Reading Under the Covers

Before "Downton Abbey"...There was SNOBS

2012-01-12T08:30:00.020-05:00

Photo of Julian Fellowes © Giles Keyte

I still remember the day in late 2004 that an unexpected package arrived from St. Martin's Press. Inside was an advanced reading copy of SNOBS, the debut novel of Julian Fellowes. Stephen Fry's blurb on the back cover got me hooked: "A delicious thoroughbred delight, a guilty treat that is awake to every maddeningly and appallingly attractive nuance of English social life."

I gobbled up the book, then snagged a phone interview with Mr. Fellowes courtesy of my new best friends at St. Martin's. The piece ran in Bookreporter.com in Feb. 2005. It seems to have been pulled, but my interview with Mr. Fellowes about his second novel, PAST IMPERFECT, is still there. Fans of Maggie Smith's Dowager Countess in "Downton" will enjoy Lady Uckfield in SNOBS (soon to be rereleased with a new cover, per today's NYT.

BIOGRAPHY
At the tender age of 55 [in 2005], Oscar-winning screenwriter Julian Fellowes has just had his first novel, SNOBS, published in the United States. Born in Egypt, where his father was in the Foreign Office, Fellowes grew up in England and attended Cambridge. After going to drama school, he was a “jobbing actor for ages” and appeared in more than 40 movies and TV shows. Fed up with going to auditions, Fellowes turned to writing and worked for a while for BBC TV, where he adapted LITTLE LORD FAUNTLEROY and THE PRINCE AND THE PAUPER for the small screen. Subsequently he wrote a screenplay for Anthony Trollope’s THE EUSTACE DIAMONDS, which caught the eye of producer Bob Balaban, who was looking for a British society insider to write a screenplay for a murder mystery. “And so ‘Gosford Park’ was born, and so was the rest of my life,” Fellowes explains.

In addition to "Gosford Park,” Fellowes wrote the screenplay for “Vanity Fair” and the book for the new London musical "Mary Poppins." He also wrote and directed "Separate Lives," a film starring Tom Wilkinson, Emily Watson and Rupert Everett, which opens in the U.K. in March. He describes it as “a little art house British movie about middle-class people being unhappily married, and so will doubtless be steamrollered in the Big, Bad World but I love it and I loved making it so I have no sad tales to tell.” Never one to sit idle, Fellowes is currently writing a family movie for Columbia pictures; SNOBS is in the works as a three-part series for British TV. He and his wife Emma Kitchener, a descendant of Lord Kitchener and a lady-in-waiting to Princess Michael of Kent, live with their teenage son in “Hardy country” near Dorchester.

INTERVIEW
January 17, 2005
Narrated by an actor with an aristocratic pedigree, SNOBS is a delicious social satire set in 1990s England, in which a beautiful middle-class young woman claws her way into British society by marrying a dim-witted earl. Though its setting is modern, the wry sensibility and gimlet-eyed deconstruction of social morays put SNOBS firmly in the tradition of Jane Austen, E.F. Benson (especially the “Lucia” series) and Anthony Trollope. Fellowes talks with Bookreporter.com’s Bella Stander about mental toughness, second chances and the tribulations of the acting life.

BLS: How did you come up with the idea for SNOBS?

JF: I live in two secret worlds: show business and high society. People know them from magazines but not from the inside. I thought it would be fun to go into those worlds in a reasonably clear-seeing vein.

When I was a young man, I came from the bottom end of the landed gentry. Now I get the glad hand; in those days I made up the extra--the one who gets invited when someone else can’t make it. At house parties I had the bedroom next to Nanny with the uncomfortable bed. When you're a minor player, you're in a better position to see people as they really are than if you're a grandee.

BLS: There are many references to Anthony Trollope in SNOBS. You write about Lady Uckfield, the mother-in-law of protagonist Edith, “She did not know what it was to be bored--or rather, to admit to herself that she was bored…In our sloppy century, one must at least respect, if not revere, such moral resolution. And after all, to borrow a phrase from Trollope, when all was said and done, ‘her lines had fallen in pleasant places.’”

JF: Yes, it means that without planning, your life has entered a pretty nice area. Mental toughness is becoming increasingly a class thing. The twentieth-century concept is that we should only consult our private wishes and always live in accordance with our personal tastes and desires. Trollope would regard that as a recipe for an ultimately disappointing life, and on the whole, I would agree with him. It is a false notion that the more rules we abandon, the freer and more fulfilled we will become. One only has to look around to see that a great many people are floundering because of the abolition of all rules.

SNOBS is a rather caustic look at the British upper classes and their obsession with rules. They don’t see themselves as others see them, to quote Burns. They believe they live in a world whose values are more broadly held than they are. However, I am unable to keep from a feeling of respect for their un-breaking standards. The Lady Uckfields of the world are still capable of self-discipline, which is the key virtue. Our education system avoids giving children a clue that the world is going to be a tough place. Adulthood comes as a horrible disappointment to them, because they believed that the whole thing was going to plop into their lap.

One of the most important elements of the book is that it’s about choice. All our lives, we’re the product of our choices. We’re all at the point that our choices have taken us. We can set off in a new direction, but what we can’t do is start again. The great advantage of America is its optimism; it’s always open to new ideas. You don’t drag your past around with you like a heavy chain.

BLS: Americans believe in second chances, in starting over. Miss Manners recently wrote, “This country was founded by people who weren’t doing well at home.”

JF: The notion that you can get a facelift and be 33 again is a false one. You have to take the consequences of your choices: That’s the one you married; that’s the mother or father of your children; this is the career you chose; you have to make this career work for you. You can’t spend the rest of your life regretting that you didn’t go to med school. You have to have the strength to realize and accept when there isn’t still time. I’m all for doing something for yourself and not allowing other people's expectations to steamroll you, but you should choose something where you have a reasonable expectation of fulfillment.

BLS: That’s certainly hard when you’re an actor. You get rejected all the time.

JF: This business continually tells you you're nothing until you start thinking you are, and finally you collaborate in your own humiliation. That’s the horrible truth of it. The great challenge of acting is to hold onto your own self-worth despite constant attack. Actors have my sympathy. A lot of them don’t hold on. The only real protection is to have people believe in you.

When our son Peregrine was maybe four, I was leaving for an audition for a commercial. Emma had gotten stuck in traffic and I had to take him with me. They were totally hostile to this little boy and this poor actor who had to take him in. This was one of those key moments. I thought, I don’t have to involve my child and myself in this. I am too old to justify myself to people I don’t even like! That was the last audition I ever did for a commercial. I retook ownership of myself and my own dignity. It was a curative, positive step for me. However, I’m not saying that everyone who turns down commercial auditions will go on to write a screenplay and get an Oscar.

BLS: What was the reaction of your society friends and acquaintances to SNOBS? Did any of them think you were betraying your class?

JF: There certainly were mixed feelings as to whether or not I had, in some way, betrayed my own kind by holding them up to ridicule. Of course, lots of people thought they had sat for the portraits--although they were mostly wrong. Characters, as you know, are usually an amalgam of different acquaintances and seldom drawn from a single model. Having said that, there were one or two pretty close depictions, and one person in particular was very annoyed. "Really!" she said. "A lifetime of avoiding the newspapers, and now look!" Although, in my defense, I never gave away her identity.

At the risk of vanity, I would say the accuracy of the book was what irritated them most. Like politicians or show-folk, toffs usually shrug off any criticism of themselves in fiction by pointing out the inaccuracies which demonstrate that the author cannot have had a close view. One senior aristocrat was reported as having said, "The problem with SNOBS is you can't fault it." An old pal telephoned with the greeting, "It's a wonder to me you have any friends left!" However, all in all, I would say more of them were amused to find their world in print than were offended. For which I am heartily grateful.

BLS: Will your screenplay of THE EUSTACE DIAMONDS be made? It certainly should be, as Lizzie Eustace is a character for the ages. I saw shades of her in Edith.

JF: No, "Eustace" is still looking for a home. You're quite right about Lizzie. I always think of that trio--Becky Sharp, Lizzie Eustace and Scarlett O'Hara--as being identical triplets, and I love them all.

Yahrzeit - Ahead & Behind theTimes

2011-11-30T15:20:00.009-05:00

My father died 17 years ago today. November 30 is also Mark Twain's birthday. I imagine Dad would have liked to be linked to Twain, however tenuously. Funny... I just now remembered that I read THE INNOCENTS ABROAD the one time I visited Dad at his home in L.A.

In his early years in Hollywood, Dad lent his voice to various progressive causes, which got him branded as "a Red sonofabitch" (allegedly by Columbia Pictures honcho Harry Cohn), then tailed for decades by the FBI. The sign proclaiming "SCHOLARSHIPS NOT BATTLESHIPS" in this photo from 1937 (below) would have been perfect for an anti-Vietnam War demonstration--or an Occupy rally now. Alas, Dad and the other peaceniks were proved wrong four years later, when battleships became vastly more necessary.

PEACE "STRIKE" OFF CAMPUS AT U.C.L.A.

Westwood, Calif.--More than 1000 students of the University of California at Los Angeles walked off the campus in a peace strike as part of a nation-wide demonstration called by the United Student Peace Committee. --PHOTO SHOWS-- Lionel Stander, cinema actor, as he addressed the crowd of strikers, while standing on a truck parked near the campus. 4-22-37

Another Piece of History

2011-09-06T17:45:00.005-04:00

My latest acquisition (above) is an AP Wirephoto of my father from 1953. Caption:

NEW YORK, May 6--Rep. Harold Velde, left, (R-Ill. chairman of the House Unamerican Activities Committee, points a warning finger at witness Lionel Stander, seated at right, during the actor's testimony here today. Stander refused to tell the committee at an open hearing whether he had ever been a Communist. He said he was not now a Communist, but refused to say whether he was a party member between 1935 and 1948. Rep. Morgan M. Moulder (D-Mo.) sits beside Velde.

That appears to be the infamous Roy Cohn standing in the back at left.

Summer Reading Assignment for Obama & Congress

2011-08-18T18:02:00.004-04:00

To the legislators of 2011 and most especially the candidates of 2012, I offer this excerpt from Charles Dickens's LITTLE DORRIT:

Containing the whole Science of Government

Whatever was required to be done, the Circumlocution Office was beforehand with all the public departments in the art of perceiving--HOW NOT TO DO IT.

Through this delicate perception, through the tact with which it invariably seized it, and through the genius with which it always acted on it, the Circumlocution Office had risen to overtop all the public departments; and the public condition had risen to be--what it was.

It is true that How not to do it was the great study and object of all public departments and professional politicians all round the Circumlocution Office. It is true that every new premier and every new government, coming in because they had upheld a certain thing as necessary to be done, were no sooner come in than they applied their utmost faculties to discovering How not to do it. It is true that from the moment when a general election was over, every returned man who had been raving on hustings because it hadn't been done, and who had been asking the friends of the honourable gentleman in the opposite interest on pain of impeachment to tell him why it hadn't been done, and who had been asserting that it must be done, and who had been pledging himself that it should be done, began to devise, How it was not to be done. It is true that the debates of both Houses of Parliament the whole session through, uniformly tended to the protracted deliberation, How not to do it. It is true that the royal speech at the opening of such session virtually said, My lords and gentlemen, you have a considerable stroke of work to do, and you will please to retire to your respective chambers, and discuss, How not to do it. It is true that the royal speech, at the close of such session, virtually said, My lords and gentlemen, you have through several laborious months been considering with great loyalty and patriotism, How not to do it, and you have found out; and with the blessing of Providence upon the harvest (natural, not political), I now dismiss you. All this is true, but the Circumlocution Office went beyond it.

Back to Mr. Dickens

2011-08-07T17:11:00.003-04:00

I kept thinking how much the US Congress dickering over the debt ceiling is just like Dickens's Circumlocution Office, with all the talk of why "it can't be done." So I put aside Susan Isaacs's LILY WHITE, which was boring me, in favor of LITTLE DORRIT, which isn't.

The cinematic opening, which I looked for in vain when I watched the BBC series, fits right in with the breathless weather we're having:

Thirty years ago, Marseilles lay burning in the sun, one day. A blazing sun upon a fierce August day was no greater rarity in southern France then, than at any other time, before or since. Everything in Marseilles, and about Marseilles, had stared at the fervid sky, and been stared at in return, until a staring habit had become universal there. Strangers were stared out of countenance by staring white houses, staring white walls, staring white streets, staring tracts of arid road, staring hills from which verdure was burnt away. The only things to be seen not fixedly staring and glaring were the vines drooping under their load of grapes. These did occasionally wink a little, as the hot air barely moved their faint leaves.

There was no wind to make a ripple on the foul water within the harbour, or on the beautiful sea without. The line of demarcation between the two colours, black and blue, showed the point which the pure sea would not pass; but it lay as quiet as the abominable pool, with which it never mixed. Boats without awnings were too hot to touch; ships blistered at their moorings; the stones of the quays had not cooled, night or day, for months.

This may be the last time I read my Penguin paperback edition, which I bought in 1984, as the pages keep fluttering out of the cracked binding. It's odd to have a book that I remember buying new to be looking--and especially smelling--so old.

Strange & Beautiful: Kevin Wilson & THE FAMILY FANG

2011-08-05T10:26:00.014-04:00

The Family Fang, Kevin Wilson’s debut novel from Ecco Press, opens with:

Mr. and Mrs. Fang called it art. Their children called it mischief. "You make a mess and then you walk away from it," their daughter, Annie, told them.

And what a mess Caleb and Camille Fang have made of Annie and her younger brother Buster! Labeled “Child A” and “Child B,” from infancy they were pressed into service—not always willingly, or even wittingly—as key players in their parents’ notorious performance art pieces.

Having attended art school and hung around the Manhattan art/music scene of the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, I came of age with people like Caleb and Camille Fang. I was curious how Kevin Wilson managed to capture them and their milieu with such piercing, tragicomic accuracy....
More at Wild River Review

Quote for the Day...and all time

2011-05-03T10:13:00.003-04:00

"No corrupt mind ever understands words healthily."
--THE DECAMERON (c1350), Giovanni Boccaccio

A New May Day

2011-05-01T10:39:00.006-04:00

The view from my back fence this morning.

At a Denver riding club on May 1, 2006, Gomez the Thoroughbred threw me into a steel-pipe fence. My first-ever helicopter ride brought me to Swedish Hospital, where I spent a week in the multi-trauma unit. My body and psyche were as shattered as my glasses (see May 1, 2009, post with pic here).

Five years later, I'm finally healed. I think. I hope.

There's a difference between "healed" and "all better." After 3 surgeries on my right arm, I still have to carefully position it when I lie in bed. Three fingers on my dominant right hand remain partly to mostly numb. My right upper lip is numb; so is my right upper eyelid and my right forehead from just above the inner brow to the hairline. That eyebrow also is higher than the left, and doesn't go down when I frown. After rhinoplasty and 3 root canals, my nose and front teeth still hurt.

But the progress outweighs the remaining pain. For the first time in 5 years, the other day I was able to clasp my hands behind my back--and even raise them several inches. Last month my dentist applied a resin veneer to cover the gray on my dead right front tooth. So now I don't have to remind myself to keep my lips closed when I smile.

Even better, I no longer panic when I hear sirens or helicopters, or the news on radio/TV, or squealing tires on ads, or a football scrimmage (I still can't watch, but I never liked football anyway). Nor do I burst into tears when I see photographs of carnage or destruction in the newspaper, though I still have to cover some of them.

My short-term memory has returned. I couldn't remember a string of digits long enough to write down a phone number. I had to listen to a voice mail 3 or 4 times--first for the area code, then the exchange, then the next 2 digits, then the last 2. People thought I was kidding when I pleaded brain damage. I wasn't; 3 years after my accident a CT-scan finding was "traumatic brain injury."

