The Sheila Variations

Diary whatever

Okay - so this is a long entry. It is also a repeat. It is also not from high school. And today is not Friday.

This morning I found myself reading this entry (which I originally posted as a two-parter - due to its LENGTH) and literally SHAKING with laughter. I was wiping tears off of my face.

I don't know why it's so funny - it's just a silly Saturday night in Chicago - but for some reason, the way I wrote it continuously strikes me as a freakin' RIOT. It hurts - the laughter.

So I figured I'd post it again. Because it makes me happy. It also makes me glad I kept a journal. Because for the most part I am NOT glad that I keep a journal. Ghosts, you know. But with entries like this? That can come up out of the past and not just make me nostalgic or wistful - but make me HOWL?

This is from my time in Chicago. I

I also loved reading this this morning because Michael is coming to stay with me next week while he's in New York - it's been a couple of years since I saw him - so I was just GUFFAWING reading some of this stuff, in memory of his ridiculous and kind of crabby sense of humor. The LM Montgomery moment I am STILL laughing about. Seriously. I can't stop laughing. It's probably a "you had to be there" thing, but - man. I had forgotten about it - and just the way he said "Who is LM Montgomery" - with no preamble - he had just silently noticed that I had 200 of her books - and so he injected that into the conversation, in this overly calm but pissed way. Again - can't explain it - but I HOWLED this morning when I read it. I had no idea back then that he and I would remain friends. It kinda didn't seem to be going in that direction, did it - even though we obviously liked each other.

So here goes. A long long entry, which I've posted before, which does not take place in high school, which I am posting on a Thursday.

Ann Marie: Look out!! Gourd comin' at ya!

Also - very bizarre: Alex is one of my best friends now. This is the first time she appears in my journal - but just as someone I've heard of, through her reputation, and because Mitchell knew her. And now? We're thick as thieves. Weird - to see that I had NO IDEA that she and I would become such good friends.

She remembers the "crazy girl who sent the cumquat backstage", by the way. "Who is that insane person who just sent you a cumquat?" Uhm, that would be me. Your future friend. Nice to meet ya.

November

Last week, I would call Michael every half-hour, and he was never there. [HA!!!!! I mean, already it's comedic. I'm showing my own youth here as well.] Even at 12:30 at night. So I was basically like the Bride of Frankenstein. I was all about getting in touch with him. I had no perspective.

The next phase would have involved haikus - except he has no answering machine to leave them on. Shucks.

[Ed: Explanation here.]

I woke up early on Saturday. It was a miserable day. Pouring rain. Very windy. Leftovers of landlord's Halloween party still all over the front porch. Gourds and pumpkins and huge sheathes of corn husks. Melancholy. Autumn. Cozy. I made a pot of coffee, I was in longjohns, slippers, flannel shirt. I burned incense, turned on my Xmas lights - had cereal, strawberries. Sat on my bed with purring Samuel, reading Obabakoak, drinking coffee. [You were reading WHAT? Please don't throw around a word like Obabakoak casually.] Total solitude. Morning. Blustery storm outside. Warmth and comfort inside.

Michael called at 10:30 or so. [Ed: I had forgotten this, but he and I had had a date to go see "Mexican death masks" at a museum. It became a short-hand. "So after the death-masks..." "Okay, so we do death masks, then we grab some lunch..."] He had just woken up. He and his roommate needed to go meet with their landlord at a place on Belmont and Lincoln - near me - so I told him to call me when they were done and come over. I gave him directions.

I highly doubted he would make it to my place without a hitch.

A couple hours go by. He calls again. Clearly from a pay phone. He told me they were done at the landlords and would head over. They were only a 5 minute drive away.

Half an hour goes by. Mitchell comes home. Every car that goes by, I'm peering out my window, like a stupid high schooler waiting for her stupid prom date. Is that him yet? Is that him yet? I kept talking to him, via the drenched grey landscape. "Dude, it should not take this long."

The phone rings. I knew it would be him.

"Hello?" I said.

He clearly was no longer at a pay phone, and now he was speaking in a subversive undertone, as though he were a spy in enemy territory.

"I'm almost there," he said, and I BURST into laughter.

What was he doing - stopping on every corner to call? Okay, I'm 4 blocks away. Hi, it's me again. Now I'm 3 blocks away. I'm almost there. The call is now coming from inside the house.

It cracked me up.

I said, "WHAT is going on? Where are you?"

Then - still in the subversive spy voice, "I'll explain later."

So he was in some intriguing situation. I said, "Okay." We hung up.

15 minutes later, the phone rings. I didn't even say "Hello" this time. I just laughed directly into the receiver.

I had already given up my dream o' death masks. I just wanted him to ARRIVE.

So he had to whisper to me why he wasn't able to get there yet. He was stranded. I told him to ditch Dan and get the hell over to my apartment. NOW.

He said, "Well, just read - relax - I'll get there eventually."

Read? Does the Bride of Frankenstein read??

Half an hour later, he shows up at the door. He had brought me a roast beef sandwich from Arby's. It charmed me. It was an obvious bribe, a "Don't be mad" bribe, but it charmed me nonetheless. We sat. We talked. He makes me laugh.

He said, "I have got to get my haircut. I look like Albert Brooks."

He told me his whole long involved story of the morning. It was kind of boring. [hahahahahahahahahahaha] I showed him around my apartment. He inspected everything. Like a spy. We went in my room. He perused every item. He saw something I have on my wall, and stopped. He didn't say anything, just stopped and stared at it. 20 minutes later he said to me, "I don't think I've ever met another girl who is a John Cassavetes and Gena Rowlands fan."

This amazed me. "Really??"

We lay on our backs on my bed, talking. Then he said, after a pause, "You're gonna be mad."

I knew immediately. Our death-masks trips was off. Our night at the movies was off. Our whole date was off. Turns out, he was going to see another play that night and he didn't invite me. This turned into an enormous argument.

Which then turned into a wrestling match. Literally. We were rolling around on my floor, wrestling - for REAL - I kept trying to pin him. He kept trying tp pin me. We knocked over a lamp. We had a blast. We took out all our aggressions. Mitchell must have been like, "Jesus, people, I'm trying to have a quiet morning..." Crashes - screams - emanating from my bedroom.

Finally, I got off him and said, "You're avoiding assimilating me into your life. And that's fine. Really it is. I just don't want you to PRETEND that you are not doing that. I want you to realize what you are doing."

He looked at me with this dawning realization on his face and said the stupidest thing I have ever heard in my life. "Have I hurt your feelings over this past week?" It suddenly dawned on him. Then he said to himself, in dismay, "I'm hurting your feelings."

It takes men a while to realize I actually have feelings. I'm used to it, so I try to be patient with them.

I said, "Yeah. You were avoiding me all week. And PRETENDING like you weren't. Don't do that. Just be straight."

Michael said, "I need time to assimilate you." There was a long long pause and then he said, "You're not buying that one, aren't you?"

I told him I thought something else was going on. I was eager to invite him to do stuff. Impulsively. Not like some big thing. But in an impulsive friendly way. I hate having everything be a big deal - I'm an essentially casual girl. It's how I run my life.

"Hi - we're going to a movie at the Esquire - the 1 pm show - meet us there-"

"We're meeting up tonight at blah blah blah - want to join?"

Stuff like that. I want to include him in those little outings. He doesn't want to include me in his. But he's pretending like it's just LIFE that is intervening - like the whole rigmarole of him even arriving at my apartment - how it took him 3 hours to go a distance of 4 blocks. Something in him is resisting this relationship - and that's OKAY - I just need him to ADMIT it.

Before I kill him.

So anyway, we ended up having a good talk about it, after beating the crap out of each other on my bedroom floor.

He told me he has the tendency to ignore people he really cares about.

My response? "Wow, lucky me."

He doted on me in Ithaca. He would say, "Don't mind me. I'm just doting." "If my doting becomes annoying, just slap me." "Can I dote on you for, like, 2 seconds, and then I'll leave you alone?"

The doting ended when we crossed the Chicago county-line.

He was sorry, he felt bad, he doesn't want to hurt me, he apologized - etc. I was uninterested in all of that. I said, "Just don't ignore me. If you don't want to see me, tell me you don't want to see me. But don't ignore my phone calls. Don't do that to me."

"I won't."

It's weird. Nothing was a big deal in Ithaca, and everything is a big deal here. I don't like big deals. I want to show up on his doorstep with coffee, and not have it be a big deal. I want to have brief over-it phone conversations - "Okay, meet you there - bye" - not all this cloak and dagger stuff.

Also, when I said to him, "Well, I'm disappointed that you're canceling our date today" he FREAKED OUT. "I can't stand it! I can't stand it! Disappointment is WAY worse than anger!!"

This is what happens when you date a boy of 20 years of age.

I said, "Well - Jesus, I'm just telling you I'm disappointed. It's not some huge tragedy. I'm just disappointed. You want me to pretend I'm not? We had a date today. You're blowing me off."

He scowled.

Oh, such a funny thing happened too. We were hanging out in my room, talking, whatever - I still laugh when I think of this.

"I have a question for you," Michael said, in an ominously calm voice.

I waited.

He spoke. "Who is L.M. Montgomery?"

[Ed: That is so freakin' funny. I have about 50 L.M. Montgomery books, all lined up on my bookshelves. It was so funny the way he said it. No preamble. Also, like: it almost made him ANGRY.]

