Report from the Front Lines

Author, playwright and screenwriter Sally Nemeth took my Book Promotion 101 workshop in Los Angeles, her current hometown, this past January. She just returned from her first book tour, and offered to share her marvelous account of it here.

My Virgin Voyage into Book Tour Land
by Sally Nemeth

My book, The Heights, the Depths and Everything in Between, (Knopf), came out this past July. I had a great local launch party and signing here at Skylight Books in LA, and sold lots of books to my friends. And then what? OF COURSE my friends are going to buy my book. They're my FRIENDS. How do I get perfect strangers to do the same? Well, tour the damn thing, I guess. But where to begin?

Even though the book is set in Delaware, and that great small state will be next on the itinerary, my fabulous publicist, Paula Singer, and I had decided that we'd begin my book tour in Birmingham, Alabama, since it is a) where my family lives, so I can not only visit with them, but I can STAY with them; b) a smallish market, so getting press shouldn't be too difficult; c) a place where I have an existing relationship with schools so I can easily arrange school visits; and d) a destination to which I can use my boyfriend's frequent flier miles. So aside from the petsitter and the airport parking, the trip would be, miraculously, FREE.

I arrived in Birmingham on a Tuesday night after rising at 4AM to catch a 7AM flight. This is the problem with living in Los Angeles: unless you're flying WEST, to say, HAWAII (dream on), you're losing time, so a travel day east is a lost day. Paula had managed to get me an interview with the local NPR affiliate, WBHM, but the only time they could talk to me was at 8:30 AM Wednesday; so, sleep deprived and gravel voiced, I did my interview. I'm not sure what I said, but I'm sure it can be artfully edited. It hasn't aired yet, but will eventually on their arts magazine show, Tapestry. Tune in online, if you so desire. I make no promises as to my coherence.

By the way, the theory that since Birmingham is such a small market that press should be easy to get -- not true. Birmingham, for all its charms, has pretentions of being Atlanta, a cultural bastion and the de facto capital of the Deep South. Not that Birmingham doesn't have culture. It's got a decent symphony, good museums, a nationally recognized high school for the arts (and more on that later). But it ain't Atlanta. Still, the arts reporters couldn't have cared less, even with the home-town-girl-makes-good angle. My mother kept going on and on about how much press John Green -- fellow alum of my high school (though decades after me) and fellow YA writer -- got when HE was in Birmingham flogging his book. I had to point out to her that he SET his book in Birmingham. And then he won every award known to man. Enough said.

Anyway, after my WBHM interview and some down time, it was off to the Alabama School of Fine Arts to talk to the writing students and faculty there, about 100 folks in all. I had gone to ASFA for a blessed year in '74 when I first moved to Alabama, and it is a phenomenal school. Since that time, it has added a math and science wing, and those brainiac students win national awards with alarming regularity. I told the writing students about the old days at ASFA when we went to class in the semi-demolished dorm of a local college campus and were roundly despised by the college students, and the kids pored over my old '74-'75 annual, wisely supplied by my sister Carolyn -- a BIG hit. The clothes, the hair. They couldn't get enough of it.

I talked about my career as a writer, did a seventies trivia quiz (the book is set in the 70's, all trivia questions relate to the book, and I award correct answers with sallynemeth.com pencils, not found in any store), read from the book, and then opened it up for questions. It was a complete barrage. I hadn't expected it. Not only did they want to know about the writing of the book, and -- yup -- what the school was REALLY like in the 70's (even though they had photographic evidence), they also wanted to know about the writing life, and how I've managed to make a living at it for 15 years. I'm not even sure myself how I've managed, but I faked it good. They were great. Afterward, the owner of the Little Professor Bookstore in Homewood was there to sell books, and sold all of ONE. It seems the ASFA folks didn't tell the kids she'd be there, so none of them had a dime. But a faculty member bailed me out and bought a book so I didn't feel so very lost and lonely.

The next morning was Indian Springs School, my alma mater, and the campus immortalized in John Green's Printz Award-winning novel, Looking for Alaska. There, I spoke to the entire student body -- about 300 high schoolers. After an embarassing intro by my old English and drama teacher, Mr. Ellis, where he READ FROM ONE OF MY OLD PAPERS (God, do teachers save EVERYTHING?), I again talked, did the 70's trivia quiz (it goes over BIG every time), read and answered questions. This time, aside from wanting to know about the book and about my stint writing for "Law & Order," the kids wanted to know about -- yup - ISS back in the 70's. And, again, they were great. And THESE kids had credit cards. The woman from Little Professor was there again, and sold out two cases of books. I felt much better for her, after having schlepped the books to TWO event, that she sold 'em out.

That afternoon was my public signing at a local indie bookstore, Milestone Books, that was lovely, but the owner, Linda, a really wonderful woman, was a tad overworked and scattered. In fact, she had ENTIRELY FORGOTTEN I was doing a reading there until Paula -- who had booked the reading in July -- called her a week before to confirm. Oops. Still, she rallied, and sent out letters and e-mails to her teen reading group. Bless, her, she even got phone orders for the book and ended up having to reorder, since we sold her out of two cases as well. So, aside from family and friends, I did have some complete strangers there -- book lovin' teens -- who not only bought the book, but one of them read it THAT VERY NIGHT. And how do I know this?

Well, the next day, I visited my niece Lily and nephew Carter's middle school, and talked to the 100 or so students in their 7th grade "pod". Which I guess makes them pod people. But that same girl was there, and told me she'd devoured the book overnight -- probably reading under the covers, right? And haven't we all, when riveted to a book? I was totally flattered. The kids were amazing, through the talk, the trivia quiz and the reading. And then they asked incredibly insightful questions -- stunning from 7th graders. And I do know the level of 7th grade discourse. (In fact, Lily & Carter, who are cousins, have a movie posted right now on YouTube called "Things that Hurt Carter." Look it up if you want a good dose of 7th grade humor.) The leader of their pod, Mrs. Montgomery, was even surprised by the depth of their questions. Though there was no bookseller there, I did donate a copy to the school library and hand out book cards, so I'm sure I'll get a reader or two. Eventually.

I had a weekend with family -- nieces, nephews, sisters, parents, dogs, cats -- then on Monday I went to Atlanta to what is probably the best children's bookstore I've ever visited: Little Shop of Stories in Decatur. Amazing store. The manager, Terra McVoy, had her teen reading group read the book, so we sat on a sofa while the kids had some after-school ice cream from the lunch counter in the store, and I finally got to discuss the book with kids who had actually read it. It was wonderful. Prior to this, it had all been about introducing the book and getting people to buy it. Now I was talking with actual readers, and they had some interesting thing to say.

And here's what all kids want to know: Who am I in the book? And I have to tell them the truth: I'm every character. I have to be. If I can't get inside every character and inhabit them, they aren't real for me. So there's something of me in every character.

Before I left Atlanta, I signed some stock for Terra and we talked about the possibility of having me participate in next year's Decatur Book Festival, sponsored by the Atlanta Journal Constitution, which would be great if it could happen. I returned to LA the next morning, tired, entirely out of book cards and sallynemeth.com pencils, and happy for the experience.

And what has it taught me, my Virgin Voyage in Book Tour Land? Next time, more lead time -- Paula and I are now working toward having me tour Delaware and Chicago, but are planning for the spring. It gives bookstores more time to hook into schools, a YA writer's bread and butter.

But the biggest thing it has taught me is that no matter how great the internet is and how many venues and avenues there are for getting yourself and your book out there via the ether, there is nothing like doing it face to face. Not only did I need to get really clear about my book and how to present it to a living, breathing audience of teens and 'tweens, but then their energy and enthusiasm sent me home with more enthusiasm and energy of my own. And that is the greatest gift of the traditional book tour.

There's no substitute for doing it LIVE.

L'Shana Tovah

No High Holy Days services for me this year. I can't sit for long, nor without major squirming, due to continuing problems with my right arm. (More surgery may be in the offing.)

Still, I got into the New Year mood yesterday morning with the Rocky Mountain News, whose editor offered what may have been the first newspaper mention of Rosh Hashana in Colorado, along with a classic example of half-assed reporting. From the Rocky, Sept. 21, 1865 (all spellings are verbatim):

To day is some sort of holliday for the Jewish persuasion, unknown to us gentiles. Business houses kept by that class in town are closed from 'rosy morn 'till dewey eve.'"

Apparently someone of the Jewish persuasion paid a call to Geo. West, author of the above--or maybe to his boss, who I hope chewed him out for his laziness--because the next day this item ran in the Rocky (again verbatim):

Yesterday was the opening of the Jewish year 5626, and consequently was a gal-aday with our Jewish residents. Ten days thereafter comes the day of atonement, which is kept by fasting. This will account for the closing of the business houses of this class yesterday. We hope none of our readers will understand that any disrespect was meant toward our Israelite friends in our local of last evening.