"Time is a great healer," goes the old saying. True, but I wouldn't have gotten this far without the help of my gifted therapist in Denver, Mel Grusing, who practices Somatic Experiencing.

A new therapist just provided the last piece in my healing process. His name is Superstar, and he's a shaggy, battered little rescue horse at Blue Ribbon Farm in Tivoli, NY. After Gomez nearly killed me, I swore I'd never get on another Thoroughbred again. (Funny how my new digs back onto a racing horse farm, pictured at top.) But Superstar, who's the proverbial bombproof horse, made me eat my words. I've ridden him twice and can't wait to get back in the saddle.

Tally ho!

Guffaw of the Day OR Hypocritic Oaf

2011-03-09T17:59:00.006-05:00

I laughed out loud when I saw this AP headline:

Gingrich: Love of country contributed to affair

LOVE the lede:

Newt Gingrich says his passion for his country contributed to his marital infidelity.

(Yes, and my passion for dessert contributed to my thighs.)

What follows is a motherlode of self-serving hypocrisy. Consider this gem:

The twice-divorced former U.S. House speaker has admitted he had an affair with Callista, a former congressional aide, while married to his second wife. It happened at the same time he was attacking President Bill Clinton for his relationship with White House intern Monica Lewinsky.

Takeaway (via Jon Stewart): There are 3 women who'd have sex with Newt Gingrich!

The piece ends with this emetic tidbit:

He also said former Georgia Gov. Zell Miller, a Democrat who has backed many Republicans in recent years, will serve as a co-chairman of his national campaign effort.

In Cairo with Caravaggio

2011-02-12T15:10:00.007-05:00

Above, a group of young men in Tahrir Square, by Moises Saman for The New York Times.

Below, "The Taking of Christ" (c. 1602) by Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, at the National Gallery of Ireland.

The Ultimate Writing Prompt

2011-01-22T13:36:00.005-05:00

My driveway was plowed early yesterday--apparently after the newspaper was delivered, as I spotted its bright blue plastic wrapper peeking out of a snow bank this morning. I read the "Weekend Arts" section over lunch and hit gold in an article about the Winter Antiques Show, A Smorgasbord of Fine Art, the Strange and the Old:

At Allan Katz, there is a sculpture of two voluptuous nude women, one fondling the other’s breast, smoothly carved from a solid block of mahogany. This comical, curiously erotic fusion of autodidactic craft and neo-Classical style is believed to have been created by an unknown artisan about 1920 for a Buffalo sex cult.

1920. Buffalo. SEX CULT.

Think of the possibilities: Farce, murder mystery, morality tale, amorality tale...against a backdrop of snow and Niagara Falls.

The mind boggles.

Snowy Fun in the Back 40

2011-01-12T09:31:00.010-05:00

A snowstorm is Nature's way of saying "Stay home!" And I'd gladly hibernate inside, only I have this 64-pound bundle of joy that needs off-leash romps several times a day. So I put on the puffy jacket, pulled up the tall boots and ventured out.

Abby went over to the car, as usual, and was incredulous when I started walking up the street. After a bit of convincing--she didn't understand about the driveway not being plowed--she came bounding through the snow. We trespassed in our neighbors' backyards (nobody else was outside; go figure) then ended up in our own, where I took these pictures.

Happy Birthday, Dad!

2011-01-11T08:55:00.021-05:00

Lionel Stander (center) in "The Big Show-Off"

My father would have been 103 years old today (the simplest date of all: 1/11/11). My latest acquisition of Lionel Stander memorabilia is a publicity still from The Big Show-Off, released in January 1945. I haven't seen it, but per the synopsis it seems to be a typical Republic Pictures "B" movie. Its one claim to fame is that it stars Dale Evans just before she hitched up with Roy Rogers.

I visited my mom and stepfather in Maine two weeks ago. While I was doing my morning stretches, I suddenly noticed a book, which I'm sure had been on the same shelf for 20 years: BUILDING A CHARACTER.

"Huh," I thought. "This might be useful in writing fiction." (I've been working on The Great American Potboiler, in fits and starts, for several years.)

I pulled the book down, and saw that the author was Constantin Stanislavski, inventor of "The Method" espoused by Jacob & Stella Adler, and countless other of Dad's actor friends. I opened it and was surprised to see that it was from the New York Public Library's Bloomingdale Branch, on West 100th St.

Even more surprising, my father's temporary library card was in the pocket, with our old West End Avenue address and phone number--proof that he had indeed moved back in with Mom and me. The book was borrowed Dec 16, 1961, and due on Jan 26, 1962. The overdue fine is 5¢ "per calendar day." That's almost $900 by now, so this is a very valuable book.

I felt a mental connection with Dad when I started reading BUILDING A CHARACTER: this was a book that he went out of his way to read. The Dewey card is stuck between the first two pages of Chapter Four: "Making the Body Expressive." Did Dad get bored and stop there? That chapter is a bit of a slog. But he was such a voracious reader--often a book per day--and Stanislavski's work so important that I'd like to think he read all the way through.

As luck would have it, today I found a bit on YouTube from "The Danny Kaye Radio Show," in which Kaye hilariously explains the Stanislavski Method to my father, who was a regular on the show. What I miss most about Dad is his voice, which is like no other. (I've never heard a credible imitation. When I was little my mother took me to the doctor because my voice was hoarse. Turned out I was trying to speak like Daddy.) So it's wonderful to be able to hear him long after his death--and long before my birth. He gets a few lines to set up the bit, then it's all Danny Kaye. Listen:

Abby v Snow Monster

2010-12-31T17:35:00.006-05:00

Someone built a snow(wo?)man at Burger Hill, Rhinebeck, our default dogwalking venue. Abby wasn't having any part of it. After much barking--plus a treat placed at its base--she cautiously approached before going up the hill with me.

She barked at it again on the way down. One can't be too careful...

Patrick Dennis Forever!

2010-12-10T07:38:00.003-05:00

Holiday thoughts from razor-witted Patrick Dennis (aka Edward Everett Tanner III), who deserves to be remembered as the author of books beyond AUNTIE MAME.

AROUND THE WORLD WITH AUNTIE MAME (1958) begins with this:

Christmas is nearly here and I look forward to it more and more with loathing. All the shops that didn't have their holiday decorations up by Michaelmas made up for it with sheer ostentation by Halloween. Canned carols bleat from every corner. The clerks at Saks are surlier, the ones at Lord & Taylor lordlier, the ones at Bergdorf's bitchier than at any other season.

From THE JOYOUS SEASON* (1964), narrated by a 10-year-old boy:

Daddy always said that Christmas is a joyous season when suicides and hold-ups and shoplifting and like that reach a new high and that the best place to spend the whole thing is a Moslem country.

*Confession: I've put down THE FINKLER QUESTION twice to reread Patrick Dennis. Interpret as you wish.

The Real Twitter Feed

2010-12-08T07:49:00.006-05:00

The view from my kitchen window a few minutes ago. Alas, the food fights stop (finches are very scrappy) as soon as I get near the window with my camera.

Tufted titmouse (my favorite bird name!)

Nuthatch--which prefers seeds to nuts.

House finch (fluttering) & goldfinch.

Chickadee.

Goldfinches sharing nicely with titmouse--because they can't see each it.

Goldfinches--the tough guys until the house finches show up.

Finches waiting in the wings.

Yahrzeit #16

2010-11-30T19:37:00.015-05:00

Lionel Stander (1908-1994) in 1936.
Photo for Columbia Pictures by Irving L. Schaffert.

My father died 16 years ago today. Unaware of the date, yesterday I rearranged the Dad Wall in my dining area. More than two years after acquiring the above photo (part of a large lot) I read the caption on the back:

Eager to preserve his new furniture as long as possible, eccentric Lionel Stander, most popular of Hollywood comedians, selects this strange pose for purpose of relaxation and reading. Whether the book's more interesting read sidewise is a question only Stander can answer. His latest Columbia picture is "Cinderella Man," directed by Frank Capra and starring Gary Cooper and Jean Arthur. Lionel recently moved into a renovated farmhouse in the center of Hollywood, modernized for him by R. M. Schindler.

"Cinderella Man," retitled "Mr. Deeds Goes to Town," was named Best Picture of 1936 by the New York Film Critics and the National Board of Review. Capra won his second Oscar for directing and Cooper was nominated as Best Actor. My eldest half-sister was 3; my mother was 2.

The man who "modernized" Dad's house was noted architect Rudolph Michael Schindler, an associate of Frank Lloyd Wright and Richard Neutra. According to this list, in 1935 Schindler remodeled a house for "L. Stander, 2006 La Brea Terrace, Hollywood" and "Apartments for L. Stander, Los Angeles." Wish I knew the story behind those apartments.

The house takes a good satellite picture:
OMG, it recently sold for $3.75M! Here's the realtor's listing:

COVETED GATED LA BREA TERRACE PRIVATE COMPOUND
4 Bedrooms/4.0 Bathrooms/3,753 Sq. Ft/23,070 Sq. FT. Lot
Rarely are homes available in this private neighborhood. On over half an acre of private gardens is this fine home. Large LR w/ fplc, formal DR, kitchen with best appliances, play room, FR, library w/ fplc. Master with balcony, fplc, sitting area, bath with spa tub. Pecan floors throughout. Pool, outside fireplace, guest house with LR, kitchen, 1BD and 1BA and 2 separate garages for 4 cars. RECENTLY LISTED FOR $5,500,000, CURRENT PRICE MAKES THIS PROPERTY AN OUTSTANDING VALUE IN TODAYS MARKET.

Looks like an old farmhouse all right, but the windows were changed:

The interior doesn't look nearly as snazzy as in 1936:

Best-Ever Thanksgiving Recipes

2010-11-24T10:37:00.005-05:00

My friend Martha asked me to send her my "traditional" recipes for Thanksgiving. In the spirit of giving, I thought I'd share them with you all.

Garlicky Cranberry Chutney
Adapted from Madhur Jaffrey's East/West Menus for Family & Friends (Harper & Row, 1987)

1-inch fresh ginger, peeled
3 cloves finely chopped garlic
1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
4 TBS brown sugar
1/8 tsp cayenne pepper
1 can cranberry sauce with berries or 1 qt homemade sauce (or however much you get from a bag of fresh cranberries)
approx 1/2 tsp salt
a few grinds of ground black pepper

Cut ginger into paper-thin slices, stack them together and cut into really thin slivers. Combine with garlic, vinegar, sugar and cayenne in a small pot. Simmer on medium heat about 15 minutes or until there are about 4 TBS liquid left.

Add cranberry sauce, salt and pepper. Simmer on low heat for about 10 minutes. Let cool, then serve. It will keep for several days--if you don't finish it ALL after the first taste!

Bella’s Garden Rice Stuffing
Cook 2 cups Arborio rice in 4 cups water.

Mix with:
1 lg onion, chopped
approx 1 cup toasted pecans, broken in pieces
2 stalks celery, chopped
1 med. carrot, chopped
1 tsp allspice
at least 1 TBS dried oregano
5 large sage leaves, chopped fine
10 lemon balm leaves, chopped fine
leaves from approx 6 sprigs of thyme, chopped fine
40 grinds black pepper
1 tsp salt

When cool enough to handle, stuff in bird. Put remainder in ovenproof casserole and bake in oven 1 hour at 325° (along with turkey, if your oven's big enough)

Turkey with Roasted Garlic Butter
(Washington Post, 1997)

2 whole bulbs garlic
2 TBS olive oil
8 TBS (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
1/2 tsp salt
Uncooked turkey at room temperature

Preheat oven to 350°. Cut about 1/2 inch off the top of the garlic bulbs to expose each clove. Drizzle with oil and loosely wrap the bulbs, cut ends up, in aluminum foil. Bake until soft to the touch, 45-60 mins. Let cool until easy to handle.

Squeeze the garlic cloves out of their skins. Discard skins. Mix the garlic pulp with butter and salt. Reserve 2 TBS of the mixture. Rub the rest of it under the turkey skin (loosen with your fingers on the back and legs). Note: If turkey is too cold, the butter will congeal instead of spread easily under the skin.

Preheat oven to 325 °. Put turkey on rack in roasting pan. After stuffing it, rub the remaining 2 TBS of butter all over the skin.

Roast for about 45 mins, till golden brown. Tent with foil and continue roasting. After 2 more hours, baste with pan juices every 15 mins till bird is done (approx 3-1/2 hrs for 12-14 lb bird). Use juices to make the best gravy EVER.

Going to the Dogs Birthday Party

2010-11-05T11:01:00.016-04:00

Seated: Brady, Abby, Bumble (our canine host) and Poppy. Standing: Michelle, Marty (holding Clarissa), Polly and Gracious Hostess Colleen (look out, Martha Stewart!).

Abby is the only dog I've had whose real birthday I've known: Nov 7, the day before mine. I told that to my wonderful new friend Colleen (we met while walking dogs; go figure), and she decided to throw Abby a birthday party. So at 8:00 a.m. today, I and 3 other women and our dogs met at Colleen's Gracious Home (a fabu 1770s farmhouse joined to an 1820s one) for a wet but lovely walk.

Colleen doesn't do anything by half-measures: afterward there were wheat- and corn-free cookies from Pause Dog Boutique for the canines; coffee, homemade muffins and birthday cake for the humans. Plus a specially decorated cake for Abby to take home, which I'll give her Sunday when I'm hosting a birthday party at my own (much newer, smaller) Gracious Home.

Above: Brady, Bumble and Abby sniff at the goodies offered by Colleen. I'm the astonished one at left; Marty is holding Clarissa.

Below: I give Clarissa a treat while Bumble, Brady and Abby look on. (They'd just had one but of course wanted more.)

EEK! Publicity Horrors

2010-10-25T17:07:00.003-04:00

Halloween's coming, which means it's time once again for Publicity Horror Stories. Send yours in today! Anonymity strictly guaranteed.

For starters, here's a creepy tale from a book review editor at a regional publication:

I occasionally get these nasty emails from self-published authors or authors whose books don't fit with what we cover. Here's one I got last week, from some sort of Ph.D. guy:

"Well, the books are in. Are you interested or not? I believe I have had enough of a career to merit a response."

It's always men who send these kinds of angry emails. When I was on maternity leave for 6 weeks with my last baby, some other guy was emailing me repeatedly, getting angry that I wasn't answering. Finally when I got back to work I told him that I'd been on maternity leave, he was like, "Oh, sorry. So will you review my book?"

Canine Couch Battles, Round 2

2010-09-24T09:35:00.004-04:00

Abby 2 days ago after a good night's sleep (note pillow on floor), with her ball & Boy Wonder's gently chewed shoes.

In my July 24 update on Mother's Little Odalisque, I said I'd put heavier furniture on the couch (see above) to keep Abby off. That worked like a charm. Now my Clever Girl is pulling the throw pillows, which I stack on a chair at night, onto the floor to cushion her weary head. One of my next purchases will be a cushy dog bed, which she'd damn well better sleep on.

Caught in the act 10 minutes ago.

Timeless Truths in Fiction

2010-09-21T22:55:00.009-04:00

He offered the honest terms that a sound concern and an honest man had to offer. But that was not what people wanted nowadays. They wanted their hypothetical arrangements, their wild rumors, their manipulated booms with nothing behind it all but hot air....He could see them now at that very moment--all these many-colored and frivolous articles of fashion which captivated the world on the persons of equally frivolous young girls.

How fresh and contemporary, eh? This is from the 1931 edition of GRAND HOTEL by Vicki Baum, published in Germany in 1929 as MENSCHEN IM HOTEL ("People in a Hotel"). There's one thing that's dated, though: the casual use of n*gger in the narrative. Blech.

