A cop, a Brit, a deb, a B-school grad, a guy with good hair, and a wisecracking lawyer wrestle with the naked truth about literature and life.
Friday, November 30, 2007
What Happens At Hello ....
from Jacqueline
I have discovered that, sometimes, in this blogging business, when Friday comes around, I just have to take another swipe at a subject I’ve touched upon before. Sometimes it takes more than touching upon the subject to get it out of my system. Sometimes I have to clobber it. And when a bit of clobbering is in order, you can be sure that someone’s rattled my cage.
Last week three things happened to give me pause to consider – again – what sort of people we’re all becoming. These were not big events, in the grand scheme of things. No, they were small, like a mosquito in the bedroom when you’re trying to get to sleep. Mosquitos get bigger and bigger the more you think about them, because the more you think about that tiny insect, the more you hear the thing.
Let’s start with the first event.
We – hubby and me – are fortunate to be able to divide our time between southern and northern California, and last week we were at our house “up north.” The street can sometimes be a bit busy in the mornings, when the mini-van-driving moms use it as a racetrack to see how late they can leave the house and then whizz to the school, which is not far from our home. Other than that it’s quiet. And most of the drivers realize that those of us who live there have to back out of our driveways slowly and with care, and we do a lot of looking – you never know what might come around the corner. So, for the most part, they stop and wait for you to complete your manoevre. But there’s always one, isn’t there? Or two or three. Never mind that there are signs everywhere warning of kids playing, etc., no, there’s always a bozo who couldn’t give a flying you-know-what. That’s the guy in a Toyota Matrix who raced up the street at about 50mph in a 25mph zone and skidded around me even though he had time to stop. He just missed a woman pushing a stroller down the street. That’s community for you.
Then to the next event that tickled me into this week’s post. Last Sunday was just lovely – a bit of an autumnal nip in the air, but bright and sunny – perfect for a hike around the lake. So, off I went up to Bon Tempe lake, which is part of the Mt. Tamalpais watershed, in Marin County. There were a few runners and hikers around, most of whom were quiet, because they know that sound carries around that lake. I was having a very serene, enjoyable hike, stopping to watch a blue heron reflected in the still water, which was like a mill pond in the morning. Then, out of the blue I heard a voice shouting, and another voice in reply.
“She gets to go to the f*****g Ontario office.” “What the F**k.” “F**k, yeah.”
And the coversation, between three runners (two men, one woman) went on along these lines for the ten minutes it took them to reach me on the narrow path. I stepped aside. They ran past. No “thank you.” No nothing. They just resumed their “conversation.”
“You’re welcome!” I shouted after them. A fisherman nearby laughed, having observed the entire scene.
The third thing that happened – before I thought that maybe I should just stay home – took place in a store. I was in conversation with the assistant about an item I was about to purchase. A woman suddenly butted in, without (as they say) so much as a “by your leave” and shouted at the assistant while brandishing a black sweater, “Where’s this in red?” The evil part of me wanted to say, “Under your nose in about two seconds, lady,” but I didn’t. Instead I said, smiling, “I am sure the young lady would be delighted to help you as soon as she’s finished answering my question – and I’ll just be another couple of seconds, if you can wait.”
So, before you think I’m an old curmudgeon, a bit of an Andy Rooney, I use these three examples to make a point. Common courtesy costs nothing. And it may seem dispensible, especially in our fast paced lives, when we will probably not see certain people again, but it isn’t. Common courtesy is a fundamental building block to that illusive thing so many people are seeking: Community.
You hear a lot about community these days. People searching for it. Joining clubs, to see if they can find it there. Setting up a farmer’s market, in the hope that if they come it will be among the fresh basil or broccoli. You can have bake sales, book groups, you can do a lot of things, but if you can’t think about how you interact with others individually and collectively on a daily basis, you might as well forget it.
When I was a kid, I grew up in a warm, thriving community. Only no one used that word. We didn’t know we had community. It was transparent. But here’s what we knew:
You greeted those you knew if you saw them on the street. If you had time, you stopped to talk.
You made eye contact with people when you crossed their path, and you acknowledged them – if you were about to bump into them going in and out of shops, for example.
If someone pulled over on a narrow road to let you drive through, or stopped to let you merge out into traffic, you pressed your hand to your windshield or you waved to acknowledge the gesture – and they did the same. Oh, yes, and if you could, you stopped your car to allow another person out into traffic. And you smiled, even on a bad day.
And if you just had to interrupt a shop assistant while s/he was helping another customer, you said, “Excuse me.”
Of course you said “Please” and “Thank you” where appropriate, and you didn’t show yourself up by using bad language in public – it doesn’t roll off everyone’s back and to show a bit of restraint demonstrates respect for others.
Ah, yes, respect.
So you see, we can have all the community-building initiatives we like, but if we can’t respectfully be aware of our environment, if we can’t engage in the common courtesies of life, we might as well forget it.
Please. Thank you. Hello. How are you? (remembering that this particular question suggests that we stop and listen to the response). Excuse me .
If we start with those, our actions will follow. Not that any of our blog readers need to be reminded of such things, but thank you for bearing with me while I got that little diatribe off my chest. Oh - and thank you to the people who don't scream obscenities while at the lake, and the drivers who stop to allow me out of my driveway. Nice to have you in the 'hood.