He asked me a lot of questions about "the Baby Boomer" [This was his scornful name for the guy I had been in love with before I met him.]. I dodged answering. But he kept pesetering. "What would you do if he called you up today and said, 'I'm wrong. I love you. Marry me.' What would you do?"

"He will never do that," I responded flatly. "It's over. He's gonna marry that girl." [He did.]

"I know! Just pretend. What if he did?"

He got all ominous and threatening about him. "Does he call you? Do you ever see him? Do you call him?"

I said, "No. No. No. No to all of that." He didn't believe me. But I was telling the truth.

Anyway, finally, he left. It was about 5 pm. I was pissed. I had made no plans for that night, because we had had a date, and now I was stuck. It was getting dark, rainy.

I walked him out to the porch, and as he walked down my street, I stood on my porch, calling after him, mocking, "WHOO-HOO! It's Saturday night!! It's Sheila's Saturday night - with roast beef sandwiches from Arby's! whoo-hoo! Look out! I don't know WHAT'S gonna happen!" I preyed on his guilt.

[8/31/2006 Note: I am noticing times overlapping here - layers of time - Less than a year later, he would show up at midnight to say goodbye to me on that very porch. I know this is a link-heavy post but whatever, here's another one. On that rainy day when Michael and I did NOT go to see the death masks - I had no idea that by that same time next year I would be fully ensconced in New York City, having completely uprooted my life in Chicago in August. No idea that that was even a possibility. And I had no idea that Michael would NOT come to my going-away dinner, OR to my going-away party - but that he WOULD show up, by himself, at midnight, the night before I left for a private good-bye. That was the kind of friendship we had. End 8/31/2006 Note]

But I can never hold a grudge with him. This is what separates me from the Bride of Frankenstein.

Anyway, I came back into my apartment, stood alone in my apartment for about 10 seconds, I felt kind of rattly, echoey - with this infinitesimal night stretching out ahead of me - so I picked up the phone and called Ann Marie.

Part I of my day ended. Part II beginning.

Ann, as it turns out, was sitting in her house having a parallel experience. Ann and I always end up having parallel experiences, even when our extenuating circumstances are very different. She is so great - she is immediately present. She jump-starts. I do that too. We never need catch-up time with one another.

She was totally confused at why I was calling her when I was supposed to be "doing death masks" with Michael.

"What happened?" she demanded.

And then, of course, we talked it out feverishly. Analyzed, discussed, theorized, hypothesized - picked that shit APART!! I wasn't in a rage or anything. The whole thing actually seems kind of comedic - but still, I am a bit disturbed. So we had a good old talk about it. And she told me about her circumstances as well. Antivenom. Etc. Very long story.

I said, "Let's do something! Want to do something?"

In a millisecond she was along for the ride.

We have been wanting for a while to go dancing at Whiskey River, a country-western bar, so we decided to do that and I suggested going to see the late-night show of Hamlet at Improv Olympic. Mitchell saw it when it first opened and said it was one of the funniest things he had ever seen in his life.

A bit of background. It's Hamlet, the musical.

Jeff Richmond, the pianist for all those improv shows, wrote it - it's a campy musical - like No No Nanette, or something - goofy and campy. Gertrude has a vamp number like "My Heart Belongs to Daddy', only it's entitled, "Mama is a Boy's Best Friend". It's a runaway hit, and doing really well. It's in the late night spot at the new Improv Olympic on Belmont. Alexandra Billings is playing Gertrude, and Mitchell says she is positively amazing. [So bizarre - I hadn't even met her at this point!!! It would be years and years before I met her. Before we did THIS together.] Alexandra makes entrances, as Gertrude, as though she is Bea Arthur or Helen Hayes or some Grande Dame of the American Theatre - and she completely pulls it off. She's getting extraordinary reviews.

While I was in Ithaca, I talked on the phone with Mitchell once and he told me that he had run into M. at Higgins one night.

[8/31/06 Note: At this point - I guess M. had started to date somebody else, pretty seriously, so obviously I wasn't seeing him anymore. By the way - the entire Triumvirate is in this post. Every single one of them. They always seem to go together even though they do not know each other and never did. They don't even know that they have me in common. So M. found a girlfriend and that was that in terms of us. I was fine with that. I obviously had found a boyfriend - even though he was 20 and it took him 3 hours to go 2 blocks - but I had also fell in love with someone before that - even though he was a Baby Boomer and I just don't want to talk about it anymore. In a short enough time, both M. and I were single again, and we kinda called each other like: "Hi. I'm single now. Are you? Yes? Me too. Okay. Good. Meet ya at Southport Lanes in half an hour. Let's go bowling and make out." End 8/31/06 Note]

M. One of the people in my life who is filled with dark magic. As a matter of fact, there is nobody else that has the same brand of dark magic for me as M. I do not know why this is true, because the man is utterly insane, but it most definitely is true.

So anyway, Mitchell told me about their exchange. Of course M. was, as Mitchell put it, "painfully awkward". Of course he was. I would be surprised if he were anything but - but also, there's that sweetness he has -

Other people see only his painful awkwardness. Many of them interpret it as contempt, or scorn. Like, he couldn't be bothered. Or he doesn't want to talk to them. These people could not be more wrong. They miss the sweetness underneath.

I honestly do not know if anyone else sees him quite the way I do.

Very strange. When people hear I was involved with him, they give me this look, this shocked look, like, "Really???" This baffles me, because - all I can see is his sweetness. I know he's weird and socially awkward and grumpy and crabby and bizarre - but what a joy he is, too!

Mitchell told me about his exchange with M. - (and now watch how I relate it as though I were there).

After the usual niceties were exchanged (and niceties with M. are always very painful, because he just seems to ENDURE them), Mitchell told M. that I was out of town doing a show. M. was awkwardly interested.

Anyway, as Mitchell relayed all of this to me, he said, "You know he's playing Claudius."

And no - I did not know that M. was now playing Claudius in Hamlet, the Musical. M.? singing and dancing? In a musical??? I could not stand the thought of it. it was positively too wonderful and too funny to contemplate.

"We have to see it," I said.

"I have to see M. do it," Mitchell said. "The other guy who played Claudis was this short fat troll-like guy - which was funny enough - having a troll be married to Alexandra Billings - but M. is so big and virile and handsome - it'll be interesting to see his take on it. also - to watch the dynamic between M. and Alexandra. I literally cannot imagine what that will be like."

Basically, I just want to see M. do a box step. I fear that I might laugh so hard I will split into a million pieces. Or that my heart will shatter onto the floor at the mere sight of M., the painfully awkward grumpy weirdo, doing a BOX STEP. It just makes me happy to think of it.

So Mitchell apparently said to M., "Hey, I hear you're in Hamlet! That is so great! I didn't know you could sing!"

This is my favorite part. In response to that, M. got kind of defensive and said, "I sing! ... I sing - like Sheila sings."

He gave Mitchell a frame of reference. Using my name. Which I think is just so comedic.

It was M.'s way of saying, "I'm not just Sheila's goof-ball friend - I have a good voice - like Sheila's..."

It was like when M. was trying to convince Mitchell that he was a valid member of his high school dance troupe.

[8/31/06 Note: I cannot tell you how hard I laugh now when I read that. I remember that night. It was a tequila-soaked night. Mitchell refused to believe that M., big strapping jock boy, had been in a dance troupe in high school. Refused. "M., you were not in a dance troupe. Come on!" So M. did a chassé, RIGHT AT Mitchell - very aggressively - like: "SEE? SEE ME CHASSÉ? Now you believe me?" We were in a crowded bar, too - Mitchell and I perched on bar stools, with M. suddenly doing this bad jazz combination right at us - See? I am crying with laughter right now. Later, Mitchell said to me, "I literally didn't know what to do. The man chasséd right in my face." End 8/31/06 Note]

So there are my background stories, and so Ann and I decided to go see Hamlet. It was an 11 pm show. I called for reservations. I was so DRIVEN to make something out of this evening which started out as a huge BUST.

And I had this very funny personal interlude with whoever was taking reservations. It was a guy = I didn't ask his name- I called, and told the voice I would like to reserve tickets.

He said, "Okay, hold on one sec. I've got the TV on too loud."

Er ... was the box office in someone's house?

Anyway, it could have ended there, but he sounded friendly, so I said, "What're you watching?"

And what followed was this hilarious conversation - and for some reason - it just gave me so much joy. We should have exchanged phone numbers. He just cracked me UP.

I said, "What're you watching?"

"That movie with Madonna and Harvey Keitel?"

"Oh, I heard that was very bad. How is it?"

"Yeah ... I know it got bad reviews - but it's really not that bad. A lot of it is very interesting, actually. Harvey Keitel plays a director, and it's cool to watch him, see what he might be like as a director - and through a lot of it, you can't tell what is real and what isn't."

"Oh, that's cool."

"Yeah, it is," he said.

"I love Harvey Keitel. Have you seen Pulp Fiction?" [Ed: Wow - time travel moment!!.]

This guy on the other end was so forthcoming and so friendly - we talked openly about the ups and downs of Harvey Keitel's career.

Total strangers.

It was so funny, too, because Mitchell was sitting right there, and as far as he was concerned, I had just been calling the box office, and then I end up blithering with some person as though I have known him all my life. Mitchell was giving me such a funny look, like 'Who the hell are you talking to, Sheila?'

My new best friend and I got back to the Madonna/Harvey Keitel movie - and he actually said, "No, it's not bad at all. I really think you'd like it."