Oh, and Greta Garbo's famous line, "I want to be alone," was lifted right from the book.

Quotes for a Month

2010-09-03T21:05:00.004-04:00

Eek! Did I really not post at all in August? I was busy and distracted; some day I'll tell you about it. In the meantime, here are some choice nuggets I've come across in the past month. (And yes, in case you hadn't noticed, I'm an Anglophile.)

From Eyes on the Prize by Hilary Mantel, winner of the 2009 Man Booker Prize for WOLF HALL, and whose memoir GIVING UP THE GHOST I'm happily devouring:

You don’t ask a plumber, what makes you plumb? You understand he does it to get his living. You don’t draw him aside and say, “Actually I plumb a bit myself, would you take a look at this loo I fitted? All my friends say it’s rather good.”...

I think there is one kind of writer who might be scalped and skinned by the demands the prize imposes, and that is the writer who finds public performance difficult, who has failed to create a persona he can send out to do the show....Generally, it seems to me, authors are better at presenting themselves than they were ten years ago. Festivals flourish, we get more practice; you could give a reading somewhere every week of the year if you liked. For me the transition between desk and platform seems natural enough. I think of writing fiction as a sort of condensed version of acting and each book as a vast overblown play. You impersonate your characters intensively, you live inside their skins, wear their clothes and stamp or mince through life in their shoes; you breathe in their air. “Madame Bovary, c’est moi.” Of course she is. Who else could she be?

From OUR TRAGIC UNIVERSE, the latest novel by Scarlett Thomas (my other new favorite author), which should get a prize for book design:

You can identify someone who works in publishing because they tell every anecdote as if for the first time, with the same expression as someone giving you a tissue that they have just realised has probably already been used. [p67]

Almost everyone who came along to spend the week [at the writers' retreat] in the hotel in Torquay seemed to have the idea that all novels possessed the same sort of value, and took roughly the same amount of effort from the author, and that Tolstoy was a 'a novelist' in the same way that the latest chick-lit author was 'a novelist'. 'How do you even begin to write eighty thousand words?' someone would always ask, admiringly. And I'd always explain that 80,000 words is not that much, really, and that you could do it in eight weekends if you really wanted to, using Aristotle's Poetics as an instruction manual. Making the 80,000 words any good is the hard bit: making them actually important. [p115]

I ♥ Anthony Weiner!

2010-07-31T10:32:00.004-04:00

Sometimes histrionics are The Right Thing:

Unconvinced? Read this NYT editorial: Feckless and Cruel.

Quote for the Ages

2010-07-24T20:17:00.002-04:00

...novels should not be honest. They are a pack of lies that are also a set of metaphors; because the lies and metaphors are chosen and offered shape and structure, they may indeed represent the self, or the play between the unconscious mind and the conscious will, but they are not forms of self-expression, or true confession.

--Colm Toibin, New York Times Book Review

Mother's Little Odalisque

2010-07-22T22:06:00.011-04:00

Left, by Eugène Delacroix. Above, by moi.

After fighting the family dog for bed space all through my teen years, I never allowed my subsequent dogs on the furniture. Putting end tables on the couch at night always kept them off.

And then last month along came Abby, who pulled the tables onto the floor so she could sleep on the couch. That lasted about a week, till I gave up and covered it with a sheet. As you can see, she finds the arrangement just to her liking. (I kick her off in the daytime.)

Update, July 24:
I got tired of shooing Abby off the couch, so I'm covering it with heavier furniture at night. We'll see how this works out.

Roundup

2010-07-16T09:31:00.005-04:00

Unused illustration for The Yellow Book, by Aubrey Beardsley

Tess Gerritsen explains "Why the hell won't they review my book?!!!" (She neglects to mention that the Washington Post reviews crime novels every Monday.)

Susan Henderson gives The Truth About Blurbs at The Nervous Breakdown.

Following in the footsteps of Lazlo Toth, Sean Ferrell tells how to get an author blurb, in four installments. Part 1: Paul Auster. Part 2: Thomas Pynchon.

And then there's Slush Pile Hell. My favorite: July 6.

Top of the Morning!

2010-07-14T09:32:00.002-04:00

I thought I'd seen everything; then the above item showed up on eBay. Yes, that would be Lionel Stander as Max in "Hart to Hart" on a child's spinning top, made in Argentina. Bizarre, huh?

I'll pass (the image is enough for me), but you can bid on this precious objet here.

Sea Monsters in the Hudson!

2010-07-09T10:55:00.008-04:00

Cecil the seasick sea serpent, from Beany + Cecil.

While doing research for the Bella Terra Northwest Lighthouses map, I happened across a 19th century New York Times article about a sea serpent off the coast of Oregon. Whereupon I searched the Times online archives for "sea serpent" and found a treasure trove. Apparently summer brought sea serpent sightings from around the globe, which the Times often covered with tongue firmly in cheek. In 1904 correspondent F. Carruthers Gould wrote, "It used to be called the Silly Season because of the perennial appearance at this time of the sea serpent..." (So Obama's talk of the "silly season" was nothing new!)

Some nearby sightings:

August 31, 1886, Wednesday
IN THE HUDSON THIS TIME.
THE SEA SERPENT DISPORTING HIMSELF NEAR KINGSTON.
RONDOUT, N.Y., Aug. 30.—Fifteen minutes before the steamboat Daniel Drew caught fire on Sunday afternoon a sea serpent was seen in the Hudson River between Coddington’s Dock and Kingston Point by a number of Rondout boatmen and boys who were in swimming. Capt. R. Brush, of the schooner Mary Ann, also saw it. All hands unite in saying that its head was raised about 6 feet out of the water, and it was of the shape and general appearance of the well known anaconda or water boa of the Amazon, but much larger, being about 2 feet in diameter on a line with the eyes. The throat is described as being dirty white, while the back appeared to be mottled with light and dark brown. From a point about 6 feet back of the eyes a fin appeared which extended the entire length of its body, or rather that portion of the body visible, which was about 55 feet. Half a mile below Coddington’s Dock Capt. Brush said the serpent lashed the water with its tail. The serpent was also seen by persons on the Dutchess County shore. The parties say it was not seaweed they saw, and that they were all “perfectly sober.”

September 11, 1886, Wednesday
EXIT THE SEA SERPENT.
NEWBURG, N.Y., Sept. 10.--R.H. Randolph, of Rhinebeck, in a communication to a local newspaper says: "For the past week the New-York and country newspapers have been circulating the story of the 'Hudson River serpent' that was seen in the river at various points between Catskill and Poughkeepsie. I was one of the eye witnesses of that serpent. While the steamer Daniel Drew was burning, a gentleman and myself were sitting on the bank of the river at Rhine Cliff. We saw a long black log floating down with the ebb tide. The log was apparently about 30 feet long, with a number of knots projecting that gave it the appearance of a row of fins. A root about 5 or 6 feet long at the end of the log would occasionally roll up with the swell and might to a person of strong imagination look like a head or neck. I made the remark at the time that if it was only a little later in the evening that would be taken for a genuine sea serpent. This is what was seen on Aug. 29 by a number who claimed that they saw the sea serpent.”

January 1, 1887, Wednesday
THE SEA SERPENT ON ICE.
TIVOLI, N.Y., Dec. 31.--The Captain of the schooner Many Ann, from down East, was the first person who saw the sea serpent near Kingston. Point last Summer. It has remained, however, for a man named Brown, who lives out back of Saugerties, to see the serpent in the Hudson in Winter. Brown reached Tivoli today en route for points South. Like pretty much everybody else who has seen the serpent Brown was “perfectly sober.” He said that at the commencement of the heavy snowstorm yesterday morning he walked a considerable distance up the Hudson for the purpose of setting his nets in the ice. Brown found a great crack in the ice. He kept tramping on. Suddenly, according to Brown, he felt a sensation as though the ice were being lifted up beneath him. He says he saw the ice roll, as it were, in waves, and then split in two, making a similar crack to the one he had jumped over a short distance to the southward. Brown says that before the waving of the ice had ceased a strange-looking animal, with two eyes nearly as big as saucers and of the color of terra cotta, glared at him fiercely. The head of the beast remained above the ice for several seconds, and Brown says he had an excellent opportunity of seeing it. Brown thinks it is the sea serpent that was seen off Kingston Point and elsewhere along shore last Summer, and that the billowy motion he describes in the ice was caused by the serpent lashing its tail. Brown is the first man on record in these parts who has seen the serpent after Dec. 1. Meanwhile every crack found in the ice on the frozen Hudson is being eagerly watched by untiring small boys, boatmen who have nothing else to do except to chew tobacco and “swap lies” at corner groceries, and perhaps one or two of the wise Washington scientists who gave their views so gravely to the public and who fought so bitterly among themselves over the matter, when the serpent was seen at Kingston Point.

Bellylaugh of the Day

2010-07-08T09:42:00.006-04:00

Trailer for Gary Shteyngart's SUPER SAD TRUE LOVE STORY. Take notes; it's filled with bons mots.

Roundup

2010-07-07T16:06:00.003-04:00

On Booksquare:
The Future of Print
(Disclosure: Kassia Kroszer has spoken at my Book Promotion 101 workshops in L.A.)

On Huffington Post:
One Author's Journey From Twitter-Clueless To Organizing A 48-Writer Social Media Giveaway
For all her raving about Twitter, author Leah Stewart omitted her username: @leahcstewart. And she states that Twitter is "like going to a writers' conference without the booze and ill-considered affairs." Perhaps that's true for her, but some of us (my lips and keyboard are sealed as to who) are having a Real Swell Time.

On Editorial Ass:
The Mystical Blue Yonder (Or, Book Publicity)

On The Book Publicity Blog:
How do you track online “buzz”?

Just for fun (and thought), on "The Daily Show" website:
Women of The Daily Show Speak

The New View from Here: Same as the Old View

2010-07-07T16:01:00.002-04:00

Out my front door, 2:47 pm. Can't wait till the temperature goes down (!) to 90°, as forecast for tomorrow.

The View from Here

2010-07-06T16:07:00.004-04:00

As seen from my front door. FEH.

In Memorium

2010-07-06T11:19:00.007-04:00

Jenny, March 2007. (Her tongue was mauve on top, pink underneath.)

Jenny, The Best Dog died one year ago today. I still miss her, even though Abby, whom we adopted a month ago, filled the dog-sized hole in my heart. Abby likes to bound into the water to fetch a stick or ball, whereas Jenny's favorite activity was The Pebble Game. See it below (I was still pitching lefty 4 months after the 2nd surgery on my right arm).

Quote for the Day

2010-07-05T12:38:00.003-04:00

From Outspoken Is Great, Till It’s Not in today's NYT:

And if you dumped every reporter who ever sent a snide message or talked smack in private, there would be nothing but crickets chirping in newsrooms all over America.

So You Want to Publicize Your Book?

2010-06-28T11:21:00.004-04:00

Beyond the Margins unveils their bright new site design along with this: Toot It, Don’t Blow It: Interview with Book Promotion Expert Bella Stander. Included: My list of what should be on an author website.

On SheWrites, Lori Tharps (whom I met at this year's VaBook Festival), offers Countdown to Publication: My PR To Do List for her new novel, SUBSTITUTE ME.

A Day in the Life of a Book Publicist

2010-06-17T13:06:00.015-04:00

Below is an email exchange between a book publicist (BP) and a publisher (PUB), who advertised for publicity help on Craigslist.

BP: I do book publicity - but one would have to know what exactly these books are before knowing if one could help. Can you send more information?

PUB: Hi BP and thanks for the email. I checked your site out. Anyways, if you are able to do some book publicity, I do have a few authors who need the help, but right now, I was hoping you could focus on just one for now. My author is also a [local] author and her debut novel is a fiction based narrative called, [TITLE]. It's about a woman who [is remarkably similar to a character in "Heroes"]. The book also is about a guy who [is remarkably similar to another character in "Heroes"], but that's all I will say for now! Their lives intersect and well....it becomes a sad surrealistic tale of craziness and love. I love it.

Anyways, I would love to hear your thoughts on what to do with [Author]. My idea would be to get her ten bookstore interviews/book signings in the [local] area, and/or 5 book club meet and greets where she has a chance to direct sale her book.

After this, I was thinking to get her twenty interviews on talk radio/online radio/ and reviews on websites across the net.

So this is all I would need for now. I would like her to maybe hit up some comic shops too....her book kinda falls into the super hero power category.

What do you think? If you are interested, please let me know most of all what you CAN ACTUALLY do and by what time frame and finally what that would cost. Do you accept payments/commission, or a combination of these and a flat fee maybe? If you work with me, I got four other authors who will need your services.

Let me know and thank you so much for responding to my ad either way. Take care. I hope to hear from you very soon!!

BP: So, all very interesting. Perhaps I can help - but I must see the book first - can you send me a copy? I will return it to you if you like. I just can't start jobs without knowing more about what I am getting into. Let me know what you think.

PUB: I would love to send you a copy of the book. I am attaching it as a .pdf format. Please do me a favor and even if you can't do anything for her on a marketing basis, would you provide a small review or opinion so that I can use it on her amazon book listing and my website? Let me know. Thank you>

BP: Hi, started reading it - it did keep me going. But I need the actual book - are you sending that?

PUB: I can send the actual book once we are in some kind of agreement. I hope you understand I just gave you a free copy and once we are in agreement with a pay, I'll send you a copy of the book and subtract it's cost out of your price for work. If you need a book cover, I can send you that as well, unless you have some other reason for wanting the book? Let me know. I am glad to answer any questions you might have and thanks so much for reading it!!! :). I appreciate that and I know [Author] will too. Be kind and give her a review if you get through it and that would be awesome. Take care.

BP: PUB, it is traditional in doing publicity to see and have a copy of that which you are publicizing - content is of course king, but how the book itself looks and is designed are important as well. If I were to help you, I would need several copies to use - we can't expect people to read a pdf all the way through.
Okay?
Best regards,

PUB: Ok, fair enough. I understand. I will send you what you need once we are in contractual agreement and also you can let me know exactly what the books are going to be used for. I hope that makes sense. Just submit your plan and idea and exactly how you will do what I need and we'll go from there. Take care.

BP: PUB, we seem to have a failure to communicate. Before I give you a plan etc, I need to have a copy of the book itself in my hands. I will return it if need be, but I do not take a job promoting something I have not actually seen. And any book publicist who does isn't thinking clearly. No book in advance, no contract.
cheers.

PUB: what's wrong with the pdf? It's the same thing as the book minus the front and back cover.....I am not really understanding the problem. I am not going to send you out a free copy of the book because it cost me money and I don't even know if I can afford or use you at this point..you might have the worst ideas in the world or the best, but by sending you a free pdf copy, it's free for me and I save on expenses. I am a small indy publisher keep that in mind please. Every dollar for me counts and I only give away promo books to people that are doing reviews or interviews/book clubs, that sort of thing. You are interested in working for ME, and if you want the job, I would think it wouldn't be too much to ask to have you simply read the pdf and send me a plan of action back. I have had MANY MANY people respond to my ad and ALL of them have done it this way. You HAVE seen the book because it's what I sent you. If you need to have me send you the covers, I can do that as well.

Would it be possible for you even give me an example of some other marketing campaign you have done for another book author, starting from scratch...show me how and what you did? this way I have an idea of what you have done and you don't even need my book because it's what you've done for something else? Let me know. I'm trying real hard to work with ya here lol

BP: I wish you the best of luck. With MANY MANY people, you'll surely have no problems finding the right person.

PUB: No need to be a smart ass. I realize you probably think it's ok to do that because you are hiding behind a computer, but seriously, I don't appreciate the bold MANY MANY. I wasn't trying to be mean to you at all...I just simply wanted to know EXACTLY what you would do and I didn't understand or see how you having a physical copy of my book is necessary for you to tell me how you would go about going to get reviews and such and do publicity. Plus I already sent you a pdf....I mean...seriously bro, do you just respond to ads and try to get free books or do you actually do marketing? I guess it don't matter...people who act the way you act probably are all talk and no show anyways. Peace.