However, Agent Born is on special assignment. At a Florida beauty pageant, someone doused Miss Lake Okeechobee with Gator poop. Jim is on the case.
Cornelia's post yesterday got me thinking more about names. Football names.
1. Shouldn't ColtMcCoy (Texas) and ColtBrennan (Hawaii) be running backs and not quarterbacks?
2. Doesn't Mizzou QB Chase Daniel have the perfect name for a bartender?
3. Is there a better name for a defensive lineman than my Penn State classmate Steve Smear? As for fullbacks, how about Seattle's just retired Mack Strong. Strong's WR teammate Taco Wallace gets an honorable mention after being flattened by a tackle. As for QB's, attention must be paid to Jeff Smoker, formerly of Michigan State and the St. Louis Cardinals.
4. Trivia note. Steve Smear played Defensive Tackle. Who was the DT who played alongside him at Penn State? Clue. As far as I know, he's the only player to both become an NFL All-Pro and win a Grammy Award.
5. Does Bronko Nagurski win "best name ever" award, or is he disqualified because his real name was "Bronislau?" Either way, does he get a special award for his ring size of 19 1/2? BRONKO NAGURSKI DEMONSTRATES PROPER HAND POSITION FOR PLAYING THE CLARINET IN THE MINNESOTA BAND
6. Is there a better coach's name than Houston Nutt? Yes, Tommy Tuberville. [No, Cornelia, not Tommy Tunes. Different ball game]. Houston would win this competition if he coached, say..."Houston." Mr. Nutt, however, recently replaced Ed Orgeron at Mississippi. Sadly, Mr. Orgeron will not be taking over at Oregon.
7. Do you have any favorite players' names? ****************************************** LATEST WGA STRIKE NEWS: GUILD ON LOOKOUT FOR STRIKE-BREAKING WRITERS!
ACTORS PROVE SPEECHLESS WITHOUT WRITERS!
JOHN EDWARDS MARCHES WITH WGA STRIKERS. HILLARY CLINTON WILL ANNOUNCE HER (A) UNEQUIVOCAL SUPPORT; (B) SO-SO SUPPORT; (C) OUTRIGHT REJECTION; OR (D) BRAND NEW PANEL HEADED BY HOUSTON NUTT TO STUDY THE ISSUE...FOLLOWING ANALYSIS OF POLLING DATA.
I love him because he doesn't look like a football coach. Actually, the Kansas coach looks like Clemenza from "The Godfather." CLEMENZA (RICHARD CASTELLANO) GIVES MICHAEL CORLEONE SOME FIREARMS TIPS
Mangino could chew up Charlie Weis and spit out Lou Holtz.
Kansas students proudly wear t-shirts proclaiming, "Our coach can eat your coach."
If Howard Cossell were alive, he would call Mangino "the rotund one."
Mangino didn't have it easy. A college drop-out from New Castle, PA, he worked 13 years on the 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. shift for the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission. His duties included cleaning rest rooms and clearing deer carcasses from the road. (He later earned a degree at Youngstown State).
Mangino drew national attention this year for leading the Jayhawks to a number two ranking and an 11-0 record before losing last Saturday to Missouri. (Yes, yes, I know the Kansas schedule was as soft as Mangino's belly, but 11-0 is still 11-0. Until it becomes 11-1).
He also drew attention for berating punt returner Raimond Pendleton in colorful language after Pendleton SCORED! The goofball was flagged for unsportsmanlike conduct after a showy swan dive into the end zone. Just as spectacular as the punt return was Coach Mangino's diatribe: "You fucking hot dog! Look what the fuck you did!"
(My high school basketball coach, Frank Casale, who doubled as a tavern owner, used to yell at me after a turnover: "Levine! Gosh darn it! Do we have to put handles on the ball for you?")
For the uninitiated, diving into the end zone is considered taunting in college football if it's done to celebrate the play, rather than as a necessity of scoring. That may seem like a dumb rule. But think of it this way. If Agent Jim Born arrests someone, he doesn't shoot his gun in the air to celebrate. Or does he? Little known fact. In South Florida, it is permissible to shoot automatic weapons into the sky to celebrate any report of Fidel Castro's death, no matter how premature.
Anyway, here's what happens if you play for Mangino and draw the penalty.
All of this is prelude to my observation that it's a shame Kansas lost to Missouri in a 36-28 shootout. Neither team played pass defense particularly well, and the tackling was atrocious. But it was exciting, even if Mangino neither called a player a hot dog nor ate one on the sidelines.
I was rooting for Mangino to add some heft, if not gravitas, to the BCS Championship Game. And now, sadly, there's no chance of that. ******************************************** THAT'S NOT WRITING! THAT'S DENISTRY...
One of the anointed novels is "On Chesil Beach," by literary favorite (and possible D.D.S) Ian McEwan,which chronicles a couple's sexual misadventures on their wedding night. Here's an excerpt:
"With his lips clamped firmly onto hers, he probed the fleshy floor of her mouth, then moved around inside the teeth of her lower jaw to the empty place where three years ago a wisdom tooth had crookedly grown until removed under general anesthesia. This cavity was where her own tongue usually strayed when she was lost in thought. By association, it was more like an idea than a location, a private imaginary place rather than a hollow in her gum, and it seemed peculiar to her that another tongue should be able to go there too. ... He wanted to engage her tongue in some activity of its own, coax it into a hideous mute duet. ... She understood perfectly that this business with tongues, this penetration, was a small-scale enactment, a ritual tableau vivant, of what was still to come, like a prologue before an old play that tells you everything that must happen."
