democracies empower people to choose governments. Markets are people deciding what should be made and done. Systems of rules that apply to all help keep things open and honest. Support for ability to think comes from family and neighbors, schools, hospitals, books and internet. Enormous dividends result from getting it right. But decentralizing decision-making is never easy because it means ever greater complexity and the empowering of inconvenient people. The best path forward is illuminated by the idea that people thinking more is good, right and beautiful.
Modern peace and prosperity has resulted from the ever closer alignment of social organization with ways people by nature maximize intelligence. Humans became the most powerful beings ever to exist by developing a new way of using information, the content of thoughts and feelings. The information system created as people mingle thoughts and feelings with those of others evolved to be the most intelligent entity ever to exist.
Survival of the fittest individual was not the primary force that crafted human minds. Incompetence in a wide variety of forms is an essential part of what makes us human. Individual people today lack the full range of mental abilities necessary to survive alone in a wilderness. I couldn't do it, nor could any of my neighbors. Instead natural selection resulted in something far more powerful, intelligent and beautiful.
Many creatures, from ants to dogs, evolved to gain power over their environment by cooperating and communicating. All lost the ability to live and thrive alone as individuals. Over eons, humans gradually took the use of information to higher levels. As individuals they gave up the full range of faculties needed for survival because together they developed something far more potent. The unprecedented power this gave them at each step is what drove the evolutionary innovations that resulted in today's world.
Human intelligence is collective in nature, talents not concentrated but dispersed in individuals who are all different. A revolutionary kind of mind developed in groups of a few hundred in which everyone knew each other, every voice added to what was being thought about. In everyday life people have always shared ideas, songs, stories, styles and a myriad nuances of feeling, passing them down through generations, improving and innovating. The information that is the content of thoughts and feelings mixes together in their minds and among them. Because each person’s mind is different, enormous creative flexibility arises out of many sorts of thinking striving, sometimes clashing, always mingling. We spin thoughts out of the unknown and unexpected, finding depth and diversity with inauspicious people and rising generations breaking old patterns. So many things can be thought about. Human survival and success has always depended on the system of thoughts that all share and take part in. Our kind of intelligence is a category leap, rising far beyond what could ever evolve to be the smartest, most wily, most dominant individual beast. Every successful creature is over-endowed with the means it uses to survive, necessary to overcome extreme circumstances. Our primary means of survival blossomed into the wonder of the universe.
The details of how individuals think were shaped by the enormous force of their effect on our primary tool and weapon, the human information system. Its intelligence could increase only as its component parts became more finely tuned to add to the thinking going on. Many of the talents that make people together so intelligent are useless in isolation, essential when combined with others. Kinds of thinking are scattered, each getting a little of this, a little of that. Impractical musicians, nonathletic priests, groveling politicians help bring disparate folks together. Mechanics fix things, clumsy scientists invent, cooks devise food, athletes run and hunt, shoppers gather, some who can memorize, memorialize the past. Fearless and timid, quick and slow, passive and aggressive, skillful and clumsy, female and male, serious and frivolous, analytical and intuitive, speculative and methodical, mathematical or musical or not, all are found in every group across the globe. This deep reservoir of possibilities is made more potent by the creativity inherent in the fresh perspectives of each individual and new generation. The mix found everywhere today exists because it is the combination that proved to be most intelligent.
If individuality were not naturally configured to mesh with other minds, the results would be useless. An association of thinking animals with a purely random assortment of differences would produce the intelligence of a zoo. Mental individuality in humans has a purpose. All elements are finely tuned to create with others, each general type essential, every new addition a welcome extension of the ability of everyone to think. It is an inescapable truth of every person's life that their most intimate impulses, those feelings that are most certainly theirs and theirs alone, are shaped and channeled in subtle, mysterious ways to augment the functioning of the human information system as a whole.
The magic of the human information system lies in everyday life, the great generator and heartland of intelligence. When a good idea pops into existence there is no way to ever figure out exactly where it came from. Inside everyone the information that is the content of their thoughts and feelings connects and mingles. Music and sports mix with math, politics and sex. Interconnections multiply as thoughts and fragments spread out through friends and neighbors, reaching around the world. All ideas are composed of strands reaching far back in the past and over many lands, influenced by threads of rhythm, color and rhyme, outrageous mistakes and hallucinations. Even the loftiest, most abstract sophisticated concepts grow out of pieces rattling around coffee shops, nurseries and football fields, mixing with music, cooking and gardening. Every mind takes part, each one living in the thinking of the world. Together we create the mental output on which all depend.
Morality evolved as an inseparable part of intelligence. In order to think together, people have to get along. This is not automatic. Our existence through the past has always been dependent on a balance of genetic and cultural supports for moral behavior that maximizes the creative intelligence of the human information system. We are genetically predisposed to empathize with others, fall in love and like things like music and sports that join people together. But we also need ongoing streams of new ideas in all areas of life, good and bad, to be dreamed up and tried out. Our collective creativity is generated by a diversity of individuals in all walks of life making different choices, going their own way. So a measure of wildness, especially by teenagers, is built in. The resulting instability requires a lot of work. We inherit culture as much as we do fingers.
Moral concepts in multiple forms have been passed down and improved on from primordial times in the same way as technical ideas like the use of fire. Without morality, just as without fire, everyone dies. Embedded in every culture is a way of understanding the information realities of life, some picture of lives connected by invisible ties in a common endeavor and fate, the furtherance of which is everyone's responsibility. This is contained in direct explanations as well as music and art, sports, humor and a thousand tales about others and the past. The enormous success of the human endeavor owes a lot to the efforts of so many through the ages searching for ever better ways to convince people to live together wholeheartedly.
Though it can be hard to include those who are different, closing eyes to them shuts off communion with thought itself. To regard anyone at all as unworthy of recognition is to turn away from intelligence, which exists in pieces scattered everywhere. Every face is a unique shining facet of the most complex thinking entity ever to exist. The greatest impediments to human potential are institutional, philosophical and viscerally emotional objections to getting little voices raised and heard. It seems so easy to disregard the shy, odd, peculiar and strange, both rebellious and those that sound the same, voices small and lonely, the less talented and nonpolitical. But they are us and we are all there is.
The revolution of modern life is vastly expanding intelligence by turning on its head traditional notions that the source of wealth and power is the best and brightest. What is emerging instead is a world in which every mind is acknowledged as an important contributor. Particular individuals are useful for any one task at hand, and when they manage to do something special it is a wonderful gift to themself and everyone else. But no matter how impressive, every success is the result of a limited, particular vision applied to resources drawn from the vast sea of human thought. Mental or character perfection is an attribute of people as a whole. Individuals are expressly designed not to be that way. Every individual can be described as 'flawed' or 'not perfect'. This is a good, not bad thing. The largest are dependent, the smallest have something to add. The most striking thing an honest person sees in mirrors is the amazing ordinariness of uniqueness. So-called ordinary people exist only because we were over eons in the most severe circumstances in fact essential to the intelligence of the whole. The most important and potent attribute of human intelligence is not that some are all-encompassing geniuses but that none are.
In the practical world of everyday life, people thinking is people making decisions. On a large scale decentralizing decision-making so more are thinking is difficult. As individuals choose who to marry, where to live and what to do for others they create ever greater complexity because they are all different. But only when they go in their own directions is the intelligence of society enriched by their diversity. For them to be allowed do so, they need to be trusted to make reasonably good decisions. Most people have to believe in doing the right thing. Their activities will at times need to be nudged or constrained in more positive directions. Growing a beautiful garden takes a lot of work.
Individual initiative would look morally suspect if human minds evolved mainly to compete against each other. Then their inner being would be suffused with primordial impulses to do so at others expense. Even if not in fact stealing, their motivation would be tainted with it. From that perspective, morality would be an overlay designed to
counteract human nature and attempts to achieve general fairness would struggle against the tide. Such concepts provide handy excuses to keep people from acting, to confine them in a static order that is supposedly more moral. But because human minds did not in fact evolve to oppose others, exactly the opposite is true. In the practical world, this distinction has a huge effect, changing the role of rules from constraining people's base nature to facilitating greater activity with helpful guidelines and admonitions. Taking initiative is people thinking. Intelligence is the source of morality.
A functioning system of separate and independent organizations has an inherent beauty and morality that is lacking in the only alternative. The appeal of centralized systems is the supposed comfort of enforced fairness. Their slogans through the ages can sound idealistic: a place for everyone and everyone in their place, and we think and you do and we'll take care of you. This has been most attractive to those already privileged or who suppose themselves superior. It is just so hard to imagine what good could come from having stupid people think. But imposed absolute fairness is a state of standing still, bereft of creativity and initiative, missing the point of life. Visions of everyone nicely quiet and in order are nightmares not dreams, horror not paradise. Their imposition has resulted in police states and mass murder for they directly contravene the most fundamental human reality, that our destiny is to think. The great counter-revolution of modern times was communism, which sought to infuse old ideas with more effective means of control. Substitute a unitary bureaucracy for kings, emperors or caliphs and the concept is the same. In recent times it has been shown that more open systems are far more accountable, productive, able to experiment and vastly improve life. The reason it works better is because it is more intelligent. More people are thinking.
Capitalism is the use of math for the purpose of decentralizing decision-making. Math is an impartial tool for opening activities to anyone who wants to take initiative. To measure whether they are doing something worthwhile it empowers the most dispersed, appropriate and severe critics, customers. Pricing includes the user in the decision-making process, enlisting their mind to help make systems more intelligent. When people pay the true costs of the things they use, it is then they, instead of someone else, who is deciding how much and when. They have most say when they can choose from the widest selection in the world. From single entrepreneurs to enormous organizations, the proper use of math makes possible the most active use of people's minds. When capitalism strays too far from its decentralizing purpose it becomes dysfunctional and inefficient. When working well it is beautiful because it is intelligent.
Essential to success in business is finding the right balance between making money and serving others. Actually doing something worthwhile is hard, failure a constant shadow. All kinds of people need to be made happy enough to voluntarily cooperate. Customers, workers, neighbors, a variety of government folks, competitors, suppliers, contractors, all must get along. Every day brings hard choices between scarce resources and quality of output. Everything takes longer and costs more, no one is paid as much as they think they should, and temptations abound to take shortcuts. Episodes of winning the lottery and successful cheating make fun stories, but that's not where the real money is. Real business success is never only about maximizing profits. As human beings, business people connect with their world in many ways, have multiple interests and goals. Their job is to make an enterprise work as a whole, otherwise all is lost. Success requires doing and caring about two things at the same time. Many people's
desires need to be filled and it all has to add up. Serve to make money, make money to serve, chew gum and walk.
An open democratic political system is a necessary component of an intelligent society. There will always be those tempted to recentralize decision-making in order to grab advantages for themselves or a select group. Democracy empowers the majority who are less interested in gaining power and dominance over others. However, their ability to make decisions in their own lives is very important to them. This can lead to wild cultural expressions because it is central to self worth and identity. Secondary objects like guns and cars can represent the rightness of individuals thinking for themselves. And in believing it is both moral and productive for them to live actively thinking, they are right. The greatest beneficiaries of a decentralized society are its less important members. Democracy puts the right hands on the tiller, those most directly and personally interested in greater intelligence.
It is easy for initiatives to get out of hand, go in destructive directions. For capitalism to function it must have rules and guidance provided by an active democracy. All entrepreneurs, small to large, require ongoing adjustments to rules protecting their projects from theft and interference. They need an environment with sufficient infrastructure and healthy, educated citizens. They need the peaceful ways of solving problems that can thrive only in a functioning democratic political system with the good will of most of the people most of the time. Democratic capitalism is millions of people voluntarily cooperating and taking initiative to make life better for each other.
Democracy is commonly slandered as the worst system of governing except for every other. It involves a great show of shouting and grandstanding, confusion, indecision, delay, some cheating and lots of inconsistency. But the mess and confusion of a functional democracy are exactly its great strength, more people thinking. All other political setups explicitly seek to stop thinking. That is why they sometimes appear clean and efficient. Intelligence is a state of motion, the opposite of keeping everything the same. Creativity always has an element of disorder, whether in one mind or that of many. Democracy is beautiful because it is active, alive and intelligent and deserves respect for it.
A widespread improvement in moral behavior is a necessary part of the success of capitalism and democracy. This is a long, slow process, as individuals gain new freedoms and learn from them. Increasing morality means people thinking more, not less. Progress results in an increase in general activity and the pace of change. Humans are not designed to sit still but to be intelligent. Together our destiny is to wonder and speculate, create and explore, seek truth and solve the riddles of the universe.
The image of humans as entities that exist separate, alone and inherently in conflict is an insidiously corrosive illusion. Its great attraction is support it lends for comparisons showing one worth more than another. As individual items, there is a scale handy to prove anyone better. Whether best mechanic, politician, musician, cook, mathematician or athlete, a soft cocoon of superiority beckons. Excellence then isolates instead of broadening life. Individual arrogance also decreases intelligence by working against the decentralizing tides of democracy and capitalism. People keep inventing ingenious ways of explaining why they should decide instead of others, why they are smarter and better and so more deserving of the perks and trinkets of life. But if theft is legitimate, then intelligence is not.
The most fundamental fact of human life is that we evolved to maximize the intelligence of the human information system as a whole. We have never existed separate and alone but as intricately connected parts of that system, within which we live our lives. Individual intelligence was worthwhile and increased only in ways which complemented our source of power. People do not exist on a linear scale from stupid to smart. They live in many dimensions, their value to the whole being that they are different. Supermen and philosopher kings do not exist. If they did our world would be much less intelligent.
Hatred is not about the victim, instead a category error in someone's mind, a voluntary severing of connection, a denial of the fact that all humans are intrinsically interconnected. People invent all kinds of ways to cut themselves off. Walking around measuring, categorizing and belittling others may seem a purely private obsession. But the artificial separation it creates decreases intelligence, just like lying, cheating, hurting and stealing. Even when they feel justified by real injury, those who come to hate always lose. Severing connections isolates each of us when we make this mistake from the millions of ways we are naturally linked to others with intimacy, substance and meaning. It is a personal failure to grasp the largeness of life. All forms of hatred are self-banishments from the community of life, alienation from the essence of the greatest intelligence ever to arise.
True intelligence is found not in any one person. It is the unexpected found in pieces everywhere, in every pair of eyes. Fulfillment in life is not a destination but a journey always in motion, mixing in with the world around. Love, the closest of connections, is the highest expression of intelligence, of our state of nature.
For little round billiard balls, equality is being the same and freedom to roll around is increased by taking others off the table. Since humans are not little balls but information entities, the exact opposite is true. Equality is being different and freedom is radically reduced by taking others off the table. People are equal in that each one is an element of the larger thinking system and all are needed to maximize its intelligence. Acts hindering others from thinking detract from the intelligence of everyone. Condescension is always obvious, as the perpetrator very publically makes their own life smaller and cheaper. Their victims resent it, cooperate less, and close off in turn. Rising out of superiority to equality with all those lesser, acceptance to the core of humanity’s great gift, the smallness and particularity of self, is the critical door opening to the wider world of intelligence, dignity and beauty. Freedom is the ability to make choices and move around in the vast information landscape of minds and lives. This requires participation in making things work, more giving than receiving. It is because the equality and freedom of individuals as information entities are essential to intelligence that they are inherent in human existence.
Because people are not objects but information entities, they are happiest not when cut off and alone but when their minds are best connected with the world. A drug induced blank smile is not at all what happiness is about. Whether it's baseball, another person, a job or a song they like, as they find fulfillment in their various peculiarities they are happier and their minds are more engaged. As long as they avoid harming others, this raises the intelligence of the human information system. More thinking is going on. Their happiness is the summit of life, peak experience and function, the highest expression of
their unique contribution. Individual happiness is the source of collective intelligence. Can't have one without the other.
Fairness within the human information system is much greater than any list of physical items. Because it consists of enabling everyone to think and contribute it is essential to intelligence. No one can do so if starving or sick, ignorant or in chains. Everyone needs help to grow and flourish. Efforts to increase fairness, to better people's lives, are far more than feel good projects. They are for us, not simply for them.
In the clear cold light of morning the choice to live fully and behave in a moral fashion is obvious. People have invented lots of ways to explain why they should be nice to each other. But at root they all come down to individual awakening, opening to the information realities of life. Human beings perceive directly, without any explanation, theory or religion, that they are connected with others and the world. It is obvious in moments when an individual finds themself suddenly enraptured by another person. The illusion of separateness might unconsciously dissolve when encountering a song or a wayward glance, an ingenious machine or a football pass. It is the recognition of informational connection which inspires the look in a lover's eye, the visceral reaction to a baby's cry, the giddy feeling of a moving world when some work of art gets under the skin. Most people do not need complicated reasons to see grossly immoral acts as just plain wrong. Who has not been overwhelmed by the utter cuteness of a little child? Morality becomes self-evident with the experience of recognizing the warmth and light in another's eye, becoming much more than the right thing, the only thing to do.
Within every person lies a field of life full of hidden places, fuzzy feelings, acres of happenings and kittens and food, every corner filled with vastness, fluid motion moment to moment. Each comes with a mix of warm childhood memories, present experience and dreams of the future, all dense with nuance and impressions. Their information field is an extension and enrichment of all others. For anyone, the experience of recognizing this in one person and then another, a friend, neighbor or passerby, expands the boundaries of life. Multiplied by all those in a town, a region, the world, and the human information landscape seems to go on forever. The furthest corners of every mind fuel the most powerful and intelligent entity ever to exist. Its beauty graces all our lives.
Today awareness is spreading throughout the world of the myriad ways that participating in an actively intelligent society elevates every personal life. Individuals have ever more reasons to believe that their own peculiarities are good not bad, that it is alright for them to be more themselves. The variety of things they can do is expanding, with greater freedom, prosperity and people inventing new pursuits. Large organizations are recognized to be more successful when they enlist the minds of their employees instead of having them do only what they are told. The use of math to make it possible for everyone to make decisions is gaining acceptance. Ever more varieties of people are being allowed, enabled and inspired to participate. Democracy is spreading and theft by those who govern is receding. Even those with guns are slowly awakening to the fact that real power comes from intelligence, the secret to which is to be found in the sweetly innocent smile of a child. The modern flowering of the human information system is wonderful, moral and inherently beautiful.