BookExpo Wrap-Up

2010-05-29T16:24:00.026-04:00

Airily attired ladies hawking THE BURLESQUE HANDBOOK (HarperCollins/ItBooks) across from the Saudi booth, whose all-male staff and visitors kept their eyes averted.

As someone on Twitter commented after a day spent slogging through BookExpo, the book industry won't be dying anytime soon. However, BEA management wasn't on the ball, because many people were unaware that the show was down to 2 days (Wed & Thurs) from its usual 3. Thus they were miffed--to put it mildly--when they stayed at hotels Monday night and arrived for Tuesday appointments to find the show floor closed. That happened to 2 people I'd arranged to meet on Tues., who had missed the post-9am email "reminder" that the exhibition hall wasn't open till Wed. Due to popular demand (aka "complaints"), next year the show will go back to 3 days: May 24-26.

On Tues., after viewing Philippe Halsman's wonderful "Jump" photographs at the Laurence Miller Gallery, lunching with a literary agent and poking through fabric shops, I arrived at the Javits for a 3pm confab about the Virginia Festival of the Book with a Crown publicist. Fifteen lonely minutes later, I discovered that I was 24 hours early. Oops.

To console myself, I grabbed an ARC of Jennifer Donnelly's new YA novel, REVOLUTION, which entranced me until the 4:30 Editors Buzz Panel--and for the next 3 nights. It comes out in October. Don't miss it! I reviewed her first YA novel, A NORTHERN LIGHT, which deserved every prize it received, and then some.

As for the Editors Buzz, which unlike last year was SRO, I tweeted: "I see white people. They're all around me. And they're klutzy with microphones." Once again, most of the 6 panelists apparently hadn't practised their speeches beforehand, and droned/babbled on till I wanted to scream. Moderator John Freeman asked questions to help them out, but some were beyond saving. One notable exception was Cary Goldstein of Twelve, who--surprise!--started out as a publicist. He made a great case for THE EVOLUTION OF BRUNO LITTLEMORE by Benjamin Hale, a novel narrated by a talking chimpanzee who has an affair with a woman and commits murder. (I know: ICK! Goldstein says the book's fantastic, but I passed on picking up an ARC.)

After that I met Kevin Smokler, chief evangelizer for BookTour.com, for drinks & nosh at Hudson Yards Cafe. (Decent food! Reasonable prices!) Whether you're an author or a reader--but especially an author--you MUST check out BookTour.com. It's already good, but from what Kevin told me, it's going to get even better in the next few months.

On Wed. morning I attended an excellent program: "Designing & Executing an e-Strategy for Authors: A Publisher & Agency Perspective." No danger of being put to sleep by moderator Charlotte Abbott or panelists Kathleen Schmidt (Director of Publicity & Digital Media, Shreve Williams Public Relations), Ron Hogan (now ex-Director of E-Strategy, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) and Jason Ashlock (principal, Moveable Type Literary Agency). They said a lot of the same things about online publicity that I've been telling my clients, only better, plus offered much information and thoughtful analysis. See highlights on Twitter: #eauthor.

Enterprising salesman (possibly a paid shill) just before a show manager escorted him from the hall.

For the rest of Wed. and all of Thurs. I snaked through the show floor, giving inhouse publicists--most of whom were new to me--info about VaBook. They were way friendlier than when I started representing the festival 8 years ago. Evidently publishers have realized that book festivals are a) good events that b) sell books.

Book bloggers were treated like gold. HarperCollins threw a (sweltering) party for them at the Algonquin on Tues., where I reconnected with old friends, and met authors as well as bloggers. There was an equally packed (slightly cooler) reception downstairs at the Javits on Thurs afternoon. Quite a contrast to the party Unbridled Books hosted at BEA 6 or 7 years ago, where lit bloggers Ron Hogan (Beatrice), Mark Sarvas (The Elegant Variation) and Dan Wickett (Emerging Writers Network) were regarded as an exotic species.

(right) Matilda holds court on a baggage cart in the lobby of the Algonquin Hotel.

From the Thurs. bloggers reception I went to the Radisson Martinique. There Ron Hogan and I gave a 90-minute "Polish Your Pitch" workshop for nearly 30 enthusiastic attendees of the Backspace Writers Conference & Agent-Author Seminar.

After that (still with me?), Darling Husband and I went to a party way downtown for The Faster Times, "a new type of newspaper for a new type of world," which officially launches in July. We soon left because I was starving and we had to pick up our bags at the hotel before catching the train at Grand Central Terminal. We just missed the 10:12pm, so got some dessert at Zaro's and moseyed over to the 11:12. And sat. And sat. Then we heard this: "Attention! The 11:12 to Poughkeepsie will be delayed indefinitely." Oyyyy... The train finally left nearly TWO HOURS later. We pulled into Our Gracious Home at 3:15am and fell into bed, aching all over, at 3:45. The birds were starting to tweet as I fell asleep over the denouement of REVOLUTION.

My BEA 2010 Stats

Acquired:
103 business cards
10 books
12 lbs of catalogs

Given away:
100 VaBook postcards
98 Book Promotion 101 business cards
2 Bella Terra Maps catalogs
2 Bella Terra lighthouse maps

Lost: 1 voice

Portrait of the Artist as a Young Bigmouth

2010-05-21T10:52:00.008-04:00

My latest find is a perfectly preserved copy of the June 7, 1936, issue of newspaper supplement Screen & Radio Weekly. It contains a profile of my father, who at age 28 had recently appeared in his first feature film, "The Scoundrel." Apparently he was the same loud dresser and talker--and spendthrift ("Anyone who lives within his means suffers from a lack of imagination.")--in youth as he was in his later years.

I didn't scan the fuzzy photo that headed the article; the one just below is a 1936 publicity still from "More than a Secretary." However, the cartoon is within the same section of text as the print version.

Who IS That Guy?

The Name Is Lionel Stander and Here Is His Story, Which Should Answer a Lot of Fans’ Questions

By Barbara Barry

“Madam, what you think of my work is exquisitely unimportant.”

His voice has all the romantic timbre of a rip-saw howling its way through a stubborn pine knot. But, since his pioneer screen appearance, as the dogmatic poet in “The Scoundrel,” men, women and children have been nudging one another, pointing (in a manner that would certainly upset Emily Post) and demanding: “Who IS that man?”

Lionel Stander is the name, folks, and it’s almost as surprising as the Broadway hillbilly suit he was wearing the first time we caught up with him on a Columbia studio set.

Briefly, Stander was born on the wrong side of the New York tracks, which doesn’t bother him a bit. His first job was that of office boy in a window shade factory, and bothered him even less.

Without in the least appreciating the honor, he found himself shoved into college plays at the University of North Carolina, where he was striving to polish off the rough edges of a Bronx education. And one sip of the thespic nectar was enough to send him galloping for home, to hang around the casting offices until the breal reak came along.

“I played everything from thunder and lightning, off stage, to dead bodies falling out of secret panels,” he said. “One night, I landed on a carpet tack and they found out I had a voice.”

“Is that what you call it?” we wondered.

“And, in no time all,” he ignored us, “they handed me a part with one whole ‘side’!” Page, to you all.

That was the beginning of a colossal career. He met Ben Hecht, and Ben faithfully promised him a part in his new show, “The Great Magoo.”

But came the opening night, with Stander viewing the remains from a gallery seat. A lone, rugged individualist.

“It was a crushing blow to the Stander stamina,” he assured us. “But, when the show folded, seeral weeks later, I stowed my gloating in an old gloat bag that I usually carry in case of fire (shades of Joe Cook!) borrowed all the high-powered clothes I could find, and went down to sympathize with Ben.

“Ben was in his office, playing tick-tack-toe on the backs of his creditors’ statements, when I sauntered in, looking like a glorified chorus boy in my borrowed finery.”

With an ill-suppressed groan of anguish, Mr. Hecht looked at Mr. Stander. “What are you laid out for?” he asked. “A Mardi Gras? Why, I knew you when you were an unemployed actor, cooling your round heels in the lobby of the Billy Rose office.”

Mr. Stander looked right back at Mr. Hecht. “Yeah?” he said. “And I knew you ‘way back when you wrote ‘Erik Dorn’—and if you can sell out, why can’t I?”

So, on to “The Scoundrel,” and the eventual nudges, and pointing fingers. And Hollywood.

Stander is the wordiest guy we’ve ever met up with. Big words he uses, dragging hard on them and tingeing them with a quantity of smooth sarcasm We let them fall (those we missed, and they were plenty), feeling that the end must be along about here, somewhere. But no. On and on he talked. And when he’d used up every word in the dictionary, he made up more. Hand embroidered. Extravagantly hyperbolical. Whe-e-e!

After his success in “The Scoundrel,” Stander visited an old vaudeville pal who was living in a cheap hotel in one of the less imposing sections of New York.

Coming down in the elevator, well after midnight, he found himself the object of the elevator boy’s furtive scrutiny. It was pretty disconcerting, but Stander’s a big fellow and felt quite able to cope with any situation, either of brain or brawn.

Suddenly, the elevator slowed down between floors. The good looking though slightly dissipated lad turned to him.

“Your hair is like a tortured midnight,” he said earnestly, almost yearningly.

Stander gasped. His eyebrows flew up and disappeared [illlegible] the “tortured midnight.” That pugnacious lower lip slid out another inch.

“But as we slid down the two remaining floors, it suddenly dawned on me that the kid had merely quoted one of my lines in “'The Scoundrel.'”

“As he was on night duty, and I didn’t have anything particular to do, we got to talking. And, do you know, that small-time elevator operator turned out to be one of the most interesting and intelligent people I’ve ever met?”

It’s a small world, I guess. Or, is it?

Remember the rocky-throated menace that scared the daylights out of small children, on Fred Allen’s radio program several years ago? That was Stander.

He had written a script for radio purposes and peddled it practically all over New York before Allen got hold of it and liked it well enough to invite the author in for an interview.

“Mr. Stander?” Fred said politely.

“Right!” rasped Mr. Stander.

Allen blinked and bounced back in his chair. “Whew!” he exclaimed. “Say that again, will you?”

“Right!” grated the obliging Mr. Stander.

“That’s fine,” Allen smiled. “I wasn’t sure. I mean, that really did come out of you, didn’t it?”

So, the Allen Hour acquired a human buzz-saw and Stander liked the idea so well that he stayed with it for over two years.

“Then the cinema got me,” he said archly, “and here I am. Prostraing myself upon the glorified altar of Art and Frenzied Finance!”

We were off again, and it was way past tea time, too.

Stander is absolutely in favor of Hollywood. So much so that he has already built a home for his wife and two-year-old daughter, who, he says, “Seems to be perfectly normal in spite of her father.”

He draws an amazing salary for one who has been milking the Golden Cow for such a short time, and he would spend every bit of it if it weren’t for his manager, who sees to it that the Stander income is wisely invested.

“I’m on the dole,” he grimaced. “The guy knows me better than I know myself, so all I get is a weekly allowance. And, when that’s gone, I either have to hibernate or pan-handle until next week’s check comes around.

“I need a wet nurse,” he went on, “and it’s comforting to know that I won’t be mowing lawns at the poor house a few years from now when Hollywood gets tired of me.”

But Hollywood doesn’t tire easily of such unique personalities. In fact, the entire populace (with the exception of Uncle Herman, who is laid up with laryngitis, right now) is actually howling for “more Stander.” So, you’re safe for a while, methinks.

Who is that man? Ask no more, kiddies.

He’s a double G man (gerund and genitive); a new Gabriel over ennuied Hollywood. Or something.

Fun with Books

2010-05-06T21:46:00.002-04:00

Diamonds Are a Reader's Best Friend
Stephen Parris is promoting his debut novel The Tavernier Stones with an "armchair treasure hunt" that offers a 1-carat diamond for the lucky winner. See tavernierstones.com.

Per Booklist: Parris's "odd-couple protagonists (John Graf, the Amish cartographer, and David Freeman, the gemologist and jewel thief) make an interesting pair of heroes, and their jaunty relationship gives the novel an agreeable, lighthearted feel. The story itself, which involves a race against time...is intricate without being annoyingly elaborate."

Miss Austen Forever!
This just in from Laurie Viera Rigler, author of the delightful novels Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict and Rude Awakenings of a Jane Austen Addict:

I have some exciting news to share. There's a new comedy web series inspired by my Austen Addict novels, called SEX AND THE AUSTEN GIRL. In it, my two protagonists face off over the pros and cons of life and love and being a woman in Regency England vs. 21st century L.A.

SEX AND THE AUSTEN GIRL premieres on the broadband network Babelgum.com on May 17. In the meantime, I thought you might enjoy a peek at the teaser trailer:

May Day 5: Healed at Last

2010-05-01T11:14:00.003-04:00

My new Twitterverse. Beyond the fence is a horse farm.

On May 1, 2006, Gomez the horse threw me into a steel-pipe fence outside Denver. My body was smashed and so was my psyche. (See 2009 posts Still Shattered, or The Never-Ending Story; The Never-Ending Story 2: Arm-ageddon and I'm Psychologically Distoibed!)

I'm happy to report that after 4 years and 8 surgeries--plus 2 bonus surgeries not caused by Gomez--I'm finally healed, if not all better. (There's a difference.) I owe it to therapeutic massage from the fantabulously gifted Dirk McQuistion, founder of MassageSpecialists.com, who gave me hope after the doctors gave up; Somatic Experiencing therapy from the wonderful Mel Grusing; and moving to Rhinebeck, where nothing reminds me of the last 4 years, and just going outside makes me happy.

Max is also happy to be here.

Horse Leg Redux: Cadaverous

2010-04-14T11:42:00.006-04:00

Further to my previous post--and egged on by my friend Stefanie, the artistic, cultural & now literary doyenne of Schuyler, VA--I sent Dr E the following message:

Inquiring minds want to know:

Did you often cut off horse legs?
Why must the legs be put outside to "weather"?
Most important: Are there many more in the backyard?

Under the header "Cadaverous," she responded:

Well, Bella, it goes something like this:

In human surgery, rubber cadavers are made to hone stereoscopic skills like arthroscopy. No such luck in equine field. As such, to hone and retain skills, cadaver limbs can be harvested off horses that have died for other reasons. They are typically frozen and then thawed for practice.

I thawed this limb for practice but made the mistake of doing so on a weekend when I was on call. I got called in repeatedly and as such the limb was past its best, so I decided that it would not go to waste if I allowed time and microbes to ravage the soft tissue, leaving me with a nice anatomic specimen that could then be further cleaned (with acetone etc. to de-grease). Such specimens are helpful when explaining to a client a problem with a structure in the limb, since the anatomy is so different from a human.

I am completely at a loss as to whether there would be another limb. I never thawed more than two at a time, and in the majority of instances it was one at a time only due to time constraints. The only consolation I offer you is that the extreme length of time and overwintering the bones have encountered will render them no more noxious that digging in the garden.

I trust that satisfactorily answers your questions. I was talking to a friend and expressing amazement that you had a blog. We then discussed how amazing it is that we become so familiar with various things in our lives (like the use of cadaver tissue for learning) that it becomes part of our 'normal' and that we fail to recognize how bizarre it is in someone else's 'reality'!!!

As my uncle would have said--all a matter of perspective--his famous example being: "The grass is greener on the other side of the fence due to the palisade effect and does not look so green when you look down at your feet and see a mixture of brown earth and green stems!!!!"