Want more? You'll have to read the book. Me, I'd prefer root canal.
********************************************* I'M NOT PARANOID, BUT... That's mi esposa Renee with Michael C. Hall, expert serial killer on Showtime's "Dexter." Photographer Craig Mathew caught them discussing the pros and cons of manual strangulation versus garroting at the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences.
In unrelated news, Renee has recently purchased several yards of cat gut. She claims she needs to re-string one of her several dozen tennis rackets. RENEE WITH 2007 TOLUCA LAKE TENNIS CLUB CHAMPIONSHIP GUACAMOLE DISH
HA! I have it on good authority that tennis strings are now made of plastic...while cat gut remains an excellent tool of STRANGULATION!
I went to a pre-release screening of The Kite Runner directed by Marc Forster (Monster’s Ball and Finding Neverland), which will arrive in theaters on December 14. The film is based on the novel of the same name, written by Afghan-American Khaled Hosseini. Since its publication date, The Kite Runner has lived on the New York Times bestsellers list. Despite eight million copies in print worldwide, I’ll admit to being one of the few members of the book-buying public who hasn’t read this novel. That said, there are few movies I see that make me want to read the book. This was one of them.
The Kite Runner is about betrayal and redemption, about getting a second chance to make things right. The action centers on two young boys growing up in Kabul before the Russian invasion of Afghanistan: wealthy, privileged Amir, and Hassan, his best friend, defender, and son of the family’s live-in servant. When courage-challenged Amir witnesses the sexual assault of Hassan by neighborhood bullies, he does nothing to help. In the days that follow, Amir is forced to look into Hassan’s eyes and see his own cowardice. Unable to cope, he falsely accuses Hassan of theft, forcing him out of a job, a home, and Amir’s life. Much of the film is set in Kabul, Afghanistan (using locations in China as stand-ins). The period spans from pre-Russian rule through the Taliban takeover. Most of the dialogue is in Dari (Afghan Persian) with English subtitles.
Here’s a trailer for the movie:
While in line waiting to enter the theater, I heard people chatting about a controversy surrounding the film that had delayed its release for six weeks. I was curious to know more, so this amateur sleuth went home and scoured the Internet for information. According to the New York Times, the brouhaha centers on the scene depicting the rape of Hassan. Family members of the young Afghan actors are afraid that the sexually explicit action will stir religious and ethnic tensions and foster violence against the boys. They wanted the scene stripped from the movie. Paramount Vantage refused, but for the children’s safety, they agreed to temporarily move them out of Afghanistan before the film is released.
The young actor who plays Hassan asserts that he was not informed of the rape scene prior to accepting the role. Director Forster says not so. He argues that all of the principals and their families were briefed and that the scene was twice rehearsed before it was filmed. But even if that wasn’t the case, the movie wrapped a year ago. So I asked myself, why the controversy and why now? The scene in question is not overly graphic, nor it is exploitive. Simply stated, it is essential to bringing the stakes to the level of a compelling story. In the conservative religious milieu that was and is Afghanistan, it helps the viewer understand the gravity of not only the act but also Amir’s spinelessness.
So once again, the age-old question boils down to this: Does an artist cave in to political/religious/cultural correctness by removing or restructuring a controversial scene, or does he stick to his vision and the truth of the story? And how does he know when he has crossed the line?
About six years ago, my brother bought a draft horse, Ben. Ben stands about 18 hands (that’s big, for the non equestrians), and weighs about 2300 lbs (really, really big). He has feet the size of dinner plates and when John bought him he was trained to pull a six-person carriage and had a bit of an attitude because he hadn’t been treated very well. My brother had never owned a horse, but thought, “Hey, how difficult can it be?” And he loves animals and thought that some TLC would be all that would take for them to work together. He also had a dream of being able to drive. John was named for my grandfather, a costermonger who sold fruit and vegetables from his horse-drawn cart. He had several horses and was as knowledgeable about horses and driving as anyone - after all, having a horse was just like owning and driving a car in those days. But time marches on, and though John wanted to have something of that experience, he didn’t know how to drive. I suggested lessons. “That’s the trouble with you, Jack, you think you have to take a lesson to learn anything." I didn’t pursue the topic any further, but I thought about it a lot at the time, as you do when someone starts a sentence with, “That’s the trouble with you ...”
You see, I love learning new things. With certain exceptions (Math and Miss Crawford’s domestic science class) I loved school, from the time I started primary school at five years old. As an adult, I have found that, for me, if I want to learn something or improve a skill, I’d rather start at the feet of someone who knows a lot about the subject, someone who has achieved a level of mastery. And the funny thing is, those people tend to be learners too. Take my dressage trainer, Kim. Last week we went off to a clinic taught by a world-class dressage rider. Kim had signed up for a couple of days and I went along for the second day, to observe the lessons and also to have a session with the teacher. Watching your trainer take a lesson opens as many windows, inspires as many ah-ha’s as engaging in that learning yourself. I came back having a different idea of how to do certain things, how to break a bad habit or two. Oh yes, habit.