In the afternoon I pondered things Jewish by finishing THE RETURN OF THE PLAYER, nicely warmed by Max who cuddled up with his head under my chin. Here's another quote for the ages:

He didn't know much about Judaism, but neither did most of the Jews in Hollywood, and half of them were married to Christians or called themselves Buddhist. He couldn't understand how the Jews could control Hollywood and know so little about themselves. He couldn't understand how the Jews could dominate entertainment when their sacred text told such incomplete stories. Homer made sense as a movie guy. Shakespeare made sense as a movie guy. Moses didn't make sense as a movie guy, because the Jewish stories didn't follow the plot arcs that make money.

Around & About

Your humble correspondent, Loveland Pass, Labor Day

As a New York newspaper reporter, Colorado native Damon Runyon (patron muse of the Denver Press Club) used to fill out expense receipts with the wonderfully vague phrase "around and about." I'm appropriating it to share random views of and musings on (mostly) my newly adopted home state.

Seen in South Park: the Dinky Dairy & Grill
Yes, South Park really does exist. However, it is nowhere near as picturesque as in the cartoon. In fact, from the road it is totally devoid of any picturesqueness at all, and appears to have been built on a gravel midden, with the center of town--or what passes for it--occupied by a giant gravel works.

Best strip mall
On Colorado Blvd. in Glendale, just south of Denver, there's a cluster of businesses: Damascus Syrian Restaurant (the best falafel, dolmas, hummos & baba ghanouj I've had anywhere), a Moroccan cafe, a Persian-Lebanese restaurant (grilled halloumi, yum!), a Middle Eastern market, a kebab joint, maybe another similar restaurant, and in the middle...Curl Up and Dye hair salon.

Darling Husband, the Boy Wonder and I nearly curled up and died laughing when we spied that. I told a group of DH's colleagues about it at a party last week, and one said that "Curl Up and Dye" was the name of a salon in the movie "Earth Girls Are Easy." And that he'd come up with that name and suggested it to the screenwriter (but no screen credit, alas). What a small world.

Hard knocks
Today's Denver Post has a feature about concussions, "NFL's Big-Bang Reality," which DH--who knows I don't read the sports section--considerately left at my place at the dining table before he went off to work. As I emailed him, this is good news! According to the article, many football players suffer concussions in the double digits. I've only had three--or is it four?-- so I have plenty more left in me. Of course, there's the little matter of remembering words (a necessary skill for writing, not to mention living), names, recent events and where I put stuff--like the camera that went missing for 3 months. Oh yeah, and there's the dizziness and horrible headache too. And I forgot about the sleepiness and depression till the article reminded me. OK, so maybe a poke in the eye with a sharp stick would be a better option now.

Coming Soon: More Drunkelogues (ZZZZ...)

Seems there's now a 13th Step. After hitting bottom, you hit the keyboard--if you're a white boy with glitterati cred, that is.

According to Choire Sicha in the NY Observer, this fall there are no less than four (count 'em: 4!) rehab memoirs hitting the bookshelves, all from youngish men with somewhat famous last names and/or connections. All that and the film of RUNNING WITH SCISSORS too.

I can hardly wait...NOT!

Tolstoy famously noted, "All happy families are alike." Here's what I discovered: So are all recovery stories. I came of age--and beyond--surrounded by drunks and drug addicts. Even married one, once upon a time. So I've been to countless Al-Anon meetings and a few AA meetings as well. And every wretched tale I've heard or read goes like this:

1. Drunk falls into downward spiral of alcoholic excess, often losing home/job/friends/love of significant other(s).
   
2. Drunk bottoms out, sometimes in a spectacular fashion, almost always in a sordid one.
3. Drunk goes through painful drying-out process.
4. Drunk rejoins society a new and better, if rather shaky, person.
   
5. End of story, except for those poor souls who lather, rinse & repeat; sometimes more than once.

I wonder what these new authors bring to the table that we haven't seen before. Not much, I expect. None of them seems to have done anything particularly remarkable other than become sober--a grueling feat, but certainly not an unusual one. None of them has lived long enough to look back on their recovery through the perspective of aged wisdom; or even humility, as Sicha adroitly points out. These guys are only in their thirties. One of them says that he wrote his book because he has twins to put through college. Maybe he's off the sauce now, but he must be smoking something to think that he'll earn enough from this one book to pay for two kids' higher education (and you know he's thinking Ivy League, not Moo U), especially with three more like it coming out this season.

And another thing: Why are these recovery books all by men?

Way back when AA started, it was thought that women couldn't be alcoholics. We know better now. Are women on the crash-and-burn party circuit not writing tales of speedy redemption? I would hope they'd have the sense not to, but I suspect that for some reason (sexism?), more likely their stories are just not getting picked up for publication. Not that there's anything wrong with that: what goes on in those rooms should stay in those rooms, if only because it's so nauseatingly repetitious. I wish the boys felt the same way, or at least would wait till they had a complete 4th act--or even a 5th or 6th--to share with the world.

Quote for the Day

From THE RETURN OF THE PLAYER by Michael Tolkin (Grove Press):

What impelled life originally to hide the codes of life in flesh, and then divide that flesh into men and women, and then call them together for sex, and then drown them in car pools?

Being an Intellectual is Hard!

Marcel Proust would so get blasted on Miss Snark's Crapometer. She gave writers hell for opening their novels with back story and having nothing exciting happen in the first 500 words. I'm 60 pages into SWANN'S WAY, nothing has happened other than dinnertime conversation and the nameless narrator is still whingeing about getting a proper bedtime kiss from his overly beloved maman. I hope to dog there's going to be a plot soon, but I'm not holding my breath. There's something very meta-PoMo about my lying in bed every night, reading about some mamma's boy lying in bed every night.

My special challenges are to:

1. manage to read over and around Max, who takes my picking up a book as a signal to park his 13-pound self on my chest;
2. wade through Proust's endless, semi-colon and dash bespattered sentences without immediately falling asleep;
3. stay so interested in the book that I won't forsake it for others.

And guess what? I've failed miserably at #2 and #3. In fact, so miserably that I was easily sidetracked by two newcomers that were given me, respectively, by their agent and publicist: RUMBLE ON THE BAYOU by Jana DeLeon, a (gasp!) mass market original; and THE RETURN OF THE PLAYER by Michael Tolkin.

Guess what else? I gobbled up RUMBLE in a day and a half and am now roaring through RETURN. Neither one has put me to sleep, even with Max's soporific purring on my chest. In fact, each has kept me awake--most happily, I might add.

So, to those who prefer to savor every soggy morsel of their tea-soaked madeleines, I wish you bonne chance. For now, I'm sticking to Cheez Doodles and California rolls.

P.S. Watched "Match Point" the other night, which I loved, but was struck by how similar it is to "The Player" (the movie anyway; I haven't read the book). So similar, in fact, that I guessed what the ending would be. I hate when that happens--and it didn't with RUMBLE ON THE BAYOU.

Monday Philosophy Club

Sometimes there's a payoff to doing nothing. In April I bought a packet of morning glory seeds, but never got to plant them because of my smash-up. All summer I lamented my barren, sun-blasted backyard, where much of the grass died from not being watered. Back in VA, our grass died from too much shade. I don't think I have an aptitude for turf.

Darling Husband has been too busy to attend to the back 40 (feet, not acres). Surprisingly, it's lush and green now--though with weeds and rampant ailanthus, which latter we had cut to the ground in spring. Where there was lawn, now are coarse, tallish plants topped with graceless seedheads. I was all for having them whacked till the other day I saw sparrows and finches perched on them, nibbling the seeds. Best of all, there are morning glories everywhere. Bright pink ones.

Just call me Chance the gardener.*

*I just moved "Being There" up my Netflix queue; loved the book too.

The Road to Hell

Yesterday GalleyCat mentioned that MAKING COMICS author Scott McCloud is "taking his wife and two daughters along on a promotional junket that, spread out over the course of twelve months, will hit all fifty states and the United Kingdom to boot."

I love Darling Husband and the Boy Wonder to distraction, but I couldn't bear 12 days in a car with them; forget about 12 months. The feeling is mutual, they assured me. (DH noted that I wouldn't want to spend an entire year traveling, period. He may be right, but that's beside the point.) After just a few days of 24/7 family coziness at the beach, I'm craving some time alone.

I sent the McCloud info to an author friend who's a loving partner and devoted dad. He immediately shot back:

A YEAR-LONG driving book tour with wife & 2 daughters? Oh, dear God! Was he hoping to gather material for a true-crime book?

My sentiments exactly.