Murder mystery writers may be interested to know that the horse leg in question still has some hair on it and is a bit smelly. Hence I covered it with more leaves, capped by a large stone to deter critters. And just in case Dr E's memory is faulty, I'm not doing any more digging in the 3-foot strip between the stone wall and back fence.

About that Horse Leg in the Backyard...

2010-04-12T13:17:00.009-04:00

Email exchange between me and the previous tenant of my Gracious Home in Rhinebeck, a British equine surgeon.

Me: While tidying up the yard, I picked up a rectangular white plastic bin that was sitting upside down between the stone wall & back fence, to the right of the shed. Underneath it I was surprised to find a horse's hoof and foreleg protruding from a pile of leaves (now buried under more leaves, capped by a rock). I was wondering whether you know anything about this.
Horse doc: Oh I am so very sorry about the leg in the yard. I put them out to weather and they have been there a very long time. I completely forgot. Very sorry. They could prob go in normal trash now.

They??? I am so not digging any deeper. Nor will I be putting any horse legs, weathered or not, out for the Monday trash pick-up.

At the Cinema with Dad & Me

2010-04-01T11:27:00.009-04:00

UK film magazine The Big Picture has an article about my father, Lionel Stander (above in "The Loved One"):

The Horror of the Hollywood blacklist changed not only American film, but also American society forever.

Jez Connolly of The Big Picture also did an online interview with me: First Person

Gobsmacked

2010-03-27T21:37:00.003-04:00

This NYT article, With No Jobs, Time for Tea Party, left me sputtering in disbelief & horror. Excerpt (emphasis mine):

When Tom Grimes lost his job as a financial consultant 15 months ago, he
called his congressman, a Democrat, for help getting government health care.
Then he found a new full-time occupation: Tea Party activist....

He blames the government for his unemployment. “Government is absolutely responsible, not because of what they did recently with the car companies, but what they’ve done since the 1980s,” he said. “The government has allowed free trade and never set up any rules.”

He and others do not see any contradictions in their arguments for smaller
government even as they argue that it should do more to prevent job loss or cuts
to Medicare. After a year of angry debate, emotion outweighs fact....

Mr. Grimes, for his part, is thinking of getting a part-time job with the Census Bureau.

Displaced

2010-03-24T16:04:00.003-04:00

Movers are packing up my life as I write. Tomorrow everything goes on a van. Friday we fly to New York. On April 2 we face the unspeakable pleasure of unpacking furnishings for a 1900 sq ft home into 1300 sq ft, plus a very large (dry!) basement.

The Hardest Farewell of All

2010-03-22T13:21:00.004-04:00

Boy Wonder's well-loved stuffed animals, on a closet shelf for 4 years, to be boxed up for the next generation. [SNIFFLE...]

VaBook Festival: The Business of Book Reviewing

2010-03-22T10:51:00.005-04:00

Here are the Greatest Hits of what Washington Post Book World deputy editor Ron Charles said during the program I hosted last Friday, "The Business of Book Reviewing: Changes and Challenges." You can see and hear moderator Bethanne Kelly Patrick (at left) and author/reviewer Katharine Weber (at right), and hear one comment by me (explaining "trade magazines").

I'm too busy getting ready for my move to NY this week to write my own post about the festival, so read author & consulting client Clifford Garstang's comments here.

Off to Virginia Festival of the Book!

2010-03-18T00:05:00.003-04:00

It's March Madness for me: From Thurs-Sat I'm conducting a Book Promotion 101 workshop, moderating 2 panels and hosting a 3rd, plus holding a lunch for 33 and dinner for 18.

I get back to Denver Sunday night, then the movers pack up all our stuff Wednesday and load the van Thursday. Next Friday, Darling Husband and I, with Max the Cat in tow, fly to New York. (The Boy Wonder plans to remain in Denver and hone his couch-surfing skills.)

Here are my events at VaBook, in my former hometown of Charlottesville:

Candy & Booze: Good for the Jews? (moderator)
Thu. March 18th, 2010 - 7:00 PM
Katharine Weber (TRUE CONFECTIONS) and Max Watman (CHASING THE WHITE DOG: An Amateur Outlaw's Adventures in Moonshine) discuss the often-crossing paths of immigrant Jewish candymakers and bootleggers.

Book Promotion 101
Fri. March 19th, 2010 - 9:00 AM
Intensive publicity workshop for authors of commercially published books, led by Bella Stander. Guest speakers: Alison Larkin (THE ENGLISH AMERICAN) and Mary Sharratt (DAUGHTERS OF THE WITCHING HILL). Advance registration required, class limited to 10. Hosted by WriterHouse.

The Business of Book Reviewing: Changes and Challenges (host)
Fri. March 19th, 2010 - 4:00 PM
With Ron Charles (Washington Post), David Montgomery (Chicago Sun-Times, The Daily Beast), and freelancers Rebecca Skloot and Katharine Weber. Moderated by Bethanne Kelly Patrick.

Book Promotion for the 21st Century
Sat. March 20th, 2010 - 10:00 AM
Bella Stander (Book Promotion 101) talks with authors Carleen Brice (CHILDREN OF THE WATERS), Rebecca Skloot (THE IMMORTAL LIFE OF HENRIETTA LACKS), Jag Bhalla (I'M NOT HANGING NOODLES ON YOUR EARS), and publicist Kelly Powers (Obie Joe Media) about what it takes to get your book noticed in the fragmented media world.

Quote of the Day

2010-03-14T18:09:00.001-04:00

From today's NYT Fashion Diary by the sharp-eyed/eared/witted Guy Trebay:

“People used to have fun,” said Stéphane Feugère, the indefatigable photographer who has spent the last eight years shooting fashion parties and people, on assignment for French Vogue.
“But then everyone got a camera,” Mr. Feugère added, “and now they all wait for someone else to have fun so they can shoot it.”

Better than Ipecac

2010-03-14T17:50:00.003-04:00

I challenge you to read this and not retch at the last line. The ~~high~~lowlights, from The Salt Lake Tribune:

House Majority Leader Kevin Garn resigns amid hot tub scandal

House Majority Leader Kevin Garn announced Saturday he was resigning from the Utah Legislature, two days after revelations of a nude hot-tubbing incident with a minor 25 years ago and a payment to keep it quiet....

Garn, of Layton, admitted the two had sat nude in a Salt Lake City hot tub. He insisted there was no sexual contact, but admitted that it was wrong. [Cheryl] Maher insists there was touching and physical contact, but declined to elaborate.
In 2002, when Garn, a Republican, was running for Congress, she began contacting reporters and Garn arranged to pay her $150,000, provided she sign an agreement not to go public with the incident. She signed a nondisclosure agreement and Garn paid her the money in 2003, well after he had lost the Republican congressional primary....

With the news about to break, Garn made an emotional statement from the House floor Thursday night, with his wife by his side, apologizing to his colleagues and constituents....

His statement drew a standing ovation from his House colleagues, many of whom lined up to console Garn and his wife.

Full article in Salt Lake Tribune

Point of View

2010-03-14T00:15:00.025-05:00

I'm just back from a week in New York, where Darling Husband and I signed a lease on a 1950s ranch house in Rhinebeck.

In square footage (1300 vs 1900) and architecture it doesn't compare well to the Victorian house in Denver we're selling:

But lot size (1/2 acre vs 40x100 ft) and the view looking out make all the difference.

From the front:

And best of all, from the back:

Quote of the Day

2010-03-02T23:25:00.001-05:00

“I ache for the return of dysfunction. Dysfunction had its problems, but at least dysfunction has function in its title. We are not functioning at all.”

--NY Assemblyman Daniel J. O'Donnell, quoted in NYT

Virginia Culture Lovers, Please Help!

2010-02-23T17:12:00.004-05:00

This just in from the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, which sponsors the highlight of my year, the Virginia Festival of the Book. (Coming next month!)

THE SITUATION
Over the weekend, the Virginia House Appropriations Committee voted to cut state funding for VFH by $290,000, effective July 1, 2010, and to eliminate all state funding for VFH, effective July 1, 2011. The Senate Finance Committee recommended cutting the VFH budget by $290,000 effective July 1, 2010, but recommended no further cuts. Each House will vote on its own budget on February 25, and the difference in the two budgets will be resolved in conference committee.

VFH has already experienced deep cuts, in the last two budget years, adversely affecting every VFH program. Additional cuts will undermine such well-known educational programs as the Virginia Festival of the Book, Encyclopedia Virginia, VFH Grants and Fellowships, With Good Reason Radio programs; African American, Virginia Indian, and Virginia Folklife Programs.

PLEASE ACT IMMEDIATELY
Call, fax, or email your State Delegates and Senators to protest additional cuts to advocate for continued funding. Find your legislators’ contact information here.

Be personal. Talk about your involvement and commitment to the VFH.
Forward this request to your boards, membership, and address book.
Post a comment on your Facebook or other social networking site, asking that other Virginians contact their legislators as well.
Write a post on your personal blog stating how you feel about these budget cuts.
Email or call your local news outlets to express your dismay and describe the effect of such cuts.

Talking Points for These Contacts with Legislators and Media Outlets

VFH funding and programs increase the attractiveness of the state as a tourism destination by assisting museums and cultural sites to provide excellent visitor experiences.
VFH Grants support organizations and communities important to you and your representatives.
VFH increases the attractiveness of communities to new businesses.
VFH builds the educational capacity of Virginia's teachers by providing resources and professional development opportunities.
VFH provides financial and professional development support to Virginia's museums, building community social capital and pride.
VFH Leverages state funds with cash and in-kind matches.
VFH promotes a vigorous exchange of ideas, and is a leader in modeling civil public dialogue. Radio shows like With Good Reason improve our understanding of the issues we face as a Commonwealth and a nation. The Virginia Festival of the Book is a nationally recognized model of public discussion. Now more than ever, our situation requires that we approach public policy with an understanding of the past, a willingness to confront issues of the present, and a commitment to shaping a more promising future.

Click here for additional information on how VFH programs contribute to the economic and educational vitality of the Commonwealth.

Additional Sources of Information on VFH Programs and Advocacy Tips
Effects of Cuts (doc)
Program Accomplishments (doc)
VFH Programs
VFH Website
VFH Mission and Strategic Vision
General VFH Information (doc)
Advocacy Tips (doc)
The Do's and Don'ts of Legislative Letter Writing (pdf)
Advocacy Visit Report Form (doc)
About the Humanities (pdf)

Find Your Virginia General Assembly Representatives
Who's My Legislator?
Contact Information of Senators
Contact Information of Delegates

Grandma was right: The value of "Thank You"

2010-02-21T10:00:00.001-05:00

From a consulting client:

I was contacted by a book club that told me their library has “book kits” for book clubs, in which they have a bag that contains 10 books, reading guide questions and anything else pertinent to the book, and that their library is using my book for one of the book kits.
I promptly sent a hand-written thank you card to the head librarian. Today, I got an email asking me if I’d like to do a reading/signing at the library. They would publicize it in their newsletter that goes out to 6000 homes, as well as on their website. Never would have happened if I hadn’t sent the thank-you.

The Scourge of Anti-Semantics

2010-02-20T23:13:00.002-05:00

From a Secret Correspondent:

One of the guests at a recent dinner used to coordinate the University of Virginia's Semester at Sea--a cruise with a teeny bit of schoolwork thrown in. The standard for admission was ability to pay, so the level of intellect wasn't what this prof was used to.

One of the assignments was to write about 20th century German history. It turns out that prior to World War II there was a huge wave of anti-semantics in that country! Several students wrote this; evidently they couldn't manage to copy the Wikipedia page correctly.

"The writer has led us back to ourselves."

2010-02-20T22:34:00.003-05:00

My friend and Charlottesville VA Literary Lady Janis Jaquith gave a terrific keynote speech in January at the Roanoke Regional Writers Conference. Read it at her website, or listen (if you have QuickTime) here.

Quote of the Week

2010-02-18T14:05:00.004-05:00

"I would go as far as I could and hit a wall, my own imagined limitations. And then I met a fellow who gave me his secret, and it was pretty simple. When you hit a wall, just kick it in."

--Patti Smith, JUST KIDS

Le plus ça change: News from 1862

2010-02-11T18:08:00.003-05:00

While doing research for the forthcoming Bella Terra Southeast Lighthouses Map, I came across this interesting item in a New York Times article from January 13, 1862:

JEWISH CHAPLAINS
Rev. Dr. Fischel, of New-York, had yesterday an interview with the President, to urge the appoinitment of Jewish Chaplains for every military Department, they being excluded by an act of Congress from the volunteer regiments, among whom there are thousands of Israelites. In the meantime the Doctor will take charge of the spiritual welfare of the Jewish soldiers on the Potomac. The President assured him that the subject will receive his earnest attention, and expressed the opinion that this exclusion was altogether unintentional on the part of Congress.

Catch Me If You Can

2010-01-19T17:42:00.004-05:00

After spending most of Oct-Dec in bed recovering from surgery for a herniated lumbar disc, I'm going to be zooming around again. Here's my events schedule (so far) thru May.

January 24 - Book Promotion 101 Teleseminar
3:00-4:30pm ET (12:00-1:30 PT)
Includes Q&A, Marketing Plan Worksheet & private 15-minute follow-up consultation.

January 29 & 30 - Space Coast Writers Guild Conference
Cocoa Beach, FL

"Book Promotion 101"
"Polish Your Pitch"
individual 10-minute pitch coaching sessions

March 19 - Book Promotion 101 Workshop
WriterHouse, Charlottesville, VA
9:00am-12:00pm
Guest speaker: Alison Larkin, author of The English American

Virginia Festival of the Book, Charlottesville

March 18, 7:00pm - "Candy & Booze: Good for the Jews?" Moderator; with Katharine Weber (True Confections) and Max Watman (Chasing the White Dog: An Amateur Outlaw’s Adventures in Moonshine).

March 19, 4:00pm - "The Business of Book Reviewing: Changes & Challenges"
Host; Ron Charles, Washington Post, and freelancers David Montgomery, Rebecca Skloot and Katharine Weber; moderated by Bethanne Kelly Patrick.

March 20, 10:00am - "Book Promotion for the 21st Century">
Moderator; with nonfiction author Jag Bhalla, novelist Carleen Brice, book publicist Kelly Powers and science writer Rebecca Skloot.

Backspace Writers Conference, New York

May 27, 6:00pm - "Polish Your Pitch" with Ron Hogan

My Wildest Interview Ever:Philip Smith on WALKING THROUGH WALLS

2009-12-16T19:54:00.020-05:00

In the 1950s, dashing Lew Smith and his chic blonde wife Esther would go out on the town to drink cocktails and “listen to Dean Martin or laugh at Shecky Greene.” As Miami’s “only heterosexual decorator,” Lew catered to clients ranging from jet-setting socialites to the dictator of Haiti.

It was unusual enough that a Jew who fled pogroms in Poland should become the go-to guy for Miami home décor. But Lew’s life took an even stranger turn in the 1960s. By the end of the decade, he had become a psychic healer under the tutelage of spirit guides.

All this makes for a good story. And more than 20 years after his father’s death, artist Philip Smith wrote it.
More at Wild River Review

Photo: Philip Smith & one of his paintings.

Chappy Chanukah!

2009-12-11T10:39:00.006-05:00

I read in the New York Times that Utah Senator Orrin Hatch, who has a "soft spot for Jews" (I don't want to know where), has written a Chanukah song. My feelings echo Margo Howard's:

With all that’s going on in government, it’s nice to know that Orrin Hatch, the Mormon songwriter and senator, has taken time to pen a little ditty for the Jewish festival of lights. "Anything I can do for the Jewish people," he said, "I will do." I cannot figure out what these benefits may be, but I’m sure the Jewish people feel gratitude for … whatever it is. Truthfully, this song, like all of his songs, is mediocre, but isn’t it the thought that counts?