One of the things I came to know early on in my career as a “life coach” is that we all look at life a certain way, though the lens of our upbringing, our culture, our heritage, our education, experience ... and so on. Even the most “broadminded” people look at life through this tunnel. To change things in our lives, to go for something new, we have to change the lens, we have to shift, to widen that tunnel, to shove it in a different direction. That’s where teachers come in – and they don’t have to be the “on a pedestal” teachers – just the person who say, “How about this?” “Look at it this way” or “You could try ....”
Some years ago, between the child #1 and child #2, my cousin, a lawyer, decided to give up her job for a while to be a full-time mother and think about how much she really liked being a lawyer. After a while she became a bit antsy and around about the same time she was contacted by a local college to see whether she was interested in teaching a course on law as part of their adult/continuing education program. She snapped it up and planned a course that was fun, witty (she is very, very witty), covering all aspects of law that might be of interest to the average adult, and she threw in some history, etc. She loved teaching the course, however, the students she enjoyed the most were two ladies of a certain age who were making their way through the catalog, starting with Aromatherapy. They hit “L” for her class. “Never too old to learn something new,” they told her.
Well, I hope so, because I have just booked some lessons. Granted, it’s not for something completely new, but a skill in which I have collected a fair amount of rust. I haven’t been skiing for over twelve years. I used to love skiing and every winter I bemoan the fact that I have not been skiing. So, four days ago I went online and booked myself five days skiing – Park City at the end of January. Then I booked my lessons. I can’t wait.
My brother had a lot of problems with Ben, including an accident which I witnessed – no one was hurt, but they could have been. Ben and John lost confidence in each other and because my brother couldn't face him for a while, I began spending more time with the horse, working him under halter – and doing that helped me gain confidence around horses again after my accident several years ago. A couple of years ago I was with John and we were trying to persuade Ben to take his halter so that we could lead him over to the shoer. A big old horse, he knew his size and knew that he could run rings around us all if he wanted to. Then along came Jim, the ranch owner and a real horseman – a practitioner of “natural horsemanship.” He sorted Ben out.
“Why don’t you ask Jim for a few lessons?” I asked my brother, wondering what the response might be. “Maybe later.” “He’s standing right there – ask him now.”
So John walked up to Jim and asked about lessons and they began with what Jim referred to as “rehabilitating the relationship.” Within a couple of months my brother – who had never been on a horse before – was riding Ben. It was such a big event, even the vet came along to watch. And when Jim’s available, John will still take lessons, have a tune-up, learn something new, nip a bad habit in the bud. Ben adores my brother, and John adores him. And I saw a lesson come to life along the way – something about the teacher appearing when the student is ready.
If you wish to send this post to a friend, click on the envelope icon below. And have a lovely weekend.
Today is God’s gift to Bloggers everywhere. The title and content are a near requirement in this land of plenty. I had sent Paul Levine a police video I found amusing last week and he replied “I see a blog in this.” It was a great idea so I started to learn how to upload from Youtube so I could post other videos I liked. Unfortunately, only the super smart Cornelia Read has mastered this art. As I cursed Blogger and Youtube after failed attempts to figure this technological abyss, I realized my usual Thursday blog goes up on Thanksgiving; one of the great days in the American calendar. A day off from the daily grind with the State of Florida generously throwing in Friday for good measure, a big meal and family equals a holiday I can get behind with stomach, heart and mind. A smaltzy, ready-made blog-post is just a bonus.
When I think about the big picture of time, location, history and circumstance, I know I hit the cosmic jackpot. Most Americans have. I can’t speak for any other countries but they’re not celebrating Thanksgiving. I can’t really speak for most Americans but I still think I’m correct in the following reasoning:
We were all born in one of the most comfortable, safest, calmest places and times in the history of the world. Considering I could have been just as easily born in 1837 in India or 1754 in China or 1939 in Paris, I have is easy. Even if I was born in my real hometown of West Palm Beach in 1911, I’d have had to deal with a world without air conditioning, when robber barons still held tremendous sway, the justice system was near arbitrary and, if I got sick, I’d be about as well served from the Benny Hinn of the time as I would have been by a medical doctor.
It’s the little things that add up to the lives we experience here, today, as opposed to the lives we would’ve lived just a few short years ago perhaps just a few hundred miles form where we live now.
I know things aren’t perfect. Here’s a flash: They never have been. In the history of the world there is always something that’s screwed up. Usually in a big way. If it’s not the Romans conquering the world, it’s the Bubonic plague rampaging through Europe. If the Nazis aren’t following a madman the Irish are having problems raising potatoes. As Rosanna-Rosanna Danna used to say, “it’s always something.”
I’m thankful for the simple fact that God decided to plop me down in the United States in the latter part of the twentieth century. The bonuses after that include parents who were reasonable, schools that taught me the basics, children that bring me joy and jobs that have made me feel useful.
It’s easy to want fame, fortune, and all kinds of other perks but one thing I’ve noticed is that most of the people I admire are pretty happy with where they found themselves and what they did with the resources available to them.
On this simple holiday with an easy message to grasp, what are you thankful for?
It's that time of year again. The turkey's not even in the oven yet, but they're starting to play sappy nativity/dreidel Muzak in the mall, and the Harry and David fruit-fest catalogs are starting to choke every mailbox in town.
Don't get caught short! Promise yourself that THIS YEAR, things are going to be different! No more hasty last-minute cover-your-butt "Cheez-Whiz-of-the-Month" subscriptions for the inlaws, nary a stale dollar-store assortment of noxious day-glo bath salts for your near and dear!