Burns Night in the Lilac Town
By Herbert Eyre Moulton
(1927-2005)
This is the story --- more or less --- of what when two charming and resourceful young ladies quite flabbergasted our entire federation of chums, buddies, and miscreants raffishly known as The Anti-Decency League of Greater Chicagoland, or ADL for short, and this by dint of one of the most outrageous escapades that any of us had ever carried off.
It was back in the late 1940's, when most of us were only a year or two out of high school and intent on discovering new and original methods of shocking and, if possible, outsmarting the petty-bourgeoise, convention-strangled society into which all of us, quite without our consent, had been born. We had always. prided ourselves on our happy-go-lucky, nose-thumbing flaunting of the rules that had been laid down for us. But with this one coup-de-théâtre, these two accomplished doxies, Joan and Ginny (AKA the Duchess and her wily handmaid) set all our previous antics and accomplishments in the shade once and for all ...
How? By appearing in our midst one night with the most glittering trophies that any of us had ever seen or even dreamt about --- introducing into a nice normal Saturday night get-together a trio of handsome and virile Scots Highlanders in full marching regalia: kilted, sporanned, silver-buckled and complete with skirling bagpipes and tootling flute, recruited directly from Edinburgh's famed Royal Scots Marching Band, which earlier in the week had opened its first-ever engagement in America. For the record: Alex, Angus and Robbie.
This sudden, completely unexpected appearance on our home-scene, right "SPLAT!!!" in the middle of one of our pleasant but unexceptional bashes, sparked a night of almost barbaric plentitude, of impromptu Highland Flings and improvised Sword Dances (using our kitchen cutlery), of spontaneous Sing-Songs and Robert Burns poetry-recitations crowding one upon another, of toasts and Usquebaugh-quaffing unprecedented this side of Auld Reekie (Edinburgh to the uninitiated), of outlandish stunts like the communal conga-line "Colonel Bogeying" out the back door, down the stairs, around the corner, along the town's main drag, then through the street door, up the front stairs, and back into the apartment without losing a beat; and set dances with Angus as a most professional caller, leading up to the most sumptuous banquet any of us had ever wallowed in and which threatened to go on till daybreak --- then a grisly episode involving a temporary off-limits bathroom and a universal agony of bursting bladders and curses both loud and deep, and all to the ear-splitting squawling of a barage of bagpipes, like the Sorcerer's Apprentice, seemingly impossible to turn off. ("Sweet God," as my mother Nell moaned sometime during this surrealastic charade, "Is there no way to turn that one and his bagpipes off?!") --- mere blips, really, in an otherwise seamless montage of uninterrupted feasting-and-fun, the likes of which our everyday, dull-as-ditchwater suburbs have never experienced before or since ...
With its extended highs, and its alarms and excursions leading up to a pandemonium-blixted climax, this was an occasion that is still being talked about in the hushed, incredulous tones usually reserved for extra-terrestrial sightings or once-in-a-lifetime jackpot killings on one of those quiz shows forever cluttering up our TV-screens ...
And all due to the sheer persuasive chutzpah of our two vivacious vestals.
Wi’a hundred pipers
Who or what is a true Scotsman --- and how to become one when you'd like to be, but aren't? Questions such as these took on an urgent new impact one sunny autumn day in the late 40's when the Entertainment pages of the Chicago newspapers carried an annoncement intriguing enough to turn plain ordinary citizens (starting with our own suburban WASPS) into natives of Clydeside or denizons of Edinburgh Castle:
"SENSATION! THE PIPERS ARE COMING TO TOWN!"
And that was only the beginning. The text led off with a starting call-to-arms lifted from the old Scots Marching Song THE HUNDRED PIPERS:
"Wi'a hundred pipers an' a' an' a',
We'll up an' gi' them a blaw, a blaw!"
Aye, pipers such as those who'd soon be winging their way from Auld Reekie to the Windy City, where, for the first time ever, the celebrated Royal Scots Marching Band and Pipers would be performing a full program of marching-and-bagpipe music as featured in the legendary Royal Tattoo, a time-honored spectacle, which from time immemorial had been a fixture at Edinburgh's historic castle --- hair-raising, in-your-face skirling of bagpipes, bolstered by pounding drums and tootling winds and brass --- flashes of steel and silver, fur-trimmed sporrans bouncing like demented shaving-brushes on the brilliantly-colored kilts of Royal Stewart or Black Watch, with a full corps of skilled dancers offering a fantastic program ranging from set-dances such as reels, hornpipes, strathspeys and jigs. This truly once-in-a-lifetime happening, involving scores of skilled performers, heirs to centuries of stormy and dramatic history, from the earliest Viking raids, down through the tragic fortunes of Robert the Bruce, William Wallace and the doomed and romantic last of the Stuarts, Bonnie Prince Charlie, right down to the fierce "Ladies from Hell" of World War I --- would be opening shortly at Chicago's time-honored Stadium, erstwhile showplace of national political conventions and other forms of light entertainment from international sporting events to Sonja Henie's renowned Ice Revue and Ringling Bros.-Barnum and Bailey three ring circus. (Somehow my parents had managed to take me to them all!)
The annoncement had acted like a high-wattage volt of electricity on Scot and non-Scot alike, galvanizing, in our case, even the most comatose of our drones to hotfoot it to the W. Madison Street ticket-office. No matter which category of Scots- Americans, if any, one belonged to, the important thing was to be there and celebrate the occasion with as much ceremony and enthusiasm as possible, for who could say when an oppurtunity as rare as this would come our way again?
Three Categories of Scots-Americans
As for our own serried ranks, these could be said to fall, like Caesar's Gaul, into three separate categories, with varying pride and interest in what might be callled their Heathery-Hebridian Heritage ---
Heading the list would be the happy few who could call themselves The Real Thing, 100 % genuine Scots-Americans, beginning (in our own circle) with the indomitable Stephen clan, whose progenitor, organist-Sunday-composer-bon-vivant-and-munifiscent host, Robert M. Stephen, was born and bred in that most regal of cities, the classical Highland capital of Edinburgh. Thus, the birthplace of our beloved "Codgerkin", with his unstoppable train of richly rolled "R's", and his equally unstoppable free hand in pouring out brimming flagons of his signature Ballantine's, as he did almost every Sunday morning after church services at St. Mark's Episcopal, where I, often as not, gargled tuneful anthems, mostly of his own melodious composition ...
Besides the "Codg" were his gracious wife ("Herbert, I'm nothing but a cross old dame")and their two stalwart sons (my. self-appointed chauffeur-bodyguards) Robert M. Jr. ("The Baron") and his one-year younger brother George, equally brawny, but less flamboyant and more retiring, with a limp acquired, along with a Purple Heart, in a dust-up with General Rommel's crack desert-troops at El Alemain.
(Years later, I am pleased to say, the Baron, more expansive and baronial than ever, would hold an honored place in the world of higher education as one of the most popular and influential Professors of Political Science in America's midwest, with none of his sweeping humor or liberality diminished, and still eager to act as my unofficial bodyguard (whenever he thought I needed one.) As for George, that gentle soul later married a pleasant widow-lady of some means, and retired with her to Florida's West Coast, where he could really work at perfecting his golf game --- an original Scots institution (as you will recall.)
-------------------------
Getting back to those halycon days of the 40's, I remember those weekly post-church sessions at the Stephen's cosy, book-and-music-lined bungalow on Glen Ellyn's Annadale Avenue, with Lucille's freshly baked Scotch shortbread, Codger's generous hand at pouring out draughts of golden Ballantine's, and the boys' non-stop argle-bargle with me covering any topic from European History to our astonishing President Harry S. Truman, as among the most life-enhancing of my entire life.
Besides the bounteous Stephens, this upper stratum of 100 % Scots-Americans included, as well, assorted MacRaes, MacDonalds, and most notably, the gifted, mercurial, oft-infuriating, and highly disputatious St. Clairs, probably my family's closest friends in that part of the world, of a clan hailed in past days by no less than Sir Walter Scott in these words ---
"So still they blaze, when fate is nigh,
The Lordly line of high St. Clair ..."
It was their own daughter Joan who blazed highest and almost constantly, an electric storm in herself, and known to most of us as simply the Duchess, the Duchess of Sage, the surname being all that remained from a disastrous wartime marriage. Suffice to say that it was Joan, aided and abetted by her chum and closest confederate, the comely and quietly lethal Ginny Lee, who, all on her lonesome, rounded up and delivered into our midst the magnifiscent trio of Highlanders, whose sudden and fortuitous presence in our company was the motivation and raison d'être for this entire chronicle.
Now for the second category of Scots-Americans ...
This second stage of the tartan-tinged pecking-order would include what might be termed the loyal and patriotic half-breeds --- namely various Robertsons, Gregorys, Taylors, Leslies, Staufenbergs, and, last, but anything but least, my own family, by virtue of my paternal grandmother, Minnie R. Moulton, born Maria Ross Harper in Philadelphia in 1858, and descended (on the Scots side) from the Laings of Aberdeen, where since the 16th century (Mary Queen of Scots, Darnley, Knox!), they had been holding forth at the piquantly named Todholes-on-the-Pitgalvany. Another Philadelphia-Scots kinsman of ours was Samuel Ross, whose cousin Betsy gained immortality --- well, everybody knows how: sewing the first American flag for George Washington. (I do remember relatives of my Grandmother Moulton's generation speaking familarly.of "Cousin Betsy", so that, whenever glory was borne past in a parade, one or the other of them was bound to remark, "There goes cousin Betsy's handiwork.")
Rounding off our catalog: the Third Category, most numerous and most vocal of all, far too involved I their Scotsophilia to be considered mere Wanna-Be's, eager to investigate and, whenever possible acquire anything in the very least Scottish --- rainwear, broghams (big heavy boots for crossing sudden moors!), hand-woven tweeds, even the rough, hardy Harris, which in rainy weather always reeks faintly of seaweed --- hand-knitted goods, of course (cardigans, tams, long stockings, and all manner of tartan plaids, as colorful as sartorially possible: a perfect example of what they used to demean as a "run-on-sentence", okay?")
Even fonder were --- (and are) these all-Scots freaks of any of the myriad Scottish delicacies available, many of them in posh speciality shops, but also on the shelves of most upscale super-marts --- Scotch ham and salmon, shortbread and cakes of all breeds and sizes, teeth-shattering taffy and chunky marmelades (the best, laced with Whiskey!) and tinned broths and soups, even Haggis!
Likewise held in highest esteem: The Poems and Songs of Robert Burns (arguably the poet closest to the people's hearts). And for Scots and non-Scots alike, that greatest of Scotland's bequests to mankind, known both in the native Gaelic and the language of the Sassanachs: USQUEBAUGH, or just plain Whiskey, Water of Life. Internationally appreciated, nay, loved, no matter what the label --- be it Bell's, Dewar's, Johnny Walker, Glenfiddle, or any of countless magi names, never forgetting the jokey old chestnut listing the telephone number of His Holiness the Pope: VAT 69 --- Slainte! No matter what! (Does Irish Gaelic count at all?) Anyway, Bottoms Up! Glasses raised, as well, to any of the countless by-products as Drambuie and Scotch Mist, each in his own way a bit of Heaven.
Her Grace The Duchess Regrets
Ah yes, the opening night performance --- how to make as proud a showing as we could --- going smoothly enough, except for one small, but puzzling detail in a logistics operation roughly comparable to the D-Day landings in Normandy a handful of years before. Suddenly it became clear that the staunchest and most vociferous Scots-enthusiast hadn't signed up, had in fact inexplicably begged off attending the premiere, giving as an excuse the lamest in the catalog: "Due to a previous engagement." Prithee, WHAT "PREVIOUS ENGAGEMENT"? I know: DON'T ASK/ DONT TELL. (We never DID find out --- Frustrating is NOT the word!) By all this is meant (who else?) Joan, Duchess of Sage. This "lordly line of St. Clair", of which Joan was the young chatelaine, were perhaps the most interesting of all our many fascinating friends and asquaintances. They seemed to embody everything one imagines the classic Scottish temperament to be --- moody, dramatic, unpredictable, liable to switch in an instant from the darkly dour to highly charged exuberance with no warning-signal whatsoever --- yet singly or collectively such marvelous company that one gladly put up with all the rest of it, as one does (and gladly) with friends one truly cherishes. (Oddly enough, the Stephen clan were in almost every way, the exact opposite of the St. Clairs, and yet were just as "Scottish" of all their traits. Which is what makes Celts --- and my mother Nell was no exception --- brilliant sunshine one minute, a downpour the next. YOU try to figure them out --- but one thing is certain --- they are none of them dull. Infuriating, they can be (and often are), but boring? No way!
Joan's abrupt cancellation of her performance at the "Royal Scots" Premiere at the Stadium was all too typical of that demi-diva, whose imperious manner and regal eccentricity had, as already mentioned, earned her the soubriquet of Her Grace the Duchess (not yet 30 and already almost a Royal!). Hers was manner so formidable that any poor wretch heard muttering, White-Rabbit-like, "The Duchess! Oh! the Duchess! Won't she be simply savage?" could only mean, not Lewis Carroll's titled termagant, but the dazzler ensconced at the St. Clair family compound over on Glen Ellyn's wooded Riford Road. (In this account of that singular evening, when the Royal Scots Band briefly invaded Lombard-The-Lilac-Town, you will encounter two more of the St. Clair dynasty: Robert, Joan's brother, who, in this case, is merely a face in the crowd, and their mother (the Doyenne) Hazel, a gentle exception to everything already said about the Scottish temperament. Let me assure you that we have been every bit as puzzled as anyone by the quirks of the "pawky" Scots soul, my Dad and I, trying to keep up with my Irish mother's rapid changes of mood. Her saving grace was her blessed Irish sense of humor that never let her take herself too seriously. The winning formula: (and here's where the metaphors careen wildly off the tracks) Quicksilver VS. Dark storm-clouds: gloom, dark storm-clouds only occasionally relieved by shafts of sunshine. Anybody able to figure all that out, please let us in on that secret!
When the news of Joan's absense from the premiere-party became known, I believe we were all more than slightly relieved --- for once, somebody else might be able to get a word in edgeways. Besides which, she would doubtless make up for it the following Saturday when gracing the performance, with her favorite confederate, the lovely, but lethal Ginny Lee in attendance. Not for the first time would the query arise: what have the two of them been up to THIS time? For, as always when this dulcet duo was involved, something extraordinary, something quite outré would be afoot. And for those not quite familiar with that nifty little French adjective, here's what the Concise Oxford Dictionary says about it:
"Outré: Outside the bounds of propriety, eccentric, outraging decorum."
Talk about le mot juste!
As our tale unfolds, the appropriateness of this definition will become crystal-clear. For, as the old saying has it, thereby hangs a tale, not to belabor the French word-borrowings (but just one more?), one that holds the very raison d'etre of this entire narrative.
Aye, this was a happening that still lives in the collective memory as one of the boldest and most bizarre in the entire annals of the ADL, of Herbert-Parties, perhaps of the party going history of Greater Chicagoland, Subdivision: Western Suburbs. Once again the query: what had those two ornamental doxies, Joan and Ginny, wrought?
What --- to put it as simply as possible --- what they had wrought was introduce into a perfectly ordinary, normal Saturday evening Herbert-party a magnificent trio of virile and talented Scottish Highlanders in full parade dress, direct from Edinburgh Castle by way of the Chicago Stadium, complete with bagpipes and silver flute.
Was there ever such a spectacular entrance made into a gathering as this? COULD there ever be? And all because these two high-spirited and enterprising bimbos from Glen Ellyn, USA, got so carried away by the pulse-quickening, bladder-tickling spectacle they had been witnessing, an evening that so beggered every precious description and nullified every form of anticipation that, even before the final ovation had subsided, the two of them had hitched up their chic New Look skirts and trundled hurriedly backstage...
There, with adrenaline bubbling and adulation reaching orgasmic proportions, they gave themselves up to the melée of stamping, sweating Scots gladiators (or so they seemed to Our Girls), still vibrating from their three hours’ performance and the attendant triumph --- gave themselves up? No! They positively let themselves be engulfed, and, both girls babbling non-stop, they so enraptured three of the kilted hunks in particular --- namely Angus, the ultimate chauffeur-manager, Alex, prize piper and part time pianist-accompanist; and Robbie, star flutist and all of 18, a gentle ginger-haired gift for the Gods --- so enraptured and enchanted them that all three immediately dropped whatever plans they’d had for the evening and snapped up the girls invitation to journey forthwith, out to the western suburb of Lombard (Yep!! The promised goal:) Lombard , the Lilac Town, an ongoing party at the Moultons’ with Nell and the 2 Herbs, and all their works and pomps.
Remembering Uncle J.P.
(Autobiographical essay)
By Raymond Greiner
I lived in Vienna, West Virginia until age eleven, we then moved to Marion, Ohio where I entered sixth grade in 1951. Formative years unveil perpetual newness.
Industrial states felt economic surge in the early forties created from war demands while West Virginia remained stalled. Industrialized states struggled during The Great Depression era whereas West Virginia remained as it had always been. The thirties were more of a speed bump in West Virginia rather than a crisis because the state historically functioned on a fiscal precipice. However, my parents and grandparents were above the poverty line.
I attended Vienna School grades one through five, built in the nineteenth century with oiled wood floors, suspended globe lamps, wooden desks with inkwells and lift tops to store books, also paddles hanging next to blackboards. We didn’t change rooms, one teacher taught all subjects, but did changed rooms twice a week for music class, and on Fridays when our principal Mr. Huffman showed a movie in the largest classroom. Everyone crowded in with some standing, to watch a 16mm, black-and-white film. I remember two, Destination Moon and One Million BC. I distinctly remember One Million BC as I was overcome with fear watching cave men fight dinosaurs, later learning dinosaurs were extinct millions of years before humans appeared. Teachers were the most memorable, all women, very strict and although paddles were seldom used they played a symbolic role as reminders disruption would not be tolerated. It was an interesting time to experience youth. Difficult to imagine such conditions today, as parents closely monitor teacher activity. Stern discipline has been removed from schools. Contemporary educational systems mail parents neatly typed carefully composed correspondence to detail
disruptive behavior, and a meeting is scheduled to politely discuss incidents of disruption. At Vienna School in the forties teachers clarified issues on site, quickly and effectively.