Similarly, the thought of home schooling gives me the heebie jeebies. I have friends who do it, one of them with four kids. I don't understand how they not only can bear it, but even enjoy it. Me, I'd be like the friend who was stuck home with the kids while her husband travelled on business for weeks on end. She mentally composed a newspaper headline: "Mother of 3 kills children, self." (She and husband are now retired and the kids all lived into adulthood.)

Lost in the Stars

"September Song" always comes to my mind at this time of year. But with the anniversary of the WTC and Pentagon attacks two days ago and that of my beloved aunt's death today, along with all the carnage in the Middle East, Sudan and elsewhere, the above-captioned song resonates more with me.

I first heard it a few years ago on a "Saturday Night Live" show compilation, in an achingly beautiful performance by Madeline Kahn from 1976. Elvis Costello did a serviceable, though far less poignant, rendition in the documentary "September Songs: The Music of Kurt Weill" that played on PBS some 10 years ago. I tore the house apart last night looking for the VHS tape I'd made off the air, but it's nowhere to be found. The soundtrack is now on CD (the Boy Wonder downloaded it from a secret location) and features performers ranging from Teresa Stratas to the Persuasions to Lou Reed--normally a favorite of mine, but he massacres Weill's haunting melody for "September Song" in an overlong solo.

Lost in the Stars
lyrics by Maxwell Anderson & Alan Paton
music by Kurt Weill

Before Lord God made the sea and the land
He held all the stars in the palm of his hand
And they ran through his fingers like grains of sand
And one little star fell alone

Then the Lord God hunted through the wild night air
For the little dark star in the wind down there
And he stated and promised he'd take special care
So it wouldn't get lost again

Now, man don't mind if the stars grow dim
And the clouds blow over and darken him
So long as the Lord God's watching over him
Keeping track how it all goes on

But I've been walking through the night and the day
Till my eyes get weary and my hair turns grey
And sometimes it seems maybe God's gone away
Forgetting the promise that we heard him say

And we're lost out here in the stars
Little stars, big stars
Blowing through the night

And we're lost out here in the stars
Little stars, big stars
Blowing through the night

And we're lost out here in the stars

Landmark Memories

My first and last glimpses of the World Trade Center towers were on television. While they were being built, we cursed them because they interfered with our reception. All through high school, I could see their uneven shadows growing up the TV screen in my parents' Westchester living room.

I always thought the towers ugly--two Saltine boxes grotesquely out of scale and style with the Gothic spires of lower Manhattan. But they were a landmark, twin beacons that slowly flashed on and off, on and off, all night. Standing on the fire escape of my tenement apartment in Little Italy, where I lived from 1978 to 1988, the towers were 45 degrees to the left; the Empire State 90 degrees right. They were the only compass I needed. One or the other--sometimes both--was usually visible during my frequent nighttime outings.

I worked in the towers several times as an office temp. The elevators went so high and so fast I had to keep yawning to make my ears pop. Once I took my stepbrother to the observation area. He was a daredevil skier and surfer, but so afraid of heights that he stayed a good two feet back from the windows. And once, I and the man I thought I'd love forever had drinks at Windows on the World while Manhattan twinkled below us in the velvet dark.

I started writing about my experiences on that bright and awful day five years ago, the last time I saw the towers standing in real time on TV. But I can't continue. The emotions are still too raw; the words to express them seem trite and banal.

Many people have made the pilgrimage to Ground Zero. I can't, though I've often stayed with a friend who lives just blocks away. She heard the first and saw the second plane crash. An air purifier runs constantly in her loft, filtering out toxins released in the wreckage. Nevertheless, she has developed a chronic cough.

I used to feel so free in New York. Twenty years ago, you could go everywhere, walk through the lobby of any office building. And there were plenty of lobbies worth seeing--elevator doors too--as I discovered during my temping days.

I took my son to the city two years ago, just before the Republican convention. We went down to Wall Street. I wanted to show him the fabulous Art Deco lobby of the Irving Trust building. No dice; only open to employees with ID badges. I thought it would be cool for him to see the Stock Exchange, where 25+ years ago I'd watched the frenzy on the trading floor in incredulous fascination. (And that had been a slow day, a trader told me.) There was a labyrinth of police barricades on the street in front of the Exchange, which was also open only to employees; the visitors' gallery had been closed for years. I stood there in the bright August sunshine, fighting back tears, my son watching me in befuddlement, a policeman with mild disdain. (I could almost hear him thinking, "Frickin' hayseed! Everyone knows you can't visit the Stock Exchange.")

I was crying for what we had lost on that day in 2001: our precious freedom, never to be regained.

My Life & Times

In case you can't get enough of me me me (and honestly, who can?), check out my interview at Bloggasm, in which I divulge my shocking lack of Proper Education* and the sordid origins of my writing career.

*though not my self-improvement course via Nabokov's Lectures on Literature

Homework Is a Bitch (and so am I)

There's a tang of fall in the air, school's back in session and...what's this? Teachers are assigning books to read and reports to write about them. What to do?

Ooh, I know! Google the book's title, and when your first click leads you to a book reviewer's web site, send said reviewer an email asking her to do your homework for you.

Only guess what? Some reviewers (e.g., yours truly) not only send a scathing reply but post the email exchange on a Blackboard of Shame. Read it and snigger...or cringe.

Must-See TV

Peter Finch as Howard Beale, the first known
man who was killed because of lousy ratings.

Two nights ago, Darling Husband, the Boy Wonder and I watched "Network." I hadn't seen it in at least 20 years, ditto DH; BW never. And you know what? It still holds up. In fact, it may be even more timely now than when it was first released 30 years ago. The main theme is eerily prescient: an upstart network's entertainment division takes over the money-losing news division, and an ambitious, amoral exec (Faye Dunaway) starts producing cheap, sensationalistic reality shows.

BW declared it one of the best films he's ever seen. I'm with him: "Network" really says something, thanks to the incomparable Paddy Chayefsky's screenplay. Yeah, it veers into preachiness towards the end, but so what.

Dunaway looks as though she stepped put of the pages of a current fashion magazine: stick-thin with shoulder-length hair, dressed in gorgeously draped silk blouses and pencil-slim skirts (though Today's Woman would wear a bra--or at least a camisole). The two male leads, Peter Finch and William Holden, look timeless too. The film only shows its age with the cars, shlumpy hairstyles and clothes of the secondary characters, and of course the quaint sounds of real telephone bells and clickety-clacking typewriters and teletypes.

The film is most famous for crackpot newscaster Howard Beale (Finch) raving, "I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore." (BW liked the line so much that he's using it in a project for his American Lit class.) But the most killingly funny scenes, which I'd entirely forgotten, were the ones in which a radical black communist--obviously modeled on Angela Davis--gets into a spit-flying rage over subsidiary rights and profit points with Dunaway and the dorky network suits. Money, as always, is the great corrupter.

In another prescient scene, Ned Beatty as the CEO of a shadowy conglomerate gives a tour-de-force speech on how in the future there will be no more USA or Germany or Japan, just companies like IBM and Exxon, which are going to fulfill all our needs and make everyone happy. We just have to give in and go along with them. BRRR!

Mustn't-See TV, or The Year of Living Dangerously

As the bombs began falling on Baghdad in March 2003, I moderated a discussion with novelist Lee Smith and columnist Hal Crowther, her husband, at the Virginia Festival of the Book. Someone in the SRO crowd asked Crowther about his writing process. He answered, "I read the morning papers, and when I get mad enough I start writing." That got a big laugh, though I thought he was rather quaint--and maybe a bit immature.

Then I read this morning's paper and completely identified with Crowther. What set me off was this headline in the "Play" section of The Denver Post:

No comfort in "Last Days"
Scientists paint seven real-life doomsday scenarios showing how humankind may perish, in a terrifying special edition of "20/20."

TV critic Joanne Ostrow gets right to the heart of the matter in her opener:

You say you're sleeping well, experiencing a sense of security, feeling confident about the future?

Elizabeth Vargas will fix that.

And a few grafs later:

"Last Days on Earth," at 8 p.m. Wednesday on KMGH-Channel 7, is calculated to scare the pants off viewers. And it's not even the November sweeps!

Wow! Just what I needed! Something else to make me feel anxious, helpless and depressed.

Exactly one year ago, we were bombarded by non-stop media reports of the devastation and misery caused by Hurricane Katrina. As I noted then, perhaps the second-worse thing to being trapped with the miserable hordes in the Super Dome was watching them on TV in the E.R. waiting room with one's mysteriously sick child. (Food allergy was the spot diagnosis, but it turned out to be a hiatal hernia.) For weeks, the horrific news from the Gulf Coast was accompanied by oppressive humidity, low air pressure that immobilized me with crushing neuralgia (I suffer from "weather head") and torrential rains. That's when I made up my mind that it was time to quit Charlottesville, VA, for high and dry Denver.