We Nakeds are here, holiday-shopping rapiers drawn and gleaming, ready to rescue even the longest gift list from the tell-tale reek of eggnog ennui! (click on prices for ordering info).
Feast your eyes on the following, sure to please even the most jaded recipient.
Get Your Mojo Workin'
Hoodoo Mojo Bags containing various herbs and charms, dressed with "lucky" oils. Order the Memphis-style "Nation Sack" for women, the "Blues Boy Special" for items specifically mentioned in traditional lyrics, and many more. The deluxe "Three Johns Master Hand Jack Ball" is personalized with your name (send sample of hair when ordering).
If You Only Buy Your Writer Friends One Book This Year...
...Make it Ariel Gore's It's chock-full of all "the secrets they'll never teach you in fancy MFA programs," including:
"It is a great paradox and a great injustice that writers write because we fear death and want to leave something indestructible in our wake and, at the same time, are drawn to all the things that kill: whiskey and cigarettes, unprotected sex and deep-fried burritos... choose your vice wisely."
"You rip an intern a new asshole and not only does she turn around and tell her boss what a jerk you are, but you bungle a sale that would have taken place five years down the road. Editors remember when they were interns."
"Because capitalism knows no bounds, you can actually upload the text of a rejection letter you get from a publisher and, for ninety dollars, Lulu.com will print it on four rolls of toilet paper for your wiping needs."
"You are totally entitled to your mental breakdowns. But when you get into that bookstore or cafe or bowling alley for your reading, I want you to look everyone in the eye who showed up and assume that they drove two hundred miles through a blizzard to come out and support you. You'd be surprised how many of them actually did."
$13.95. Buy two, they're small. Plus, Ariel is a goddamn genius.
Road Trip!
Beautifully restored vintage 1947 Westwood "Tahoe" trailer. Gut reno with all the mod cons--make your next book tour in style!
Yummy Latke, Apple Sauce, Chocolate Gelt and Jelly Doughnut flavors. (Trust me, you do NOT want to know about the Gefilte version in the Pesach collection).
"The Party's Over" gift wrap is a must for all those in favor of impeachment.
Features "festive facsimiles from Jack Abramoff's American Express expense records and emails; indictments of reporter Judith Miller, Vice President chief of staff Scooter Libby, email correspondence from Michael 'Brownie' Brown, checks from Jeffrey Skilling and Ken Lay and many others."
Printed on silver and gold foil paper. Each roll contains 2 sheets measuring 25 x 20 inches. Volume discount available.
If they'd had laptops on the Titanic, they might have looked like this. "Steampunk" artists make high-tech gadgets out of magnificently anachronistic parts. The following is the work of "Datamancer":
A set of 12 Israeli Defense Force dreidels, with a Merkava tank display rack. This is what my huband will be getting for Christmas, probably. He's a Methodist. Go figure.
He has been asking for the camouflage IDF kippot, but I draw the line at outfitting a giant blond goy with a military yarmulke. Especially in Berkeley.
Includes paratroopers, Golani, Air Force, Border Police, Sayeret Matkal, and many more!
Thank You, Masked Man: reproductions of early Navajo chief blankets, in luxurious 12-ply cashmere and cotton quilts edged in suede. Newly available rendered on silk scarves, and as cashmere serapes.
Quilts $385, Cashmere Blanket $2600, Scarves $70. More info and designs at High Desert Concepts.
Joyeux Noir
First edition of Thompson's signature paperback-original title, in "very good +" condition.
Greet guests in style with this snappy doormat! They won't know whether they're coming or going... $25.00, available in black-and-white or yellow imprint.
Book 'Em
Turn your blog into a book. Just download free software from blurb.com, and you can automatically import and map blog text, images, comments, and links into professionally designed page layouts--then edit and customize to your heart's content. Works on Macs and PCs, and is compatible with a host of platforms, including Blogger, LiveJournal.com, TypePad, and WordPress.com.
Professional binding and four-color printing on coated, semi-matte paper. Prices start at $12.95 for a 40-page softcover and $22.95 for a 40-page hardcover with dust jacket--maximum size 440 pages. Delivery in 7-10 business days.
Go Speed Racer!
The Porsche 911 GT3 RS sports a 3.6L engine that generates a whopping 415 bhp @ 7600rpm, boosting it from 0-60 in just 4.2 seconds. Despite its specialized body, the “RS” is 20 kg lighter than the GT3, weighing in at just 1375 kg.
As Rae would say, "the long skinny one makes it go." Cha!
In case you don’t recognize it, that’s the title of Bon Jovi’s latest hit song, The Grippandos were watching American Idol as a family when it debuted on national television. My wife is younger than I am, and Bon Jovi is straight from her era (I’m somewhere between The Who and U2). My daughter is only eleven, but she digs Bon Jovi too, and that song is on her iPod.
I have a couple of things to say about this Bon Jovi resurgence. One, while watching the major league baseball playoffs this autumn, I was surprised to see that John Bon Jovi looks as goofy as I do in a Yankee's cap. Two, I have to confess that the Bon Jovi song has been in my head over the past few days, triggered mostly by all our preparations for our family trip to NYC. Because all romantic and sexual innuendo aside, that’s exactly what we’re doing . . . making memories.