My grandparents on my mother’s side, the Slater’s, lived in Parkersburg six miles from Vienna, and we visited frequently. My grandfather Slater was retired; and during working years he sold cemetery lots. The Slater’s were vagabonds of sorts, they owned a small orange grove in California in the early twentieth century, and I remember old photographs of this farm. Grandfather Slater traveled to San Francisco from Georgia to take a job in San Francisco. His wife Minnie arrived a year later by train with three children. They were married in Claxton, Georgia in 1902. Grandfather Slater was in San Francisco during the earthquake and fire destroying the city in 1906, before Minnie and the kids arrived. He was a handsome man, performed skits in vaudeville shows, and had a variety of jobs, and somehow ended up with the orange grove. I am without knowledge regarding reasons for moving to Parkersburg, WV, but my mother went to Parkersburg High School graduating in 1930. I remember seeing a photograph taken in California showing three children with my grandparents. One was my Aunt Sadie and one was Clara, who died in childhood of scarlet fever. Also pictured was a small, wide-eyed boy standing tall, and this was my uncle J.P. born in 1903. My mother, Helen, was born in 1911 and was not in this photo. I also had an Aunt Janet, born a year before my mother; Aunt Janet was the academic of the family, graduating from Parkersburg High School in 1929 as class salutatorian. My Uncle Bill was the youngest, unsure of his birth year, it must have been around 1920 since he had graduated from high school prior to being drafted into the army in 1941. Uncle Bill was the most charismatic member of the family, very good looking, and gregarious, everyone was drawn to him, as he possessed all the natural gifts. He was comfortable in social settings, became a hero in Italy during combat with the Germans, and awarded the Bronze Star for bravery enhancing his charisma. Everyone loved uncle Bill.
Uncle J. P. (James Paxton, Jr.), everyone called him J.P. was too old to be drafted and suffered from a mild learning disability, not classified as retarded but a slow learner, and was removed from school after fifth grade. No special education classes in those days. Uncle J.P. was bullied, and shunned socially at school, likely contributing to poor academic performance. The Uncle J.P. I knew was anything but a slow learner, he was smart, read the newspaper front to back each day, and knew more than most realized.
Uncle J.P. lived at home with my grandparents, Jim and Minnie. Uncle Bill and Uncle J.P. displayed vividly contrasting personalities. In the course of daily life my grandfather habitually directed verbal humiliation at uncle J.P. with hurtful snipes through exaggeration of minor issues. When Uncle Bill visited he contributed to this activity. Even at my young age this made me uncomfortable, and I knew it was wrong. I loved Uncle J.P., so much; he paid more attention to me than other adults in the family and often read me newspaper articles. Uncle J.P. was also a master gardener; he knew everything one could possibly know about gardening. His garden was large, and centered his life. He sold sweet corn, tomatoes and strawberries. People came from great distances to buy his produce. His garden was organic and perfect. He marinated tobacco in water then put this mixture in a garden sprayer using it as a pesticide. I was impressed at the neatness of his rows; always weed free as he worked tirelessly with his hoe in the sun wearing a straw hat. To escape verbal abuse uncle J.P. stayed to himself leading a solitary life. He told me he saved one hundred dollars, which I thought was a huge amount of money. Parkersburg High School was nearby, and Uncle J.P. volunteered to chalk the yard lines on the field for home football games. He did this for years, and coaches and players came to know and love him. They treated him better than anyone; he so enjoyed this job, representing his only social connection allowing a sense of worth and importance.
They gave him a permanent pass to games, but he always returned home, and listened to the games on the radio.
The torment from family members damaged Uncle J.P., but he concealed his emotions. Uncle J.P. smoked all day and Grandfather Slater and Uncle Bill were also heavy drinkers, fueling abuse toward Uncle J.P. Uncle J.P. never used alcohol, had very little money, and would hand roll cigarettes on a small hand crank machine. His thumb and forefinger on his right hand were yellow with stain from smoking cigarettes. The family was not totally dysfunctional, they shared meals, and there were times of harmonious interaction, but love was shallow, and much of the food was from the garden and never a word of recognition or praise directed at Uncle J.P. for his effort.
When I was around ten I remember Uncle J.P. holding his hand over his heart complaining of pain. He was told it was indigestion. Later, I remember my mother received a phone call, and she began to cry. We were living in Ohio, and drove directly to Parkersburg to my grandparent’s house. Uncle J.P. had shot himself in the head with my grandfather’s revolver. He was not dead, but mortally wounded, and at the hospital. I had never felt such emotional pain; it hit me so hard it seemed I would surely die. They brought Uncle J.P. home and rented a hospital bed. He was in a coma, and his head was badly swollen, he died three days later. Uncle Bill, my grandfather and grandmother were overcome with grief manifested from guilt. From the time they brought Uncle J.P. home from the hospital Uncle Bill remained at his bedside, would not leave, eat or sleep, staring at Uncle J.P. the entire time until his death. This incident caused family breakdown, complete devastation, and everyone wept uncontrollably displaying suffering I was unfamiliar with at my early age.
This was a harsh lesson in life. These experiences caused me to open an extra portion of my heart to those I observe who are shunned or emotionally damaged from the treatment of others. Uncle J.P. was a magnificent person; he was kind to
everyone, never complained, and loved plants and nature in all its forms. Few people ever attain the level of connection to the Earth Uncle J.P. achieved. I did not recognize this until adulthood, but the pain I felt at the funeral home, observing my grandparents and Uncle Bill overcome with intense grief has never left my memory. They were broken. It was 1953; Uncle J.P. was fifty years old.
All of those of that generation of my family are gone now. Uncle Bill died of a heart attack at age fifty-six, associated with alcoholism, and heavy tobacco use. Observing him throughout his later years he seemed empty. He wrote me letters while I was in the USMC. Often these letters reflected his youth, and I remember him telling me how he and Uncle J.P. played together as kids. They loved baseball but no baseball diamonds were nearby and they began playing stickball on a vacant lot using a broomstick and a rubber ball. After a time, the rubber ball split down the middle, leaving two equal halves, and since they could not afford another ball they began playing with one half. They soon discovered it was more fun than when the ball was whole, jumping around when pitched, doing crazy things when hit, eventually giving the game a name calling it “half-rubber”. Kids would gather for a game of “half-rubber”. Uncle Bill thought this might be a marketable game, but it never ventured beyond a thought. It was sad to read uncle Bill’s letters describing his memories of Uncle J.P. and I thought it odd with Uncle Bill’s broad experiences, war heroism, and life’s interactions brought forth from social gifts his experiences, as a child remained prominent in his memory. His memorable thoughts of playing stickball with his older brother found their way to the forefront. Often, simplistic, less grand events flash forward with clarity as aging descends.
Families’ falling down frequently occurs, spiraling into darkness. Recollecting my uncle and grandfather intimidating Uncle J. P., my thoughts are: “What if Uncle J.P. tried to retaliate, resist and fight back?” He couldn’t, he did not possess an anger-based, confrontational demeanor, he also had no place to go being poorly educated, and not easily accepted socially. His only job skill was gardening.
Uncle J.P. was in a cage of despair, and my uncle and grandfather were poking sticks at him. Viewing this through the eyes of a child is indelible; I thought Uncle J.P. was a glorious, compassionate person, never critical toward others.
I recently returned to Parkersburg for a visit. Slater’s house was demolished, and the large lot where Uncle J.P created his beautiful garden was weed infested with abandoned cars occupying this space. The picture in my mind reminisced a gentle man hoeing weeds on a hot summer day. Time gauges life, stirring emotions ranging from joy to sadness. Memories linger like shadows.
I am seventy-four now and feel blessed to remain. Awareness that the average US male life expectancy is seventy-three weighs on my mind, but adds dimension, seizing reverence as each day unfolds. I live with my two dogs Orion and Venus in a small cabin, five hundred feet from the lightly traveled road, on fourteen rural acres of pasture, pond and woods. It’s an introspective place. This is where I will likely remain the duration of my life.
There is freshness on this cold, late February morning. High in the sky is a flock of the sand-hill cranes trumpeting in their flight north signaling the cusp of spring. Nature displays balanced perfection. Humankind is plagued with misdirection, struggling within itself, drifting in continual disharmony. It is a hope that as a species we will evolve to more congruity.
The voice of destiny sings in various rhythmic tones, often off key and out of tempo, like a catbird singing in a thorn bush. Then the sky opens and darkness becomes light, as clouds of doubt vanish. On this special pre-spring day I remember Uncle J.P.
Francois Rabelais
Gargantua and Pantagruel (excerpt)
François Rabelais, (born between 1483 and 1494 – 9 April 1553) was a major French Renaissance writer, physician, Renaissance humanist, monk and Greek scholar. He has historically been regarded as a writer of fantasy, satire, the grotesque, bawdy jokes and songs. His best known work is Gargantua and Pantagruel. Because of his literary power and historical importance, Western literary critics considered him one of the great writers of world literature and among the creators of modern European writing. His literary legacy is such that today, the word "Rabelaisian" has been coined as a descriptive inspired by his work and life. Merriam-Webster defines the word as describing someone or something that is "marked by gross robust humor, extravagance of caricature, or bold naturalism.”
All their life was regulated not by laws, statutes, or rules, but according to their free will and pleasure. They rose from bed when they pleased, and drank, ate, worked, and slept when the fancy seized them. Nobody woke them; nobody compelled them to either eat or to drink, or to do anything else whatsoever. So it was that Gargantua had established it. In their rules there was only one clause:
DO WHAT YOU WILL!
because people who are free, well-born, well-bred, and easy in honest company have a natural spur and instinct which drives them to virtuous deeds and deflects them from vice; and this they called honour. When these same men are depressed and enslaved by vile constraint and subjection, they use this noble quality which once impelled them freely towards virtue, to throw off and break this yoke of slavery. For we always strive after things forbidden and covet what is denied us.
Making use of this liberty, they most laudably rivaled one another in all of them doing what they saw pleased one. If some man or woman said, "Let us drink," they all drank; if he or she said, "Let us play," they all played; if it was "Let us go and amuse ourselves in the fields," everyone went there. If it were for hawking or hunting, the ladies, mounted on fine mares, with their grand palfreys following, each carried on their daintily gloved wrists a sparrow-hawk, a lanneret, or a merlin, the men carrying the other birds.
So nobly were they instructed that there was not a man or woman among them who could not read, write, sing, play musical instruments, speak five or six languages, and compose in them both verse and prose. Never were seen such worthy knights, so valiant, so nimble both on foot and horse; knights more vigorous, more agile, handier with all weapons than they were. Never were seen ladies so good-looking, so dainty, less tiresome, more skilled with the finger and the needle, and in every free and honest womanly pursuit than they were . . . .
Now every method of teaching has been restored, and the study of languages has been revived: of Greek, without which it is disgraceful for a man to call himself a scholar, and of Hebrew, and Latin. The elegant and accurate art of printing, which is now in use, was invented in my time, by divine inspiration; as, by contrast, artillery was inspired by diabolical suggestion. The whole world is full of learned men, of very erudite tutors, and of most extensive libraries, and it is my opinion that neither in the time of Plato, of Cicero, nor of Papinian were there such faculties for study as one finds today. No one, in future, will risk appearing in public or in any company, who is not well polished in Minerva's workshop. I find robbers, hangmen, freebooters, and grooms nowadays more learned than the doctors and preachers were in my time.
Why, the very women and girls aspire to the glory and reach out for the celestial manna of sound learning. So much so that at my present age I have been compelled to learn Greek, which I had not despised like Cato, but which I had not the leisure to learn in my youth. Indeed I find great delight in reading the Morals of Plutarch, Plato's magnificent Dialogues, the Monuments of Pausanias , and the Antiquities of Athenaeus, while I wait for the hour when it will please God, my Creator, to call me and bid me leave this earth.
Therefore, my son, I beg you to devote your youth to the firm pursuit of your studies and to the attainment of virtue. You are in Paris. There you will find many praiseworthy examples to follow. You have Epistemon for your tutor, and he can give you living instruction by word of mouth. It is my earnest wish that you shall become a perfect master of languages. First of Greek, as Quintillian advises; secondly, of Latin; and then of Hebrew, on account of the Holy Scriptures; also of Chaldean and Arabic, for the same reasons; and I would have you model your Greek style on Plato's and your Latin on that of Cicero. Keep your memory well stocked with every tale from history, and here you will find help in the Cosmographies of the historians. Of the liberal arts, geometry, arithmetic, and music, I gave you some smattering when you were still small, at the age of five or six. Go on and learn the rest, also the rules of astronomy. But leave divinatory astrology and Lully's art alone, I beg of you, for they are frauds and vanities. Of Civil Law I would have you learn the best texts by heart, and relate them to the art of philosophy. And as for the knowledge of Nature's works, I should like you to give careful attention to that too; so that there may be no sea, river, or spring of which you do not know the fish. All the birds of the air, all the trees, shrubs, and bushes of the forest, all the herbs of the field, all the metals deep in the bowels of the earth, the precious stones of the whole East and the South -- let none of them be unknown to you.
Then scrupulously peruse the books of the Greek, Arabian, and Latin doctors once more, not omitting the Talmudists and Cabalists, and by frequent dissections gain a perfect knowledge of that other world which is man. At some hours of the day also, begin to examine the Holy Scriptures. First the New Testament and the Epistles of the Apostles in Greek; and then the Old Testament in Hebrew. In short, let me find you a veritable abyss of knowledge. For, later, when you have grown into a man, you will have to leave this quiet and repose of study, to learn chivalry and warfare, to defend my house, and to help our friends in every emergency against the attacks of evildoers.
Rockstar
By TS Hidalgo
Interview with a rock-star, a celebrity icon. The mischievous and bashful expression of someone who seems like a fun guy who all the same distrusts strangers, other people, the ager publicus, someone who lives enclosed in his own world of references and connections, his own clichés. He showed up to the televised interview in pajamas, a sample of what I heard:
— What are you dressed up as today?
— I'm dressed up as myself —he held a revolver, next to the microphone. In fact he was aiming at it.
— A hobby?
—Logomachy— also, he was barefoot.
— Another hobby?
— Exclusive whoring.
— A color?
— Cyan.
— A food?
— Sushi.
— A drink?
— Absinthe.
— A number?
— The last one.
— An obscenity?
— Damn.
— Do you play any sports?
— I prefer screwing.
— A short term objective?
— Getting out of here.
— A paradise lost?
— Summer of 88, some place in Ireland, once in a lifetime, I was barely sixteen years old: cubic sin.
— Something you hate?
— Alabama, palindromes... Yeah, that's it, definitely... Palindromes ... Alabama and palindromes... I also hate the cárcel catódica... Right, and casinos, monarchies and acts of faith.
— Something you're afraid of?
— I'm afraid of ostracism by installments. I'm afraid getting to some point in my life where I look down on my own life goals, my principals. I'm afraid of starting to wish for times gone by, sweating for years. I'm afraid of the exponential desensitization of the masses. I'm afraid of the bang at the end of the world.
— A word that makes you anxious?
— Nuance.
— Do you consider yourself a revolutionary?
— No, not at all, I'm not a revolutionary.
— Really? That’s a bit odd, coming from you.
— No, I'm not, and it's very logical: in a revolution, women are always tired, and there aren't any good restaurants.
— Any words for your fans?
— Hang them all.
— What is your secret dream?
— To do it, in handcuffs, in front of a black and white television playing movies in slow motion, with really disturbing images. To do it in handcuffs, yeah. Also to meet Bob Dylan.
— You've never met him in person?
— In person no, which is, to say the least, a bit strange.
— You would like to meet him?
— Yes.
— What would you talk about if you were introduced?
— Oh, um, I have no idea. About furniture, maybe?
Silence. Now another phone call, about the building for sale, which I didn't answer either.
— What have been your main influences?
— I am made of many people.
— A synonym for your work?
— Amalgamation, or eclectic field.
— An poet?
— Kavafis.
— A key saying?
— Best is just to come.
— A brand of clothing?
— Paul Smith.
— What happened to your bullfighting career?
— I had an excess of guts, and a lack of talent... I didn't get out of the bull's way, but the bull got me out of the way on his own.
— Is there anything more transgressive than your music?
— Bahaus.
— Life has taught you that...
— An eyeful of tits makes the medicine go down.
— How much would you like to earn?
— Enough to spend it all.
— Have you ever felt like a traitor?
— As soon as it gets dark.
— What do you think of the copla*? Many intellectuals are reclaiming it these days.
— Let them reclaim it, I don't give a shit about it.
— What is the last book you have read?
— Well, now that you ask... this very one, that grants both of us this ephemeral and circumstantial existence.
— The capital of Mali?
— Bamako.
— Do you know how to pilot a desert?
— I could try.
— A psychotropic drug?
— Pills for your faith.
— What are you going to do with your Grammys?
— I don't know.
— What is left of punk today?
— Nothing will be left of punk.
Silence.
— Who is your idol?
— I aspire to be my own idol.
— Who is your idol?
— I aspire to be my own idol.
— Who is your idol?
— I aspire to be my own idol.
RAJIV’S CURRY DINER
By Charles E.J. Moulton
(Rajiv, an aging but very friendly Indian man, stands behind the counter in his New Dehli Special Curry Diner. Rajiv speaks with a very thick Indian accent.
Rodney, an American young man, comes in to the shop.)
Rajiv: Hello, my dear friend, and most welcome to enter the special world of Rajiv’s New Dehli Special Curry Diner. We are proud to be the biggest and most renowned Fast Curry Restaurant in India. Even the Maharadja of Gumbal eats his Tandoori here. How may I be of service to you on this very special day?
Rodney: I would like a hot dog.
Rajiv: (laughing) You are very, very funny. That is a good joke. I shall remember that one. Gosh, you are American, is that correct, sir?
Rodney: Yeah, so?
Rajiv: Well, I just find that you Americans have such a special sense of humour. I love Jim Carrey. He is such a funny, funny man. What is your name, sir?
Rodney: Rodney.
Rajiv: Lovely name. Lovely. Now, sir, may I tell you what we have: overhere, we have Curry Falafel, there is the Curry Hot Dish, here is Apricot Curry Seduction, the special for hot lovers, and here ...
Rodney: I would like a hot dog.
Rajiv: (stutters) Uhm, you keep mentioning that hot dog. (Calls out:) Indira, Dingy, there is a crazy American man here that wants to bake our dog. (To Rodney, again:) You must realize that here in India we do not bake dogs. We pet them, we take them for walks. If you want hot dogs, go to China, they will help you satisfy your perverse urge.