We moved to Denver in December, thanks to Darling Husband's employer, which is headquartered nearby. No hurricanes here, though I got a bit of a chill when I saw the "Tornado Shelter" signs posted by the rest rooms at Denver International Airport (which to all intents and purposes is in Kansas).

Since moving into Our Gracious Home:

1. In mid-January, the dog had surgery to remove 2 (!) cracked and abscessed molars only 6 weeks after her old vet gave her a clean bill of health.
2. I came down with pneumonia over Super Bowl weekend.
3. In early March, I got a wicked case of shingles.
4. At the same time as #3, the dog was diagnosed with kidney failure that would kill her within 2 years. (Apparently a misdiagnosis, as she is fine and frisky with no medication.)
5. In mid-March I fell and broke my nose.
6. In late March I got a wicked sinus infection.
7. On April 12, I came down with food poisoning minutes before the start of our Passover seder.
8. During all of the above, we had to replace the entire heating system, much of the plumbing and all but one of the nearly 30 windows in our charming new (ca. 1902) house--all under the close supervision of yours truly.
9. The Boy Wonder missed 38 days of school due to allergies (which were supposed to disappear once away from moldy VA) and various illnesses.
   
10. In the wee hours of May 1, my mom in Maine went into the hospital with a knee injury.
11. That afternoon, I landed in hospital for a week with multiple trauma from what should have been a short and pokey horseback-riding lesson: concussion, bruised liver; broken right arm, ribs & facial bones; banged-up mouth.
12. In early June, I had 3 root canals on my top front teeth, and may yet need one on the bottom.
    
13. Two weeks ago today, I had a 6-inch steel plate permanently screwed to my humerus.
14. In two days, I'm getted knocked out at the dentist to: a) determine why my front teeth still hurt like crazy; b) put permanent fillings in the root canals; c) make bite plates to put my molars back where they belong so I can chew grown-up food again.
    

Meanwhile, my arm has turned sunset colors and the pain wakes me at night, even with Demerol; I can barely use my once-dominant right hand and I get shooting pains in my more-or-less numb, yet hypersensitive, fingers; I get intense burning and itching on my forehead, including numb areas; my upper lip is still so sore that I can just tolerate giving Darling Husband the briefest buss directly on the mouth (whiskers are excruciating).

Now that the case against the "extremely weird John Mark Karr is toast," as Denver Post columnist Diane Carman so succinctly put it today, the media is "back to all that important stuff [it] was criticized for ignoring....War, politics, natural disasters, social issues, the economy."

Enjoy, everyone! As for me, I plan on curling up with classic novels and Netflix. I'm sure you'll understand.

Food for Plot

If you're looking to be the next Jodi Picoult or Thomas Harris, but stymied for plot hooks, try trolling the web searches recently released by AOL. Here are some, courtesy of Something Awful, once again brought to my attention by the Boy Wonder.

For a "woman's" novel:
can not sleep with snoring husband
online friendships can be very special
online friendships
how many online romances lead to sex
how many online romances lead to sex in person
how do i get to the omni hotel in san antonio off i 10 coming from houston
omni hotel san antonio tx
how to make a good first impression
how to make a good first impression on a man
how to drive a man crazy with desire for you
nervous about meeting online trend
god does not want you to worry because he will help you
don't cut your hair before a big event
how can a woman charm a man and make him laugh
keeping busy can help your nerves
how can i learn how to relax
staying calm while meeting an online friend
should you plan sex before meeting a cyber lover
hotels in san antonio tx near the omni
husband does not think it is good idea for me to meet my online friends
my family does not want me to meet my online friend in person
how can i tell if my spouse put spyware on my computer
i gve my heart to another man
married but in love with another
i met my cyber lover and the sex was not good
why would a guy act weird towards a woman after they had sex
guy online used me for sex
how can you tell if he used you for sex
did not like cyber friend when we met in person
online friend is horrible in person
can someone get hepatitis from sexual contact
sexually transmitted diseases
how can you get aids
how can you contract aids
symptoms of herpes of the mouth
can herpes of the mouth be transmitted to genitals
had an affair with a man and he thinks i need him now
how do you break off an affair
the guy i had an affair with won't leave me alone
post traumatic stress disorder
i thought i could handle an affair but i couldn't
affairs cause so much trouble
you will get nothing out of having an affair
how do you get a mentally ill parent to get medical help
how to get your parent help for depression

For a heartbreaking woman's novel or Grammy-winning C&W song:
signs of miscarriage
bleeding during pregnancy
bishop skylstad
catholic diocese of spokane
catholic diocese of idaho
miscarriage
preconception advice
pregnancy symptoms during miscarriage
planning pregnancy
pregnancy complications and mother's intuition
pregnancy danger signs
pregnancy with twins
toddler sleeping problems
stress
relationship trouble
marriage horoscope
signs of an unhealthy relationship
hysterectomy
divorce
pre conception
preconception checklist
signs divorce is on its way
how to avoid divorce
chat rooms for lonely married people
chat
dad and miscarriage
how to know your marriage is over
chuck e. cheese

For a scary thriller and/or true-crime story (shudder):
tara makowski
unsolved murder of tara makowski
tara makowski found dead in car
tara makowski found dead in car in san jose
young woman named tara found dead in car in san jose
unsolved mysteries
unsolved mysteries tara makowski
unsolved mysteries tara
cold cases in san jose california
san jose police departments cold cases
edward beaton questioned about the murder
san jose police edward beaton
edward beaton of campbell
psychological test given to prisoners
test to see if you are a serial killer

For another sequel to Silence of the Lambs:
feasting on thighs of young girls
steaks for thighs of young girls
barbequed girl meat
girls fattened for butchering
cannibals feasting on buttocks of young girls
spit roasted and eaten girls
girls strangled and eaten
cooked tender flesh of girls
girls cut up into steaks

N.B. I hope with all my heart that the last two searches were for research purposes only, but I have serious dubts.

Book Reviews for Fun and Profit!

Kudos to HarperCollins for having an online publicity department. At least they have their ears to the ground...er...eyes on the Web and are looking to expand coverage of their books beyond the usual literary suspects. In fact, they go so far beyond that they trolled Something Awful, the Boy Wonder's favorite cyber-hangout, to find someone to review Remember Me: A Lively Tour of the New American Way of Death by Lisa Takeuchi Cullen.

HC indeed found a reviewer in Hassan "Acetone" Mikal, but I wonder whether they didn't think that maybe--just maybe--a smartass like him (and they're all smartasses on Something Awful, especially my own not-so-little darling) would write a smartass review. Which of course he did. Mikal's review of a Free Book I Got may not be quite what HC was looking for, but it had me weak with laughter.

There has been much talk of late on GalleyCat and elsewhere as to the importance of author photographs, and whether they attract readers. Mikal definitively settles this dispute, writing of Cullen:

She is pretty cute based on her picture on the inside cover though. This woman has no business putting words on paper. She should be in a classy lingerie catalogue. I'm talking Sears catalogue for sure, maybe Nordstom.

Mikal also discloses the secret that every reviewer--including myself, of course--guards jealously:

The key to writing a good review isn't in the criticism, it's getting a quote on the back of the book. Don't be satisfied with getting your quote on the inside sleeve or in the introductory pages. You want it on the back cover right up top or else it means nothing. This is why you must strive to get review copies as early as possible and review them as quickly as you can. Skip a few chapters if you must. The most important thing is getting the review done.

He offers these helpful examples:

RIGHT: Cullen's seminal work is both a pleasure and a delight to read and will inspire readers for decades to come.

A publisher will probably put this on the back of their book. Even years after the book is released the quote will still be relevant. Your quote doesn't even have to have anything to do with the book. It just has to sound fancy. In fact I expect Harper Collins to plaster this all over the next edition of whatever book I'm supposed to be reviewing here.

WRONG: Stacy is a sloppy cunt ass ho who will sleep with every guy but me. What a bitch. I want my shirts back Stacy.

When writing reviews it is important to leave the drama with your mama! That's what The Daily Dirt is for. While Stacy may be a slut who will sleep with everyone but you it has no place on the back of a major book. Maybe a Random House book, but we're talking the big leagues here.

Update:
Acetone writes: "Tell everyone you know that they can get a positive review out of me as long as I can sell the book for money to support my various crippling addictions!"

My response: "Um, you might want to actually, you know, review the book rather than the author pic and blurbs--though I much enjoyed your piece over ones in the NYTBR or Wash Post."

Shabbat Shalom

What you don't want to see on a peaceful Friday evening:
Four policeman with drawn weapons converging on the house directly across the street. If ever I neeeded reminding that I'm not on my sleepy, leafy old street in Charlottesville, VA, anymore, this is certainly one of those times.

Update: The cops cuffed some people, then let them go. Then the cops left. After that, nada.