Neither my wife nor I are New Yorkers, but this marks our fifth consecutive Thanksgiving in NewYork City. We go each year with another family, whose last name is Strump, but if you say it real fast it sounds like Trump, which doesn’t hurt for dinner reservations. We do all kinds of fun things, but mostly what I love about this trip is that we are making some really great memories for our kids.
My first trip to New York City wasn’t until I was in college. Back then, New York was on the verge of bankruptcy and wasn’t exactly the safest city. I have to say that I was intimidated. Now, I love it that my two older kids (11 and 9) act like the own the most amazing city in the world. They know the difference between long blocks and short blocks. They hale cabs. They have their favorite rock to climb in central park, and they’ve named the polar bears in the Central Park Zoo. They can point out the relative advantages and disadvantages of skating at Woman Rink versus Rockefeller Center, they know exactly where the American Girl store is, and they know how to get there from the NBA Store.
Thanksgiving in New York takes some practice to perfect. Our first year, I have to admit, was not so good. We watched the parade from a terrace about 30 stores above Broadway. It was cold and windy, and my wife’s a good sport, but I could tell that she wished we were back in Miami complaining about how hot it always is on Thanksgiving Day. That first year, we also did Thanksgiving dinner at the Plaza, which was mediocre. Now however, we have it nailed. I won’t bore you with every little detail, but if you’ve ever thought about doing New York and the Macy’s Parade, here are four “Thanksgiving in New York” tips that might make your trip a little more special.
First, where do you watch the parade from? We’ve tried various places, but the last three years we’ve done breakfast at Jean George at Columbus circle. I think it’s perfect. It’s at ground level, and the restaurant has two-story walls of glass that face Central Park West. If it’s bad weather, you can stay inside, drink hot chocolate, and see everything from your table. If you want to go outside, you can stand on the sidewalk by the heaters, and the only people who can stand out there with you are guests at the hotel or customers of the restaurant. In other words, unlike the W in Time Square or other places we’ve tried, you can actually see the parade without standing on someone else’s shoulders.
Thanksgiving Day can be tough and very boring for the kids, because many of the typical New York destinations are closed. We make this our day to skate at Rockefeller Center. No line. If you go the next day, be prepared to wait two or three hours.
Thanksgiving dinner in New York has become one of my favorite new family traditions. My pick is the King’s Carriage House. It’s a small restaurant (it was once an actual carriage house) that serves up traditional Thanksgiving fare by candlelight. It feels more like a New England Inn than the Upper East side.
This is a family trip for the most part, but we do one grown up dinner without kids. One of my personal favorites is Grammercy Tavern. Last time Tiffany and I went there I happily discovered that the general manager was once a lawyer at my old law firm—in fact, I was the hiring partner who gave him his job. It’s fun to see lawyers with the guts to move on to another career and do what they really love to do. Grammercy is now the #1 rated restaurant in New York, according to Zagat’s. Not to be missed, and there is something about the décor that feels very Thanksgiving to me. Try it.
So, here’s hoping you have a wonderful Thanksgiving. I know we will!
Paul will be back (a couple pounds heavier) with his regular slot next Tuesday.
Back 1595, William Shakespeare wrote a play called A Midsummer Night's Dream, in which the father of protagonist Hermia forbids her to marry Lysander, the love of her life. Lysander comforts her by saying, “Aye me! For aught that I could ever read, Could ever hear by tale or history, The course of true love never did run smooth.”
I bring this up because of two recent e-mails I received from readers about Tucker Sinclair’s love life. After finishing SHORT CHANGE, one woman said about my heroine’s conflicted romance with homicide detective Joe Deegan: “Why did you have to make it like real life?” Then a couple of days ago I got an e-mail from another reader who suggested that I add a new love interest for Tucker, just to give Deegan something to think about. Coincidentally, I did just that in my fourth book COOL CACHE, which is due out on June 3, 2008.
I don’t like fictional romances to run smoothly, especially in crime novels. Case in point, Michael Connelly’s Harry Bosch has a tortured love life. The poor guy just can’t seem to get it together romantically, and I feel for him because of it. Happy couples are lovely to have as friends, but they aren’t very interesting to read about. I prefer two evenly-matched people who have an underlying love for each other but differing agendas that keep them apart, at least until the end.
I also like reading about people who are thrown together because of circumstances beyond their control, and then are forced to stay together until the crisis is over. In his book, How to Write a Damn Good Novel, James Frey calls this phenomenon a crucible, a term he attributes to Moses Malevinsky in The Science of Playwriting (1925).
“Think of the crucible as the container that holds the characters together as things heat up. The crucible is the bond that keeps them in conflict with one another. Characters are in the crucible to stay if their motivation to continue in conflict is greater than their motivation to run away from the conflict. You know you have failed to put your characters in a crucible if your readers are apt to ask questions like: “Why doesn’t the knight just go home and forget about slaying the dragon?”
“Without a crucible to contain the characters there can be no conflict, and without conflict there is no drama. Any time you put your characters in a crucible, the antagonist and protagonist, for their separate reasons, are committed to continuing the conflict until there is a final resolution—until the marriage takes place, the battle is won, the fortune is divided, the pirates have been sent to the briny deep, or whatever.”
Diana Gabaldon throws her main characters into the crucible in her novel The Outlander, a book that combines history, romance, and a touch of woo woo. Claire and Jaime are strangers, but they’re forced to marry in order to save Claire’s life. The law (or the politics of the time) is their crucible.