That was the funniest moment of this conversation. Like - he knows my taste in movies now.

He said, "I think the people who had problems with it were ..." and he hesitated. I could feel him trying to find the right words through the phone line.

I filled in the blank, taking a wild guess. "Shrill feminists?"

Apparently, that was the PERFECT term - I had put it for him perfectly! Also, he probably wanted to say something along the lines of "shrill feminists", but wouldn't ... because he was talking to a woman, a female ... He wouldn't just assume that I've got my own brand of political incorrectedness going on for myself. He was being polite, careful. Men and women can be too careful with one another, until we realize that we speak the same language. But there are all kinds of land mines that could explode, if you don't look out. And in that moment when he hesitated, he was looking out.

See how I analyze a phone conversation with a stranger?? But I know I'm right. That was EXACTLY what he went through in that pause.

But once I gave him the "all clear" sign, by saying "shrill feminists", he said, almost relieved, "Yes! Exactly. Exactly. Shrill feminists would definitely not dig this movie."

I don't know why this encounter gave me so much joy, but it did.

Finally I ordered my tickets. Then we hung up with cheery good-byes, happy our paths had crossed.

I don't know. If I had been in any danger of being in the doldrums before, because of the death-mask debacle, after talking to that box office guy I was out of danger. I love fortuitous out-of-the-blue moments like that, where you can randomly connect with another human being. They are gifts the day gives you.

I wish I could send him a card.

Ann and I went to Whiskey River and had a TOTAL BLAST.

Oh wait, I'm forgetting one absolutely insane thing. Before Ann arrived, I suddenly got the idea that I wanted to send M. a little good-luck gourd backstage. Some people send flowers. In this case, I preferred to send a gourd. As I mentioned before, our steps are covered in darling gourds, some all mottled and warty, some dark-green with orange bumps, some were smooth and orange, like little grenades.

I am insane.

So I went out and picked out a small orange grenade, I dried it all off - there was still a blustery rain storm going on - and wrote on it: "To M. - have a great show - From Sheila." I was pretty much laughing the entire time.

I put the gourd in a paper bag.

When Ann and I got out of the car to go into Whiskey River, I felt a tiny (insane) twinge of separation anxiety re: my sad little gourd in its bag, and what is so FUNNY and so WONDERFUL is that Ann could feel this without me even having to say anything (and how crazy am I to feel anxious about being away from a gourd) - but she looked at me for a second, felt my anxiety, and then said the craziest thing of the night, "Do you want me to crack the window?"

I know for certain that I will forget that she said that, and some day - years from now - I will re-read that, and burst into laughter.

We spent about 3 hours at Whiskey River. We sat at the bar, eating free food, wolfing down chicken wings - we were all about food - and consumption - guess we were hungry - that fucking roast beef sandwich hadn't filled me up - Once she and I started eating, all conversation stopped. It was pathetic. We both noticed it, and then of course had to exaggerate it for comic effect and do various goofy improvs. Like one of us would start to talk to the other, and the other would raise her hand imperiously and say something like, "Please. Not now." "Don't talk to me while I'm eating."

And then we danced. It was totally crowded, and we had a ball. It was so much fun, and just what I needed.

Who needs death masks.

We then left, and shrieked up towards Belmont. Parked. Walked. The place was already nearly full. I got all goofy and nervous about seeing M. Had a couple vertigoes. I gave my gourd in a bag to the girl in the box office.

"Please give this to M.," I said. What if she peeked inside??

"He's not here yet."

Then - I got completely paranoid. I imagined that she was looking at me in some kind of sinister perusal. I even leapt to the frightening possibility that this was his new girlfriend, helping out at the box office. I'm not chasing M. right now - of course I'm not -I love that he has a girlfriend, and I'm happy for him - but - she would probably be pissed if she knew his ex was sending him random gourds. [Ed: Uhm - yeah. I would be pissed if some ex-girlfriend was randomly sending my boyfriend gourds.]

I should be committed. I told Ann that I was afraid that the girl at the box office was maybe his girlfriend. She said, "I think you're insane."

[Ed: Laughing!!]

Then I admitted to her that EVEN STILL - even after all that has gone down - I have now known this man for 2 years - even still, I had this fear that he would get the gourd, look at my name, and it would take him a second to figure out who I was.

Ann said, "Oh, now that is really crazy."

No. You know what is really crazy? Sending a guy a GOURD in the first place.

At a couple of points, before the show began, Ann and I would suddenly burst into laughter at M. getting the gourd. Opening the paper bag in front of the rest of the cast.

"You gave him a gourd!!" Ann was hysterical.

And let me just say some things about the show: it was absolutely fantastic. An absolute blast. The script is unabashedly GOOFY, and it is exactly my sense of humor. Tom Lehrer-ish.

The lights go down after one scene. Lights come up. Hamlet comes onstage. Alone. The lights are dim. He comes down center stage. You know he is about to start the "To be or not to be" speech. He stands there for a second, looking out into the darkness contemplatively. He puts his arm up in a parody of Shakespearean acting, and begins, loudly: "To be - or not - to be -"

And then the doorbell rings, interrupting him.

And he keeps trying to get back to his soliloquy, and he keeps getting interrupted. It is goofy, and very funny.

Watching M. as Claudius, my boy filled with dark magic. I just have to say that it made me ridiculously happy to watch him dance around, singing and acting. I was goofily happy. He wore a colored cape. Which - I can't even describe how funny that is. He wore a crown. And he would do this completely obvious evil behavior, like winking at Gertrude over Hamlet's head, openly scheming, openly rolling his eyes.

He reminded me of Alan Rickman in Robin Hood. An over-the-top villain. Sneaking around like Bela Lugosi. The mere sight of his face makes me laugh. He also now has a sleazy little mustache and beard.

And yes, as he assured Mitchell, he "sings ... like Sheila sings ..." Hearing him harmonize, with that goofy campy music, was sheer liquid delight.

The audience laughed from pretty much start to finish. Our stomachs hurt.

Alexandra Billings BLEW OUR MINDS. She is a force of nature.

We waited after the show to say Hello.

I mean, I couldn't just leave after sending him a gourd like that.

We stood at the top of the aisle, where he wouldn't miss us. he came out from backstage, long-haired, jeans, cigarette dangling. He came towards us, but he was looking past us. Maybe he was looking for us. If he got the gourd, he knew we were out there.

[Ed: See, it's casually crazy sentences like that which absolutely crack me up. "If he got the gourd, he knew we were out there." What??]

I stuck my hand out in his line of vision to get his attention. He stopped - saw me. And any stupid STUPID fears I might have had completely dissolved with the expression on his face when he saw me.

Sheer joy.

I said, "Hi!" And then - the joy was on hold -for just one second - he said, with a strange stopped feeling, "Hi - hold on one second - Stay put. Don't move. I want you to meet my girlfriend. Last time you came to an improv show, she bitched me out for not introducing you."

She did?

Then he disappeared. I could hear him calling into the theatre, "Angie! Angie!" anyway, I had enough time to have a brief private pow-wow with Ann.

It went like this, rapid-fire dialogue, under the breath:

"Oh my God. He's getting Angie."

"Oh, God."

"How do I look? Be honest. Do I look okay?"

"Yes."

I was nervous to meet the girlfriend, and yet my heart felt like it had little wings beating. Little joyous wings. I can't really explain it. Somehow = M. and I - two dysfunctional strange people - got through to each other. I don't know how we did it, but we did. I also don't know why I keep doubting it. but I do.

So there he was - summoning Angie to come meet me. I heard him say to her, "Sheila's here - come meet Sheila."

I felt a wee bit ridiculous. Does she know about the gourd?

[Ed: Again, funny funny. I write that as though that is a normal thing to say.]

And here's the kicker: I am NOT in love with him. He may have the world's dark magic, but I am not in love with him. These feelings have nothing to do with love or anything like that. They just are. It's a one-of-a-kind relationships, that could never ever be duplicated. It's about fondness. Pure and simple. Mutual fondness. Punctuated by painful awkwardness. Unembattled affection, friendly, occasionally weird - no big deal.

So suddenly, there was Angie. And M. fled. I think it was all too much for him, and he needed to regroup. He is the most awkward man alive. And this? Having Angie meet me? The only other important woman in his life? I think M. would have spontaneously combusted, and she and I would have spent all our time trying to take care of him. It was good that he fled.

He dumped Angie into our laps, and then dashed away, with nary a word.

We all introduced ourselves, shook hands, nice nice nice, smile smile smile. Angie didn't seem- well, she was not a bitch, she was not mean - but I didn't feel kindred-spirit potential in her.

However, I cut her all the slack in the world, knowing what it feels like to be a threatened girlfriend. She wasn't prepared for my being there. So what was going through her mind? Like - does she think I'm stalking him, or trying to make trouble? If I were her, I would think that.

So I cut her a tremendous amount of slack.

She is very petite, tiny bones. Very pretty, wears a lot of makeup. Her eyelashes were so long and so black that they cast a shadow across her cheekbones, in a very pretty way. Her face is perfect porcelain. Her hair is auburn ringlets.

I was doing my best to just be as polite and as un-threatening as it is possible to be. It took a lot of concentration.

I don't think it would be possible for her to like me. I didn't want her to like me, and if I were in her shoes, I wouldn't have liked me. But I did want her to know I posed no threat, and I respect their relationship. (Gourds notwithstanding.)