You should know that Senator Hatch wears a golden mezuzah on a neck chain every day. This is interesting because the senator is not a house, or even a doorway, which is where mezuzahs are meant to be placed. He also keeps a fake Torah in his Senate office. (It can’t be a real one because he’s not a Temple, either.) I think the guy secretly wants to be Jewish.

Hatch’s hope, he says, down the line, is that Barbra Streisand will record one of his songs. "It would be good for her and good for me." My guess is that will happen when the Jews re-cross the desert and once again pray to idols.

As a traditionalist, I'm sticking with the Adam Sandler song. And here's a little something to light up your night, along with your ginandtonica:

Cold Comfort

2009-12-09T01:38:00.018-05:00

It is now 1°F in Denver. (Celsius=Too F*cking Cold!) It's colder and snowier here than in Minneapolis, Toronto and Portland, Maine. The snow squeaks underfoot and it hurts my lungs to breathe outside. Feh!

Consequently, I'm very happy to be working on our next Bella Terra Maps product: Florida Lighthouses. We plan to have it printed in time for me to bring copies when I go to the Space Coast Writers' Guild Conference in Cocoa Beach at the end of January. One of my half-sisters lives nearby, so I'll visit her for a few days--along with as many lighthouses and maritime museums as possible.

I also plan to visit Gilbert's Bar House of Refuge, below.
Click here for entrancing 360° view. I've been looking at it A LOT.

Oh, and HMS Bounty and the 1812 privateer schooner Lynx (below) will be docked in Palm Beach. Both offer dockside tours and the Lynx has daily Adventure Sails. I am so there! (Along with a bottle of scleranthus, the Bach Flower Remedy for motion-sickness.)

Photo by Chris Woods - courtesy of The Lynx Educational Foundation

Boy Wonder reminded me that I'd told him that if I ever moved to Florida, he should have me committed--or shot. I pointed out that a short midwinter trip requires no such action on his part.

In Cheery Siberia (aka Denver, CO)

2009-12-08T01:43:00.002-05:00

An arctic blast hit Denver over the weekend. It snowed yet again last night--snowfall #9 since October 8, for those keeping score. When I got up this morning it was 3°F outside. The thermometer outside my dining room window registered a sultry 20° a little after noon. When last I looked it was 10°.

Sunday night I watched Silk Stockings, with songs by Cole Porter, starring Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse. (Fun fact: costar Janis Paige was married to my father's double-cousin Arthur, whose parents were Dad's paternal aunt and a Stander cousin.)

And what song could be more appropriate to the frigid weather than "Siberia," sung by Joseph Buloff, Jules Munshin & Peter Lorre:

When we’re sent to dear Siberia,
To Siberi-eri-a,
When it’s cocktail time ’twill be so nice
Just to know you’ll not have to phone for ice.
When we meet in sweet Siberia,
Far from Bolshevik hysteria,
We’ll go on a tear,
For our buddies all are there
In cheery Siberi-a.

When we’re sent to dear Siberia,
To Siberi-eri-a,
There’s a most delicious bill of fare,
You must try our filet of polar bear.

When we meet in sweet Siberia
To protect us from diphtheria,
We can toast our toes
On the lady Eskimos
In cheery Siberi-a.

When we’re sent to dear Siberia,
To Siberi-eri-a,
Where the fresh salt air makes us feel so fine,
It is fresh salt air from our own salt mine.

When we meet in sweet Siberia,
Where the snow is so superia
You can bet, all right
That your Christmas will be white
In cheery Siberi-a.

Here's the number (stop at 2:31):

Yahrzeit #15...and A Day In Court

2009-12-01T00:22:00.019-05:00

Lionel Stander (l) in a 1961 production of The Policemen, directed by Leonidas Dudarew-Ossetynski.

My father died of cancer 15 years ago today. We were a continent apart then--he in L.A. and me in Maine. There were times when he went years without seeing, or even speaking, to me. But now he's a constant presence in my life, due to the dozens of photographs on the walls of the "Dad Gallery" in the upstairs hallway. I see him when I first wake up in the morning and just before I go to bed at night, which rarely happened during my childhood.

The newest additions to my ever-growing collection of Lionel Stander images came via email a few weeks ago. Early this year a woman in California named Valerie Hunken found me via Google. She was going through the possessions of her late father, the actor and stage director Leonidas Dudarew-Ossetynski. Among them were some stills from a 1961 Off-Broadway production of The Policeman, with my father. Would I be interested in those photographs?

Of course I would, I wrote her. I hadn't known anything about The Policemen or Dudarew-Ossetynski. (I learned from Google that he was born an aristocrat in Wilno, Poland--now Vilnius, Lithuania.) The only shows I recalled Dad being in the early 1960s were The Conquering Hero (memorable because Tom Poston held a puppy that peed on his hand during a rehearsal in Philadelphia), Brecht's Arturo Ui and Luther. The latter two were directed by Tony Richardson, who went on to cast my father as Pierpont Mauler in a London production of Brecht's St. Joan of the Stockyards, then broke the Hollywood Blacklist by putting him in the The Loved One (still one of my all-time favorite movies).

Months went by and I forgot about Hunken. Then out of the blue the photographs arrived on November 12th, four days after my birthday. And who else should be in some of the photos than Jack Gilford, whom I first knew as the nice man in the Cracker Jack commericals. (I still remember the lyrics!) He was also blacklisted, though not as long as my dad if he was doing commercials when I was very young.

Rehearsal of The Policemen. Director Leonidas Dudarew-Ossetynski is atop table, Lionel Stander is seated at center, Jack Gilford is standing at far right.

Speaking of the Hollywood Blacklist, along with 31 others I signed on to a Brief of Amici Curiae of Victims of the McCarthy Era in the U.S. Supreme Court case, Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project. I received a PDF of the brief today from the attorneys. It argues that the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA):

threatens once again unconstitutionally to interfere with the rights of free speech and association. AEDPA's vague ban on 'assistance' and 'advice' is essentially no different from the McCarthy Era attempt to root out association with and advocacy for groups unpopular with the government.

One of the key lessons from this era is that when the federal government fans the flames of public passion by enacting overreaching criminal statutes, staging congressional hearings, and investigating the loyalty of millions of American citizens, it implicitly condones and sanctions retributions against individuals, such as Amici. Eventually, our society and this Court understood that these consequences were uncceptable. We should not make these mistakes again.

To my surprise and amazement, Dad and I are mentioned in the brief proper, which all nine Supreme Court Justices (or at least their clerks) will have to read. How cool is that?

In the Appendix, the List of Amici Curiae has biographical notes. Here's mine, drafted by the attorney and amended by yrs truly:

Bella Stander is the daughter of the late Lionel Stander, a film, stage, television and radio actor who was active in many progressive social and political causes. Stander was first subject to an early “blacklist” in the 1930s because of his active role in progressive trade unions and anti-Fascist organizations. Although he was publicly cleared of accusations of being a communist by the Los Angeles District Attorney in 1940, years later he was again accused of being one. He was subpoenaed to appear before HUAC in 1953, and as a result was blacklisted from radio, TV and Hollywood. Lionel Stander sparred vigorously with the Committee, defending his Constitutional rights and denouncing HUAC for trampling them, which made front-page news from coast to coast. Columnist Walter Winchell, who had supplied material on Stander to the FBI, then demanded that he be ousted from his role in the touring production of “Pal Joey.” J. Edgar Hoover wrote in his FBI file, which covers some 30 years: "Be certain Stander doesn't use FBI to regain respectability."

I didn't light a Yahrzeit candle tonight, but I think the above will burn a bit longer.

Julian Fellowes Talks About PAST IMPERFECT

2009-11-21T02:41:00.022-05:00

Photo © Giles Keyte

PAST IMPERFECT opens with its anonymous narrator, a member of the minor aristocracy, being contacted by Damian Baxter, an ex-friend from Cambridge whom he hasn’t seen in decades. Thus begins a journey that contrasts the naïve debutantes and would-be debonair beaux of the London Season of 1968 with their surprisingly altered (or not) selves 40 years later.

Reached by phone in Chicago on Halloween morning, Julian Fellowes observed to freelance writer Bella Stander that “Lake Michigan is like an enchanted sea around a fairy castle.” Later that day, From Time to Time, which he produced, directed and wrote, was screened at the Chicago International Children’s Film Festival. Starring Maggie Smith, the picture went on to win the Best of Fest Award and two other prizes.... more at BookReporter.com

My Birthday in Music

2009-11-09T01:54:00.007-05:00

Today started off happier, thanks to all the birthday wishes I got via email and Facebook. I've had the Kinks on my mind the past few days, but couldn't find anything by them in our pared-down music collection (350 LPs & 500+ CDs). So I played T. Rex instead. Loud.

After a very late breakfast I stretched out on the couch to read the Sunday Times to a 2-CD set of Chopin nocturnes. Op. 9 No. 2 is one of my favorites:

At around 3:30, Darling Husband took me out for another drive to Washington Park. This time we went to the southern lake, and shared a bench with a woman who had her newly adopted miniature collie on a leash. On the way to and from the park, I relived my wild days in art school by listening to a tape of Jerry Jeff Walker's ¡Viva Terlingua!, which I'd found when vainly rummaging around for a Kinks tape that I suddenly remembered once owning. I still know all the words to "Up Against the Wall Redneck Mother":

I further relived my wanton youth by listening to a tape of Edgar Winter's White Trash ("Oh, the Scientologist," said DH). Here's "Keep Playing that Rock & Roll":

Which then led to Long John Baldry's "It Ain't Easy." It opens with the definitive version of "Don't Try to Lay No Boogie Woogie on the King of Rock & Roll," but the only track I could find on YouTube is "Flying":

After that came Leon Russell:

And then with a delicious dinner of Key West shrimp and a green salad with some of the last tomatoes from the garden, I played some Randy Newman. Here's my long-time favorite, "Sail Away":

My Day in Music

2009-11-07T21:17:00.019-05:00

I started off the day in a blue mood. Prompted by a Twitter post, after breakfast I lay on the couch and listened to "Can't Find My Way Home" on the Blind Faith album, a touchstone of my teenage years. The lyrics took on a whole new meaning, now that we've delayed our move to our home state of New York due to my wasted body--which I really wish I could leave.

Can't Find My Way Home
by Steve Winwoood

Come down off your throne and leave your body alone
Somebody must change
You are the reason I've been waiting so long
Somebody holds the key

But I'm near the end and I just ain't got the time, oh no
And I'm wasted and I can't find my way home

Come down on your own and leave your body at home
Somebody must change
You are the reason I've been waiting all these years
Somebody holds the key

But I'm near the end and I just ain't got the time, oh no
And I'm wasted and I can't find my way home

But I'm near the end and I just ain't got the time, oh no
Oh no, and I'm wasted and I can't find my way home

But I can't find my way home
Still I can't find my way home

And I ain't done nothing wrong
But I can't find my way home

After a bit of emotional catharsis, I decided that the ideal music to listen to next was Kurt Weill. So I put on "Ute Lemper Sings Kurt Weill," followed by Weill's Die Dreigroschenoper (Threepenny Opera), also with Lemper.

Meanwhile I read the New York Times. Or at least the A section. Or rather, the stories that didn't get me too upset. So I skipped the one on the front page about the victims of the Fort Hood shooting, and the one inside about the Orlando shooting (I had to put my hand over the photos).

To cap it all off, there were two op-eds about veterans and PTSD (which I have). The Forever War of the Mind by Max Cleland is absolutely devastating and absolutely true; Stress Beyond Belief by Bob Herbert also hits hard. Both are must-reads.

Darling Husband hid upstairs until the music was over. When he came down, I said, "Y'know, I don't think it was such a good idea to listen to Weill when reading bad news in the paper."

He responded, "It's NEVER a good time to listen to Weill. In German. That's when I know you're really depressed."

After that I made myself a bowl of popcorn and mug of mocha (DIY antidepressants) and cheered myself further by playing "Ella Fitzgerald: The Songbooks." At the same time, after wiping the butter off my hands, I redid the layout of the upcoming Bella Terra Southeast Lighthouses Map.

Then Darling Husband took me for my first post-surgical drive that wasn't for an appointment with a healthcare provider. We went to Washington Park and took a (very short, slow) walk by the first lake. We passed four 20ish guys sitting on a bench. One of them, with his lower leg in a monstrous cast, was playing Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" on a guitar.

When we came back, he was idly strumming. A German woman with a toddler said, "His favorite song is 'The Wheels on the Bus.'" The guys looked puzzled, so I said, "You know... [singing] 'The wheels on the bus go round and round...'"

Whereupon, to the little boy's delight, all four guys burst into a rousing rendition of "The Wheels on the Bus." As we got into the car, I heard them starting on the third verse.

IN MY FATHER'S SHADOW: Orson Welles's Daughter Speaks

2009-11-05T11:53:00.026-05:00

"Ignore your children and they will be obsessed with you for life."—Alain de Botton

From the moment I saw In My Father’s Shadow: A Daughter Remembers Orson Welles in the Algonquin Books fall catalog, I knew that I must read the book and speak to author Chris Welles Feder. As the daughter of actor Lionel Stander (a contemporary of Welles), I wanted to learn how Feder managed to survive with—and more often, without—a famous, larger-than-life father.

A few days before she took off for California to start her book tour, I reached Feder by phone in her New York City home. The voice that greeted me was so youthful, I found it hard to believe it was coming from a 71-year-old. I started off by asking why she wrote In My Father’s Shadow....

Siegfried Sassoon, More Relevant than Ever

2009-11-04T20:39:00.009-05:00

The UK Guardian ran a piece on WWI poet-soldier
Siegfried Sassoon: The reluctant hero

"Cambridge University is on the verge of securing Siegfried Sassoon's personal papers for posterity – his unpublished poems and letters are more relevant than ever, says Michael Morpurgo"

The article includes this undated poem, "just a scrap torn from a notebook":

Can I forget the voice of one who cried
For me to save him, save him, as
he died?
I will remember you, and from
your wrongs
Shall rise the power and the
poignance of my songs
And this shall comfort me until
the end
That I have been your captain and
your friend.

Sassoon's July 1917 Soldier's Declaration, according to Morpurgo, "was published in newspapers and read out in the Commons; it very nearly got him executed." I imagine the same furor would erupt today. I wish it would.

A Soldier's Declaration

I am making this statement as an act of wilful defiance of military authority, because I believe the war is being deliberately prolonged by those who have the power to end it.

I am a soldier, convinced that I am acting on behalf of soldiers. I believe that this war, upon which I entered as a war of defence and liberation has now become a war of aggression and conquest. I believe that the purposes for which I and my fellow soldiers entered upon this war should have been so clearly stated as to have made it impossible to change them, and that, had this been done, the objects witch actuated us would now be attainable by negotiation.

I have seen and endured the suffering of the troops, and I can no longer be a party to prolong these sufferings for ends which I believe to be evil and unjust. I am not protesting against the conduct of the war, but against the political errors and insincerity's for which the fighting men are being sacrificed.

On behalf of those who are suffering now I make this protest against the deception which is being practised on them; also I believe that I may help to destroy the callous complacence with which the majority of those at home regard the continuance of agonies which they do not share, and which they have not sufficient imagination to realise.

S. Sassoon,

The Real Rules

2009-11-04T15:31:00.003-05:00

I've been sending my rules out in bits and pieces on Twitter. It's time to put them all in one place. Follow them faithfully and I promise you won't go wrong.

Bella's Rules of Life

1. The world is filled with wankers.

2. When the going gets tough, the tough go to bed.

3. Just say no.

Amazing Resemblance

2009-11-01T20:49:00.031-05:00

As research for a piece I'm writing, yesterday I watched "Citizen Kane" and "The Battle Over Citizen Kane." The second film had a photograph of Orson Welles just after his arrival in Hollywood in 1939, sporting a Van Dyck beard and smoking a pipe.