Rodney: Look, bozo, I just want a hot dog in a bun, okay?
Rajiv: Now, this is going to far, sir. I do have a dog, he is a small fox terrier and his name is Gumby, but you will not have my dog and you shall certainly not have my dog’s buns. He needs them to poop. What do think I am, crazy? You will not put my dog in the micro wave oven, sir!!!!
Rodney: I don’t wanna put your friggin dog in the micro oven, man. I just want a hot dog.
Rajiv: Well, I must admit that my dog gets hot from time to time even without being subjected to heat. He gets hot with his lady friend from time to time, too. She is fox terrier, too. You should see them, my friend. They go at it like rabbits. (Laughs.) Now, that is a HOT DOG!
Rodney: Hey, Indian Dude ...
Rajiv: Rajiv, my name is Rajiv.
Rodney: Look, Rajiv, all I want is a sausage.
Rajiv: (waits for a long time) Oh, a SAUSAGE!!!!!!!! Why did you not say that in the first place, sir? My, well, of course, it is one of our specialties. Curry Sausage. You shall have one right away, sir.
(Prepares the sausage.)
Where are you from, Rodney?
Rodney: Milwaukee.
Rajiv: Walkie? If you want take Gumby for a walkie you are most welcome. But don’t turn him into a hot dog. He might not like it. (Laughs.)
Rodney: The name of my city Milwaukee is Indian.
Rajiv: (stops preparing Rodney’s curry sausage) No, no, no. That is most certainly not an Indian name. Rajiv is an Indian name. Milkwaukee is not even a dialect.
Rodney: Yes, it is.
Rajiv: No, you have got it all wrong. I am Indian, you know.
Rodney: No, man ...
Rajiv: Yes, man ...
Rodney: No, dude ...
Rajiv: Rajiv, please ...
Rodney: Rajiv, these are other Indians. They have nothing to do with you.
Rajiv: Don’t they want to? My God, there are lost Indians out there. (Calls out) Indira, Dingy, in America there are lost Indians. It is a major crisis. Maybe we could help them come back.
Rodney: No, it’s okay. Forget it. Just ... just forget it, okay? It’s just an American city. No Indians.
Rajiv: You promise?
Rodney: Yes.
Rajiv: Whew. What a relief. Indira, Dingy. No hot doggies. No lost Indians. (To Rodney:) You gave me quite a scare, you know.
Rodney: Sorry.
Rajiv: That will be two, ninety, please. There you go. Come back soon and don’t call us or we’ll call you. Isn’t that what you Americans, say?
Rodney: (Laughs politely. Looks into the camera.) Gosh, I will never come back here again. (Rodney goes out.)
Rajiv: (Also looks into the camera.) Gee wiz, I hope he never comes back. His demands to eat my dog were terrifying. (Shivers and walks out.)
THE END
***
Below:
1st photo - Editor-in-Chief Charles E.J. Moulton as Rajiv
2nd photo: Editor-in-Chief Charles E.J. Moulton as Elvis Presley
Mediumship
By Karen King
The people who talk to the dead are called “mediums”. They walk between the living and the
dead and deliver messages to those who remain on the earth. These messages can be deep
and meaningful or quite banal. Either way, they make a great difference to those who remain
on earth, offering them hope and a reason to go on living. They will feel peace, joy and a
deep connection with those they have lost. They will have the much-needed proof in the
continuation of the soul. It will make them think deeper and about the possibility of re-
incarnation for, surely, we don’t just drift around for the rest of our lives in the spirit world?
There must be a reason for all this? Is it to come back and try again until we get it right? I,
personally, believe this is the case. I also feel that the souls that have passed will feel both
relieved and delighted to be able to send their messages of peace and love to their relations
and friends, thus proving their ongoing existence and continuous love for the loved ones they
have left behind. Sometimes, the spirits have repeatedly tried to contact the living by making
noises, moving things around or even touching their relations, to no avail. The spirits are
relieved to be able to find a medium who can make the necessary contact and a bridge
between the souls.
I think that there will be an ever-increasing need for mediums as the world starts to wonder
about where their lost friends, relatives and loved ones have gone. So, the medium, provides
such an important role in both this world and the next, uniting the earth and the spirit plane,
promoting peace and harmony throughout both worlds.
Karen King Copyright February 2016
Best Times
By Alexandra H. Rodrigues
In our society today, we constantly strive for success and prestige. We want to get to the top, belong to the elite and be able to afford what we desire. Why then are the rich and famous so often miserable?
There is a deep satisfaction in little pleasures which are available to you without big expense. Even if you are at the top, you will be amazed how rewarding it is to be able to recognize and pay attention to little pleasures. My big treasure is a small dinghy, the one we carry on deck of our big boat. It holds two people, is made of hard rubber, and has two plastic paddles and a throw rope. This little gadget has become my biggest pleasure. You step inside, fight for balance and hope not to get splashed or fall into the water. One cannot go far with it and I have no desire to do so; the wind usually decides the direction. Sometimes I bump into one of the big party boats that are anchored along our 40-foot wide and three-city-blocks long canal. No problem, I bounce off and use my paddles to return to the middle of the canal. I look at the sky and kind of meditate while the little nutshell bounces along. Little wonders of nature exist all around, but we hardly ever take the time to watch and enjoy them. We are too busy to strive for fame and prominence. I use my imagination while meditating. This little boat is my gondola and I am skimming along the waterways of Venice. I ignore that my neighbor’s black dogs bark at me furiously when I pass them.
Maybe I interrupted their meditation. What do dogs think about? 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 to the bulkhead, I admire the mimosa trees in their pink bloom and am made aware of the gardenias. It is a faint aroma coming from those flowers that catches my attention. I watch a squirrel climbing up a pine tree and I call a friendly, “Hello.” Mother duck is taking her children for her first outing, and I ponder what they will do come winter. I hear the happy noises of the seagulls from the distant bay where they catch remnants of dead fish that fishermen have thrown overboard. I look at a weather-beaten red bench on the lawn of a house nearby and wonder who used to sit on there in the past and who will sit on it in the future.
All is peaceful. No noise or vibration like on a big boat. I just float, look and relax.
I put my hand into the water and let the water drops slowly dissipate in the sun. I rest my chin on the rubber edge of my little gondola and watch how the sun reflects by injecting colorful rays just below the water’s surface.
I do not want to change with anybody!
High Old Times in the Threadbare ‘30s
By the late and great Herbert Eyre Moulton (1927 – 2005)
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!!!
Spotlight Showstoppers
"The Lunts on Broadway"
Excerpt from a stage-play/ anthology
written for a narrator, an actor and an actress.
By the late, great
Herbert Eyre Moulton
(1927 - 2005)
***
(The actress enters.)
ACTRESS
Lynn Fontanne, born in England --- the reference books do not agree as to what year --- stagestruck from childhood. As a young woman became the protégée of Ellen Terry, and later Laurette Taylor, who brought her to America --- for one reason, to try and fatten her up. "In me, dressmakers lose their pins," she used to say. "Oh, Lynn, they bend them."
ACTOR
Lunt got his first big break in 1919 when Booth Tarkington wrote a comedy for him with an offbeat hero, "Clarence", a saxophone-playing entomologist.
ACTRESS
Lynn Fontanne's first break occurred a few years later as "Dulcy", the scatterbrained heroine in George S. Kaufman's first success.
ACTOR
The score thus far: one offbeat hero ---
ACTRESS
--- and one scatterbrained heroine in need of fattening up.
NARRATOR
By the time of their first successes, they'd already acted repertory together in Washington --- their lifelong love affair began then, too --- their first New York appearance, though nor yet as partners, was in 1923 in Laurette's revival of "Nell of Old Drury".
ACTOR
The year before, because they were so in love and more than a little tired of waiting, they'd taken Destiny firmly by the collar and quickly marched it downtown to the Marriage Bureau. Soon, however, it was Destiny that was doing the collaring, in the form of the Theatre Guild.
NARRATOR
The Theatre Guild ...
ACTRESS
(Has her glasses on by now and is thumbing through a book:)
Wait, before we get into all that, I just wanted ---
(Searching for the place:)
There are these marvellous bits about their personal appearance.
NARRATOR
Personal appearance?
ACTRESS
What people thought of them. The general consensus seems to be that they were rather hideous.
ACTOR
Yes, when Laurette Taylor first took Lynn to the producer George Tyler, he pronounced her a human scarecrow, skinny, big-footed, pigeon-toed, and with a high thin voice which, he said, wouldn't be heard beyond the tenth row. Laurette agreed, and ---
ACTRESS
(Has found the place and reads out pointedly:) Oh, here it is --- "A bag of bones with arms as thin as rails."
ACTOR
Even after she'd become famous as an actress and a beauty, she received gems of condescension like this one from Mrs. Campbell ---
ACTRESS
"You're very lovely, my dear, though your chest is rather flat. I am sure it will fill out becomingly like mine, because I had a flat chest like yours when I was your age."
ACTOR
As for Lunt, he was "too tall, too thin, too eccentric in his movements ..."
ACTRESS
"... a vaguely wandering soul who looks at you like a lost dog afraid of being washed"!
ACTOR
Then there was that "hollow voice"
of his which kept breaking into falsetto ---
NARRATOR
A mannerism that would soon be turned to gold.
ACTRESS
The funny thing was, Lunt agreed with all of this. He always loathed his looks. Once in a letter to Laurence Olivier, he said ---
ACTOR
"My hair is a nice color, brown like an expensive mink, but my face reminds me of nothing quite much as a discarded douche bag."
NARRATOR
(Returning to his theme:)
Mmmmm, yes, the Theatre Guild. During the 5 or 6 years of its existence, the Guild had built up a reputation as an "art" theater that never made any money and never paid its artists much, either. They'd never had a real hit and nobody seemed to care. The directors all had their private incomes, which is always nice in addition to ideals and taste, and were content with producing the kind of plays they wanted and in the way they wanted. For years they'd held an option on an old Ferenc Molnar comedy, which one of the directors, Philip Moeller, had translated as "The Guardsman". Another of the directors, the dynamic Theresa Helburn, now undertook to get the play produced, if at all possible, with Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontane, and the rest is ---
ACTRESS
Funny, isn't it? Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne, they were always called that, weren't they?
NARRATOR
(Peeved at the interruption:) But those were ---
ACTRESS
Or the Lunts. No, what I mean is, it was never Mr. and Mrs. Lunt, that would have been just ludicrous.
NARRATOR
(Continuing:) The rest, as I was about to say, is history. "The Guardsman" had everything possible against it. The play had already failed on Broadway in an earlier version. Then, too, the Guild had neither the resources nor the know-how to stage high comedy. And, lastly, the leads, as exponents of the continental style, were totally unknown quantities. With Lunt still considered "an awkward, ungainly, ugly chap," and Miss Fontanne a "funny gawky English girl who didn't care how ridiculous she looked as long as she got laughs" --- they were hardly such stuff as dreams were made on.
ACTOR
But they believed in the project so much that they took the last of their savings and went off to Europe in search of atmosphere and a Parisian wardrobe for Miss Fontanne. Lunt's Guardsman would be dressed in black ---
NARRATOR
At which the director, Philip Moeller, balked ---
ACTOR
"You can't play comedy in black!"
NARRATOR
Miss Fontanne disagreed ---
ACTRESS
"Listen, Mr. Moeller. You can play comedy in a burlap bag inside a piano with the cover down if the lines are funny and the audience can hear them."
(The Actress exits.)
ACTOR
Right up to the final grim rehearsal, all signs foretold disaster, and yet ...
(The Actor exits.)
NARRATOR
And yet when opening night curtain rose, it was obvious that the miracle that happens once or twice every generation had been at work. Separately the Lunts had been just two more clever performers in a generation of brilliant stars --- together they provided one of those classic examples of chemistry, or alchemy, when the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. So much greater that in his New York Sun review next day, Alexander Woollcott prophesied ---
(The NARRATOR has opened a book and reads out:)
"Those who saw them last night bowing hand in hand for the first time may well have been witnessing a moment in theatrical history. It is among the possibilities that they were seeing the first chapter in a partnership destined to be as distinguished as that of Henry Irving and Ellen Terry."
(He puts the book aside.)
(Music: Chopin piano music under ...)
NARRATOR
Molnar's "Guardsman" is the classic tale of the jealous husband getting his comeuppance. This time it is a famous Hungarian actor who suspects his actress wife of unfaithfulness. To test her, he disguises himself as a Russian guardsman. She goes along with the charade and invites him to visit her during her husband's "absence". Here is the first encounter between disguised husband and willing wife, which made theater history when the Lunts first did it in October 1924 ...
(NARRATOR's light goes out. LIGHT up on SET. Offstage, if needs be, the ACTRESS is "playing" Chopin on the piano. The NARRATOR, as a SERVANT, crosses to her, carrying a card on a silver salvar. After a moment, the music stops.)
***
The whole manuscript of Herbert Eyre Moulton's "The Lunts of Broadway" is available upon request.
Autobiography
By Alexandra H. Rodrigues
Conceived by mistake to join a World in turmoil, I was born 1933 in Berlin, Germany, in the house my grandfather had built. My childhood was plastered with losses. We lost the house as a consequence of the ongoing inflation. My favorite aunt died at the early age of 32. My father left because political unrest spread its winds of disaster.
My mother had a big family. At that time, her relatives were old and feeble. Consequently, the park I visited most often was the cemetery. Without question, it was and still today is a very pretty and peaceful place. I did a lot of planting and watering there to keep the graves looking nice. I still can picture myself lugging rusty water cans from two city blocks away to our family plot.
My most cherished memories from that time is dancing Ballet in The Berlin Opera as well as the recollections of waiting for my Mom in the backstage of the Burg Theatre in Vienna. While she was earning our daily living on stage, I was having fun trying on theatrical shoes and hats.
I remember Kindergarten in Vienna and rides on the Riesenrad, the famous Ferris wheel in Vienna’s Prater amusement park. Later when I was evacuated during WWII to Austria for a little longer than a year, I attended the lyceum (high school) there.
An exciting youth followed. I was back in Berlin. It was the years after the War and all was allowed. We had been lucky to belong to the American sector. I was babysitting for an American family who had moved into the villa next to us during the occupation of the Four Powers. From the PX, the American shopping center, they bought me a cotton dress with red stripes and white stars. My flag dress, I called it. It was so American.
I finished my education and got my first job, selling purses and umbrellas in an upscale boutique on the Kurfürstendamm, the Champs-Élysées of Berlin. It did not last long – guess I was not nice enough to the boss. My good looks opened doors for me fast but also had a downside. When I applied for the position of fur model, I was given a fur bikini and asked to try it on while a creepy, elderly guy was devouring me with his eyes. I left immediately – escaped would be the better description.
Next I got a position at a jeweler. A fancy storefront with a workshop in the back. It was interesting, I learned about gems and carats, the art of designing jewelry and the value of mine finds. The fear of a senior female employee that I might outshine her, put me on the street again. I spent a year at a business school, and completed a certificate in English from Cambridge University. I landed a job as typist with a Swedish franchise of C.E. Johansson of Eskilstuna in Berlin. It was discovered that I have technical talent, and I was sent to Sweden to learn the repair of measurement instruments needed by big factories like Siemens and Agfa.
In 1958 I was hired by Pan American as a Flight Attendant for the Inter German Service. A year later Pan Am sponsored me to come to America and fly out of New York. A life among the rich and famous began. During that career, which lasted for 25 years, I came to see the entire world with the exception of Australia. I met my husband of 50 years on one of my first flights and we were married in 1960. He spoiled me and always catered to me; he called himself my butler, chauffeur, cook and lover.
In 1972 I gave birth to a son. I have had serious encounters with the medical society. I was said to be on the verge of death six times. Well that is another story. My pregnancy was first labeled menopause.
Only when I fainted after having arrived on a flight to Rome, did our company doctor tell me the happy news saying, “You are pregnant!” that I was pregnant. I stopped flying and went into Management. Later on I returned to Flight Status.
In 1985 I became President and coordinator of the Barry Farber Language Club on Long Island. After Pan Am had folded, I chose Real Estate as a new career. By now I have switched my main interest to writing, and I am happy to say this gives me great satisfaction and true fulfillment.
The Making of “Business for Pleasure”
By well-known actor, baritone and author
Herbert Eyre Moulton
(1927 – 2005)
I have acted 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.
Press Pause
By Garth Harold Nadiro
We are at a time in our lives where technology is a part of our existence, our identity, our professions, our profiles, our amorous lives even. We use our smartphones to communicate, articulate, procrastinate, calibrate. We use all of our technology to profile ourselves. In fact, we let our technology rules us. Take away someone's smartphone for one day and see what happens. One financial advisor received threat mails because he did not answer his mobile phone quickly enough.
That, however, does not mean that technology is a bad thing. No, it has brought us to the moon, it has connected us with the world, given us more information in one day than any given 12th farmer knew in one entire life.
Let's look at the facts, though. Life is faster than ever before because of our technology. In our schools, we can access information faster than ever before. Students demand it. We can become that speed train others fear or love. YouTube can make us famous so fast we wonder what happened to progression. One day can be so filled to the brim with activity, due to our fast transportation, that we actually don't stop to thank the Lord for all of this.
We are blessed with countless gifts, things that our energies and inspiration and divine creativity has made possible.
Generation Heads Down.
That phrase was coined by one of my students, who told me that young people today more or less spend their day looking down at their smartphones instead of at the world.
That means we have to set an example. If everyone runs in one direction, does that mean you have to, as well? If you do, what does that make you?
Occasionally, stop the train, turn off the music and sit down on that parkbench, pluck out your sandwich and listen to the silence.
Inspiration, after all, comes from occasionally letting contemplation rule your galaxy, not the rocket rule your destination.
SECOND MEDITATION
By René Descartes
The nature of the human mind, and how it is better known than the body
So serious are the doubts into which I have been thrown as a result of
yesterday's meditation that I can neither put them out of my mind nor
see any way of resolving them. It feels as if I have fallen unexpectedly into
a deep whirlpool which tumbles me around so that I can neither stand on
the bottom nor swim up to the top. Nevertheless I will make an effort and
once more attempt the same path which I started on yesterday. Anything
which admits of the slightest doubt I will set aside just as if I had found it
to be wholly false; and I will proceed in this way until I recognize
something certain, or, if nothing else, until I at least recognize for certain
that there is no certainty. Archimedes used to demand just one firm and
immovable point in order to shift the entire earth; so I too can hope for
great things if I manage to find just one thing, however slight, that is
certain and unshakeable.