Well and Truly Screwed

My right humerus shortly before (l) & after (r) surgery. The vertical line with holes is a 6-inch steel plate; the horizontal bars are screws.

Rather belatedly, here's the overwhelming winner of Miss Snark's Get Humerus Poetry Contest, who I hope will step forward--along with all the other anonymous poets--so I can convey effusive personal thanks:

#62
A Confucian get-well sentiment:

I hear your arm hurts
nothing make bone happier
than a real good screw


Runner-up was #4, which provoked special hilarity because Darling Husband lost his pants years ago:

Sorry for your bone
At least it's not Alzhei--
Where have my pants gone?


My special favorites:
#41
Bored of counting the ceiling tile
She offered to help with the slush pile
Bella held up her bedpan
And asked Miss Snark in a deadpan
Would you like a new query file?


#44, by YA author & veterinarian Christine Fletcher

Gomez, was it a bee
That compelled
You to propel our Bella
Into a post

Or just cussedness

You’re a horse so
We trust you had no
Plan involving
Fences

Much less, consequences
For bones

And yet
A moment’s regret?
A tiny Sorry from
A tiny brain

And then
Oats.


#10, who gets a special Robert Frost Parody award

One bone diverged in a writer's arm
And, sorry it did not mend as well
As they had told her, doctors warm
On other ways to undo that harm
Which came upon her when she fell

They called the interns, young and fair
Though having perhaps a lesser claim
Because they had trouble rememb'ring where
The humerus was, and would declare
The trouble to be that she was lame

And so next morning nurses tried
And poked till she was blue and black
Oh! They never finished, so she'd hide
Her record chart, till one of them spied
It peeping out of her laundry sack

I now come to the part where she,
Sick of waiting ages since
The doctors had told her she'd be free,
Tried healing it through poetry
And that has made all the difference

A Mother's Heart Swells

The Boy Wonder started his senior year of high school today. I got up at 6 a.m. so I could send him off in style with a home-cooked breakfast and fresh cafe au lait. Though my right thumb and forefinger now bend more, they've lost strength since last week's operation, so he had to break the eggs and open the appallingly priced bag of Diedrich Coffee beans ($15.80 for 12 oz.; I'm sticking with tea!), but I was able to do the fixins' pretty much one-handed.

I worry plenty about BW, who's a bit...er...casual about his assignments. His motto: "I like school, I just hate schoolwork!" However, a couple weeks ago he engaged me in detailed conversation about the Warhol Factory (I knew some of the people peripherally way back when), and yesterday about Lou Reed while we listened to "Transformer" on BW's iPod. All on his own he's discovered the Velvet Underground, Iggy Pop, Television, Patti Smith and the Talking Heads. I wowed him by recognizing a song he played as being by Iggy Pop, and knowing the words to the Heads' "Born Under Punches" (though I confess I didn't know the title till just now). My sole motherly caution, based on too-personal experience: "Copy the music, not the behavior!"

I started BW with good home training. At 3, he was playing harmonica to Commander Cody's "Down to Seeds & Stems Again Blues" (a skill he has since lost, alas). Then I had some painful explaining to do when he wanted Aretha Franklin and Little Richard to come to his fourth birthday party. As he reasoned, their voices were constantly in our home and car; why couldn't they show up in person? However, I redeemed myself on his fifth birthday, when I took him to see Asleep at the Wheel and he got to meet leader Ray Benson just before he went onstage. After that, I had to put BW's name in glitter on his guitar strap, just like Ray. Around the same time, BW got to shake the late Freddy King's hand and ask James Cotton a burning question: "Who's older, you or Johnny Winter?" "I don't really know," was the disingenuous response. (Once out of earshot, I explained that Cotton was older, even though Winter's hair is white.) By age 8, I'd introduced BW to the Ramones with the hoot of a movie "Rock 'n' Roll High School," and he still loves them.

Though the Boy Wonder hadn't quite finished the required reading for his American Lit class last night, he started learning the chords and words to Patti Smith's "Gloria," which I remember excitedly spinning for friends nearly 30 years ago.

So I know I brought my kid up right after all.

P.S. See BW with canine companions on today's GalleyCat.

More Pained Laughs

Google Alert just notified me that I'm mentioned in a recent post on Dana's Tea House: In a Theater Not Near You, a collection of imaginary home videos by writer Dana Y. T. Lin, who is making creative use of her third bout of strep throat. I've often cast myself as a fairy-tale heroine, but never so hilarously. (And never mind that my enormous feet disqualify me as Cinderella.) My favorite is #7:

Finding Bella -– When a hospital orderly wheels a drugged up Bella into the wrong operating room, her dedicated doctor (played by George Clooney) cancels his date with Miss Snark to find her.

Two poems didn't make the deadline for Miss Snark's Humerus Contest:

1.
Apply balm to your arm for the cut
Although it's now shiny
It could've been your heinie
Now that's a pain in the butt.

2.
There was a reviewer named Bella-ire
who panned A Streetcar Named Desire
but nobody yelled Stella
when she was tossed by her fella--
Horse Gomez, now known as Horse Dire.

Only a Short Breather

Multi-tasking with Max

I got bored lying around reading and thinking (can't have too much of that, can we?), and a little while ago determined that it is indeed possible to use my laptop while flat on my back with my arm up on ice. That's just when Max decided that it was the perfect time to ensconce himself on my chest. Odd how such a time often occurs when I'm otherwise engaged.

What the World Needs Now

Apologies to Messsrs. Bacharach and David, but even more than love, sweet love, the world is in dire need of living, breathing copy editors. (Also, writers who are better-versed in grammar and vocabulary, but I won't go into that now.)

As illustration, consider the below exhibits. They're from Denver newspapers, but similar examples can be found all over the country.

From a column by Cindy Rodriguez in today's Denver Post:

Of course, one can't get to that point if they haven't gotten past Step 1.

From a column by Marty Meitus in yesterday's Rocky Mountain News (one of the very few news or opinion pieces that refreshingly didn't mention JonBenet Ramsey):

Meantime, the men would be outside, inventing things such as cars, so that way out in the [future] 21st century, one of their ancestors could call his mother...

GAH!!! How is our kids going to learn if they don't got good examples?

Full disclosure: I am a recovering copy editor and proofreader.

Taking a Break...I Mean a Breather

I was so excited to be back home with self-bending digits yesterday that I spent way too much time sitting up, much of it online. At the end of the day my arm was swollen and hot, and had turned all sorts of fun party colors. I had it up on a pillow overnight, but apparently not nearly high or straight enough, because this morning it was even more swollen and colorful.

So now I'm spending most of my time flat on my back, with the arm on ice at a good upward slant. This is not compatible with using a computer, though it is very compatible with having 13-lb Max nap on my chest--his favorite spot in cooler weather. People say you can't train cats, but he has learned not to walk on me via my right arm. I think my hollering and violently tossing him overboard may have had something to do with it. Now if I could just get Jenny dog not to nudge that arm when she wants me to pet her...

And so to bed.

The Devil's in the Details

First, let me establish that I currently have, and have always had, two arms firmly attached to the customary areas of my body. The upper right arm suffered a bit of damage, and three days ago Dr. M performed surgery to repair it. Before I was knocked out, he scrawled "THIS ARM" with indelible marker by my right shoulder. You want an orthopedist with an eye for important details. You want nurses like that too, but several times during my hospital stay I had to instruct them to put the blood pressure cuff on my uninjured LEFT arm, thank you very much.

This morning my osteopath had Dr. M's Operation Report faxed over. I glanced over it while stopped in traffic on the way home. (Darling Husband was at the wheel.) I was already feeling queasy from painkillers, and reading about how my own deltoid was peeled away from the fractured humerus and dissected didn't settle my stomach any.

But I burst out laughing when I got to this sentence: "The arm was able to be removed without difficulty." Inquiring minds want to know how it was reattached so quickly and seamlessly.

Fashion Reprieve

Over the past three months I've learned to do many things using just my left hand. To type, for example. However, there are several things I can't do. One of them is to clip the fingernails on my left hand; another is to tweeze my eyebrows. I have Darling Husband for clipper duty, but given the lingering pain around my broken facial bones, I'm not letting anyone near my face except my osteopath--and he makes sure I've had a couple Valium before he even attempts an acupuncture treatment there.

What to do? Fall is just around the corner, and with it comes the desire to be Fashion Forward--or at least not backward. Happily, yesterday The New York Times came to my rescue with a style piece, "Throw Your Tweezers Away." Seems that once again Fashion has caught up to me; or rather circled around and nipped me from behind. In other words, shaggy eyebrows à la 1978 Brooke Shields are back IN.