Wow, I thought, that "beatnik" guy on "Mad Men" (above right) looks just like Welles. I wonder if it's by accident or on purpose?

I stopped wondering after a Google search for "Michael Gladis" + "Orson Welles" got 225 results, the 2nd of which is an AMC blog, which begins:

He looks like Orson Welles, smokes like Albert Einstein and wants to be Ernest Hemingway. Michael Gladis was born to play bohemian ad man, Paul Kinsey.
Q: Your character is compared to Orson Welles. You've played Orson on stage. Is this an ongoing theme?
A: I remember at like six-years-old my grandmother saying you look like a young Orson Welles and I had no idea who that was. I had to turn to my mother and be like is that a good thing or a bad thing? She said no sweetie it's a very good thing. My whole life there has been comparisons drawn. I was cast to play Orson in a film that didn't get made and I was heartbroken.
Q: Did that have anything to do with casting you as Paul?
A: That came up in the audition. Matt Weiner, at the beginning of the season (I think referencing our conversation in the audition room) said some time this season someone is going to make note of your resemblance to Orson Welles. Mark my words. And I never heard anything else about it. I'd see every script and there was nothing there. Finally, Joan makes the reference in Episode 12 and Matt says see you thought I forgot didn't you? He stuck it in.

Until I read the above, I'd forgotten about that line. I wonder how Gladis feels about Christian McKay, who played Welles in the play "Rosebud," getting to portray him again in "Me and Orson Welles," which opens on Nov 25. McKay sure as hell doesn't look like Welles in the movie's poster, below. However, he does in the shot with Zac Efron, probably due to padded cheeks and bulky clothing.

Publicity Horror: Technical Difficulties

2009-10-31T14:40:00.004-04:00

From a screenwriter/director:

I had to go to a festival screening of my film and answer audience questions afterwards. Suddenly the reel came on upside-down and backwards. Then it stopped. Then it came back on, but with only half the picture. Then it stopped. Half the audience had trickled out by then, to go to other screenings.

I just wanted to run away and hide in a manhole. But at these things you have to stand there as though it couldn’t matter less, and everything’s fine.

This person has completed another feature film, which is making the festival rounds. All the projectors have worked perfectly. So far.

Publicity Horror: The Woman in the Front Row

2009-10-31T11:57:00.005-04:00

It's Halloween, time once again for Publicity Horror Tales. This one's from the author of a bestselling social satire, which I'll call NOVEL.

I gave a talk about NOVEL. This 60-ish woman came and sat right at the front, all eagerness and taking notes. When we got to the Q&A session, it soon became clear that she was furious that I had had a success with NOVEL, and that she could have written the same book--only much, much better.
She went on and on. The moderator tried to shut her up, but the audience sort of enjoyed the coliseum aspect of it.

She said, "The thing is, I could have written this book."

I said to her, “I'm sure you could have. But the difference is, you didn’t and I did.”

A Blacklist is Born

2009-10-28T22:00:00.002-04:00

From the New York Times, June 27, 1941:

My father, who belonged to Actors Equity and was a founding member of the Screen Actors Guild, in August 1940 was named as a Communist Party member in "closed" grand jury testimony that was leaked to the LA Times the next day.

From the New York Times, February 3, 1942:

In May 1953, in the middle of the roadshow run of "Pal Joey" (in which he was the Equity rep) Dad was called to testify before the Dies Committee in New York.

The Horrors Begin: Stupid Author Trick

2009-10-21T13:38:00.003-04:00

From Anytown, USA:

Anonymized to protect the clueless.

An author is invited to present a workshop about creative writing at a writing center with more than 100 members. Said author accepts, then later backs out for reasons that are not the fault of the writing center.

Author, whose book is about...CREATIVE WRITING, then emails writing center and asks that the review copy of his book be returned to him, rather than left in the library of writing center with more than 100 members.

Scare Me, Please!

2009-10-20T03:11:00.008-04:00

Halloween's coming, which means it's time once again for Publicity Horror Stories. Send the most spine-tingling tales from your crypt, whether you're an author, publicist, media escort, bookseller, journalist, reader. . .whatever.

Confidentiality 100% guaranteed.

Email: blog(at)bellastander.com.

No Brian, You Don't Always Have to Look on the Bright Side

2009-10-18T17:35:00.004-04:00

On "The Daily Show" last week, Jon Stewart interviewed Barbara Ehrenreich (my new hero) about her new book, BRIGHT-SIDED: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America.

She brought the house down when she tartly declaimed:
"I never think delusion is OK."

My sentiments exactly.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

Barbara Ehrenreich

www.thedailyshow.com

Daily Show
Full Episodes

Political Humor

Ron Paul Interview

Parsing Aesop

2009-10-13T17:23:00.009-04:00

I was feeling guilty that I wasn't exercising enough, because the hospital discharge instructions said I should walk 20-30 mins a day. So using a walker, yesterday afternoon I crept about 10 yds down the street, then 120 ft from front to back yard.

Afterwards I got sorer & droopier. This morning I could hardly move & my left foot was more numb. Off to the surgeon, who said the sciatic nerve was flared again. When he'd operated last week, it was so red & inflamed that he was surprised there'd been any immediate improvement. Now I'm flat on my back & on steroids. Again.

New instructions: All walking is to be done in the house--from room to room, up/down the stairs.

Moral: Slow & steady wins the race.

Guest Post: Strength in Numbers

2009-10-10T17:10:00.005-04:00

Book Promotion 101 alum Sally Nemeth (THE HEIGHTS, THE DEPTHS, AND EVERYTHING IN BETWEEN) reports on last week's West Hollywood Book Fair.

(That's Sally by the balloons, doing her Mama Rose impression.)

I am a lucky author. No, my publishing house doesn't do squat for me promotionally, I didn't win a major award with my very first novel, and I'm not on anyone's bestseller list. What I am is a LAYA.

I'm one of the Los Angeles Young Adult authors. And what we've found over our three years of existence is that when it comes to promotion and appearances, there is definitely strength in numbers.

We were organized as an ad hoc listserve by YA author Cecil Castellucci. Initially what we did was share information online, have cocktails, gather for parties and bitch about our publishers, agents, publicists, etc.

Then last year, when the BookExpoAmerica and American Library Association conventions were held in Los Angeles, we saw it as a call to action. We figured we could make a bigger splash at both events as a collective than as individuals. We came up with the idea of presenting a live game show--LAYAPALOOZA--with games based on YA lit guaranteed to amaze and amuse. We invented some absurdly funny quiz show games, got some righteous swag to give away (including our own books), and were not afraid to make total fools of ourselves onstage. And it worked.

For BEA, we contacted the Association of Booksellers for Children and performed LAYAPALOOZA in their hospitality suite, to great acclaim. At ALA, we performed at the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) pavilion and garnered quite a crowd, awarding Dum-Dums for wrong answers to the likes of Arthur Levine and Jay Asher. We set up a group MySpace page and at both events gave out rubber bracelets embossed with our URL: http://www.myspace.com/losLAYAs

Since then, we've been invited to perform LAYAPALOOZA at Vroman's Books in Pasadena, at the November California Library Association meeting and in January at Changing Hands Bookstore in Phoenix, AZ. And now all PALOOZAs are followed by book signings.

As a group, we've always talked about how book fests never get teen lit right. They either strand authors on the kiddie stage, where no teen would be caught dead. Or they put us on panels with other YA authors, where we blather to a room full of people who want to be YA authors about what it's like to be a YA author. Neither format attracts our target audience: teens.

Fellow LAYA Leigh Purtill and I approached the West Hollywood Book Fair with a proposition: If they'd set up a dedicated teen tent, we'd provide at least two hours of programming for it and rent a booth at the fair. We told them that, rather than present our own work, we'd adapt short excerpts of our books "readers theatre" style, and have an ensemble of teens perform the texts. If teens are performing, we reasoned, they'd tell their friends and families to come. Voilà! Target audience achieved.

To our amazement and their credit, the WeHo Book Fair organizing committee agreed. They said that if we succeeded in getting an audience at the teen stage, the LAYAs would have slots at the fest next year, and for years to come.

On Sunday, October 4, the LAYAs INVADED WEHO! Ten members whose books had been published within the year, along with 10 teen readers, took the fest by storm. The organizers have yet to do a post mortem, but we're pretty sure they'll be having us back.

We learned a thing or two. Next year we'll sell our own books at our own booth all day, rather than have a fest seller handle a single signing after the performance. Thus we can sign throughout the day and more of us can participate in the fest, rather than just LAYAs with books published that year. And the more of us on hand, the more attention we draw.

Next week, invited by YALSA, we'll be performing in pairs at libraries throughout Los Angeles as part of Teens Read Week. It's a great way for us to get to know area librarians, YA authors' best friends. The LAYAs are now something of a brand, all because we joined together to promote our work--and YA literature as a whole.

Not bad for a bunch of solitary authors.

I Survived!

2009-10-09T23:10:00.006-04:00

What a crazy 2 weeks it's been:

Monday 9/28 - 8:45am: visit to emergency room for lumbar and leg pain; 3pm exam by osteopath.
Tuesday 9/29 - 1:30am: another ER visit; 2:30pm exam by physiatrist & house showing (canceled when we arrived at doctor's office; GRRR); 6pm dinner with AJ Jacobs & posse before his event for THE GUINEA PIG DIARIES at the Tattered Cover (which I was too sore to attend).
Thursday 10/1 - 4pm: house showing & neuromuscular massage at MassageSpecialists.com.*
Friday 10/2 - Literary Ladies Luncheon (see 10/9 New West article by Janet Singleton!)
Monday 10/5 - 11am: epidural steroid injection by physiatrist.
Tuesday 10/6 - 10am: exam by spine surgeon, who set up immediate surgery; 5pm neuromuscular massage; 6:30pm dinner with Agent Kristin.
Wednesday 10/7 - 8:30am pre-op physical with GP; 3pm shrink session.
Thursday 10/8 - 6am check-in for 7:30am surgery (moved up from 10:30--YAY!).

The surgery went fine. Though my back hurts like hell, my leg's already improving and I feel better than I ever dared dream. Thanks again for all the encouraging comments, especially from Alan Orloff, who gave me hope when I needed it most.

Enough of the sweet stuff. Now for the bitter...

Darling Husband's job--the one that moved us to Denver in Dec 2005--was eliminated in June. So our Blue Cross/Shield plan is now under Cobra. (How fitting that US health coverage is named for a venomous snake.) The surgery had to be pre-approved by Blue Cross, else it wouldn't have been scheduled. The first thing I had to do when hobbling into the hospital's registration office yesterday morning was submit my insurance ID card & driver's license. Then I had to sign & initial a gazillion forms.

After I was lying in a gurney prepped for surgery--with glasses off, so I couldn't read anything--I had to sign and initial even more forms. The kicker came just before I was knocked out, when I was given a form agreeing to pay the surgeon's assistant, who's an independent contractor. The surgery can't be done without her, but Blue Cross doesn't believe it takes 4 hands to:

slice into the back with the aid of a microscope;
move aside the spinal cord & sciatic nerve;
cut the bulge off a lumbar disc;
cut off protruding arthritic knobs at the end of 3 vertebrae that have changed 3 discs from elastic white to hard black;
staple everything closed.

So the surgeon's office will submit the payment request and Blue Cross will deny it. Then the surgeon will appeal and months later Blue Cross will relent and pay the claim. Maybe. Otherwise we'll have to make a payment plan with the surgeon's assistant. By then DH will have a new job. Maybe.

I got little sleep last night because every time the nurse turned off the lights & left the room, some machine started beeping wildly. First it was the one that inflated cuffs around my calves every few seconds to keep blood clots from forming (and me from relaxing). Then it was the IV machine. Then it was the oxygen pump. Then it was the oxygen pump monitor.

"Look," I said, "give me another Valium so this stupid stuff won't bother me anymore, OK? And give the machines Valium, so they'll calm down too."

I got the Valium. Don't know if the machines did, though they did shut up eventually.

I was back home and in bed by 1:30pm, after having belted down a couple of Valium so I'd be sure to sleep. A nanosecond after DH finished tucking the covers under my chin, Max leaped onto me. Within minutes I was zonked out with a 14-lb purring heating pad draped from crotch to chin.

Not 2 hours later my bliss was shattered by a phone call from a lady at the hospital billing office. What could she possibly want? Well, it seems that Blue Cross, which just this morning had approved the physical therapist's request for a walker, told her that my insurance had expired months ago. Kudos to me for not swearing a blue streak when I told her to call Blue Cross back and inform them how extremely wrong they are.

I'll bet that the people in Congress fighting universal health care--whose generous coverage is funded by our tax dollars--don't go through crap like this.

Is this a great country, or what?

*Note to FTC: I received no goods, payments, services--or even dinner--from any persons or entities mentioned in this blog post. Though considering the cost of health care, I would have gladly accepted medical kickbacks.

I Fall to Pieces (again)

2009-10-07T01:59:00.000-04:00

In January I posted my New Year's Resolution on my Facebook profile: To have no major surgeries in 2009.

A month ago I was doing GREAT. My oft-operated right arm was improving vastly, thanks to neuromuscular massage from the amazing Dirk McCuistion at MassageSpecialists.com. After 3 years, I was able to wear my favorite pants again because I could reach over to pull up the side zipper. I'd made it. No surgery for me!

In late August, I, who could never bear to exercise on my own, started doing ballet & yoga exercises every day--even several times a day. Within a couple of weeks I could do ronde de jambe with a fairly good turnout, lift my right arm with much less clunking and curl up into Child's Pose. To further get into the spirit, I bought my first pair of ballet slippers in more than 25 years (men's because my feet are so huge).

Wow, I thought, I'm doing so well maybe I'll start grooming the draft horses at Four Mile Historic Park again. Or maybe even go for a trail ride before the stable at Bear Creek Lake Park closes for the season. (I haven't been on a horse since Feb 2008.)

Two weeks ago Sunday, I woke up feeling as though I'd been run over by a truck. Draggy, flu-ish and achy all over--especially my lower back. It took me a good 10 minutes to creak into Child's Pose. I kept exercising, but could do less each day. I'd been able to lift my butt 6" off the floor doing The Bridge. By last Sunday night I couldn't raise it 1mm. My left leg was hurting like hell, worst of all in Child's Pose.

After a night of sleepless agony on the bed in my office (Darling Husband was in our room for his own safety), when I got up Monday morning my left leg buckled under me and the foot was numb from instep to big toe.

Oh @#$! Off to the emergency room, where an MRI determined that the herniated disc between L4 & L5, which I thought had healed after 4 years of quiescence, had herniated even more and was pressing on the sciatic nerve. Hence the trouble with the leg. I saw my osteopath that afternoon, who set me up with a physiatrist next day, and a spine surgeon today.

Everything was fine and dandy until bedtime, when the IV painkillers I'd gotten in the ER wore off. My left thigh and calf were in excruciating pain, made worse by either ice or heat. After hours of writhing and sobbing, at 1:30am I was back at the ER.

"What can we do for you?" asked the kindly doc.
"Shoot me," I responded. And I meant it.
"We can't do that."
"Then shoot me with drugs." I meant that too.
"Any drugs in particular?"
"I really like fentanyl."
"OK. We can do that. But we'll start you off with a patch, rather than an IV."
"Yeah, whatever."

I got the fentanyl patch but it didn't help enough. By the time I was sent home at 5:30am, I'd gotten 3--or was it 4?--IV doses of fentanyl. Later that day (Tuesday) physiatrist Barry Ogin put me on a 6-day course of oral steroids and set me up for an epidural steroid injection. "However," he warned, "these are palliatives. They'll ease the inflammation and lessen the pain, but won't cure the bulging disc."