I will suppose then, that everything I see is spurious. I will believe that
my memory tells me lies, and that none of the things that it reports ever
happened. I have no senses. Body, shape, extension, movement and place
are chimeras. So what remains true? Perhaps just the one fact that
nothing is certain.
Yet apart from everything I have just listed, how do I know that there
is not something else which does not allow even the slightest occasion for
doubt? Is there not a God, or whatever I may call him, who puts into mel
the thoughts I am now having? But why do I think this, since I myself
may perhaps be the author of these thoughts? In that case am not I, at
least, something? But I have just said that I have no senses and no body.
This is the sticking point: what follows from this? Am I not so bound up
with a body and with senses that I cannot exist without them? But I have
convinced myself that there is absolutely nothing in the world, no sky, no
earth, no minds, no bodies. Does it now follow that I too do not exist?
No: if I convinced myself of something! then I certainly existed. But there
is a deceiver of supreme power and cunning who is deliberately and
constantly deceiving me. In that case I too undoubtedly exist, if he is
deceiving me; and let him deceive me as much as he can, he will never
bring it about that I am nothing so long as I think that I am something. So
after considering everything very thoroughly, I must finally conclude that
this proposition, I am, I exist, is necessarily true whenever it is put
forward by me or conceived in my mind.
But I do not yet have a sufficient understanding of what this 'I' is, that
now necessarily exists. So I must be on my guard against carelessly taking
something else to be this 'I', and so making a mistake in the very item of
knowledge that I maintain is the most certain and evident of all. I will
therefore go back and meditate on what I originally believed myself to be,
before I embarked on this present train of thought. I will then subtract
anything capable of being weakened, even minimally, by the arguments
now introduced, so that what is left at the end may be exactly and only
what is certain and unshakeable.
What then did I formerly think I was? A man. But what is a man? Shall
I say 'a rational anima)'? No; for then I should have to inquire what an
animal is, what rationality is, and in this way one question would lead me
down the slope to other harder ones, and I do not now have the time to
waste on subtleties of this kind. Instead I propose to concentrate on what
came into my thoughts spontaneously and quite naturally whenever I 26
used to consider what I was. Well, the first thought to come to mind was
that I had a face, hands, arms and the whole mechanical structure of
limbs which can be seen in a corpse, and which I called the body. The
next thought was that I was nourished, that I moved about, and that I
engaged in sense-perception and thinking; and these actions I attributed
to the soul. But as to the nature of this soul, either I did not think about
this or else I imagined it to be something tenuous, like a wind or fire or
ether, which permeated my more solid parts. As to the body, however, I
had no doubts about it, but thought I knew its nature distinctly. If I had
tried to describe the mental conception I had of it, I would have
expressed it as follows: by a body I understand whatever has a
determinable shape and a definable location and can occupy a space in
such a way as to exclude any other body; it can be perceived by touch,
sight, hearing, taste or smell, and can be moved in various ways, not by
itself but by whatever else comes into contact with it. For, according to
my judgement, the power of self-movement, like the power of sensation
or of thought, was quite foreign to the nature of a body.
But what shall I now say that I am, when I am supposing that there is
some supremely powerful and, if it is permissible to say so, malicious
deceiver, who is deliberately trying to trick me in every way he can? Can I
now assert that I possess even the most insignificant of all the attributes
which I have just said belong to the nature of a body? I scrutinize them,
think about them, go over them again, but nothing suggests itself; it is
tiresome and pointless to go through the list once more. But what about
the attributes I assigned to the soul? Nutrition or movement? Since now I
do not have a body, these are mere fabrications. Sense-perception? This
surely does not occur without a body, and besides, when asleep I have
appeared to perceive through the senses many things which I afterwards
realized I did not perceive through the senses at all. Thinking? At last I
have discovered it - thought; this alone is inseparable from me. I am, I
exist - that is certain. But for how long? For as long as I am thinking. For
it could be that were I totally to cease from thinking, I should totally
cease to exist. At present I am not admitting anything except what is
necessarily true. I am, then, in the strict sense only a thing that thinks; 1
that is, I am a mind, or intelligence, or intellect, or reason - words whose
meaning I have been ignorant of until now. But for all that I am a thing
which is real and which truly exists. But what kind of a thing? As I have
just said - a thinking thing.
What else am I? I will use my imagination. I am not that structure of
limbs which is called a human body. I am not even some thin vapour
which permeates the limbs - a wind, fire, air, breath, or whatever I depict
in my imagination; for these are things which I have supposed to be
nothing. Let this supposition stand;3 for all that I am still something. And
yet may it not perhaps be the case that these very things which I am
supposing to be nothing, because they are unknown to me, are in reality
identical with the ' .. of which I am aware? I do not know, and for the
moment I shall not argue the point, since I can make judgements only
about things which are known to me. I know that I exist; the question is,
what is this 'I' that I know? If the'!, is understood strictly as we have
been taking it, then it is quite certain that knowledge of it does not-
The word 'only' is most naturally taken as going with 'a thing that thinks', and this
interpretation is followed in the French version.
It would indeed be a case of fictitious invention if I used my imagination to establish that I was something or other; tor imagining is simply contemplating the shape or
image of a corporeal thing. Yet now I know for certain both that I exist
and at the same time that all such images and, in general, everything
relating to the nature of body, could be mere dreams <and chimeras).
Once this point has been grasped, to say 'I will use my imagination to get
to know more distinctly what I am' would seem to be as silly as saying 'I
am now awake, and see some truth; but since my vision is not yet clear
enough, 1 will deliberately fall asleep so that my dreams may provide a
truer and dearer representation.' I thus realize that none of the things
that the imagination enables me to grasp is at all relevant to this
knowledge of myself which I possess, and that the mind must therefore
be most carefully diverted from such thingsl if it is to perceive its own
nature as distinctly as possible.
But what then am I? A thing that thinks. What is that? A thing that
doubts, understands, affirms, denies, is willing, is unwilling, and also
imagines and has sensory perceptions.
This is a considerable list, if everything on it belongs to me. But does it?
Is it not one and the same 'I' who is now doubting almost everything,
who nonetheless understands some things, who affirms that this one
thing is true, denies everything else, desires to know more, is unwilling to
be deceived, imagines many things even involuntarily, and is aware of
many things which apparently come from the senses? Are not all these
things just as true as the fact that 1 exist, even if I am asleep all the time, 29
and even if he who created me is doing all he can to deceive me? Which of
all these activities is distinct from my thinking? Which of them can be
said to be separate from myself? The fact that it is I who am doubting and
understanding and willing is so evident that I see no way of making it
any dearer. But it is also the case that the 'I' who imagines is the same 'I'.
For even if, as I have supposed, none of the objects of imagination are
real, the power of imagination is something which really exists and is
part of my thinking. Lastly, it is also the same '1' who has sensory
perceptions, or is aware of bodily things as it were through the senses.
For example, I am now seeing light, hearing a noise, feeling heat. But I
am asleep, so all this is false. Yet I certainly seem to see, to hear, and to be
warmed. This cannot be false; what is called 'having a sensory perception'
is strictly just this, and in this restricted sense of the term it is simply
thinking.
From all this I am beginning to have a rather better understanding of
what I am. But it still appears - and I cannot stop thinking this - that the
corporeal things of which images are formed in my thought, and which
the senses investigate, are known with much more distinctness than this
puzzling 'I' which cannot be pictured in the imagination. And yet it is
surely surprising that I should have a more distinct grasp of things which
I realize are doubtful, unknown and foreign to me, than I have of that
which is true and known - my own self. But I see what it is: my mind
enjoys wandering off and will not yet submit to being restrained within
30 the bounds of truth. Very well then; just this once let us give it a
completely free rein, so that after a while, when it is time to tighten the
reins, it may more readily submit to being curbed.
Let us consider the things which people commonly think they understand
most distinctly of all; that is, the bodies which we touch and see. I
do not mean bodies in general - for general perceptions are apt to be
somewhat more confused - but one particular body. Let us take, for
example, this piece of wax. It has just been taken from the honeycomb; it
has not yet quite lost the taste of the honey; it retains some of the scent of
the flowers from which it was gathered; its colour, shape and size are
plain to see; it is hard, cold and can be handled without difficulty; if you
rap it with your knuckle it makes a sound. In short, it has everything
which appears necessary to enable a body to be known as distinctly as
possible. But even as I speak, I put the wax by the fire, and look: the
residual taste is eliminated, the smell goes away, the colour changes, the
shape is lost, the size increases; it becomes liquid and hot; you can hardly
touch it, and if you strike it, it no longer makes a sound. But does the
same wax remain? It must be admitted that it does; no one denies it, no
one thinks otherwise. So what was it in the wax that I understood with
such distinctness? Evidently none of the features which I arrived at by
means of the senses; for whatever came under taste, smell, sight, touch or
hearing has now altered yet the wax remains.
Perhaps the answer lies in the thought which now comes to my mind;
namely, the wax was not after all the sweetness of the honey, or the
fragrance of the flowers, or the whiteness, or the shape, or the sound, but
was rather a body which presented itself to me in these various forms a
little while ago, but which now exhibits different ones. But what exactly
3I is it that I am now imagining? Let us concentrate, take away everything
which does not belong to the wax, and see what is left: merely something
extended, flexible and changeable. But what is meant here by 'flexible'
and 'changeable'? Is it what I picture in my imagination: that this piece of
wax is capable of changing from a round shape to a square shape, or
from a square shape to a triangular shape?
I would not be making a correct judgement about the nature of
wax unless I believed it capable of being extended in many more different
ways than I will ever encompass in my imagination. I must therefore
admit that the nature of this piece of wax is in no way revealed by my
imagination, but is perceived by the mind alone. (l am speaking of this
particular piece of wax; the point is even clearer with regard to wax in
general.) But what is this wax which is perceived by the mind alone?! It is
of course the same wax which I see, which I touch, which I picture in my
imagination, in short the same wax which I thought it to be from the
start. And yet, and here is the point, the perception I have of it2 is a case
not of vision or touch or imagination nor has it ever been, despite
previous appearances - but of purely mental scrutiny; and this can be
imperfect and confused, as it was before, or clear and distinct as it is now,
depending on how carefully I concentrate on what the wax consists in.
But as I reach this conclusion I am amazed at how <weak and) prone
to error my mind is. For although I am thinking about these matters
within myself, silently and without speaking, nonetheless the actual 32
words bring me up short, and I am almost tricked by ordinary ways of
talking. We say that we see the wax itself, if it is there before us, not that
we judge it to be there from its colour or shape; and this might lead me to
conclude without more ado that knowledge of the wax comes from what
the eye sees, and not from the scrutiny of the mind alone. But then if I
look out of the window and see men crossing the square, as I just happen
to have done, I normally say that I see the men themselves, just as I say
that I see the wax. Yet do I see any more than hats and coats which could
conceal automatons? I judge that they are men. And so something which
I thought I was seeing with my eyes is in fact grasped solely by the faculty
of judgement which is in my mind.
However, one who wants to achieve knowledge above the ordinary
level should feel ashamed at having taken ordinary ways of talking as a
basis for doubt. So let us proceed, and consider on which occasion my
perception of the nature of the wax was more perfect and evident.
Any doubt on this issue would clearly be foolish; for what
distinctness was there in my earlier perception? Was there anything in it
which an animal could not possess? But when 1 distinguish the wax from
its outward forms - take the clothes off, as it were, and consider it naked
then although my judgement may still contain errors, at least my
perception now requires a human mind.
But what am I to say about this mind, or about myself? (So far,
remember, I am not admitting that there is anything else in me except a
mind.) What, I ask, is this 'I' which seems to perceive the wax so
distinctly? Surely my awareness of my own self is not merely much truer
and more certain than my awareness of the wax, but also much more
distinct and evident. For if I judge that the wax exists from the fact that 1
see it, clearly this same fact entails much more evidently that 1 myself also
exist. It is possible that what 1 see is not really the wax; it is possible that 1
do not even have eyes with which to see anything. But when I see, or
think I see (I am not here distinguishing the two), it is simply not possible
that I who am now thinking am not something. By the same token, if I
judge that the wax exists from the fact that I touch it, the same result
follows, namely that I exist. If I judge that it exists from the fact that I
imagine it, or for any other reason, exactly the same thing follows. And
the result that I have grasped in the case of the wax may be applied to
everything else located outside me. Moreover, if my perception of the
wax seemed more distinct after it was established not just by sight or
touch but by many other considerations, it must be admitted that I now
know myself even more distinctly. This is because every consideration whatsoever
which contributes to my perception of the wax, or of any other
body, cannot but establish even more effectively the nature of my own
mind. But besides this, there is so much else in the mind itself which can
serve to make my knowledge of it more distinct, that it scarcely seems
worth going through the contributions made by considering bodily
things.
My Breakfast Company
By Alexandra H. Rodrigues
As a flight attendant, I became accustomed to breakfast in bed. We would unlock the hotel room door after I had called in the order to room service. What did I order? It was different for each country – French bread with ham and cheese and plenty of mayo plus a soft-boiled egg and a hot chocolate. I found it impossible to drink the French coffee, dark and bitter! – Yes that was Paris--
In Prestwick, Scotland, I had kippers, toast and coffee. In Germany, schinkenbrot, coffee, two fried eggs and a fresh orange juice. In India, a curry soup, soft-boiled eggs, and in Estoril, Portugal, chorizos or a calderada.
The breakfast time of the country did not always correspond with the time of day that my stomach expected it to be. That of course because of the time change.
This custom carried over to the times at home and stayed such till only a few days ago. My bedroom is upstairs. To get my breakfast, I would let my husband know that I was awake and day after day he would make the breakfast. Every day it included a soft-boiled egg onto which he drew a funny smiley face with pencil.
After the death of my husband, I continued the routine. I would go downstairs, make the coffee and eggs (no more faces on them). While the coffee was brewing, I would feed the birds. Check the weather. Then open the screen doors to sample the temperature and finally take the tray with my breakfast upstairs.
Now only a few days ago while waiting for the eggs to boil I sat in one of my white leather chairs which is standing at the screen door. It was a clear, still, brisk spring day. The water in the canal was flowing north to south out to the bay. The first grass peeking. There are remnants from Superstorm Sandy, now three years past, still visible as brown dried out patches on the lawn. A few crocuses try to show their impatience by pushing through the weeds which as usual claim victory by taking over.
Then and there I saw several birds as they came to keep me company. During the following days, I noticed different kinds of birds like robins, blue jays, sparrows, swallows and blackbirds. I was fascinated by one little grayish brown bird seemingly looking for the smallest seeds in the bird food. I have a rather varied group of bird visitors from sparrows to ducks to the much less welcome geese. The bird food I am using is a mixture of peanuts and other nuts as well as seeds for small songbirds. The birds come in no noticeable order. A few minutes and all the food is gone.
From now on I will have a daily breakfast party in the living room with the screen doors open and my birds singing to me.
Remembering Grandmother
and Grandfather Eyre
By Herbert Eyre Moulton
(1927 - 2005)
“Never forget, children,” my grandmother Eyre used to say long after her husband’s death, “your father was an aristocrat, an Eyre of Eyrecourt.”
But if deeds and character count for anything, it was this lively, energetic, warmhearted, caring little woman who was the real aristocrat of the family. My grandfather, though aristocratic in name and manner (when sober, that is), seems to have inherited the worst traits of his famous and ever more disimproving race.
Very Irish, that.
When I first moved to Dublin in 1959, I tried to trace the registry of his birth there. All I was told was that the old records at the Four Courts had been destroyed in “The Troubles” and the Civil War. Thanks to my Grandmother “Scrapbook” (actually an old Architect’s and Builder’s Directory for the USA, published in 1885, into which she wrote and pasted everything she wished to save: a family trait) we have what scant information remains, regarding names, dates and places. This is my only source. This and what I remember hearing about those old days. Things that used to inhabit our old 1930’s Glen Ellyn home are gone. The memories are still there.
Damn the depression, anyway.
We had a great time.
Doldrum days?
Not a chance.
Anyway, we are not talking depression days yet, although the people that knew the aristocratic life of Ireland told me about it during the depression.
Anyway, Henry Lee Eyre was born in Dublin on Febuary 4th, 1853. His father Marmaduke had left Eyrecourt for Dublin and was employed there at the GPO, the General Post Office, scene of the Easter Rebellion of 1916. When he emigrated to America is unknown, but he married Nellie Finneran in Chicago on October 21st, 1884. The only picture we have of him is a small tin type, typical of that period, posed stiffly on a chair and looking rather like an elegant bloodhound with his drooping moustache and pale eyes.
He was dressed exactly as if for Ascot Opening Day: cutaway gray “frock”-coat and waistcoat, striped trousers, gray top hat and gold-cane or brolly. Better than jeans and T-shirt, if you ask me.
I have no idea what his profession was, other than Downgraded Aristocrat. Nor have we any idea if and when he ever visited the crumbling old mansion in Galway, nor do we know anything about his mother except that she was born Eliza Johnston at Friarstown in Sligo, the rugged northern coastal county where the poet Yeats is buried. “Horseman, pass by ...”
The only mention of him in Burke’s Landed Gentry is the terse entry: Henry, d. young. That is a Victorian euphemism for “married a Catholic”. Only titled people get into Burke’s Peerage. There hadn’t been one of those since The Baron “Stale” Eyre died in 1781 and the title died with him.
When one of Nell’s famous cousins, Sir Hugh Beaver, then director of Guiness and progenitor of “The Guiness Book of Records”, expressed doubts as to my authentic Eyre ancetry, I told the old gent:
“My grandfather did not die young, Sir Hugh. He did worse. He married a Catholic, daughter of a Gaelic-speaking peasant woman from the wilds of Connemara. But in America,” I went on, “Nobility with a Capital N doesn’t always go by titles. With us, a bartender is as good as a Bart. That’s short for Baronet. That is, if he is a decent person.
Sir Hugh finally accepted that AND me. After all, how would Nell’s brother get a name like Marmaduke Johnstone Eyre if he hadn’t been named after his grandparents. The “e” was later added to Johnston, by the way. Many’s the bloody fistfight he’d had when his boyhood companions teased him about his “fawncy” name.