This is very convenient for me: All I have to do is keep doing nothing. Oh, and try not to shriek with laughter at the description of and ludicrous prices for the services of a "professional eyebrow groomer," including--are you ready?--eyebrow extensions. Here's another product of which I was blissfully ignorant and can't grasp the need for: clear mascara.

Last week, one of the Denver papers announced the return of 1980s "retro" fashions, and breathlessly forecast that women would be showing off their "well-toned thighs" in tight leggings topped by a tunic. Ha! Anyone who's been to a downmarket shopping center lately knows that style never faded away, and is particularly favored by the grossly overweight.

I suppose pretty soon we'll be seeing long, baggy jackets with enormous shoulder pads again too. Which reminds me: Circa 1985, I was at a party at the home of a friend's parents. The host introduced his cousin, a short, rotund, yet flat-chested woman attired in just such a jacket (in a loud print, if memory serves). Never one to mince words--or lower his voice--the host boomed, "If you ask me, those pads are in the wrong place!" We will draw a discreet veil over what ensued.

Are We Having Fun Yet?

I wonder what kind of hospital celebrities check into when they're suffering from exhaustion. Surely none I've ever been to. Between the pain from surgery, drug side effects, too-thin mattress, beeping machines (my roommate was wired to all sorts of noisy gizmos), healthcare personnel squelching in and out at all hours, announcements on the P.A. system, roommate's laborious and noisy passages to the john, and her #@%! cellphone with the top-volume "Hallelujah Chorus" ring tone, I hardly got any sleep for two nights. (I was originally slated for just one night--"drive-by surgery," a friend calls it).

Other than that, the hospital stay was fine. The surgery went well, though I ended up needing a 6-inch, rather than 4-inch, plate screwed to my humerus. The incision goes from near the shoulder almost to the elbow on the inside of my arm. I'll have to show the scar when I go through airport metal detectors, as it's easy to fake a doctor's note. ("Wear short sleeves," advised the orthopod.) My arm hurts like bloody hell, but I already can bend my thumb and forefinger more; the hospital staff were kind and helpful; and most amazingly, the salmon I ordered for dinner last night was moist and tender--not the crusty brick I'd feared.

Boy Wonder had to read The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time over the summer (i.e., just before school begins next week). He loved it, so I brought it with me and read it cover to cover yesterday. I loved it too.

Best of all were the buoyant send-off and return greetings I got from the astonishing number of entries (84!!!) to Miss Snark's Bella Stander Humerus Poetry Contest (posted 15-17 Aug). Here's proof positive that the blogosphere is a community--and a generous, supportive one at that. Thanks again to one and all, especially to those who defended my and Miss Snark's honor against the Nitwit of the Day. I had no idea what an e-ruckus would be stirred up!

A Dose of Humer...er...Humor

For three long months, my broken right arm was making steady, if slow, progress. I could move it more, lift heavier objects and--finally!--type with both hands, even though the thumb and first two fingers were dysfunctional. Then a couple of weeks ago things started going rapidly downhill. Now the arm clunks constantly, I can barely move it without pain and I'm back to almost exclusive use of my (non-dominant) left hand.

An Xray last month showed a bone splinter jutting out of the upper humerus--right where the arm hurt most, as I tartly informed my orthopedist. I had a CT scan a week ago, and one image showed the bone shaft looking like this: S
instead of this: O.

So in less than one hour I go to the hospital, where the orthopod will screw a 4" stainless steel plate to the bone. (I was assured that I'd get a special note so I could go through airport metal detectors-- my first worry.) I sent emails so informing my various correspondents. To my enormous surprise, the marvelous Miss Snark, the Literary Agent responded by running a "First (and last!) Bella Stander Get Humerus Poetry Contest."

Good thing my broken ribs and split lips have healed, else reading the entries would be excruciating. As it is, I laughed so hard my face ached. I can tell that some of the poems were written by personal acquaintances ("richly textured" in #5 is my pet-peeve phrase). Beverage Alert for #26, which had me weak with laughter, and a special nod to #10 for the brilliant Robert Frost take-off.

Laughter is indeed the best medicine. Thank you, one and all!

Party Like It's 1929

Can't get to the Riviera for a while? Enjoy reading about riotous drunks--natural and supernatural, tragically and comically violent? Here's the perfect pair of books to read in this exact order:

1. Tender Is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald
2. Topper Takes a Trip by Thorne Smith

Fitzgerald explores Great Themes, though not as neatly as in The Great Gatsby. The book is a bit depressing too, but paints a vivid picture of American expats and Europe in the 1920s. The Yanks were like puppies, blithely frisking through the war-blasted landscape while the battered survivors stoically cleaned up after them--and sometimes battered them back.

Thorne Smith inhabits much of the same Riviera terrain (I wonder if they hung out together; and if so, who drank more?), but his book is sparkling with irrepressible joie de vivre and flowing spirits, vinous and spectral. He has a marvelous knack for rendering French verbatim into hilarious English, and you can practically taste the sunlit Meditterranean air.

Too Much Information!

I've been looking at a lot of author websites and bios in the line of work lately, and have been amazed at what I've been learning. To wit: Authors' ages, education history, work history, family make-up, family members' names--spouse, kids, parents, in-laws(!)--pets' breeds & names.

No one needs to know that stuff except family historians and stalkers. The former can get it from you personally. Don't help the latter.

Unless you've written a book on childcare, adoption or parenting, we don't need to know about your kids. Nor should we see their pictures on your website if they're school age or younger. If they're teenage or older, get their permission first.

Similarly, if you haven't written a book about animals, we don't need to know much--if anything--about the pets in your life.

Unless your significant other is your cowriter/illustrator or famous, we don't need to know his/her name either.

The only reason to indicate your age is if you're a Wunderkind like Christopher Paolini or a venerable ancient like Studs Terkel.

It's OK to mention your family (briefly and preferably not by name unless you've written a memoir) on the bio page of your website. Other than that, focus on yourself and your work. Rule of thumb: If you wouldn't put it on a job application, don't put it in your bio.

Good bio:
Joe Shmoe lives in Sullivan County, N.Y., where he spends his non-writing time chest-deep in cold water, hoping to catch a record trout.

Bad bio:
Jane Shmoe lives in Alexandria, Va., with her Chinese engineer husband Phil, 5-year-old twins Amethyst and Tourmaline, and Kerry Blue terrier Seamus.

By happenstance, a few days ago Agent Kristin blogged about TMI (Too Much Information) in authors' query letters. Read and wonder!

Mystery of the Day

I've been steadily going through my bookshelves, reading many books I've been promising myself I'd get around to "some day." The latest was Elinor Lipman's THE DEARLY DEPARTED. Maybe it was the Art Deco-inspired jacket, but after I finished the Lipman I suddenly had a yen to read something by Thorne Smith. I have three long out-of-print volumes by him; apart from an I. D. bracelet and a tietack, they're all the possessions of my father's that my mother retained after they divorced.

One of the Thorne Smith books had a piece of folded paper sticking out of it. I pulled it out and flattened it. To my immense surprise, it was a sheet of notepaper printed with the name and Fifth Avenue address of Mrs. Laurance Rockefeller.*

For the life me, I can't figure out how that notepaper got there. The only Rockefellers I ever knew were poor relations (maybe) who attended my public high school.

I started reading THE GLORIOUS POOL in the THORNE SMITH 3 BAGGER (Doubleday Doran, 1943), which I'd last read at age 13, lured by the line drawings of topless women in scanties. (In my youthful enthusiasm, I'd thought that signified there'd be hot passages. There weren't; all the sex was totally cloaked in allusion.) It has a good premise--magical pool restores an aging man and his over-the-hill mistress to their glorious, dissolute youth--and some good descriptions, but waaaaay too much "clever" repartee impeding the action. And oh, all the cocktails! You can tell this was written during Prohibition, and that Thorne Smith was a major lush. (According to Wikipedia: "Smith drank as steadily as his characters; his appearance in James Thurber's The Years With Ross involves an unexplained week-long disappearance.")

I gave up around Chapter 3, and made it through maybe three grafs of the next novel in the collection, SKIN AND BONES. But then I hit TOPPER and stayed. Is there any better description of the stultefying suburban commuter life than this? (Note reference to child labor.)

On Monday morning, after exchanging pennies with a small Italian child for a stillborn edition of a New York paper, he greeted his friends with his habitual placidity. No, he had not heard the new one about Bill's furnace. He was sorry that Mrs. Thompson was having servant trouble. Too bad. Was that so? Jennings had made a killing again. Great stuff. Surely, he'd bring the Missus over first thing. Wednesday evenng? Good! Good! His tulips? Doing splendidly! A whole bed of them--all blooming. No, not brewing, just smousing about. Is that so! How about your own cellar? None of that stuff, Jack! The whole town knows about you. The farmer's daughter and the tramp? Sure, he'd like to hear about it. Wait till they got aboard.