M. had told me, last time I ran into him, that she had finally said to him, "Look ... if you need to still be friends with that girl ... I'm okay with that. Just don't hide it from me." That was what his whole: "Sheila's here!" moment was about. So I can tell that she is actually kind of a cool chick. She knows that she can't expect a man to be a blank slate.

But she had to assert her territory, and I completely let her. I let her run the show.

We did not have a conversation. She talked at us. Which was fine. Completely understandable. She yanked the conversation into her control by commenting on our names. "Oh my God - Such Irish Catholic names! It makes me afraid! Like I shouldn't cuss in front of you guys or something!"

Ann and I laughed - but it was forced - I felt forced, anyway. But it was okay. I understand territories. I understood her need to stake her claim. M. is her territory now. She needed to subtly let me know that.

We laughed obligingly and I said, "Dont' sweat it. We're fallen cherubs." Which perhaps was not the most appropriate thing to say, seeing as I was trying to be un-threatening and normal. [After sending someone a gourd?]

But it was okay, because she didn't really hear me.

"Is this your first time seeing the show?" she asked.

"Yes..." we both said, and she then told this very long story about M.'s opening night, and his problems with his costume and Ann and I listened and laughed where we should laugh and neither of us said a word. I may sound like I'm being a bitch here but I'm not. I do not begrudge her this at all. I probably would have acted the same way.

During her entire story, what I was REALLY hearing was her silent subtext, which was: "He's mine. He's mine now. He's mine now." Of course. I would have done the same thing. She kept using the words "my boyfriend". She never ever said his name. It was "my boyfriend, my boyfriend, my boyfriend..." Again, a territorial thing.

She was very dramatic. Smoking a cigarette, very glamorous, the shadows of her eyelashes, the pale pale skin.

At the end of her story, M. came back and joined us (having regrouped his awkward emotions in the bathroom. I relate.)

I felt that my job in this entire awkward exchange was to cut EVERYBODY slack. Let them be weird, awkward, hostile, strange - while I remained cool and gracious and friendly. I think, all in all, it worked.

He was sweet with her. Very protective. Obviously proud of her. It was heartwarming to see. Love sits well on him. It really does.

I did tell him I hated his mustache though and told him he looked like a sleaze-ball.

[Ed: Guys - I seriously cannot breathe right now. I am dying of laughter. I saw no contradiction, apparently, by saying that I was cutting everyone slack -and then turning around and telling him TO HIS FACE that he looked like a sleazeball. I can't breathe. I.]

Ann and I raved to him about the show. We told him our stomachs hurt from laughing. At one point, Angie walked away to talk to someone. And suddenly - spontaneously - wonderfully - M. put his arms around me and gave me this huge and (of course, what else) very awkward hug. We could never be anything but awkward in this situation, but it is the friendliest most okay awkwardness on the planet. We revel in the awkwardness.

I wasn't expecting him to hug me like that. We were never big huggers anyway. So I kind of awkwardly hugged him back, and I just could feel this gladness emanating off of him. Glad-ness to see me, and so happy to introduce me to his new girl. Closure. Or something.

Who would have ever thought ...

He asked me questions about Ithaca and the show I did.

At one point I said, "M.. You wearing a crown. I mean, come on. It's so funny."

I said to Mitchell later, "It is so weird. Because - essentially - the role he has played in my life has been quite peripheral."

Mitchell said, "Yeah. But also, at the same time, somehow profound."

Perfectly put. M. has been peripheral and yet somehow profound.

I said to him, "Oh hey, my CD should be coming out next month!" (Oh, it's my CD now?)

[Ed: The CD to which I refer was a duet I did with Pat McCurdy on this album. M. and I had been together when Pat wrote the song for me, and asked me to do it - so there was some background there.]

M. knew exactly what I was talking about - he lit up with interest.

"You're on it?"

"So I hear. So check your local Tower Records in December."

M. beamed at me with pride.

He then said, "Well. I should probably get going."

I reached out and touched his arm. "Great show, M.. It is so good to see you."

He said, at the same time, "Thanks for coming, Sheila. You too."

I said, "Please tell Angie we said good-bye, won't you?"

"I will, I will."

We were both strangely moved. I can't explain it. We were strangely moved.

We backed away, saying, "Bye!"

We are both the better for having had that exchange. For whatever reason. The whole thing. Meeting Angie. Maybe she can relax about me now. I hope so. I wish him the best. In all things.

But still. Sending him a gourd.

I certainly rescued my night from the death mask spiral. It was epic. I'm very happy. In a very goofy way.

Music Meme

Ken tagged me with this meme about a decade ago - and I'm just getting to it now. Busy busy Sheila. Busy busy bee.

Four songs that you could listen to over and over:
Fields of Joy - Lenny Kravitz
Oh Darling - The Beatles
Til We Reach that Day - Ragtime soundtrack
Luck in my Eyes - kd lang

Four songs that drive you up the friggin' wall:

We didn't start the fire - Billy Joel (love the Joel, hate that song)

We Are the World - No. You are NOT the world. You are Americans. There's a difference.

That big song by Enya kind of drives me crazy. My massage therapist sometimes plays it during a session and I make him change it because it kinda makes me mad.

Oh - and Drips - by Eminem. Track 9 on The Eminem Show. Were it not for Track 9, that would be a perfect album. I know there are those who disagree with me, and who love Drips - but I'm standing strong on this one.

Four songs that you're embarrassed (or should be) to admit you like:

Well, I'm all about the guilty pleasures in life so I have little to no embarrassment about any of my tastes - and don't think I SHOULD be embarrassed by any of them - but let's pretend:

You Drive Me Crazy - Britney Spears - great pop song. But again, I'm not embarrassed to like it, because I think it's a great pop song/.

Any and all KC and the Sunshine Band songs

I adore Ashlee Simpson's "La La" even though it is ridiculous and I can't stand her and everything she represents, with her new nose, and her creepy dad. Still "La La" is a great song.

I love Madonna. Now there's something that is not popular to admit today. But I don't give a crap. Love her music. All of it.

Four best driving songs:
Monkey Wrench - Foo Fighters
Kashmir - Led Zeppelin
Enter Sandman - Metallica
Lithium - Nirvana

I obviously like it loud and almost brain-dissolvingly harsh when I drive. None of this melancholy reflective James Taylor stuff. I love James Taylor - but NOT for driving. He's more of a - as i take a long walk on a cloudy day - he'll be on the iPod. But driving? By myself? No.

Four songs that make you cry:
Errol Flynn - Amanda McBroom
The Man that Got Away - Judy Garland
Watershed - Indigo Girls
Washing of the Water - Peter Gabriel

Four best risqu� songs:
Risque to me means suggestive - rather than explicit. So:

Happiness is a warm gun - the Beatles
Galway Bay - the Clancy Brothers (hahahaha but it's true - best song.)
Freudian Love Song - Pat McCurdy (lyrics here)
Oh Jean - The Proclaimers

Four best kid songs:
John Jacob Jingleheimer Smith (his name is my name too!!)

Actually - Holiday, by Green Day - and I say that because Cashel loves it and we sing it together rousingly

99 bottles of beer on the wall

Little red caboose (chug chug chug)

If you want to list your own answers in the comments - go right ahead!!!

The Books: "Rainbow Valley" (L.M. Montgomery)

Next book on my young adult fiction bookshelves:

Next book on the shelf is Rainbow Valley by L.M. Montgomery.

Published in 1919 - this is the second book about Anne's 6 children ... and the spectre of World War I slowly approaches. Lucy Maud is writing it during the war - and although the book takes place prior to World War I, the shadow hangs over it. It is as though she realizes (as the whole world realizes) that the old world has died away. Welcome to the 20th century. Modern warfare. A carnage unlike anything humanity had ever experienced. Technology. All that. Rainbow Valley is her last "Anne" book to take place PRIOR to all of that, to the horrible awakening. And Lucy Maud manages to convey the consciousness of that old world, and its fragility, and the fact that it doesn't have long to live, in her prose. She has a way of letting us know what is coming. Listen to the second to the last paragraph:

He stood up on a hillock, tall and splendid, with his open brow and his fearless eyes. There were thousands like him all over the land of the maple.

There's the whole thing in the book about responding to the 'call of the Piper'. In the innocent world of the book, it just means - approaching adulthood, facing the unknown - who is ready to heed the call of the Piper? But Lucy Maud manages to suggest a more ominous meaning. The call of the Piper is actually (although no one knows it yet) war.

Nobody knows that war is coming, that it will wrench their worlds apart, that all the boys who we now know as cute little guys with fishing poles will be going off to Europe to the trenches. That the womenfolk (who are all now still little girls with pinafores) will have thier hearts dragged along behind them, living the war in every agonizing breath. None of that is here yet - but you can feel it. In the way Lucy Maud writes. Somehow, it's melancholy. Even though the whole book is a funny heartwarming book about a rowdy group of kids playing in their favorite spot, Rainbow Valley ... the overall impression left from the book is almost one of a keening sadness. Did anyone else pick up on this? It's not sentimental, or overt ... Lucy Maud is just writing about a world that no longer exists and she is grieving it. Grieving for what this young generation will have to go through. Grieving for the lost innocence of her country. I really feel that in Rainbow Valley.