Right he was. The oral steroids decreased the pain for 3 days and scrambled my brains for 6. Yesterday's epidural made walking easier and lessened the pain in my ass in one spot, but gave me a new, sharper pain 2" above it. My left leg is still weak, and now is also numb from knee to ankle on the outside.

Today I saw spine surgeon David Wong. BOOM! On Thursday morning he's doing microsurgery to cut off the bulge in the disc and the arthritic spurs on 3 vertebrae that are pressing into it and 2 adjacent discs.

So much for resolutions.

Too Much Shameless Self-Promotion

2009-09-07T01:11:00.002-04:00

A writer friend sent me this rant. Facebook users: Read it and take note!

Here's something I wish authors would think about when they're seeking publicity via Facebook: That they can drive their friends crazy with WAY too many status updates and way too many mentions of the subject of their book.

Anyone who uses Facebook should know that if they clog up people's screens with too many crappy posts that their frustrated friends might well click "hide" and see none of their posts. Just because someone has a ton of Facebook friends doesn't mean that 90 percent of them haven't clicked "hide" to make their posts go away.

Wild Gem

2009-09-06T14:49:00.029-04:00

Jewelweed, Fort Point State Park, Stockton Springs, Maine.

A few weeks ago I got into a discussion about poison ivy with Dirk, founder & spectacularly gifted massage therapist at MassageSpecialists.com.

I mentioned that jewelweed, which often grows near poison ivy (in the East, anyway), is a natural antidote to it. My stepfather is, in medical parlance, "exquisitely sensitive" to P.I. and would get it all over himself, just from petting the cat. My mom used to collect masses of jewelweed and boil it down into a tincture, in which he'd soak in the bath. (I changed his life by giving him a bottle of TecNu Poison Ivy Cleanser, but that's another story.)

Dirk had never heard of jewelweed. Last week I backed into a patch of it while taking the 2nd photo in Bella Everywhere. So I picked a sprig, meaning to press it in a book and take back to Denver to show Dirk. But within 15 minutes, the flower had collapsed into a little wad and the leaves had withered into dust. That's when I thought of taking a photo (DUH!) of a living stand of jewelweed. Being a few minutes early for my lunch date at the Royal River Grillhouse, by the Yarmouth marina, I walked the perimeter of the parking lot till I found a section of trickling brook shaded by trees. And voila! a bunch of jewelweed, which thrives in damp shade.

I took some photos, but they didn't look so hot. Two days later, I was at Cape Jellison in Fort Point State Park, where the woods were full of gorgeous stands of jewelweed.

Look out, Georgia O'Keeffe!

Sometimes Nature makes the best floral arrangements.
Asters & jewelweed, Fort Point State Park.

Picture Perfect

2009-09-05T02:15:00.001-04:00

Neatness counts when selling one's Gracious Home, as I'm attempting to do now. But then, so does editing. One of the precious objets in the photo above (from Fail Blog) seems out of place in the kitchen. Or not...

One memorable Christmas Eve, Darling Husband and I dined at the home of an old friend of mine in a not-too-savory stretch of San Francisco's Tenderloin. "D" is now an avid leather daddy, and items even larger than the one circled above stood sentry on various shelves about his apartment. One that was easily the size of my forearm sat maybe 6 feet from my face all through dinner.

After a while I blurted out, "Do you actually use that thing?"

"I've been known to," he replied mildly.

DH and I glanced at each other, aghast, then quickly returned to shoveling food (prepared by D's near-naked "boy") into our mouths.

Apostrophe's on the Move

2009-09-05T01:41:00.003-04:00

An eye-opener in the food court at the Denver airport. Two days later I found Martini's on the menu at the Tugboat Inn, Boothbay Harbor, ME.

Bella Everywhere

2009-09-05T01:28:00.011-04:00

Here are some souvenirs I picked up on my trip to Maine.

Cosmetics shop, Denver airport.

Off South Street, Freeport, Maine.

Harvest Gold

2009-08-27T22:40:00.004-04:00

All of you in the rainy, blighted Northeast, be very, very jealous. I picked the tomatoes pictured above in my own backyard this morning. The yellow monster weighed in at 13-1/4 oz. We had it sliced at dinner. It was delicious.

In the morning I myself am off to the rainy, blighted Northeast, to celebrate my mom's Big Birthday in the poetically named Gray, Maine. Saturday's forecast: 62F & rain. Oh joy.

Other People's News

2009-08-06T20:49:00.003-04:00

Our house goes on sale tomorrow & I've been too crazy busy to write anything more than the occasional blurt on Twitter. So here's stuff from/about other people:

Virginia friend & author Mollie Bryan is Off to Denver. Tomorrow we'll meet up with a big group at the Literary Ladies Luncheon. On Saturday afternoon I'll be at Wen Chocolates, where Mollie's going to spread "a little more of that pie love" in an event for her 2nd book, MRS ROWE'S LITTLE BOOK OF SOUTHERN PIES (Ten Speed). With FREE PIE!

In NYC, BP101 alum Matthew Cody met kids from the Thalia Book Club at Random House and signed galleys of his forthcoming YA novel, POWERLESS. Read about it on the Symphony Space blog.

Sucess Story

2009-07-22T12:28:00.006-04:00

Woohoo! Book Promotion 101 workshop alum Kelly McMasters just informed me that her book, WELCOME TO SHIRLEY: A Memoir of an Atomic Town, tops the Oprah Book Club list of Addictive True Stories.

Kelly is the co-director of the KGB Nonfiction Reading Series, and teaches writing at Columbia and mediabistro.

Signs of the Times

2009-07-21T02:12:00.017-04:00

Jenny, The Best Dog

2009-07-06T13:10:00.003-04:00

Six months ago, Jenny was going on long mountain walks, splashing around in Cherry Creek and running away after deer. She'd slowed down considerably since the days she'd raced against motorcycles, but she was still way ahead of us on the trail. Then she slowed down even more. By March we had to wait for her to catch up when we went for long walks. By April she refused to go on long walks at all. Arthritis in her hips, the vet said.

We tried various medicines, in various dosages, but Jenny got increasingly feeble. By her 13th birthday in mid-June she couldn't even walk around the block. Nor could she get upstairs to sleep on the floor at the foot of our bed, which she'd done since she was a puppy. After the last vet visit 2 weeks ago, I took Jenny to her favorite park. We'd only walked 5 minutes when she turned around and headed back to the car.

After that she wouldn't walk more than 50 yards from the house, and spent most of her time stretched out on her side on the bare living room floor, panting. Whenever I petted her she emitted the faintest high-pitched whine.

Friday morning I called the vet to ask for an end to Jenny's suffering--and our anguish over her. He said he'd be here at 8:00 a.m. today.

At 7:00 this morning I sat on the front steps, with Jenny stretched out at the bottom because she couldn't make it back into the house. At 7:30 I brought out a cup of tea and yesterday's NY Times Magazine. At 7:45 Darling Husband came out to sit with us. Jenny moved into the shade along the north side of the house and barked for the last time at Snowy, the cat next door, who was walking along the fence. At 8:00 we were more than ready for the vet, but no one showed up.

At 8:15 I called the vet's office. The receptionist said they had us down for an appointment there. She was unswayed by my tears of grief and rage; no way was anyone coming to our house today.

Jenny was always terrified at the vet's; she'd start panting and trembling as soon as we pulled into the parking lot. Which was only as far as she was going to go today, we decided. If the vet wouldn't come to our house, he could at least attend to Jenny in our car. So she'd be calmer for her final trip, I shoved 10mg of Valium down her throat (like a cat, she always spat out pills). When I pulled my hand out, a big chunk of one of her molars came with it.

DH pulled the car around in front, close to the curb. I had to lift Jenny's hind end so she could get onto the floor, and then again so she could get up onto the back seat.

There was quite a crowd at the vets'. My eyes were so blurred with tears that at first I couldn't read the euthanasia form I was given to sign. For a half-hour, DH and I sat with Jenny in the car, petting her and telling her what a good girl she is.

Finally the vet came out. He had the good grace to apologize profusely for the screw-up. Then he and the tech injected Jenny with a sedative, and then something lethal.

I kept my left hand under Jenny's neck, my fingertips buried in the fur at her throat, where I could feel the vibration of her breathing. I stroked her head with my right hand and kept telling her it was okay to let go, that she'd always be my baby.

"This'll only take 4 or 5 minutes," the vet said. But it didn't. It took a good 10 minutes, plus 2 more injections. The reason was most likely circulatory problems--"probably her lungs," which fit in with Jenny's rapid decline and harsh, labored breathing.

The vibrations in her throat grew fainter and fainter, then stopped. In another minute I could feel Jenny was gone. Now my baby can rest without pain.

Spit Take/Quote of the Day

2009-06-22T09:38:00.002-04:00

An AP story on developments in Iran had me guffawing. Good thing I read it before I had my morning beverage, else I would have sprayed tea all over my computer.

[The Guardian Council] said Monday it found irregularities in 50 voting districts, but that this has no effect on election outcome. Council spokesman Abbas Ali Kadkhodaei was quoted on the state TV Web site as saying that its probe showed more votes were cast in these constituencies than there were registered voters.
But this "has no effect on the result of the elections," he said.

As the Brits say: Pull the other leg--it's got bells on it.

Weekend Lit Crit

2009-06-20T10:49:00.006-04:00

Better than a thousand words--and ditto for zombies, werewolves & other undead:

see more Funny Graphs

Tears of Laughter (and suppressed rage)

2009-06-19T12:56:00.004-04:00

Photographer Miriam Berkley sent me a link to the ultimate freelancer's video, which had me howling:

The Vendor Client relationship - in real world situations

Same Old, Same Old

2009-06-15T23:13:00.005-04:00

I haven't been posting lately because not much has been going on in my life, except:

I went to NYC for 4 nights for BookExpo, and also gave a "Polish Your Pitch" workshop with Ron Hogan at Backspace Writers Agent-Author Day.
Then I spent 3 nights in the Kingston, NY, area, where I hope to live in the not-too-distant future.
Just as I was returning the rental car in Poughkeepsie, Darling Husband called to say that he'd been laid off his job of 8 years--the one we'd moved to Denver for 3-1/2 years ago.
I have to crank out the text (some 17 K words) for the Bella Terra Massachusetts Lighthouses map so it can go to press in 10 days.
I'm giving another phone seminar on June 28. (Details in sidebar.)
Last Thursday, I had 3+ hours of excruciating nerve tests on my dysfunctional right arm, which has had 3 surgeries since I broke it 3 years ago. Preliminary results: Further neurosurgery would probably do more harm than good; my 3 middle fingers will remain numb forever.
I had 8 days of debilitating headache (technically neuralgia), caused by Denver's unusually damp & stormy weather. On the plus side, my garden has never looked more lush.
Tomorrow I go back to Dr #13, a hand/arm specialist at Denver Health's Center for Complex Fractures (which I wish I'd known about 3 years ago, GRRRR...), who will tell me whether further orthopedic surgery will help. If he says not, I'm giving up.
My wonderful dog Jenny, who turned 13 yesterday, is rapidly succumbing to arthritis. Once upon a time she'd run for hours without stopping. Now she can walk--slowly--for 10 minutes at most, and can barely make it up the 3 steps into the house. We've tried all sorts of meds, to no avail. Today I started her on Dog Gone Pain as a last-ditch effort, and tomorrow she'll get codeine too. There's a wonderful new book, HOW SHALL I TELL THE DOG? I keep asking myself (and the vet): How shall I kill the dog? And when?

As a palliative, I've been gardening and immersing myself in novels written or set in the 19th century:

PRIDE & PREJUDICE
RUDE AWAKENINGS OF A JANE AUSTEN ADDICT by Laurie Viera Rigler
CONFESSIONS OF A JANE AUSTEN ADDICT by Rigler (again; even better after RUDE AWAKENINGS)
LITTLE DORRIT, though Dickens's sentimentality & weakling heroines may have me reaching for Trollope's Palliser novels before too long

The Best Wedding Vow of All

2009-06-14T12:54:00.002-04:00

I got all choked up reading this piece in today's LA Times by YA author Kerry Madden, who's spoken at my workshops:

Our wedding vow -- to my mother--in law
Our elopement included a promise we would never lose our ambition. We kept it.

Off to BookExpo...and beyond

2009-05-27T01:40:00.002-04:00

BEA checklist:
1) Get teeth cleaned at dentist.
2) Do laundry.
3) Get online boarding pass.
4) Dither over what outfits to pack.
5) Print out "Polish Your Pitch" workshop program.
6) Confirm party & dinner dates.
7) 9:15 pm - Plant sunflower & morning glory seeds outside in the dark.

Maybe, just maybe, I'll find time to do some blog posts from BEA. Then again, maybe not...

Showdown at the Kitty Corral

2009-05-27T01:21:00.010-04:00

Snowball the trespasser beats a slow-motion retreat from Max the Mauler.

While I was making sales calls for Bella Terra Maps this afternoon, some high drama was playing out next to the house. Next-door neighbor Snowball came over, and as usual, had a faceoff with Max.

We can't figure out whether Snowy is really stupid or just stubborn. Max almost always beats up on him when he comes over, and Jenny almost always barks at him and chases him away. (She didn't today only because she was napping.) Still, he's constantly in our yard, and sometimes even sits on a kitchen windowsill and peers inside.

We have feline rock-paper-scissors going in the neighborhood: Max clobbers Snowy, Snowy clobbers the black cat across the alley, and that cat clobbers Max.

Update: Next day, the Boy Wonder found Snowy in our basement. He beat a hasty retreat out the window we'd left open for Max, who apparently needs to get a lot tougher.

It Was 20 Years Ago Today

2009-05-24T00:10:00.009-04:00

My one and only child was born at 12:26pm on May 23, 1989. He was due on May 13, but--setting a pattern for later life--arrived in his own time, well after I was completely exasperated. (That's him at left, age 5, styled by himself, down to the sticker on his right shin.)

Those last 10 days were the longest in my life. I lay like a beached whale, reading a one-volume collection of Jane Austen, interrupted by phone calls from family and friends to see whether I'd given birth yet. I got so fed up that I started responding, "Yeah, I had the baby and didn't tell you," or "I decided not to have the baby, and just stay pregnant forever."

I went into labor around 6:00am on May 22. It felt like mild menstrual cramps. Wow, I thought, this is going to be easy! How wrong I was. After 30 hours of fruitless and often agonizing labor, I had a caesarean section, and the Boy Wonder was pulled squalling into the world. At 9 lbs, 12 oz, he was 50% bigger than the next-largest baby of the 6 in the nursery at Wayne County General Hospital, in Honesdale, PA (best known as the home of Highlights for Children). Those 10 extra days in utero gave him a roll of fat at the back of his neck as thick as my pinky, huge round cheeks and a crease in his chubby chin. The discharging doctor called him "Moose."

That was the last time the Boy Wonder was fat. As I've often joked over the years, my plump little dumpling stretched out to be a long piece of spaghetti. More like capellini, as he's now 6'4" and 132 lbs. I call him "the human hummingbird," because he has to eat his weight daily to stay alive. Well, almost: 4 meals, plus big snacks. When he was with the Obama campaign, he managed to lose weight while having 2 super-sized Big Macs and a milkshake for lunch, plus an equally big breakfast and dinner.

Now my little baby is an Economics major. Today I was working in the garden, dressed in the Carhartt men's overalls (women's pants are never long enough) I bought as my first maternity outfit. And tonight I'll continue rereading Pride and Prejudice, from the same volume I read in what was truly a lifetime ago.

The Boy Wonder at Obama's acceptance speech in Denver (detail of photo that ran in NYT 8/30/08).