And off went Topper with his boon companions, all of whom he decided were perfect strangers to him.

Another mystery:
What do Topper and Kramer of "Seinfeld" have in common?
(See answer in comments section.)

*Motto: "My husband is so rich, he doesn't have to spell his first name right."

Recovered Memory...and Camera

Fun at the Denver Zoo, April 2006

Several people have asked me how long it takes to get over a concussion. I often wondered myself. Now I know: about 3 months.

I know this because our digital camera had been missing since my Great Fall on May 1. Eventually I pinned its disappearance on Darling Husband, who I remembered had commandeered it a week earlier, when his daughter was visiting. But a month ago, the Boy Wonder recalled that I had used it last to take pictures of a hailstorm that had come at the frigid end of our day at the zoo, which had started off sunny and in the 80s. I barely remembered taking those pictures, and didn't have the foggiest idea of where the camera could be. I tore the house apart, searching every nook, cranny, drawer, bag and pile. Nothing. Maybe I'd left the camera in the car and the cleaners took it at the carwash? Or maybe someone who came to the house had nicked it? (An ugly thought, as I'd supposed all our visitors and contractors to be scrupulously honest.)

And then I woke up this morning, and while I was lying in bed suddenly rembembered takng photos of the hail. Hmm, I thought. What would I have done with the camera? Why, hang it on the coatrack in the foyer--under my coat so no one would walk off with it, of course. I marched downstairs, lifted my coat off the first hook and...Voila!

Moral: Don't leave winter coats hanging in the foyer all year.

The hail pix were a bust, but here are Darling Husband, me and Jenny
at the Buffalo Bill Museum & Gravesite the day before.

Virtual Getaway

It's been hot and mostly arid here in Denver, with temperatures in the 90s forecast for the next few days (though I've learned not to trust the weather predictions here). Except for day trips with Darling Husband, I'm stuck here for the rest of the summer while I wait--often impatiently--for my body to heal.

So here's a refreshing photo I took in Lancashire, UK, last year, just after going with author Mary Sharratt on what may turn out to have been the last trail ride of my life. (That is, if DH has anything to say about it. We have radically different views of my equestrian future.) Pendle Hill, of Quaker fame, is off in the misty background.

Rumors of the Book Tour's Demise Are Greatly Exaggerated

"I think we can all agree that the traditional bookstore author tour is dead," says Jessa Crispin in The Book Standard. Well, I don't, especially since the only bookstores Crispin considers are suburban Borders and Barnes & Noble. There are still many independent bookstores and other chains across the country, and--surprise!--many are located in non-suburban areas.

True, as Crispin laments, echoing author David Milofsky in his Pity the poor author at those painful book readings in the Denver Post, all too often at readings there are

no audiences, no publicity, sometimes the only person you’re reading to is either your mother or a homeless person who came in out of the rain.

But it's time to stop laying all the blame on the bookstores, and for authors to take some responsibility for themselves. Authors should go to places where they know they'll have an audience: through personal connections (family, friends, alma mater), a receptive community (say, Milwaukee for a book on beer), business/professional connections (e.g., Seattle for a history of Boeing). And those local connections must be PRIMED via email and postcard mailings for each stop along the way. Which is why authors must build up their mailing lists.

Of course, reading at a bookstore that does lots of publicity and advertising helps. On July 6, I went to the first author event at Tattered Cover's new flagship store. Francine du Plessix Gray read from her memoir Them (which I have most happily read now that my right arm is stronger). There were some 25 people in the audience--for a paperback reissue! in July! in Denver!--of which at least 10 bought books and had them signed.

Katharine Weber had an audience of 80 at Politics & Prose in D.C. last night for her marvelous new novel, Triangle. I wasn't there, but I know from having had her on panels at the VaBook Festival, that like du Plessix Gray she gave a well-organized, polished, easily audible presentation.

Crispin extols non-bookstore reading series, especially ones with alcohol (tipsy people buy more books), as the wave of the future. It's certainly a wave, but not the only one on the beach, and it's not going to wipe out well-run bookstore events any time soon. Besides, there's no guarantee that the authors at a reading series will be any better performers than the ones at your local Borders.

I've sat through deadly readings by the nominees the night before presentation of the National Book Critics Circle Awards. You'd think all those authors would be brief, audible and well-rehearsed, but NOOOOO. One year, the first reader (who shall remain nameless) went on...and on...and on!... for twenty-five minutes. I was itching to run up with a hook--or at least an umbrella with a curved handle--and yank him off the stage. If the other readings had been that long, we would have been there for 7 hours. As it is, they got shorter and shorter (a good reason why one should have a set of different-length readings prepared). Nominee #14 brought the house down when he prefaced his 3-minute reading with the proclamation, "I am the last man standing...[dramatic pause]...between you and a DRINK!"

"Reality" Indeed...

Quick! What's wrong with this headline?

'Next Top Model' Writers Threaten Strike

They say producers of the reality show, which is a key part of the new CW network lineup, have ignored their request to join a union.
By Richard Verrier, LA Times Times Staff Writer, July 21, 2006

"America's Next Top Model" is getting ugly. Writers of the hit reality show walked off the job for an hour Thursday and threatened to strike today, alleging that the show's producers had snubbed their request to join the Writers Guild of America, West.

A Real Politician: The Kinkster

Back when I was a dissolute art student, one of my favorite bands was Kinky Friedman & His Texas Jewboys. Kinky penned such ditties as "Homo Erectus," which begins:

I left Barber College
Searchin' for knowledge,
Went to the university.
I must confess, Sir
This lady professor
She turned me on to anthropology.
Now I'm a Homo Erectus
Got to connect this
Bone that I discovered yesterday.
Tyrannosaurus
Lived in the forest,
Died because its heart got in the way.
Dear Doctor Howard
Come down from your tower
And join me for lunch at the Y.
Although you're thirty
I still think you're purty
Let's give it that good ole college try.

Many years and one divorce later, I knew I'd found my soul mate in Darling Husband, who loves Kinky's music and devours his comic mysteries. What greater demonstration of love can there be than DH letting me goad him into playing "They Ain't Making Jews Like Jesus Anymore" on his Christmas morning radio show--in goyische central Virginia, no less? (It was 6am, but still!)

Even though DH doesn't give a hoot about Texas politics, the lone bumper sticker on his car reads "Kinky Friedman for Governor." There's a great feature on him by Peter Carlson in yesterday's Washington Post, "But Seriously, Folks." You gotta love a politician who calls Democrats and Republicans "the Crips and the Bloods," and who:

complains about people who complain that his speeches are full of one-liners: "All politicians speak in one-liners and sound bites. They're just not as funny as mine."

He quotes Mark Twain. He quotes Oscar Wilde. He quotes a pig farmer he met while campaigning: "You ain't worth a damn," the farmer told Kinky, "but you're better than what we got."

I sure hope he wins!

See Bookslut Dec. 'o5 interview with Kinky.

A Dog of a Gift Book

If Jenny (Max the Cat's housemate) could talk, she'd say, "I'm a Gemini...I think." Way back when, the SPCA gave her age as "14 weeks" and I did the math. So Flag Day was made her official birthday.

Yesterday's mail brought a press release and sample photocopied pages of DOG STARS: Astrology for Dog Lovers, by Teen Vogue astrologer Sherene Schostak and dog portrait photographer Wendy Lam, coming in November from Viking Studio. Jenny's and my reaction: "Oy! Owwoooo!"

According to the release, "This book tackles the big questions such as:

• What does your dog look for in an owner?
• Why are some dogs more affectionate than others?
• How can you tell what sign your dog is?
• If your dog could talk, what would he/she want to tell you?"

Here are my very own big answers:

• Someone who will treat it kindly and give it food, water, shelter and plenty of walks.
• Depends on its breed (or breed mix) and how it's been treated and socialized.
• Duh, figure out when it was born. But in my experience, breed trumps astrological sign. A German shorthair pointer will always be zippier than a Bassett hound, no matter what their birthdates.
• "Put down that book and pet me, walk me, feed me."

Preesentation Coutns!
Verbatim quotes from sample page 22:

It is jdog's breed to see what sign he/she is.

Use this chart to figure oout what sign your pooch is by birht day or typical breed*

*Gemini's only entry is "Mutt," which Jenny finds offensive, as she has always referred to herself as a "Designer Blend" (Australian shepherd-Golden retriever, to be exact). There are many purebred dogs born May 22-June 21 who will be equally offended; and zillions of mixed-breeds born at other times of year who will be very surprised (e.g., all the dogs I've ever had).

Special note to Miss Snark and her legions of fans: No poodles!

The Truth Will Always Come Out

I've tried to hide my shameful secret since my dad's death in 1994, but alas today I received an email with this subject header [sic spelling]:

You inherited a small dick from you father and think there is no way to help it.