In those days, marrying a Catholic was tantamount to dying young: picture turned to the wall, totally disinherited. Not that, by that time, there was anything left to inherit except monumental debts. Our Irish relative Charity’s father, Willie Worthington-Eyre, literally worked himself to death paying off the debts his branch of the family had left behind at Eyreville Castle.
So, sometime between his birth in Dublin in 1853 and his marriage to my grandmother in Chicago 31 years later, my grandfather emigrated, met and married Nellie Finneran, then processed to sire six children. Three of these died in infancy, which was about average for the mortality rate of that period. My grandfather, himself, drank himself to death.
Whatever his profession might have beenm it must’ve brought in a decent income, providing the amenities for what came to be called “Cut-Glass-Irish”. The one photo we have of her and her two children show them well-dressed. She is in her dark sealskin coat, fashionable hat and black kid gloves. Duke is in a Turkish “fez”, a fad of that time. My mother Nellie Brennan Eyre with a fluffy collar and matching muff. It is the bearing of the mother, the position of her head, that marks her as one of nature true aristocrats. It was only after the father’s death in 1896 (pneumonia, aggrevated by alcoholism) that times got really hard: the “Cut-Glass” disappeared along with the Ascot togs and both Nellies had to go out and work. My mother was not yet ten years old at the time.
And as for my grandmother, her family never knew her real age. To the end of her days, whenever asked, she’d only reply, sweetly, but firmly:
“I am twenty-nine!”
Surely, she had a genuine love for music and beauty. One of her family sagas has her, still unmarried, travelling all the way down from Stevens Point to Chicago just to hear Mme. Patti sing. Adelina Patti was the most celebrated soprano of her age. She was the diva who inspired the barber-shop favorite “Sweet Adeline”, she with here countless “Farewell-Tours”. Her mention in Oscar Wilde’s “The Picture of Dorian Gray” tells it all.
Sir Henry Wotton says: “But you must come to Covent Garden tonight, Dorian. Patti is singing.” A side note here is that Patti retired to the splendor of her castle in Wales. June Andersson, whom I met often in New York City during my time there, has a gold-framed letter which Patti wrote in English from there towards the end of her life. Baby June, as we like to call her, considers herself in a direct line of the great Prima Donna and I suppose she is right.
Below:
Academic Singing Professor Gun Kronzell-Moulton (1930 - 2011)
as Dorabella in Mozart's "Cosi fan tutte"
A Celebrity Named Gun Kronzell
By Charles E.J. Moulton
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.
Gun Kronzell Remembers
"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."
Below:
Gun Kronzell with the Swedish King, Gustaf VI Adolf, in 1971.
He heard her sing.
The slightly deaf king (to the right) is seen here joking:
"I heard you!"
The Rigoletto Caper
By the late, great Herbert Eyre Moulton
(1927 - 2005)
Posthumous note 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.
***
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.
Best Times
By Alexandra Rodrigues
In our society today, we constantly strive for success and prestige. We want to get to the top, belong to the elite and be able to afford what we desire. Why then are the rich and famous so often miserable?
There is a deep satisfaction in little pleasures which are available to you without big expense. Even if you are at the top, you will be amazed how rewarding it is to be able to recognize and pay attention to little pleasures. My big treasure is a small dinghy, the one we carry on deck of our big boat. It holds two people, is made of hard rubber, and has two plastic paddles and a throw rope. This little gadget has become my biggest pleasure. You step inside, fight for balance and hope not to get splashed or fall into the water. One cannot go far with it and I have no desire to do so; the wind usually decides the direction. Sometimes I bump into one of the big party boats that are anchored along our 40-foot wide and three-city-blocks long canal. No problem, I bounce off and use my paddles to return to the middle of the canal. I look at the sky and kind of meditate while the little nutshell bounces along. Little wonders of nature exist all around, but we hardly ever take the time to watch and enjoy them. We are too busy to strive for fame and prominence. I use my imagination while meditating. This little boat is my gondola and I am skimming along the waterways of Venice. I ignore that my neighbor’s black dogs bark at me furiously when I pass them. Maybe I interrupted their meditation. What do dogs think about? 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 to the bulkhead, I admire the mimosa trees in their pink bloom and am made aware of the gardenias. It is a faint aroma coming from those flowers that catches my attention. I watch a squirrel climbing up a pine tree and I call a friendly, “Hello.” Mother duck is taking her children for her first outing, and I ponder what they will do come winter. I hear the happy noises of the seagulls from the distant bay where they catch remnants of dead fish that fishermen have thrown overboard. I look at a weather-beaten red bench on the lawn of a house nearby and wonder who used to sit on there in the past and who will sit on it in the future.
All is peaceful. No noise or vibration like on a big boat. I just float, look and relax.
I put my hand into the water and let the water drops slowly dissipate in the sun. I rest my chin on the rubber edge of my little gondola and watch how the sun reflects by injecting colorful rays just below the water’s surface.
I do not want to change with anybody!
By Alexandra Rodrigues
In our society today, we constantly strive for success and prestige. We want to get to the top, belong to the elite and be able to afford what we desire. Why then are the rich and famous so often miserable?
There is a deep satisfaction in little pleasures which are available to you without big expense. Even if you are at the top, you will be amazed how rewarding it is to be able to recognize and pay attention to little pleasures. My big treasure is a small dinghy, the one we carry on deck of our big boat. It holds two people, is made of hard rubber, and has two plastic paddles and a throw rope. This little gadget has become my biggest pleasure. You step inside, fight for balance and hope not to get splashed or fall into the water. One cannot go far with it and I have no desire to do so; the wind usually decides the direction. Sometimes I bump into one of the big party boats that are anchored along our 40-foot wide and three-city-blocks long canal. No problem, I bounce off and use my paddles to return to the middle of the canal. I look at the sky and kind of meditate while the little nutshell bounces along. Little wonders of nature exist all around, but we hardly ever take the time to watch and enjoy them. We are too busy to strive for fame and prominence. I use my imagination while meditating. This little boat is my gondola and I am skimming along the waterways of Venice. I ignore that my neighbor’s black dogs bark at me furiously when I pass them. Maybe I interrupted their meditation. What do dogs think about? 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 to the bulkhead, I admire the mimosa trees in their pink bloom and am made aware of the gardenias. It is a faint aroma coming from those flowers that catches my attention. I watch a squirrel climbing up a pine tree and I call a friendly, “Hello.” Mother duck is taking her children for her first outing, and I ponder what they will do come winter. I hear the happy noises of the seagulls from the distant bay where they catch remnants of dead fish that fishermen have thrown overboard. I look at a weather-beaten red bench on the lawn of a house nearby and wonder who used to sit on there in the past and who will sit on it in the future.
All is peaceful. No noise or vibration like on a big boat. I just float, look and relax.
I put my hand into the water and let the water drops slowly dissipate in the sun. I rest my chin on the rubber edge of my little gondola and watch how the sun reflects by injecting colorful rays just below the water’s surface.
I do not want to change with anybody!
Photo above:
Herbert Eyre Moulton (in the middle) in the 1991 The Fundus Theatre production of William Shakespeare's Hamlet,
here seen with Kaki Lucius as Ophelia and Tim Licata as Laertes.
Three Guesses Who the Butler Is
The Making of a Hollywood Princess
By Herbert Eyre Moulton (1927 – 2005)
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.
Posthumous footnote by his son Charles E.J. Moulton:
The film that my father Herbert Eyre Moulton speaks of here turned out to be renamed “Piccolo Grande Amore” and can be purchased, researched or studied under the following links:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107823/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_110
http://www.mymovies.it/dizionario/recensione.asp?id=18371
http://www.amazon.de/Piccolo-grande-amore-IT-Import/dp/B00BM9T1RQ
Photo below: Herbert Eyre Moulton's wife, opera mezzo Gun Kronzell, with her colleague, the renowned operatic tenor Luciano Pavarotti.
Herbert Eyre Moulton (in the middle) in the 1991 The Fundus Theatre production of William Shakespeare's Hamlet,
here seen with Kaki Lucius as Ophelia and Tim Licata as Laertes.
Three Guesses Who the Butler Is
The Making of a Hollywood Princess
By Herbert Eyre Moulton (1927 – 2005)
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.
Posthumous footnote by his son Charles E.J. Moulton:
The film that my father Herbert Eyre Moulton speaks of here turned out to be renamed “Piccolo Grande Amore” and can be purchased, researched or studied under the following links:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107823/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_110
http://www.mymovies.it/dizionario/recensione.asp?id=18371
http://www.amazon.de/Piccolo-grande-amore-IT-Import/dp/B00BM9T1RQ
Photo below: Herbert Eyre Moulton's wife, opera mezzo Gun Kronzell, with her colleague, the renowned operatic tenor Luciano Pavarotti.
A Celebrity Named Gun Kronzell
By Charles E.J. Moulton
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.”
Winter Wonderland
By Alexandra Rodrigues
Despite extensive travels as flight attendant and visits to magnificent mountain areas in Switzerland and Austria, the mention of a Winter Wonderland takes me back to the Grunewald. As a teenager, I biked often on the great trails that wind through the 7,400-acre woods on the western edge of Berlin. Stables located in this great forest house about 50 horses allowing fun-filled hours for equestrians.
An acquaintance of mine, George, was the owner of sleigh drawn by two elegant horses. On a deep wintry day, he invited me for a ride. I was young and had no ties. I was pretty and had no lack of young and also older men who wanted to get closer to me, George being one of them. He was not really my type. To make it worse, he was married. I had turned him down before but the offer for the ride in his carriage, I could not resist. It was an experience I would never forget.
The Grunewald was not as dense as it once was. Many trees had been felled during the War to provide fire for warmth and survival. George had equipped his carriage with cozy blankets, a couple of shawls and a bottle of Sherry. Short and small boned, George had fine hands and an immaculate skin. His appearance reminded of a fairy tale prince. Not a prince for me however. The winter ride we took would have fit perfectly into a book of Russian literature from the times of Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy.
Flurries were falling through the crowns of the trees, glistening like miniature stars when adding to the already substantial snow cover on the ground. On the branches of fir trees hung icicles sparkling like Waterford crystal. The stillness of the snow intensified the isolation of the woods. All one could hear was the laboring of the horses. Their breath made it appear as if they were exhaling smoke like powerful steam engines. It was so romantic. The scenery could only be compared to Andersen’s imaginary Ice Crystal Palace in the Snow Queen.
The romantic atmosphere was not lost on me. I allowed George to hold my hand. He was in seventh heaven – He was in love with me!
I was enchanted with what nature and the ride gifted me. Any romantic interest for George did not enter my senses. I was grateful for the winter scenery I was experiencing. We passed the Jagdschloss Grunewald – this castle is a historic landmark dating back to the 16th century holding artifacts pertaining to hunting. This old castle has since been refurbished as a restaurant.
We saw the Teufelsberg (Devil’s Mountain), a man-made mountain of substantial height. Then we passed Grunewald Tower which was built in 1897 and signs pointing to the Pfaueninsel (Peacock Island). This place with wild roaming peacocks is a perfect spot for romance. Its white castle can be reached by boat from the River Havel.
At the end of this nearly unreal trip, George was looking for a reward to relieve of his stowed up want for me. This did not match what I had in mind. Originally my plan had been to invite George up to my apartment. I would have made us a glass of Glühwein. This Austrian specialty consists of mulled red wine heated nearly to a boil, spiced with a stick of cinnamon and decorated with a slice of lemon on the rim of the glass. In the end I decided against it. George had been too forward and I did not want him as a date again, let alone as a lover. All I managed was a cool kiss on his cheek and a cheerful “Goodbye and thank you.”
Phone calls from him during the following days and weeks I ignored. I hoped he would understand that I was not interested in him. Shortly afterwards, I heard that George had committed suicide. I do not want to know if my attitude toward him had contributed to his demise.
Is it the combination of happenings that left me with the impression of that amazing winter day?
The Art of Opera
- and how it changed my life
by Colenton Freeman
My very first encounter with the world of Opera was at age 16 during my junior year in high school. I had heard of opera and had been introduced to certain musical examples like the „Habanera“ from CARMEN through a music appreciation class. However, it was the meeting of a high school music teacher who happened to be a tenor that I was fully introduced to the opera through recordings of legendary singers like Joan Sutherland, Richard Tucker, Eileen Farrell and Leontyne Price. I was mesmerized by the sounds coming from their throats. The drama, intensity, emotions and total impact of this music overwhelmed me and I became fascinated with it and started on a path to learn all that I could about it. When one thinks that I was a young black boy growing up in the South where segregation was a way of life, it is amazing that I became so infatuated with this European art form. Because I had a very good natural tenor voice, my music teacher began giving me private voice lessons and introduced me to the great tenor arias such as „Che gelida manina“ from Puccinis' LA BOHEME, E lucevan le stelle from TOSCA and the very well known La donna é mobile from Verdis' RIGOLETTO. I sang them all with young passion and abandon. Luckily, singing these arias at a very young age did not hurt my tenor voice. I had a naturally good top voice.
The art of opera is a very interesting subject in itself. This combination of music, theater, drama with voices, orchestra, scenery and costumes is the ultimate form of musical theater at its' best. The immense training of voices that it requires is very involved. One has not only to sing, but sing in different languages, musical styles, learning entire roles by memory and developing enough physical and mental stamina to sing different roles on different nights of the week, not to mention perhaps rehearsing a new role during the day and performing another that same evening. However, what an exciting and fortunate priviledge it is to be able to do this art form as a profession.
Opera changed my life immensely. It brought me from a very simple background to some of the best music schools and professors of singing in all of America. It brought me in contact with such world class singers like Luciano Pavarotti, Placido Domingo, Leontyne Price, Birgit Nilsson, Leonie Rysanek, James King, Fiorenza Cossotto, Anja Silja, Ghena Dimitrova, Grace Bumbry, Shirley Verrett and one of my favorite people, Gun Kronzell. Also, conductors like Simon Rattle, Eve Queler and Bruno Bartoletti. Stage directors such as Jean-Paul Ponnelle and Trevor Nunn. I sang in some of the worlds' leading opera houses in San Francisco, Mexico City, Chicago, New York, Geneva, London, Berlin, Hamburg and Lyon. What a worldwind of a life for a poor little black fellow from Atlanta, Georgia. This wonderful art form brought me to Europe where I have lived and contributed for the last 30 years. Sometimes I have to pinch myself in order to really believe where my work as an opera singer has brought me. It helped to make me a world citizen, not just an American. It taught to me to embrace all peoples, cultures, backgrounds, mentalities, religions, etc. To be open and tolerant on all levels. This is an art form that has a reputation of being associated with high brow society and the wealthy. It is not that. The common man and woman also have an appreciation of this art form, particularly here in Europe. The grocer, the jeweler, the baker, the cleaning lady and so many more will save their money to be able to go into the theater and hear their favorite singer. I have experienced this first hand. The gifts that one receives from appreciative fans are many and very much appreciated. A great art form, indeed.
MEMOIR OF AN AMATEUR WRITER
By June Ti
In seventh grade, 1969, Mr. Roper asked the class what we hoped to do for a living. Having a choice hadn’t occurred to me. Mom said I had to be a teacher. “A writer,” I said when my turn came.
“Oh, you want to be a rider. That’s wonderful,” Mr. Roper touted. I was horrified. Not only had it taken courage to cross eleven years of brainwashing, but now everyone was shouting “A writer! She wants to be a writer!”
“Yes,” the teacher said, “a rider.” This was confusing. How did Mr. Roper know I owned a horse? Yet, maybe he was right. Maybe I should be a rider. The next Saturday morning I rode the bus downtown and bought The Five Circles, a slim yellow hardcover about an Olympic
equestrian jumping team. I read it over and over and tried to like jumping my horse. But he was not long off the race track and fidgety. My instructor made me take falling-off lessons.
Besides Raymond Bam (dumb name for a horse), I owned a typewriter, a surprise gift from my dad, as I’d decided to write a book about hummingbirds for my science project. Never mind that I had no knowledge about hummingbirds. That’s what libraries and piracy are for.
This was no ordinary typewriter. It was a monster of a thing. Probably the first. After dinner I’d lock the bedroom door and try lifting it over my head, exercising to gain strength enough to drop a heavy saddle onto a tall back. Mom heard the crash when it dropped. She said, “Your father will have a fit when he sees the floor,” then put a rug down. Bamboozled Dad, on examining the typewriter, said, “You’ll ruin your insides.”
“Insides, who cares about insides,” I thought. The behemoth could have been busted, and that would have broken my heart.
In grade ten I quit halfway through. I’d had throat surgery, missed two semesters, and couldn’t catch up. Worse, the odds were against my voice returning. The decision to quit school did not come easily. My sights were on a career as a museum curator, a vision that in my young mind was now unlikely. No one knew I quit, although my extra attention to hair and makeup was questioned. The plan was to find full-time employment in a book store and move into an apartment.
Mr. Gleadow, the book store owner who hired me, was undaunted by my voicelessness. He’d spent twenty years as a volunteer for folks with disabilities and was okay with notepad communication. He was shocked, though, when he read I was fifteen on the Social Insurance forms, proof of what a bouffant hairstyle and eyeliner can do. “How can so young a girl have read such books?” he asked, for it was my knowledge of authors and titles that got me the job.
In fairness, burning through the Penguin Classics and the bestsellers lists was not a display of snobbiness. A person likes what she likes. Granny liked Harlequin Romance. Mom liked Pearl Buck. Dad liked war stories. Brother Allan’s preferences were under his mattress. Something about boobs.
Working in a 1970s main-street book store was the most exciting job I’ve ever had. The pay was $1.65 an hour. The exposure to superb literature was priceless. Authors came in for signing celebrations, each impressive in his or her distinct character. Don Harron (Charlie Farquharson) was quick-witted. Chief Dan George was soft-spoken. Pierre Berton was assertive. When Grey Owl’s wife, Anahareo, befriended me, I was thrilled out of my socks. Along with being graced by inspirational authors, grateful customers gave me gifts: juicy cherries, Rogers’ Chocolates, flowers, books, art, and trinkets from around the globe. I got
asked out a lot and met fascinating people. When Burt Reynolds swaggered through the Canadiana section, big-headed and disinterested, he hit a nerve. Regretting my folly in ignoring him, I kicked my teenage butt when he left. We might have gotten married.
My voice recovered to whisper mode when I was seventeen. By then, I’d long returned to school but also retained a thirty-six-hour week at Beaver Books. My scheme was to conceal a foldup cot in the storage room and live there.