So we have Anne and Gilbert's kids - 6 of them. They're lovely kids, individuals, each distinct and separate from the other. The Blythes live next door to the old dusty manse where the widowed minister lives with HIS brood of kids. The minister (Rev. Meredith) is a lovely man, a wonderful minister, and he LOVES his children - but he kind of sucks as a father. He lets them run wild. He has no idea what they are doing, where they are going. The kids dress themselves (sometimes to disastrous results) - they sit and sing in the graveyard (causing huge scandals in the town) - they run WILD. They are a huge scandal. They are very mch loved by everyone, because they are kind-hearted sweet smart kids - but they are just insanely mischievous. They are always daring each other to do stuff, to disastrous results. Oh - and they are totally aware that their father is basically in a prolonged state of mourning for their mother - and so they are very very sensitive about anything that will hurt him. So if they get in trouble, because someone in the town "told" on them, and their father tells them how disappointed he is in them ... then they realize that they must "do penance" and punish themselves for hurting their father yet again. These "penances" usually cause even more trouble than the original mischief.

But you just love these kids. Especially Faith Meredith. Fatih Meredith, the oldest girl in that family, a golden-haired red-cheeked MANIAC, is one of Lucy Maud's great child creations. I was disappointed to see her fade into the distance in the next book (she goes to Europe with the Red Cross, I believe). I think Faith could have had her own book as an adult - it would have been really interesting to see who she would have become. She's gorgeous, she's wild, she has a fiery temper, she has a good sense of right and wrong - but she's just WILD. There's one episode where she rides a pig through the middle of the town on a dare - and i swear, every time I read that episode tears of laughter fall down my face. I don't know why it strikes me so funny - maybe because of Lucy Maud's description of the terrified pig ... of the scandalized townspeople watching Faith gallop by ON A PIG ... It's just hilarious to me.

There are side plots. Mary Vance - the white-haired orphan girl who Miss Cornelia eventually adopts after she is basically camping out at the manse for weeks, after running away. Now SHE is a trouble-maker. Big-time. Also - eventually - Rev. Meredith starts to court someone again (in his own dreamy abstracted way) and the Meredith kids are terrified (even though they love Rosemary) because Mary Vance told them that all stepmothers are evil, even if they started OUT nice.

The excerpt I chose is a small one. It always makes me laugh. It is ridiculous - but it's an example, i think, of why Mark Twain loved her writing. She gets into childhood like almost no other author (except for maybe Twain himself., And Dickens. But let's just say: very few authors really GET IT.) She does. This episode is SO FUNNY to read, but so tragic to the little 6 year old girl involved.

Excerpt from Rainbow Valley by L.M. Montgomery.

Rilla Blythe walked proudly, and perhaps a little primly, through the main 'street' of the Glen and up the manse hill, carefully carrying a small basketful of early strawberries, which Susan had coaxed into lusciousness in one of the sunny nooks of Ingleside. Susan had charged Rilla to give the basket to nobody except Aunt Martha or Mr. Meredith, and Rilla, very proud of being entrusted with such an errand, was resolved to carry out her instructions to the letter.

Susan had dressed her daintily in a white, starched and embroidered dress, with sash of blue and beaded slippers. Her long ruddy curls were sleek and round, and Susan had let her put on her best hat, out of compliment to the manse. It was a somewhat elaborate affair, wherein Susan's taste had more to say than Anne's, and Rilla's small soul gloried in its splendours of silk and lace and flowers. She was very conscious of her hat, and I am afraid she strutted up the manse hill. The strut, or the hat, or both, got on the nerves of Mary Vance, who was swinging on the lawn gate. Mary's temper was somewhat ruffled just then, into the bargain. Aunt Martha had refused to let her peel the potatoes and had ordered her out of the kitchen.

"Yah! You'll bring the potatoes to the table with strips of skin hanging to them and half boiled as usual! My, but it'll be nice to go to your funeral," shrieked Mary. She went out of the kitchen, giving the door such a bang that even Aunt Martha heard it, and Mr. Meredith in his study felt the vibration and thought absently that there must have been a slight earthquake shock. Then he went on with his sermon.

Mary slipped from the gate and confronted the spick-and-span damsel of Ingleside.

"What you got there?" she demanded, trying to take the basket.

Rilla resisted. "It'th for Mithter Meredith," she lisped.

"Give it to me. I'll give it to him," said Mary.

"No. Thuthan thaid I wathn't to give it to anybody but Mithter Mer'dith or Aunt Martha," insisted Rilla.

Mary eyed her sourly.

"You think you're something, don't you, all dressed up like a doll! Look at me. My dress is all rags and I don't care! I'd rather be ragged than a doll baby. Go home and tell them to put you in a glass case. Look at me -- look at me -- look at me!"

Mary executed a wild dance around the dismayed and bewildered Rilla, flirting her ragged skirt and vociferating "Look at me -- look at me" until poor Rilla was dizzy. But as the latter tried to edge away towards the gate Mary pounced on her again.

"You give me that basket," she ordered with a grimace. Mary was past mistress in the art of "making faces". She could give her countenance a most grotesque and unearthly appearacne out of which her strange, brilliant, white eyes gleamed with weird effect.

"I won't," gasped Rilla, frightened but staunch. "You let me go, Mary Vanth."

Mary let go for a minute and looked around her. Just inside the gate was a small "flake", on which half a dozen large codfish were drying. One of Mr. Meredith's parishioners had presented him with them one day, perhaps in lieu of the subscription he was supposed to pay to the stipend and never did. Mr. Meredith had thanked him and then forgotten all about the fish, which would have promptly spoiled had not the indefatigable Mary prepared them for drying and rigged up the "flake" herself on which to dry them.

Mary had a diabolocial inspiration. She flew to the "flake" and seized the largest fish there - a huge, flat thing, nearly as big as herself. With a whoop she swooped down on the terrified Rilla, brandishing her weird missile. Rilla's courage gave way. To be lambasted with a dried codfish was such an unheard-of thing that Rilla could not face it. With a shriek she dropped her basket and fled. The beautiful berries, which Susan had so tenderly selected for the minister, rolled in a rosy torrent over the dusty road and were trodden on by the flying feet of pursuer and pursued. The basket and contents were no longer in Mary's mind. She thought only of the delight of giving Rilla Blythe the scare of her life. She would teach her to come giving herself airs because of her fine clothes.

Rilla flew down the hill and along the street. Terror lent wings to her feet, and she just managed to keep ahead of Mary, who was somewhat hampered by her own laughter, but who had breath enough to give occasional blood-curdling whoops as she ran, flourishing her codfish in the air. Through the Glen street they swept, while everybody ran to the windows and gates to see them. Mary felt she was making a tremendous sensation and enjoyed it. Rilla, blind with terror and spent of breath, felt that she could run no longer. In another instant that terrible girl would be on her with the codfish. At this point the poor mite stumbled and fell into the mud-puddle at the end of the street just as Miss Cornelia came out of Carter Flagg's store.

Miss Cornelia took the whole situation in at a glance. So did Mary. The latter stopped short in her mid career and before Miss Cornelia could speak she had whirled around and was running up as fast as she had run down. Miss Cornelia's lips tightened ominously, but she knew it was no use to think of chasing her. So she picked up poor, sobbing, dishevelled Rilla instead and took her home. Rilla was heart-broken. Her dress and slippers and hat were ruined and her six year old pride had received terrible bruises.

The Books: "Anne of Ingleside" (L.M. Montgomery)

Next book on my young adult fiction bookshelves:

Next book on the shelf is Anne of Ingleside by L.M. Montgomery.

Sixth in the Anne series - but I think this was one of the last books she wrote. I'll have to check. [Checked: It was the second to last. Her last book was "Jane of Lantern Hill" (excerpt here)] Anne of Ingleside was published in 1939 - which always amazes me. What a horrible year that was. A horrible year for the world. There are a couple of foreshadowing moments in this book - because, after all, she has already written Rilla of Ingleside (excerpt here) - so she knows what happens. There's a moment when Anne sees a shadow of a cross over her son Walter's bed - and "later she would look back on that ...." etc.

Anne of Ingleside is the story of Anne and Gilbert raising their brood of children. Each child has his or her own big episode in the book - and the narrative is told from that child's point of view. So we're inside Jem's head, or Walter's head, or whatever. We see Anne and Gilbert, characters we now love and feel we know, through their kids eyes - as parents. They're called "Mother" and "Dad". I admit that when I was a teenager, reading the books for the first time, I got kind of frustrated. Because ... where is Anne??? What's going on with HER? But as an adult, it seems right. Anne is in the book, as herself, with her point of view, in the beginning, and intermittently throughout - and then there's a huge brou-haha that takes up the end of the book - where Anne feels that Gilbert is neglecting her, and then she becomes convinced that Gilbert still pines for his college girlfriend Christine. This is really the only hint we ever get that Anne and Gilbert ever have marital strife. Or - not even strife - how 'bout an ARGUMENT? How 'bout a little reality? Lucy Maud's marriage was so bad and so ... shameful to her (mental illness being so stigmatized) that she never really wrote about marriage - I think it was too hot to go near. Leslie Moore is tragic and interesting (excerpt from Anne's House of Dreams here) - and then she gets married and we never hear of her again. Lucy Maud's books END with marriages. I'm not saying there's anything bad with that - it just becomes noticeable as a theme. Anne and Gilbert are the only married couple that we really follow through their marriage, we see from the inside out, and Lucy Maud turns her focus onto the kids, rather than onto the grown-ups. In a way, this was VERY smart of her - because it kept the interest going for new generations. Anyway, just an observation.