But fortunately there is hope, as per the body of the message:

We promise th@t after trying Penis Enlarge Patch you dick won’t look like overly boiled sausage.

Guess I'd better get that little thing out of the safe deposit box and see what the patch can do for it. Though I don't find the notion of boiled body parts--even underdone ones--at all erotic. I wonder if I should let my new pen pal know that 1) I'm female, and 2) I prefer my sausage grilled?

Just When You Couldn't Stand Any More Good Writing

Yessss! The winners of the annual Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest for hilariously bad writing have been announced.

My favorites:
Sex with Rachel after she turned fifty was like driving the last-place team on the last day of the Iditarod Dog Sled Race, the point no longer the ride but the finish, the difficulty not the speed but keeping all the parts moving in the right direction, not to mention all that irritating barking.
--Dan Winters (Runner-up: Romance), Los Altos Hills, CA

Scarcely three months after he had promised Purity that he would stand by her no matter what, and a bare two hours after he had witnessed the unorthodox birth of her pointy-eared alien child, George somewhat dazedly approached the information desk at the public library and sent the matronly attendant into paroxysms of mirth by asking for a baby care book by Mr. Spock.
--Lionel Monash Hurst (Dishonorable Mention: Science Fiction)

His mistake, Shut-eye McBlamaway reflected, was not in standing up to a gang of desperadoes and rustlers on the high country, but in standing up to a gang of desperadoes and rustlers who had just left the set of a Sergio Leone shoot, and were thus equipped with those guns that never run out of ammunition.
--Samuel Goldstein (Winner: Western), Los Angeles, CA

When she sashayed across the room, her breasts swayed like two house trailers passing on a windy bridge.
--Stan Higley (Special Salute to Breasts Category), Fairport, NY

Getting the performance rating of highly successful, although clearly nothing to be ashamed of, left Blevins somewhat oddly dissatisfied, like when you realize, upon having the triage nurses greet your ambulance, that your underwear, as far as you can determine, is in pretty decent condition*, but you'll, nonetheless, never pull through the surgery.
--Jim Lubell (Miscellaneous Dishonorable Mention), Mechanicsville, Maryland

*Jerry Seinfeld was right: It doesn't matter if you're wearing clean underwear when you get hit by a bus, because they'll be covered with blood. Also, as I discovered in my stint at the hospital, if you're in bad enough shape, the ER techs slice all your clothes off & throw them away--even items that easily zip off, like my leather riding gaiters. (Grrr!) Which is how I wound up wearing nothing but a hospital gown--or two, for walks in the hallway--for an entire week.

A Little Jab'll Do Ya

Since I broke my right arm on May 1, I've been unable to bend the thumb and index finger on their own. Upon waking and throughout the day I try to make the "OK" sign (which, incidentally, is very much not OK in Brazil). Nothing doing: my index finger always stays ramrod straight.

This morning was the same, and once more I despaired of ever getting my hand--and my life--back in working order. So I went for my weekly appointment with osteopath Dr S in no great frame of mind.

After pulling my arm up, down and sideways (I was astonished at its range of motion), Dr S had me lie down. First he did some osteopathic manipulation--aah, what a relief! Then it was time for acupuncture (definitely not always painless; the finest of needles in certain areas of my face and head bring me to tears, if not sobbing panic attacks).

"I'm going to try some electrical stimulation," he said, then put a bunch of needles in my forearm, to which he attached electrodes. They throbbed, but not unpleasantly. He put more needles in my hand and wrist, scalp and face, but no electrodes.

Twenty minutes or so later, he pulled out all the needles. "Make a pinch," he commanded. To my astonishment, for the first time in more than two months my index finger easily curved and touched the thumb, tip to tip. OK!

I'll Die Unliterated

Miss Snark cites an article at Wordwing Editors, Read It Before You Die, which lists 30 titles that a poll of British librarians determined every adult should read before relinquishing this mortal coil.

In order, they are:

1. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
2. The Bible (by God!) [sic]
3. The Lord of the Rings trilogy by JRR Tolkien
4. 1984 by George Orwell
5. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
6. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
7. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
8. All Quiet on the Western Front by E M Remarque
9. His Dark Materials trilogy by Phillip Pullman
10. Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks
11. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
12. The Lord of the Flies by William Golding
13. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon
14. Tess of the d'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
15. Winnie-the-Pooh by AA Milne
16. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
17. The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Graham
18. Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
19. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
20. The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
21. The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
22. The Prophet by Khalil Gibran
23. David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
24. The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
25. The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
26. Life of Pi by Yann Martel
27. Middlemarch by George Eliot
28. The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
29. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
30. A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn

Evidently the librarians are better at literature than math, because the two trilogies bring the volume count to 34, not 30. But if we accept each trilogy as a single title, then I have read half the ones on the list. (However, I think I should get extra credit for having read the entire Pullman trilogy aloud to the Boy Wonder.)

Shame-faced confession: I've never read (or seen) To Kill a Mockingbird. I'll do it this summer, honest! But I sure as hell won't read Gone with the Wind anytime soon--if ever.

I read the Tolkien at 13 and had such horrible nightmares about the Ring Wraiths that I never went near his books again. I didn't see the movies either. I read Tess after seeing the Polanski movie, and that put me off Hardy for good.

I'd never heard of two titles: Birdsong and Master and Margarita. I've read parts of the Old Testament (known to my crowd as "the Torah.")

I loved The Lovely Bones, but think that Love in the Time of Cholera is infinitely more essential. Couldn't get past page 10 of Time Traveler's Wife, nor page 5 of anything by Coelho. And why list them instead of, say, Huckleberry Finn and The Great Gatsby?

I love Dickens, but why three of his works and not Madame Bovary--or any French titles? Oh, wait...it's a British list. No wonder. (Reminds me of my honeymoon with Husband #1. We were at a restaurant in a fishing village in Cornwall, where many of the exterior walls were embedded with oyster shells. We eagerly ordered oysters, but were told they'd all died of "a French disease."*)

Most of all, why are all the books, with the exception of The Prophet (puh-leeze!), by whites from Europe or the U.S.?

*an archaic term for syphilis

I Could Have Written That Book!

Over the long weekend, Darling Husband took me to Barnes & Noble to redeem a gift card that a friend sent me. On a bargain table I espied Better Homes & Garden's 3 Steps to Weight Loss.

"Huh!" I said to DH. "Three steps? That's easy!" I rattled them off, as follows:

1. Smash up your mouth so you can't bite with your front teeth or chew anything harder than a Cheez-It.
2. Smash up your arm so you have to eat using your non-dominant hand.
3. Take medications that screw up your gut.

Here are the allowed foods:

• Yogurt
• Kefir (like runny yogurt)
• Cottage cheese (like chunky yogurt)
• Tzatziki (made with yogurt)
• Hummus
• Baba ghanouj
• Refried beans
• Eggs
• Chopped or shredded meat
• Soup or stew (if w/ meat, must be very soft)
• Tomatoes, cut small
• Strawberries, ditto
• Lettuce, ditto
• Tuna salad with minced onion/scallion/celery
• Mashed potatoes
• Rice
• Applesauce
• Ice cream (w/ no nuts or hard chunks)
• Pudding (preferably Kozy Shack Tapioca or Chocolate)

Voila! Sure-fire weight loss.

I've been following this regimen and have lost almost 20 lbs in just two months. And with no end in sight to my mouth and arm problems, I'm likely to continue a good while longer. Just 20 more pounds and I'll be back to my high school graduation weight. (I still have the dress I wore and it's in style again...)

My Son the Politician

A couple of weeks ago, the Boy Wonder went to the National Forensic League championships in fabulous Grapevine, TX ("gateway to the Dallas-Fort Worth airport"). His event is Student Congress, and he gave an authorship speech in support of a bill to remove "In God We Trust" from U.S. currency. He knew his goose was cooked when one of the judges walked in carrying a book entitled 50 Gospel Songs for Children. He didn't make it past the first round. But he had a great time for a week, and at least now I can truthfully say that my 6'2", 122 lb. darling competed in the NFL when he was in high school.

BW is now working for the state senate campaign of the father of another kid on the speech team. He canvasses at the homes of registered Democrats who voted in the past two primaries.

"So, what do you say to them?" I asked BW over dinner the other night. Darling Husband and I were all ears.

"It depends on who comes to the door. I have a couple of different speeches."

"OK," I said. "What would your spiel be to me?"

"Well, if you came to the door I'd talk about health care," he immediately replied.

My mind raced: Oh my God, do I really look THAT old?

Beat.

Then I remembered that my right arm is in a sling and bandaged from elbow to shoulder, and there's an Ace bandage wrapped around my upper chest and shoulder.

"Oh, right. Health care."

We laughed so hard my face hurt.