In twelfth grade, a friend unconsciously betrayed my privacy and in bold lettering announced in the yearbook, “June wants to be a writer living on the sea.” Indeed, that is exactly what I’m doing, forty-three years later. The house isn’t mine. It’s a rental. And I’m not really a writer. Not by my standards. An accomplished writer, in my opinion, has seriously studied composition and can put a story together without incessantly referring to The Simon & Schuster Handbook for Writers. All the same, I did get published, by providence. I knew zilch about the craft and yearned to learn.
Writing classes say that an aspiring author won’t let anything get in her way. What a load of baloney. Chad, my first son, cried incessantly. Then came the handspinning and weaving business. By the time Hubby and I opened a horse boarding stables, I wanted to write so badly I could barely stand it but had to make do with hand-scrawled letters: “Dear Mom,” the page began, “you wouldn’t believe what goes on here. Willygoat got loose and his tether wrapped around the outboard motor. When I was untangling him, he panicked and dragged me and the motor down the driveway. Willy’s fine. My ankle needs stitches. Yesterday, a horse boarder flipped her mare overtop of herself. The paramedics were super. It was the same horse boarder who asked how our cow got milk and tried to have a campfire singsong in the barn. What an idiot. Who lights a fire in a barn? Tell Dad to bring a two-by-four on his next visit. The Toulouse geese are attacking, and it’s hard to get past them without a weapon.
Mom stockpiled my letters. She wanted me to compile them into a book. With so much fresh material, collecting bygone tantrums seemed redundant. I truly wish I had those anecdotes now.
Hubby enjoyed my farm-stories reports, even though he thought some of the adventures were made up. He had a business and wasn’t home much. “Mindy Moo wouldn’t chase you like that,” he argued.
“She was horny,” I said. “You’re not around. You don’t know what a devil she is. The horse people say she’s racing them to the loo. Jenny’s peeing outside.”
It was startling how Hubby snuck up on me in the turkey shed, smiling like a lunatic. Holding out an Olympia typewriter, he said, “My bookkeeper doesn’t want it anymore. The e’s
mangled and the space bar sticks, so she only charged me ten bucks. Now you can write properly.”
Two more kids later, we bought a bigger house with its own forest. The closest neighbour, Lenore, had to cross a bear trail so we could have tea. “I’m writing a book,” she said. “Could you read it and tell me what you think?”
Lenore is a saint. She’d do anything for anybody. That’s why I lied. She didn’t finish the book, but she did write an impressive missive to the local newspaper. Lenore could write just fine.
My publishing career began at that house in the woods, when my four-year-old daughter and I walked to the mailbox. The bigleaf maples had turned orange and yellow, and the air smelled of their decay.
“I’m gonna mail it,” my daughter determined, pointing to the envelope I was carrying.
“Of course you can,” I said, passing it over. And so it was, hand in hand, we sauntered down the gravel road, counting the wooly bear caterpillars.
She dropped it a couple of times. The envelope. In fact, she dropped it a whole bunch of times. “Oh well,” I thought, “it’s a subscription for a gardening magazine. A bit of dirt shouldn’t bother them.”
Many wooly bears and a few woodpeckers later, we stood in front of our destination. Realizing Violet couldn’t reach the mail slot, I bent down to take the envelope from her. I think she yelled “No,” although I’m not really sure. It happened so fast; however, my recall of the rest is linear.
Violet dropped the letter. It was already scruffed up so it shouldn’t have mattered. But the fall from her hand this time was spectacular, right into a gooey, mostly congealed, pudding of a puddle, where she stepped on it, scraped it off her boot bottom, jumped up, and, quite by luck, shoved the wretched mess perfectly through the mail slot. I tried to grab it. I know I have quick reflexes.
Violet and I saw this event differently. She saw a job well done. I saw a brown boot print obliterating an address that was already dotted with road grit and dirt smears. We both saw it disappear into the big green box. She was ecstatic. I was awed and not quite annoyed, but close. Then I laughed. I laughed so loud walking home that I ducked into the bushes near Lenore’s cabin, afraid she’d have me committed.
“Dear Editor,” I wrote. “You may or may not have got my subscription for The Island Grower in the mail. If you did, this is why it looked like that. If you didn’t, then this is the reason.”
“Dear Mrs. Ti,” the editor replied. “We got the subscription. Thank you. We passed the envelope around the office, even showed some customers, then tacked it to the wall so we could keep looking at it. It made our day. The next morning we got your follow-up letter explaining the boot print and the mud and tacked it beside the envelope. You made our second day. We are in the beginning stage of launching a children’s wildlife magazine and are looking for writers and an editor. Would you like to send us a sample of your writing? You seem to have a knack. “
Whatever I sent, the editor fell for it and called soon after: “My husband and I would like to drive up and meet you. We’ll bring pastries. What do your kids like?” My mind retreated to grade twelve, tongue-tied at having a personal ambition spotlighted.
Seated on a worn purple sofa (it looked red when we bought it), the couple spoke about money and business and my writing history of which there was none. The kids busied themselves by luring Poor Bob the cat into a baby buggy and walking him in the driveway.
The couple were tense, this editor and her publisher husband. Maybe it was the kids. Maybe I wasn’t what they had envisioned.
I was tense too, but mostly baffled. Who were these imposters talking about tying themselves to a certain beach rock during a winter storm and betting who could stick it out the longest? My expectation was they’d be scholarly, not crazy. And what kind of impression did I make talking about giving peanut butter crackers to raccoons so we could watch them lick their fingers? How could a wildlife meanie, like me, be hired to write for a children’s wildlife magazine? I thought I’d blown it, but then they admitted to tying thread around hard-boiled eggs and seeing who could keep his egg the longest when the raccoons visited the patio. Gosh, they were weirder than we were, and they didn’t even have kids as an excuse.
“Can you have an issue ready for summer?”
“Absolutely,” I said, having no clue how.
And that, my friends, is how a non-writer gets published. You might not want to use a boot print to get a publisher’s attention. The story got around. Perhaps you have a six-toed cat who would oblige.
Charge onwards, I say, regardless of ignorance. And keep on writing as if you know what you’re doing. Your mistakes will be in the thousands. Or, possibly, I’m a moron. My biggest faux pas was an opinionated piece that would have made enemies on page one of Get Wild’s introductory issue. “We can’t print that,” the publisher said, saving me from an early writing death and rocks thrown at the house. The topic of teaching children to respect wildlife stayed the same, but it no longer insulted parents who buy their boys slingshots.
“Can you hire a photographer?” my new boss and her husband asked.
“Isn’t that expensive?” I contended. “I’ll take the pictures myself.” It was a reasonable answer. After all, I was a magazine editor who didn’t know how to write, so why not tackle some witless photography.
Photography, it turns out, is hard. Really, really hard. We’re talking about on-the-move wildlife here. Not just pine cones and the road-killed beaver I tried to make look alive. “Jack,” I said to my second son. “Take one more step and I’ll kill you.” It was enough to have me jailed, yet the damn kid was creeping up on the great blue heron my lens was focused on. “Stop! It’s starting to look nervous.” I think he wanted it as a pet. Jack is the biggest animal lover in the family. Naturally, he took the step. The bird sprang up, and I got the only decent photo of my magazine career. It made the cover.
Yep, the obstacles were infinite. Capitalization and commas were complicated. The editor needed an editor. What’s more, the editor needed a desk instead of a placemat at a kitchen table. But the words got written, and that was the objective.
In the beginning, it was difficult to get contributors. I imagined there was a heap of eager writers, somewhere. The pickle was reaching them, an unimaginable delay in the Internet age. “Get creative,” I thought. “Write to wildlife experts and ask if I can print their replies.” But write them about what? It felt mortifying to implore, “You there, expert. Write an article for free, pretty please, because I’m too stupid to do it myself, too unestablished to pay you, and too uninformed to find contributors.”
Apparently, begging has its place. An SPCA man who was an authority on spiders wrote a grand piece. A marine biologist wrote about killer whales. My favourite essay was from an ethnobotanist who wrote about the uses of cedar, for which my cedar tree photos were scrap. That’s right, a moron. By fate, it was coming together.
And so it was that my typewriter and I tap tapped our way through four years of Get Wild. It was not long enough to learn how to write yet long enough to know where I belonged. The writing was fun; the wildlife part was funner.
There’s a lesson to be learned here: be passionate about your subject. Love it so much that any relevant morsel sets a fire under your ass.
Keep a notepad and a pen with you. I mean it. Ideas, stories, lines, images, quotes, and connections seldom occur on demand. Jot down your dreams upon awakening. I dreamed that a lime-green bird flew out of a children’s nature book, and the ageing book store lady demolished the interior of the place trying to catch it: an illustrated tale of fantasy. Another idea came from seeing a crow fly past a building, its shadow enormous.
If you want to be a published writer, you’d better be an ardent reader. If you like mysteries, read a biography. Broaden your scope. A diligent writer will tell you that books are as part of his life as his toilet is. That’s not the best comparison. It makes the point. I’m telling you, finish a lousy book halfway. Brutally swear at the author for wasting hours of your life, and vow to appreciate your own audience. Note that even gold-medallion titles can be taxing or boring.
Write what you know or what you genuinely want to know. Write honestly. If you fluff a true story with tidbits of fabrication, or contrive a whopper and call it true, you’re asking for trouble. I know because I made a sizeable boo-boo embellishing an already great storyline. If the discrepancy had not been noticed in a final edit, the entire piece would have lost credibility. Like I said, I’m not a real writer. By the same token, do not state theories and guesses as facts.
Never plagiarize. It makes the author of the original piece psycho. My article on the invasion of Vancouver Island’s eastern cottontail took two years to research. I hunted down local World War II countrymen who raised meat rabbits. I rummaged around a wild island looking for evidence of an illicit rabbitry. I upped my phone bill speaking to biologists in Eastern Canada. My plagiarized cottontail article appeared in a renowned museum’s newspaper. It was word for word with the exception of the last two lines. The museum credited itself. I wanted a lawyer. I wanted revenge. Psycho.
Readers of Get Wild rightly detected a novice white-knuckling her editorials. I see more than that. I see a woman with a dusty behind, just in from riding bareback, writing her heart out.
Get Wild‘s publishers dissolved their company and took up cranberry farming. They came to the house with a resume and recommendation for future endeavors. My family exhaled. I rode my old horse into the woods and cried, then resumed studies in crisis counselling.
Surrounded by smart people at university, my writer’s ego went awry. My criminal psychology essays, in particular, were unduly complicated. Overuse of big and rare words made the papers sound pompous. The professors were peeved at having to slog through them.
Upon graduation, I got a job in Mental Health Services. This led to being targeted in a crime called organized (gang) stalking. The only typing I did for years was petitioning for help.
When I did begin narrative writing again, it was a typed 500-page examination of my history of being an organized stalking victim, with an additional thousand pages of what the stalkers’ goals were and how they operated. It was no easy feat to hang on to my typewriter while running and hiding. It didn’t fit in a purse. Moreover, it could not produce professional-looking documents. Buying a laptop was essential, no easy task as gang-stalked people are perpetually broke.
I ate at soup kitchens, stood in bread lines, went without, and two years later placed an order at Safe Computers. Now connected to other victims, local and international, I moved to the sea and opened a stalking support centre from my house. This is what accidentally led to writing a book. The data gathered from the centre, combined with my research and journaling, provided plenty of material. You cannot write a nonfiction book without a massive amount of information.
Please, writers, heed my suggestion of jotting down your traumatic, tragic, or comedic experiences as soon as possible. Grammar, spelling, and punctuation aren’t important. Yet your scribble must be clear enough to jog your memory, complete with the consequences, locations, and people and place names. None of the details are too insignificant as it’s the smells, colours, weather, and emotions that create an authentic nonfiction narrative and bring the story alive.
July 11 stalking and harassment increased, chose to ignore same blond man in library - handsome - wears fake mustache sometimes. Probably wants me to think it’s 2 different men. He took each book I looked at and followed me around with them. Followed me to truck so went back and called Ollie at pay phone for help. Followed me inside so waited at librarian desk. Picked up truck at night, did not want man following me home. Brentwood B Library.
July 23 California airport cop shot own head at rifle range Pam age 53 committed suicide. Stalked 11 years PTSD. I tried to get her here but she said country life was boring.
As anxious as I was to begin writing No Ordinary Stalking, a comprehensive look at organized stalking and harassment, I refused to set down a single sentence until the formulation, or creation, was complete. This involved weeks of arranging chapter outlines in a series of numbered exercise books. Shaping was gratifying. Fact-finding, though, was tedious, as I was overly meticulous.
For instance, in a cardboard box, in the back of a closet, are maps that delineate where I was stalked and harassed, where I hid, and the routes I drove. A corresponding exercise book names the locations on the maps, complete with addresses, phone numbers, and the approximate date I was there. This plotting and data collection took a month or so and was not necessary to write the book. Regardless, never in a million years will I discard this box of maps and data, as a turning point may come when I’m brave enough to spill the secrets I’ve sworn to take to my grave, of the moral degradation that infests a running homeless woman.
A silly waste of energy, when it came to writing my book, was compiling synonyms for the words bound to be used often. The lists are in a blue binder that has traces of wiped-off bird poop and remains wedged in a wicker basket beside my desk. It’s only use is Little Bird’s perch in the winter, level with the heater.
Cultivating the craft of book-writing meant buying used grammar and punctuation how-tos that could be marked up. The more I collected, the more frustrated I got, as they contradicted each other. One recent university edition from my own country would have been sufficient.
My favourite self-helps are delightful reads: The Joy of Writing: A Writing Guide for Writers Disguised as a Literary Memoir by Pierre Berton; On Writing: a Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King; and Eats, Shoots and Leaves by Lynn Truss.
It was disconcerting that after I saturated myself with English fundamentals, I felt more inept than ever. Reading about Berton’s and King’s struggle to write well was encouraging. To get back on track, I reread my 500-page stalking history.
The long-awaited crack at my book did not go well. Microsoft Word was foreign to me; and with no higher education in composition, every paragraph was arduous. I’d write on my laptop until there were a scary number of Cs, for correct, then print the material and read it over tea on my couch. Many pages were so marked up they were challenging to decipher. Deleting long passages was unbearable, especially when I’d spent ages on them. But delete, and reposition, I did. A clever passage in the wrong place mucks up the reader’s sense of continuity. And continuity counts.
This time round I could buy photos online, which made me a bit nuts, like being given keys to a bakery. You’ve surely heard that content, instead of the author, can steer the story. No captain equals no order. Photos can steer a story too. Losing control of your subject is a sinkhole.
No Ordinary Stalking changed my life, not afterwards, but during the writing. Sadness enveloped me, hour after hour. A lot of it was self-inflicted; a book of despair had better have a
despairing tone. I regularly spoke to suicidal victims and played dark music. The living room walls dripped with death and dread.
There was a second pitfall. Housework took on an antagonist role, and an arrangement had to be established. Neatness was imperative, dusting and some vacuuming were not. And while relinquishing housework doesn’t sound sacrificial, it was torture for someone who prizes a spotless home. In spurts, I’d begrudgingly tear the house apart and clean like a madwoman possessed, never once attempting to write. It was an all or none deal: write or clean.
Cutting up bargain pizzas and freezing wedges on foil pie pans was the extent of food preparation. Containers of frozen fruit smoothies eliminated peeling and stickiness. Mealtimes and bedtimes were dedicated to watching relevant, and often tragic, documentaries. Book-reading was at its lowest in my life. Granted, I did sneak in a few that could add to teachings about stalking, capture, and survival.
Anything that stopped me from writing was an opponent, including peaceful walks on the beach in front of my home, my sanctuary after being oppressed. The book was making me ill. My soul, intentionally immersed in crime, was cracking. The remedy, it seemed, was publication.
In a letter to book publishers, I guaranteed my manuscript was polished. A lauded editor said he liked the work, the cadence was smooth, and he would look at it when it was ready. I spent a further fifteen months tidying it up, all 481 pages, to find the company went bankrupt. It didn’t matter. The fellow’s comment was exactly what I needed to hear. Listen well, my allies, to professional criticism; and, if you can afford to, hire a copy editor.
It was insanity that forced me to abandon the final reworking of tricky sentences. I’d developed secondhand PTSD from listening to an unceasing lineup of victims and was constantly crying. Self-publishing was the quickest route to distancing myself from the book, but it worried me that self-publishing is generally thought of as a last resort for losers.
Today, if Random House offered to take on No Ordinary Stalking, I’d say no. I don’t want my book to have a short life. It was written to cut down on the misery, suicides, and murders that victims of organized stalking suffer. I want it to stay in print as long as it’s doing its job. In conjunction, I want the ability to update the book’s resource section. Overall, self-publishing was the right choice.
An interesting part of the process is decision making. For my cover, I chose a photo of a dead tree from my Get Wild era. The fonts, I played with for a while. The print size I wanted was larger than usual, based on victims’ eyesight suffering from physical attacks.
When a parcel of my just-released book arrived at the post office, I was happy as a wet butterfly and put them in an upstairs cupboard without turning a single page. My reaction puzzles me. Other first-time authors talk of stroking their book like a newborn baby.
It was at least a month before I summoned the pluck to check that No Ordinary Stalking was printed without error. It turns out there are two. The publishing consultant said not to bother having them corrected until I update the resource section. If I hadn’t been overwhelmed by the writing and publishing process, and the being-stalked process, my response would not have expressed compliance. The printer’s mistakes, particularly on the cover, are an embarrassment. I feel cheated.
Nonetheless, there are my own slip-ups. In the resource section, I rashly listed a book written by a doctor who is also a victim of organized stalking. It didn’t seem imperative to read his book after being swayed by dozens of five-star Amazon reviews, which it turns out were bogus, as were the grandiose introductions by radio hosts. The good doctor’s book, now that I’ve read it, is terrible. Only a third of it is about the topic. The rest is a disorderly rant with no attention paid to the duped soul who didn’t get what he paid for.
Now don’t get me wrong. I like the doctor. We teamed up to free a woman trapped and raped by gang stalkers. He’s a caring man and a great speaker. But he cannot write. Deleting his title from my book’s resource section is a priority.