Some of my favorite episodes in this book:

-- the nightmare of Aunt Mary Maria - who comes to stay and then just won't go home. What a drip. I was frustrated with Gilbert for not standing up to her.

-- the tragic chapter where Nan becomes convinced (because a little evil child TOLD her) that she was adopted - that she is actually the daughter of a horrible old fishwife down on the shore

-- when Walter walks all the way home because he's convinced that something bad is happening at home ... Turns out Anne is just having another baby - named Marilla - who eventually will star in her own book Rilla of Ingleside.

-- Anne's disastrous match-making attempt - very very funny

And frankly, I'm gonna be honest here: I just flipped through this book this morning and remembered a lot of it - but it's not lodged in my memory the way the events of some of the other books are. But the excerpt I chose? It's in my head forever. I probably think about this episode, oh, once a month? Seriously. It comes floating through my mind, and I sit, and ponder it for a second, before moving on. I remember the details - the descriptions - but mostly I remember the EVENT. Lucy Maud gets DARK here, and maybe that's why I remember it so clearly. Not sure.

Anyway - Walter (Anne's son) asks her, after overhearing someone mention it: "What happened at Peter Kirk's funeral?"

Anne refuses to tell him. It is not a story for children. But then, in a moment of reflection, she sits and remembers it, thinks back on it.

In my opinion, this is Lucy Maud at her best. All the names, the gossip, the stories, the glimpses into other people's hearts ...

Excerpt from Anne of Ingleside by L.M. Montgomery.

It had been in November ... the first November they had spent at Ingleside ... following a week of Indian summer days. The Kirks lived at Mowbray Narrows but came to the Glen church and Gilbert was their doctor; so he and Anne both went to the funeral.

It had been, she remembered, a mild, calm, pearl-grey day. All around them had been the lonely brown-and-purple landscape of November, with patches of sunlight here and there on upland and slope where the sun shone through a rift in the clouds. "Kirkwynd" was so near the shore that a breath of salt win blew through the grim firs behind it. It was a big, prosperous-looking house but Anne always thought that the gable of the L looked exactly like a long, narrow, spiteful face.

Anne paused to speak to a little knot of women on the stiff flowerless lawn. They were all good hard-working souls to whom a funeral was a not unpleasant excitement.

"I forgot to bring a handkerchief," Mrs. Bryan Blake was saying plaintively. "Whatever will I do when I cry?"

'Why will you have to cry?" bluntly asked her sister-in-law Camilla Blake. Camilla had no use for women who cried too easily. "Peter Kirk is no relation to you and you never liked him."

"I think it is proper to cry at a funeral," said Mrs. Blake stiffly. "It shows feeling when a neighbour has been summoned to his long home."

"If nobody cries at Peter's funeral except those who liked him there won't be many wet eyes," said Mrs. Curtis Rodd drily. "That is the truth and why mince it? He was a pious old humbug and I know it if nobody else does. Who is that coming at the little gate? Don't ... don't tell me it's Clara Wilson."

"It is," whispered Mrs. Bryan incredulously.

"Well, you know after Peter's first wife died she told him she would never enter his house again until she came to his funeral and she's kept her word," said Camilla Blake. "She's a sister of Peter's first wife ..." In an explanatory aside to Anne, who looked curiously at Clara Wilson as she swept past them, unseeing, her smouldering topaz eyes staring straight ahead. She was a thin slip of a woman with a dark-browed, tragic face and black hair under one of the absurd bonnets elderly women still wore ... a thing of feathers and "bugles" with a skimpy nose veil. She looked at and spoke to no one, as her long black taffeta skirt swished over the grass and up the verandah steps.

"There's Jed Clinton at the door, putting on his funeral face," said Camilla sarcastically. "He's evidently thinking it is time we went in. It's always been his boast that at his funerals everything goes according to schedule. He's never forgiven Winnie Clow for fainting before the sermon. It wouldn't have been so bad afterwards. Well, nobody is likely to faint at this funeral. Olivia isn't the fainting kind."

"Jed Clinton ... the Lowbridge undertaker," said Mrs. Reese. "Why didn't they have the Glen man?"

"Who? Carter Flagg? Why, woman dear, Peter and him have been at daggers drawn all their lives. Carter wanted Amy Wilson, you know."

"A good many wanted her," said Camilla. "She was a very pretty girl, with her coppery red hair and inky black eyes. Though people thought Clara the handsomer of the two then. It's odd she never married. There's the minister at last ... and the Rev. Mr. Owen of Lowbridge with him. Of course he is Olivia's cousin. All right except that he puts too many 'Oh's' in his prayers. We'd better go in or Jed will have a conniption."

Anne paused to look at Peter Kirk on her way to a chair. She had never liked him. "He has a cruel face," she thought, the first time she had ever seen him. Handsome, yes ... but with cold steely eyes even then becoming pouchy, and the thin pinched merciless mouth of a miser. He was known to be selfish and arrogant in his dealings with his fellow-men in spite of his profession of piety and his unctuous prayers. "Always feels his importance," she had heard someone say once. Yet, on the whole, he had been respected and looked up to,.

He was as arrogant in his death as in his life and there was something about the too-long fingers clasped over his still breast that made Anne shudder. She thought of a woman's heart being held in them and glanced at Olivia Kirk, sitting opposite to her in her mourning. Olivia was a tall, fair, handsome woman with large blue eyes ... "no ugly woman for me," Peter Kirk had said once ... and her face was composed and expressionless. There was no apparent trace of tears ... but then, Olivia had been a Random and the Randoms were not emotional. At least she sat decorously and the most heartbroken in the world could not have worn heavier weeds.

The air was cloyed with the perfume of the flowers that banked the coffin ... for Peter Kirk, who had never known flowers existed. His lodge had sent a wreath, the church had sent one, the Conservative Assocation had sent one, the school trustees had sent one, the Cheese Board had sent one. His oine, long-alienated son had sent nothing, but the Kirk clan at large had sent a huge anchor of white roses with "Harbour At Last" in red rosebuds across it, and there was one from Olivia herself .. .a pillow of calla-lilies. Camilla Blake's face twitched as she loked at it and Anne remembered that she had once heard Camilla say that she had been at Kirkwynd soon after Peter's second marriage when Peter had fired out of the window a potted calla-lily which the bride had brought with her. He wasn't, so he said, going to have his house cluttered up with weeds.

Olivia had apparently taken it very coolly and there had been no more calla-lilies at Kirkwynd. Could it be possible that Olivia ... but Anne looked at Mrs. Kirk's placid face and dismissed the suspicion. After all, it was generally the florist who suggested the flowers.

The choir sang "Death like a narrow sea divides that heavenly land from ours" and Anne caught Camilla's eye and knew they were both wondering just how Peter Kirk would fit into that heavenly land. Anne could almost hear Camilla saying, "Fancy Peter Kirk with a harp and halo if you dare."

The Rev. and Mrs. Owen read a chapter and prayed, with many "Oh's" and many entreaties that sorrowing hearts might be comforted. The Glen minister gave an address which many privately considered entirely too fulsome, even allowing for the fact that you had to say something good of the dead. To hear Peter Kirk called an affectionate father and a tender husband, a kind neighbour and an earnest Christian was, they felt, a misuse of language. Camilla took refuge behind her handkerchief, not to shed tears, and Stephen Macdonald cleared his throat once or twice. Mrs. Bryan must have borrowed a handkerchief from someone, for she was weeping into it, but Olivia's down-dropped blue eyes remained tearless.

Jed Clinton drew a breath of relief. All had gone beautifully. Another hymn ... the customary parade for a last look at "the remains" ... and another successful funeral would be added to his long list.

There was a slight disturbance in a corner of the large room and Clara Wilson made her way through the maze of chairs to the table beside the casket. She turned there and faced the assembly. Her absurd bonnet had slipped a trifle to one side and a loose end of heavy black hair had escaped from its coil and hung down on her shoulder. But nobody thought Clara Wilson looked absurd. Her long sallow face was flushed, her haunted tragic eyes were flaming. She was a woman possessed. Bitterness, like some gnawing incurable disease, seemed to pervade her being.

"You have listend to a pack of lies ... you people who have come here 'to pay your respects' ... or glut your curiosity, whicher it was. Now I shall tell you the truth about Peter Kirk. I am no hypocrite ... I never feared him living and I do not fear him now that he is dead. Nobody has ever dared to tell the truth about him to his face but it is going to be told now ... here at his funeral where he has been called a good husband and a kind neighbour. A good husband! He married my sister Amy ... my beautiful sister, Amy. You all know how sweet and lovely she was. He made her life a misery to her. He tortured and humiliated her ... he liked to do it. Oh, he went to church regularly ... and made long prayers ... and paid his debts. But he was a tyrant and a bully ... his very dog ran when he heard him coming.