In Paulie’s novel Solomon vs. Lord, Steve Solomon and Victoria Lord are opposing lawyers in a court case. Duty to their clients is their crucible.
I’m considering sending Tucker on a cruise with the two men in her life, someplace exotic—St. Petersburg or perhaps Costa Rica. The boat will be their crucible. Shuffleboard anyone?
So what about you? Do you like romance in crime fiction? Are you partial to happy couples, or are you a fan of the Hepburn/Tracy and Moonlighting’s Maddie/David sort of relationship?
(Having trouble with our blogger today, and cannot add graphics - sorry!)
There’s a tendency, among writers and non-writers alike, to talk about the blank page that looms forth in front of you, and you’re thinking, “How the heck am I going to fill that thing.” It’s a story that is familiar to so many, and we all nod our heads and say, “Yep, that’s me.” But the truth is that the task in front of us isn’t necessarily paralyzing, nor is it to do with one blank page. That “oh heck” feeling comes in many different packages. And sometimes it comes as “oh heck lite” and sometimes it graduates to “oh ...” (add own favorite expletive).
So, now you know, I have just started a new book. Yesterday. I knew I did not have a dose of the famed writer’s block, even though I had set November 1st as the start date and that was two weeks ago. I knew that, eventually, I would knuckle down to the page, because I regard deadlines as sacrosanct, and I’ve a pretty packed schedule before this book’s due at the end of March (almost two months out on book tour early next year, plus three major papers to write for my course). In the two weeks between the agreed-with-self start date and the actually-hit-the-keys date, I have been mulling and mulling and mulling (and it wasn’t wine I was mulling, it might have been more productive if it was) the story in my head until it began to spill over, out of my mind, through my fingers and onto the page. Sometimes I think it’s a bit like baking a cake. You do all the ground work – you blend your characters, scenes, the arc of your story and you let it cook away in your imagination (at a medium temperature for months), then one day it’s cooked and ready to ice. Ah, the icing. That’s where you fill your icing bag with words and phrases, with images, wit, sadness, grief, laughter and everything that brings story to the page. You choose your design, and on the day of writing you squeeze that icing out with all the control, dexterity and creativity you can muster. And one day you have something you can put on the table in front of guests.
But if you stop to think about the actual task ahead at any point, it’s like looking down when you’re climbing up – don’t do it.
A couple of years ago, I was putting off the start date on MESSENGER OF TRUTH, my third novel, I began having severe pains in my finger joints. Great, I thought, just what every writer wants – arthritis in the fingers. I massaged my joints, I rubbed everything from Devil’s Claw to Emu oil into my joints; I bought a hot wax hand bath; herbal mitts that you nuke to warm up your digits – anything to take away the pain. And I called my friend Vicki, who does various types of healing. She looked at my fingers and said, “You need to get writing.” I told her that I wrote every day. “No,” she said, “Your book’s stuck in your fingers – start it and the pain will go away.”
So I did, and it did. Make of that what you will.
Last week my fingers began to hurt again, and I knew it was time to get writing. And yesterday I began. 1500 words. Stephen King (I’ve said this before, I know), in his book, “On Writing,” says that you can write the first raw draft of a book in three months if you write 1200 words a day. Ever since I read that, I’ve tried to follow his advice. Sometimes I write more, but never less. It’s a benchmark, and it works for me.
But I know it’s important to cut yourself some slack – breaks work, setting treats works (when I’ve finished my 1200 words, I’ll go for a hike!), walking works. We all have our writing rituals, our processes, that work for us, that’s how we get books, articles, academic papers and blogs written. And when you’re a writer, you write – that’s what you do. Even if you put it off for a while.
The year I was promoted to a supervisor in my police job I thought I had traveled all I ever would in one year. I supervised one of the early Internet predator taskforces and visited cities all over the country to meet with other police agencies to develop guidelines for the difficult investigations. I was also sent to a management school, which was one week a month for six months. There were the usual survival and tactical schools in Tallahassee and a National Guard base named Camp Blanding. It was part of the challenge of moving up the ladder and becoming the best supervisor I could be. I knew I’d been to Tallahassee a lot when a clerk at the residence Inn I usually stayed at greeted me by name and knew which room I preferred.
This year’s travel schedule may eclipse the year I spent 70 nights in hotel rooms. I still travel in my day job but not like the year I described above. But now I have book festivals to visit, library talks and a book tour to add to my hotel total. Except for the tour almost all the travel is on weekends and close enough to drive.
In addition to Florida stops I visited festivals or bookstores in South Carolina, Texas, Georgia (twice), Arizona, California, Alabama, New York and Tennessee.
It was this travel hangover that caused me to skip getting a room for the Miami Book Fair this past weekend. Instead, I zipped down the seventy-five miles from my house to the dead center of downtown Miami. It was a long, fun, tiring and ultimately worthwhile day, which I now have to view as more exhausting than just getting a room. But my rationalization that I had not been at my house for a full weekend for the past six weeks, which included a vacation, and that I would be attending the Vero Beach Book festival next week, caused me to become homesick for my own bed. And even though I rumbled into the driveway at two Sunday morning, about eighteen hours after I had departed, it felt good to wake up and not worry about driving any where for an entire day.