Another slip-up in my book is a fact that is wrong. I’d written that a whistleblower was killed then tossed out a window. An investigative journalist proved the man was alive when he’d been tossed. This gaffe bothers me tremendously. Lesson: don’t be sucked in to hype. Contact credible witnesses and investigators.
After No Ordinary Stalking came out, my sadness lingered on. Plus, cooking, cleaning, eating, and tending errands on a whim felt unnatural. It took ten months to become normal after sixty-seven months of regimented distress over words.
My book will never be a bestseller. It will never make much money. I realized from the get-go that mostly victims of organized stalking would read it and presumably some of their loved ones. Still, I’m glad I wrote it. So is a retired Harvard professor who bought seven copies and sent me an idea for a screenplay. I don’t know how to write a screenplay. Therefore, he asked a Hollywood actor to write it, and this led to the actor and I becoming close friends.
I like being an amateur writer. Editing Get Wild enabled my entry into restricted wildlife areas in the company of world-class scientists. No Ordinary Stalking enabled my entry into activism, and Hollywood. My only regret is not having studied English when I was young. Writing’s a lot easier if you know what you’re doing.
My advice to other amateur writers is to always put your best pen forward. An email to Sister Sue or a sticky note to Manager Mike is exactly the practice you need to become proficient. Bit by bit, study your language. Accept that you will have bad writing days, and have faith that your words will take you somewhere wonderful. Anyone who loves to write can learn to write well. The key is passion.
DEFENDER OF THE FAITH
By Herbert Eyre Moulton (1927 – 2005)
Written for the Information Magazine in June of 1958
Foreword by Charles E.J. Moulton
My father Herbert Eyre Moulton (1927 - 2005) lost both his parents during that year of 1958. His father and my paternal grandfather Herbert Lewis Moulton, a World War I veteran whom everyone called Big Herb, died of a heart attack. After that, my father's mother must have been distraught. She got run over by a train on her way to work. This was a very poignant and very fitting for this feisty and strong Irish lady: she died standing up. It is then amazing to see how intellectual and calm my father seemed to be when he wrote the following piece for the Information Magazine in June of 1958. When his girlfriend died of cancer, my father, desperate and emotionally drained, left America on a two week vacation in his ancestrial home of Ireland. This stay lasted for seven years and brought him at least as much success as he the success he had experienced in the.United States. This stay eventually led him to Germany, where he met my mother, operatic mezzo-soprano Gun Kronzell.
The rest, as they say, is history.
This is my father's article from June 1958.
My mother Nell was an ardent Catholic all her life and something of a Revivalist at heart. She believed in standing up and being counted, and she never sat down again. That is why, whenever I read about the new look along the sawdust trail, I wonder what she'd have to say about it all.
It's a cinch Nell wouldn't recognize the old Gospel Train in its Madison Avenue streamlining. She liked her religion straight, thank you, liked it as well as she liked a good fight. Come to think of it, her one encounter with militant unorthodoxy may have helped bring on the present era of soft voices and cushioned condemnation.
Nell approached belief with wide open emotion and when said she'd gladly die for the faith, she meant it. To her as to many an Irishman the saints were cronies, especially the Blessed Virgin. Our Lady didn't live next door to us - she had moved right in to help with the housework.
This Catholicism, however intense, was no impediment to respecting those outside the fold, providing they were sincere. Nell never condemned anybody - she loved them and felt sorry they were missing so much. As for prejudice, it was the Devil's work and anybody who practiced it was, in her own words, "a hypocritch of the first water."
My father Big Herb had no official religous status, but he was better Catholic Dad than many in our parish, and his family was of vigorous if diverse Protestant stock. There were Presbyterians and Episcopalians and Transcendentalists and Free Thinkers and Swedenborgians and even a Quaker or two in the middle distance. Nell wanted me to know all about all these demoninations, what made them "other" and how they got that way. We must have toured every church and temple in the vicinity, guided by astonished beadles, custodians and janitors. Nell always called these personages "dear", and made sure they locked up afterwards.
Religious toleration didn't stop at the vestibule door. Everybody was welcome in our house. If they were atheists, if they didn't revere the Blessed Mother as Scripture says we should, if they were agnostic or fallen away or just indifferent, they were wrong and Nell never tired of belaboring the point. But as long as they were people and in our house, they got the full treatment, and even in the rockiest depression that meant anything from hot toddies and sherry-soaked fruitcake to a seven-course meal.
It was during those hard days of the 30's that our bungalow began taking on the aspects of a soup kitchen. Impoverished spinsters with cats and cataracts, an artist on relief, a retired handyman named Peter the Indian, an unemployed barber (two bits for a kitchen haircut and I can still feel the pull of those handclippers) - any number of down-and-outers crowded our table. None of them ever left without a shopping bag crammed with jars of jelly and fresh soup. No matter how bad things got, we were never of relief and they were, and that made all the difference. As long as there was a WPA, a PWA or any practical nursing to be done, Nell worked to help Big Herb while that gentle soul plugged away trying to sell insurance, appliances, anything to help supplement Big Herb's modest income.
We always had more than enough, somehow. We had parties and battles and pets and a second-hand car born 1928, a Studebaker named Henrietta. We packed lunches and went off to the opera, the World's Fair, zoos, ballparks and museums. One weekend we started out for a short ride (we lived in a suburb of Chicago named Glen Ellyn) and ended up at Niagara Falls.
Everybody cut corners and everybody had fun. Friday night we went to the movies, lured by Bank Nite, free dishes and good shows. Because prices changed from fifteen cents to a quarter at 6:15, people hurried through dinner and read the evening paper in their seats before the feature. Our milkman delivered his own vino with the dairy products. Big Herb continued to make homebrew beer in the basement long after Repeal, and his men friends rolled their own cigarettes. The women knitted and crocheted, while the more ambitious hooked rugs or entered contests, did each other's hair or tried their hand at short story writing. We kids gave puppet shows and pageants, fell out of tree-houses and fought. Saturday night there were crowds of poker players, not a one of them with a dime to his name, and during one slump when ours was the only house with the light and the gas still turned on, they carted home bushel baskets of coal to heat drafty old mansions left over from Palmier Days. We were the happiest people we knew.
It was into this kingdom of raffish good will towards everybody that two woebegone missionaries wandered one rainy Saturday. Nowadays, as I said, gospel harvesters plow the fields and scatter with such gentility that you hardly know they're around. But a couple of decades ago you couldn't miss them.
This particular brood barnstormed for the Lord in an antique limosine painted white and plastered with signs proclaiming the imminence of Kingdom Come. As if this weren't enough to scare the daylights out of anybody, a nest of loudspeakers topsides saturated the target area with glad tidings of approaching Armageddon, hellfire and judgment.
"I'd like to know what these people think they're doing," Nell mused from the front window. "The man and woman in that goofy car. I've never laid eyes on them before, have you guys?"
As usual I was presiding at a levée for urchins, all of us dressing up to play King, The Prince and the Pauper, or whatever we had seen at the Glen Theatre the week before. The evangelists didn't seem to be doing too well, according to Nell, who was never nosy unless something really special were afoot. They had tried every door on the street, finding nobody home (and everybody was) or getting a reception chilly enough to freeze Gehenna.
"Well, I think it's just awful about those poor slobs," Nell worried. "The least somebody could do would be to ask them in, no matter what they're peddling."
It never occurred to her that these might be religious rivals. She wouldn't have admitted the existance of any to begin with.
At last the discouraged Lost Sheep (which is what we called them ever after) approached our porch. Nell was ready for them. She flung open the door with a bountiful,
"Come in, come in, and get dried off!" The Lost Sheep looked at her and then at each other. "Oh, come on. You look like the Grapes of Wrath." Nell was an inspired improviser. With one of her "non sequiturs" dropped casually into the conversational works, she could jangle all talk to a standstill, and her enthusiastic misquotations were worth their weight in double takes.
Now was no exception. The Lost Sheep turned their unbelieving gaze back at her and beyond to the warmth of the house. Then they bolted inside where we could get a look at them.
The man was gaunt and shaggy and he scowled all the time. The woman was whispy and chinless and very much ill-at-ease. There was something pathetic about them as they flapped their magazines our way.
“Never mind about that now,” Nell blocked the tactic. “What you need is a good hot cup of tea.” The Lost Sheep damply agreed. “How about a little something in it?”
“Perhaps a spoonful of sugar,” the woman hesitated.
“I mean, a little something to take the chill off.”
“Lemon?” came the nervous suggestion.
“Oh, skip it,” said Nell and she pottered out to the kitchen, abandoning us all to an eternity of embarrassment. Finally she returned with a loaded tray (and I choose the term “loaded” purposely). It was just like her to spike her teacup with a little something to take the chill off. Only with Nell you could never be quite sure.
“Now then,” she beamed, ever the hostess. “What is it you’re selling?”
The female Sheep gasped like someone reviving after a near-drowning. “Have you found Christ?” she asked.
“I never lost Him,” was Nell’s reply.
We wanted to cheer, but the woman pressed on. “I mean, do you have him in your life?”
“Of course I do, dear. Don’t you?” There was a murmur of approval from the gallery and Nell continued briskly: “I go to mass and communion every Sunday of my life. And Herbert here is an altar boy.”
The couple exchanged another look. The interview wasn’t going according to the book.
“You see that picture over there?” My mother indicated a Raphael reproduction.
“The ... that woman?” the female Sheep looked as though she were gnawing a quince instead of one of Nell’s delicious cookies.
“She’s the mother of God!” Nell saluted. “Now what can I do for you?”
The Sheep set down their teacups and began a faltering pitch, but their hearts were not in it.
“If it’s money you’re after,” Nell interrupted, “I don’t think there’s a nickle in this house.” She cast about for her pocket book and proceeded to empty it onto the coffee table. Rosary, Novena book, keys, family photographs, compact, comb and curlers, a jar of hand cream, a can of tooth powder and a denture brush, newspaper clippings, her lower plate, the dog’s collar and a bottle-opener all clattered forth. At each item the eyes of the Lost Sheep widened and their mouths contracted almost in disappearance. Now they both looked like they were sucking quinces, or possibly alum.
“Well, I’ll be jiggered!” Nell reported triumphantly. “I do have some change!” She counted out eleven cents (a nickle and six pennies). “It isn’t much, but God knows you’re welcome to it.” She pressed the coins into the woman’s palm. “Oh, don’t bother with any of that stuff,” again she waved away the proferred literature. “I haven’t even finished ‘Gone With The Wind’ yet.”
But the Lost Sheep prevailed and presently were effecting an escape, their benedictions all but lost in the alleluias of “God love you!” from my mother. She closed the door and heaved one of her great sighs. “I want you brats to get out of those crazy duds now,” she suggested at length, “and I’ll go see about the potatoes.”
No matter how many guests I rounded up, lunch was always hearty, generally consisting of baked potatoes, peanut butter sandwiches, junket or tapioca, baked apples and pitchers of milk or cocoa. Today it was further spiced with the novelty of the little morality play just acted out.
“Irene dear,” Nell prodded my moppet of the moment. “I’m sure your mother never lets you and Brubs read at the table.”
“I can’t help it, Aunt Nell. It’s this silly magazine.” Irene was turning over the pages of one of the murky periodicals left by one of the Lost Sheep. We were all as entranced as kids today are with television.
“Look at this one,” her brother demanded. “Aunt Nell, what’s a Scarlet Woman?”
“Look, the Pope has three heads,” Irene put in. It was true. On the front page was a crude cartoon representing the Vatican with a hydra-headed monster oozing out, each head crowned with the Triple Tiara.
“Let me see that!” Nell ordered. She took one look, then snatched up the remaining copies. As I recall it, they swam with lurid slanders against the church, the Papacy and Priesthood, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass – against all things Catholic, in fact. Such exotic phrases as Whore of Babylon, and Pomps of the Devil, linger to this day.
“Well, I’ll be –“ Nell’s smouldering exclamation was lost in the rustle of cheap paper. “Come on, children,” she announced suddenly. “Get your wraps and duds.”
“But, Aunt Nell,” came the whines. “What about our baked apples?”
“Never mind them – come on!” By the time she reached her boiling point – which was notoriously low – we had cast off for uptown in Hernrietta.
I doubt if any journey has ever been achieved in more portentous silence or with greater clugging or and motor sputter. We lurched, we skidded, we bounced over the tracks. Gears grated, people honked, and my mother’s knuckles grew white with clutching the steering wheel. We all knew exactly what was happening. We had seen it before and we knew. Nellie was on the warpath. Nobody said a word.
It didn’t take long to find them. The limousine was a dead giveaway and you could hear the scratchy gospel hymns amplified all over town. They had set up shop right next to the bank and the female sheep was handing out literature while partner ranted from the running-board. Gus Niemetz the policeman stood by uneasily, not knowing what to do.
“Everybody stay right in this car,” was Nell’s car as we ground to a halt. “Don’t a one of you dare get out.”
The next instant a nuclear ball of Irish Catholic fury burst through the crowd, scattering umbrellas and shopping baskets like tenpins. The female Sheep spotted her but before she could sound the alarm, Nell was upon them, tugging the oracle down from his perch and shaking her fists in his face.
I closed my eyes and put my head down on the back of the front seat. God help him, I thought. Heresy isn’t worth it.
The scene was brief enough – more fistshaking and Gaelic oaths, propaganda dashed underfoot and appeals to the bewildered congregation, a convulsive digging into her own pockets by the chinless Sheep, then the bowling ball routine again, propelling Nell into the Studebaker and us on our way home. From the rear window we could see the limousine moving off in the opposite direction.
Not until we were well into our baked apples did things return to normal, or rather, from normal. “At least I got the eleven cents back,” Nell said, dabbing at our dishes with whipped cream. “And not a word of this to Big Herb, understand? Go on, kids, eat yourselves. You must be ravished by now.” It was gratifying to hear old malapropisms again. “Everything’s going to be all right.”
Everything was. The Lost Sheep never came back, not in the limousine anyway. The eleven cents went into the Sunday collection and the Raphael Madonna was moved into a more prominent position over the fireplace.
From then on Nell read every publication that came into the house. Religious toleration is a grand thing, she used to say, but it’s got to work both ways.
Turkey Turkey
By Alexandra H. Rodrigues
What about Turkey? Are we talking about Turkey the country in the Middle East? Its capital is Istanbul, in old times called Constantinople. Istanbul’s main attractions are its mosques and of course for me its bazaars. A stroll along the tent-like boutiques could keep me entertained for hours. The vendors would invite me into their cubicles trying to get me interested in their wares. They would ask to sit on a three legged-stool and I would be served a demitasse of espresso. The rich bitter coffee nearly stood up in the little cup. How could I not buy anything after such a cordial treatment?
I floated along the Bosphorus, toward the Black Sea, on a boat crowded with tourists. At the stately Hilton Hotel, where I stayed, I would take a shower and then go to the swimming pool. As skin cancer was hardly talked about at that time, bikini beauties were soaking up the sun in comfortable deck chairs. Many of them were drinking a Pina Colada. I joined them.
Turkey? Oh yes, I meant to talk about poultry not the city. Thanksgiving is standing at the doorsteps already again. I do have an excuse for having gotten sidetracked. I was in my twenties when I heard about Turkey, the bird, for the first time. In Germany we did not have Turkeys and no Thanksgiving either. After the harvest we had a celebration called Ernte-Dank-Fest, giving thanks for the harvest; a Turkey was never part of it.
Only during my first Thanksgiving in the States did a Turkey and I meet.
As a Flight Attendant I had to serve Turkey to passengers in First Class, carving it from a serving board on a food cart, in view of the guests. Luckily we had had extensive galley training before flaunting our culinary arts inflight. Why the name Turkey for the bird. During global trade in old times a bird called Guinea fowl shipped from Africa, became known as “Turkey cock.” The fowl had come via Constantinople, an important hub of international trade, into England. Later British settlers brought it into the States, and it was simply called “Turkey.”
I remember a Turkey fiasco that happened when I introduced my parents in Germany to their first Turkey. My husband and I had bought a huge frozen Turkey to take to Berlin. To keep it frozen we let it rest on the lid of the icebox on the plane, which held the ice-cubes for the cocktail service. Our enthusiasm had gone overboard. My mother’s oven was much, much too small. We had to let it defrost and the next day my husband butchered into pieces. We ate Turkey for many days. It all defeated the purpose of having a crisp, enticing bird on a big platter, inviting us to a meal.
Ironically, the name of Turkeys in the Turkish language, is Hindi, short for bird from India. It seems the Turks may have originally thought that those birds came from India – thanks to a little miscalculation by Columbus.
I will end here, not to confuse the issue any further and not to spoil all our appetite for the coming Thanksgiving feast.
Autumn Night
By Alexandra H. Rodrigues
Soft, humidity drunk air, is brought in by the ocean to the shores of Long Island. A greenish dew hangs in the crowns of the trees. It has been the hottest September in years. The canal shows moldering, fermenting seaweed and algae from the Great South Bay along to its end.
The trees stand erect like the motionless guards in front of the Queen’s Palace, not allowing their twigs to bend.
As I put my head out the window, the humidity soaked air nearly took my breath away. My car brooded heat the way I picture heat to rise in a chicken coop.
All this is experienced today, on Long Island, near the water. I pity the commuters who travel on the railroad or subway! Picture them, as they stagger along the steaming streets while the manholes spit hot air. Those brave people earn every penny that Manhattan salaries pay as bonus. It is a well-known fact that city wages could reach double what is paid on the outskirts.
Came lunchtime, pictures on the TV began to show warnings about severe thunder, lightning and storms. It even mentioned the possibility of tornados and street flooding. A nasty reminder of the storm that hit Long Island several years back.
This could bring with it power outages; some areas already were experiencing such.
Then the rain came! Relief of sorts but not enough for the grass
as it had thirsted for days.
As if to apologize for the recent turmoil the sky obliged with a light show. Not a rainbow but a broad opening between dissipating clouds. Colors of a rainbow mashed up into a shaken palette. The canal now clear, even sparkling. All seaweed gone! Relieved and delighted, I opened my sliding doors. I took a deep breath, once, twice. Yes, it had cooled down. I felt my airways open. It was invigorating. A light breeze was rocking the trees to sleep. It was the end of September. The days were getting shorter. Night had set in.
No stars, no moon but a pleasant night with the anticipation of the sky kids to appear shortly. Peace after the storm. Nature’s spectaculars like today’s can be experienced frequently. It is one of the reasons reason why long ago I made the South Shore of Long Island my residence.
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