"I told Amy she would repent marrying him. I helped her make her wedding dress ... I'd rather have made her shroud. She was wild about him then, poor thing, but she hadn't been his wife a week before she knew what he was. His mother had been a slave and he expected his wife to be one. 'There will be no arguments in my household,' he told her. She hadn't the spirit to argue ... her heart was broken. Oh, I know what she went through, my poor pretty darling. He crossed her in everything. She couldn't have a flower-garden ... she couldn't even have a kitten ... I gave her one and he drowned it. She had to account to him for every cent she spent. Did ever any of you see her in a decent stitch of clothes? He would fault her for wearing her best hat if it looked like rain. Rain couldn't hurt any hat she had, poor soul. Her that loved pretty clothes! He was always sneering at her people. He never laughed in his life ... did any of you ever hear him really laugh? He smiled ... oh yes, he always smiled, calmly and sweetly when he was doing the most maddening things. He smiled when he told her after her little baby was born dead that she might as well have died, too, if she couldn't have anything but dead brats. She died after ten years of it ... and I was glad she had escaped him. I told him then I'd never enter his house again till I came to his funeral. Some of you heard me. I've kept my word and now I've come and told the truth about him. It is the truth ... you know it" ... she pointed fiercely at Stephen Macdonald ... "you know it" ... the long finger darted at Camilla Blake ... "you know it" ... Olivia Kirk did not move a muscle ... "you know it" ... the poor minister himself felt as if that finger stabbed completely through him. "I cried at Peter Kirk's wedding but I told him I'd laugh at his funeral. And I am going to do it."

She swished furiously about and bent over the casket. Wrongs that had festered for years had been avenged. She had wreaked her hatred at last. Her whole body vibrated with triumph and satisfaction as she looked down at the cold quiet face of a dead man. Everybody listened for the burst of vindictive laughter. It did not come. Clara Wilson's angry face suddenly changed ... twisted ... crumpled up like a child's. Clara was ... crying.

She turned, with the tears streaming down her ravaged cheeks, to leave the room. But Olivia Kirk rose before her and laid a hand on her arm. For a moment the two women looked at each other. The room was engulfed in a silence that seemed like a personal presence.

"Thank you, Clara Wilson," said Olivia Kirk. Her face was as inscrutable as ever but there was an undertone in her calm, even voice that made Anne shudder. She felt as if a pit had suddenly opened before her eyes. Clara Wilson might hate Peter Kirk, alive and dead, but Anne felt that her hatred was a pale thing compared to Olivia Kirk's.

Happy place!!

Look at the gleam on that hair.

Thinking about Dickens

I'm in the process right now of reading George Orwell's mammoth (and unbelievably good) essay on Charles Dickens. It is dense, explicit, exciting - and it's making me want to pick up all of those books again. I re-read Great Expectations a couple years ago - but the other ones it's been a long long time. Orwell's observations (especially as an Englishman) are invaluable. It's serendiptous - because I opened up one of my favorite sites today - to find this as the first item on display. I used to have an illustrated Oliver Twist - with similar type drawings, but I have no idea where that book went.

I like Orwell's observation about Dickens and children. Orwell was notoriously horribly treated (his essay Such, such were the joys is pretty much an indictment of the entire education system in England - ack - it's painful to read) - but here he is on one of Dickens' undeniable gifts - the ability to write from the perspective of a little kid:

No one, at any rate no English writer, has written better about childhood than Dickens. In spite of all the knowledge that has accumulated since, in spite of the fact that children are now comparatively sanely treated, no novelist has shown the same power of entering into the child's point of view. I must have been about nine years old when I first read David Copperfield. The mental atmosphere of the opening chapters was so immediately intelligible to me that I vaguely imagined they had been written by a child. And yet when one re-reads the book as an adult and sees the Murdstones, for instance, dwindle from gigantic figures of doom into semi-comic monsters, these passages lose nothing. Dickens has been able to stand both inside and outside the child's mind, in such a way that the same scene can be wild burlesque or sinister reality, according to the age at which one reads it.

More great stuff, too, when Orwell basically takes down the Socialist writers who want to "claim" Dickens as one of "them". Orwell basically says, "Uhm, no he's not."

The essay is included in this book - I had already read all of his political writings, but his book reviews, author reviews, and personal essays are new to me. Amazing stuff.

Now I need to re-read some Dickens. Big time.

Limerick Dictionary

This is my new favorite thing - The OEDILF - the Omnificent English Dictionary in Limerick Form - a dictionary (in the works) where all definitions are reader-submitted limericks.

For example, here is the definition to "Cadbury Egg" (first of all: HA!):

Though Jewish, I envy your Easter;
On Cadbury Eggs I'm a feaster.
They're chocolate and smooth,
And my mood they will soothe.
(But they'll add too much weight to my keister!)

Here is the definition to the word "agog":

As instructed, a yoga tutee
Inverted herself in a "vee,"
Then considered, agog,
What a down-facing dog
Might do to a down-facing tree.

Okay, I can't stop.

The definition for "aviatrix" is brilliant, I think:

A stunt aviatrix (girl flier)
Came down in a swamp deep and dire.
She was lunch for a croc,
But the studio's doc
Called it "death from consumption" (the liar).

It's hard to believe you could have a limerick for the word "avascularity" but here it is:

You suffer from avascularity?
No offense, but I doubt your sincerity.
With no vessels for blood
Your whole body's a dud,
And you won't pass your genes to posterity.

Go browse here.

(got it from Norm!)

The Books: "Anne's House of Dreams" (L.M. Montgomery)

Next book on my young adult fiction bookshelves:

Next book on the shelf is Anne's House of Dreams by L.M. Montgomery.

What a wonderful book this is. I love every book in the series - and in each one I have my favorite episodes - but for some reason, this one really GETS me. I think it has something to do with the saga of the heartbroken Leslie Moore, and how much that character gets under my skin.

It is easy, at times (and I think Lucy Maud was cognizant of this) to feel like Anne strolls under a lucky star or something. Her unhappiness occurred as a young girl ... and after that, the power of her personality has just swayed everyone she has met. Even her heartache has a sort of ... charmed quality to it. She never gets REALLY dark. (That's one of the reasons why I love the Emily books too (one excerpt here) - even more than the Anne books. They are much closer to Lucy Maud's actual autobiography - and what can I say, I like DARK. I like to at least know that even if a character DOESN'T succumb to the darkness, they COULD. It seems like Anne's philosophy of life is such that it could never really bring her to her knees. This is not a criticism. There are people like that in real life as well.) Cranks become good friends, foes become admirers, etc. Leslie Moore is the first friend to really challenge this. Anne's charm will not work on Leslie. Why? Because Leslie's life has been TOO hard, and there are some tragedies that CANNOT be smiled their way out of, or charmed out of existence. I am making Anne sound shallow here and that is totally not the case - but there are some people who seem to have things work out for them (thru karma or good luck or whatever) - and others carry the weight of the world. Now Anne, in her sensitivity, does not understand why Leslie would automatically dislike her - like: what did she do??? She has never before been disliked for being FORTUNATE. After all, she was an orphan! She was impoverished! She had a hardscrabble life until Matthew and Marilla came along - but even then: she was always the oddball in Avonlea. Her clothes weren't right. She didn't have parents. Nobody in their right mind would be JEALOUS of Anne because of her good fortune! Maybe they would be jealous of her because of how she writes, or because of how she uses her imagination, but because of her good fortune? No. Not until Leslie Moore. Leslie's soul has been warped by her own life tragedy - and no matter what Anne does, it wouldn't matter. Anne has something Leslie knows she will never have: a husband, companionship, happiness ... and this loneliness has corrupted Leslie. She stares at Anne with dull smouldering resentment - Anne cannot fight this. She doesn't know how to "win Leslie Over" because ... there is nothing she can do. What can she do - be less happy with Gilbert in order for Leslie to be happy? This, in my mind, is such an insightful observation about the married and unmarried of this world. There can be smugness about married people - that is completely unconscious - and there can be a prickly bitterness about single people - that is completely unconscious. It's hard to bridge that gap.

Anne suffers a tragedy during House of Dreams - her first real tragedy as an adult. A loss that makes her question her belief in God, that makes her almost go crazy. We love Anne even more for faltering in the face of such strife. Don't we? I know I did. A "plucky heroine" who shows no sign of doubt or uncertainty would become an insufferable prig after a while. Being optimistic is all well and good ... but what about people who truly suffer loss? How on earth could "put on a happy face" help them? Leslie and Anne eventually do become "friends" - but it's almost like they are two wild animals, circling around each other warily. Anne senses that her very existence is an insult to Leslie. If she's happy about making baby booties, Leslie's heart breaks. This is not because Leslie is a selfish bitch. It is because loneliness messes people UP and that fact needs to be acknowledged. Not to wallow in victimhood or whatever - but to just acknowledge the reality that loneliness can twist what was once straight. It is NOT easy to bear (for some). It is not easy for Leslie to bear. Loneliness can make you GLORY in other people's hardships, and you can RESENT other people's ease. It's evil - you feel like you are evil. Lucy Maud, with her life of ... unrelenting loneliness (famous to the masses, but oh, what a home life) ... understood this so so well. She doesn't write about it a lot - but glimpses of it are there in the Leslie Moore character in House of Dreams. What is it like to feel that you are barred forever from ease? Peace? Happiness? Contentment? What is it like when the things that other people take so for granted (having a nice chat at the end of the day with their husband, sharing a meal, knowing that someone else is in the house with you) ... are SO foreign to you? Lucy Maud was behind that glass wall. She had nothing that other people had. Her marriage was not a real marriage. It was a nightmare. She ENDURED it. He was a petulant child. He was no mate. But she looked around and saw ... people coupling up ... sharing life's struggles ... TOGETHER ... That was not for her.

I have gone on and on ... but as you can see, this is what this particular book means to me.

In a way, it is her first ADULT book. Leslie Moore is a character who made an indelible mark on my mind ... and I love love love Anne's journey in relation to her.