This is in no way a complaint or whine, despite how it’s laid out. I am fortunate to be in this position and generally enjoy these events. Since I thought to bring my camera I even have evidence of my adventure in the “Latin Riviera”. Let me take you on a brief tour of the greatest book fair in the United States.
One of the driving forces of the Bookfair is Mitchell Kaplan of Books & Books. Here he is with an elderly patron of the book fair better known as crime writer Tom Corcoran.
My panel was for the Florida Book Award winners. Here we are after the talk at our signing. From left to right is our moderator Dr. Wayne Weigand, Daina Chaviano, me, James Kimbrell, Tony D’Souza and Michael Grunwald.. It was nice to meet such fine writers.
I was on the panel for Escape Clause winning the best novel in popular fiction.
Here I am with Jeffery Toobin, author of the current bestseller on the Supreme Court, The Nine.
This is Christine Kling, Hyacinth and Nick Stone, author of the Thriller Award winning Mr. Clarinet.
And finally my hero, Chris Matthews of Hardball.
It was a good day and I still smile at the thought of it. Even if I didn’t stay overnight in a hotel.
And yes, most of the post is just an excuse to show off my photo with Matthews.
Around 1990, when I last lived in Manhattan, my friend Ariel Zeitlin was working for a documentary filmmaker named David Tapper. One day she said to me, "I think I've met someone you're related to." One of her co-workers in the office was Cate Ludlam, and Ariel knew that Ludlam is one of my middle names.
A month or so later, she introduced us to each other at a party.
"We're definitely related," said Cate. "There were only three brothers named Ludlam who came over from England. One of them changed the spelling to Ludlum. All the people with those two surnames in America are related."
I'm named for Cornelia Parrish Ludlam, my great-great-grandmother. She and her sister Augusta married two brothers by the name of Smith, and omy mother's family's cemetery on tiny Centre Island is filled with Smiths and Ludlams and Underhills and Townsends. Cate told me she, too, had a cemetery up her sleeve--Prospect in Jamaica, Queens, one of the oldest on Long Island.
She'd gotten heavily involved in the place's restoration, and we promised to someday trade tours of our respective burial places. Last Thursday, I finally got to see Prospect, with Cate as my guide. It will be the focal point of my third novel, which will center on the discovery of a three-year-old boy's skeleton, turned up by a volunteer crew of Cate's some eighteen years ago.
Jamaica's Prospect Cemetery could well be the oldest cemetery in Queens, and perhaps all of New York City. It dates to 1668, and one finds buried within it 53 Revolutionary War veterans, 43 Civil War veterans, three Spanish-American War veterans, and members of many prominent Long Island families such as the Lefferts, Ludlams, and Duryeas.
When Cate first saw the place, Prospect's four-and-a-half acres bore more resemblance to an overgrown, abandoned lot than a family graveyard. The weeds and vines and nettles that had taken root sometimes stretched in great snarled piles to a height of twelve feet. Many of the gravestones and obelisks had been toppled by vandals, and a variety of homeless people had set up camp in tunnels carved through the riot of vegetation.
Because Prospect was privately owned, New York City never bothered with its upkeep--or that of the abandoned stretch of asphalt that ran to its entrance. The last interment was in 1988.
Richard Van Lew's headstone dates to 1812.
For the last eighteen years, Cate has devoted herself to renovating the grounds, and the small "Chapel of the Sisters" built there by Nicholas Ludlum in memory of his three daughters who died in their teens and twenties.
A native of Jamaica, Ludlum ran a successful local hardware business and wanted to give something back to his hometown. When Cate first saw the chapel, its floorboards were rotted through, its stained-glass windows smashed by thrown rocks.
On the day we visited, a crew of workman worked to install a heating system, and new floor joists were sturdily in place.
The broken windows have been carefully removed from their frames and sent to a stained-glass studio, where the missing pieces of colored glass are to be matched and replaced.
"Here lyes interr'd the body of Anne Carle, who departed this life July 21st, 1751, aetatis suae [aged] 21."
As Cate led my mother and I outside, she began to show us her favorite headstones. She knows the names of many of the carvers who embellished each memorial with funerary art--death heads and angels that reflect the styles of passing decades and centuries.
Her favorite stone is the simplest of all, a simple rough shard of rock etched with the name and date of one Thomas Wiggens:
The carved side of this stone faces west, and Cate explained that at sunset, the rays penetrating the old trees of Prospect illuminate all the different colors and bits of mica trapped within the rock. "Someone loved this man a lot," she says. "They chose the most beautiful piece of stone they could for him."
She's recruited volunteers from every walk of life to help her clear and care for the grounds: local high school students, members of the National Guard, Explorer Scouts and groups of cops from the 103rd precinct. The day before she gave Mom and I the tour, she'd been hacking at weeds with a group of Mormon missionaries.
"Here lyes y. body of Judith, wife of Henry Ludlam, who departed this life Aug. 25, 1712..."
Over the last eighteen years, Cate has raised upwards of $650,000 in grant money from various public and private sources. She's attended countless meetings of city councils and zoning boards, barreled through hundreds of pages of paperwork, rushed the ramparts of dozens of bureaucracies, all to save this bit of land and architecture from the ravages of time before there's nothing left to save.
"They wanted to mothball the chapel," she explained, as we picked our way through the rough forest toward the back of the lot. "That's the deathknell for any building." Thanks to Cate's efforts the once-abandoned street running alongside the entry gat