Anne confides to Captain Jim (another great character) how she feels that Leslie will never open up to her, be her friend. Captain Jim says to her that Leslie's life has been so unrelentingly tragic that it must be hard for Leslie to deal with anyone who seems so happy. Anne thinks about this, remembers her own awful childhood, and says, "I wasnt happy before I came to Green Gables." Captain Jim says, "Yes, but that was just the normal unhappiness of a child who is not looked after. You haven't had any tragedy. And that's why there's a barrier there."

Anne, with her optimistic belief in the good of people, in the good that a bit of laughter can do on a dark day ... she is troubled by this. And yet she doesn't give up on Leslie. She doesn't PUSH herself on Leslie ... she just tries to be there for her ... and when Leslie suddenly rebuffs her, or suddenly the claws come out - she tries not to take it personally.

For me - this book is all about Leslie. The scene where she breaks down - and lets Anne in - (the chapter called "barriers swept away") still brings me to tears today even though I have read it a gazillion times.

But there's so much else in here to love. Uhm - Miss Cornelia? The man-hater? With the bright green house and the fierce political opinions? I love her. Dammit. I love her. And how she up and marries at the end of the book?? hahahaha Anne and Gilbert are literally stunned into silence when she breaks the news. Gilbert's like: "But ... don't you hate men?"

And Captain Jim - the crusty old sea captain with all the old stories - who takes a liking to Anne and Gilbert (who wouldn't??). He runs the lighthouse - and they spend many a night up there with him, listening to him tell tales.

And then of course - Anne and Gilbert are in their honeymoon phase. So everything is beautiful. I think Lucy Maud outdoes herself with some of her descriptive passages in this book. The chapter where she and Gilbert drive into Four Winds for the first time - and they catch a glimpse of Leslie - and the sun is setting - and Anne sees her home for the first time ... that whole chapter is some of the best writing Lucy Maud has ever done, I think.

But naturally, I have to choose an excerpt about Leslie. Anne has only seen Leslie once - and did not know who she was. Anne was just struck by her intense beauty, and also by the fact that this girl obviously dislikes her on sight, glaring at her as she and Gilbert drive by in the buggy. Anne is baffled by this, but more than that - she is hurt. What has she done? What has she ever done to this woman?

Here's the excerpt where ... well, Anne and Leslie meet on the shore. Notice here how - for example - when Anne thinks she is bonding with Leslie about the "house of dreams" -she goes on about being happy with her prince in a small house - totally assuming that she and Leslie are on the same page - when she has really misread the situation horribly (we the reader don't know Leslie's full story until the next chapter). Lucy Maud makes a point here about the casual cruelty (unconscious!!) of happy people. The casual assumptions they make. Because THEY are happy ... they think everyone should be happy. But also, they assume that everyone will speak the same language. This is not about smug self-righteous people. This is something that is very human. Anne, at this point, does not know Leslie's tragedy - so she does not know that her every word is a knife in Leslie's heart. And, of course, none of that is her fault. It's not HER fault that she's happy and that Leslie is not ... but in order to truly become Leslie's friend - a serious shifting has to occur, on both sides. And again: the fact that Anne, in the beginning, mis-reads Leslie because of her own happiness makes Anne even more lovable. Because it's such a human thing to do.

Excerpt from Anne's House of Dreams by L.M. Montgomery.

She loved the gentle, misty harbour shore and the silvery, wind-haunted sand shore, but best of all she loved the rock shore, with its cliffs and caves and piles of surf-worn boulders, and its coves where the pebbles glittered under the pools; and it was to this shore she hied herself tonight.

There had been an autumn storm of wind and rain, lasting for three days. Thunderous had been the crash of billows on the rocks, wild the white spray and spume that blew over the bar, troubled and misty and tempest-torn the erstwhile blue peace of Four Winds Harbour. Now it was over, and the shore lay clean-washed after the storm; not a wind stirred, but there was still a fine surf on, dashing on sand and rock in a splendid white turmoil -- the only restless thing in the great, pervading stillness and peace.

"Oh, this is a moment worth living through weeks of storm and stress for," Anne exclaimed, delightedly sending her far gaze across the tossing waters from the top of the cliff where she stood. Presently she scrambled down the steep path to the little cove below, where she seemed shut in with rocks and sea and sky.

"I'm going to dance and sing," she said. "There's no one here to see me -- the sea-gulls won't carry tales of the matter. I may be as crazy as I like."

She caught up her skirt and pirouetted along the hard strip of sand just out of reach of the waves that almost lapped her feet with their spent foam. Whirling round and round, laughing like a child, she reached the little headland that ran out to the east of the cove; then she stopped suddenly, blushing crimson; she was not alone; there had been a witness to her dance and laughter.

The girl of the golden hair and sea-blue eyes was sitting on a boulder of the headland, half-hidden by a jutting rock. She was looking straight at Anne with a strange expression - part wonder, part sympathy, part -- could it be? -- envy. She was bare-headed, and her splendid hair, more than ever like Browning's "gorgeous snake," was bound about her head with a crimson ribbon. She wore a dress of some dark material, very plainly made; but swathed about her waist, outlining its fine curves, was a vivid girdle of red silk. Her hands, clasped over her knee, were brown and somewhat work-hardened; but the skin of her throat and cheeks was as white as cream. A flying gleam of sunset broke through a low-lying western cloud and fell across her hair. For a moment she seemed the spirit of the sea personified -- all its mystery, all its passion, all its elusive charm.

"You -- you must think me crazy," stammered Anne, trying to recover her self-possession. To be seen by this stately girl in such an abandon of childishness --she, Mrs. Dr. Blythe, with all the dignity of the matron to keep up -- it was too bad!

"No," said the girl, "I don't."

She said nothing more; her voice was expressionless; her manner slightly repellant; but there was something in her eyes -- eager yet shy, defiant yet pleading -- which turned Anne from her purpose of walking away. Instead, she sat down on the boulder beside the girl.

"Let's introduce ourselves," she said, with the smile that had never yet failed to win confidence and friendliness. "I am Mrs. Blythe - and I live in that little white house on the harbour shore."

"Yes, I know," said the girl. "I am Leslie Moore -- Mrs. Dick Moore," she added stiffly.

Anne was silent for a moment from sheer astonishment. It had not occurred to her that this girl was married - there seemed nothing of the wife about her. And that she should be the neighbour whom Anne had pictured as a commonplace Four Winds housewife! Anne could not quickly adjust her mental focus to this astonishing change.

"Then -- then you live in that gray house up the brook," she stammered.

"Yes. I should have gone over to call on you long ago," said the other. She did not offer any explanation or excuse for not having one.

"I wish you would come," said Anne, recovering herself somewhat. "We're such near neighbours we ought to be friends. That is the sole fault of Four Winds - there aren't quite enoguh neighbours. Otherwise it is perfection."

"You like it?"

"Like it! I love it! It is the most beautiful place I ever saw."

"I've never seen many places," said Leslie Moore slowly, "but I've always thought it was very lovely here. I -- I love it, too."

She spoke as she looked, shyly, yet eagerly. Anne had an odd impression that this strange girl -- the word "girl" would persist - could say a good deal if she chose.

"I often come to the shore," she added.

"So do I," said Anne. "It's a wonder we haven't met here before."

"Probably you come earlier in the evening than I do. It is generally late - almost dark - when I come. And I love to come just after a storm - like this. I don't like the sea so well when it's calm and quiet. I like the struggle - and the crash - and the noise."

"I love it in all its moods," declared Anne. "The sea at Four Winds is to me what Lover's Lane was at home. Tonight it seemed so free - so untamed - something broke loose in me, too, out of sympathy. That was why I danced along the shore in that wild way. If Miss Cornelia Bryant had seen me she would have foreboded a gloomy prospect for poor young Dr. Blythe."

"You know Miss Cornelia?" said Leslie, laughing. She had an exquisite laugh; it bubbled up suddenly and unexpectedly with something of the delicious quality of a baby's. Anne laughed, too.

"Oh, yes. She has been down to my house of dreams several times."

"Your house of dreams?"

"Oh, that's a dear, foolish little name Gilbert and I have for our home. We just call it that between ourselves. It slipped out before I thought."

"So Miss Russell's little white house is your house of dreams," said Leslie wonderingly. "I had a house of dreams once -- but it was a palace," she added, with a laugh, the sweetness of which was marred by a little note of derision.

"Oh, I once dreamed of a palace, too," said Anne. "I suppose all girls do. And then we settle down contentedly in eight-room houses that seem to fulfil all the desires of our hearts - because our prince is there. You should have had your palace really, though -- you are so beautiful. You must let me say it - it has to be said - I'm nearly bursting with admiration. You are the loveliest thing I ever saw, Mrs. Moore."

"If we are to be friends you must call me Leslie," said the other with an odd passion.

"Of course I will. And my friends call me Anne."

"I suppose I am beautiful," Leslie went on, looking stormily out to sea. "I hate my beauty. I wish I had always been as brown and plain as the brownest and plainest girl at the fishing village over there. Well, what do you think of Miss Cornelia?"

The abrupt chagne of subject shut the door on any further confidences.

"Miss Cornelia is a darling, isn't she?" said Anne. "Gilbert and I were invited to her house to a state tea last week. You've heard of groaning tables."

"I seem to recall seeing the expression in the newspaper reports of weddings," said Leslie, smiling.

"Well, Miss Cornelia's groaned - at least, it creaked - positively. You couldn't have believed she would have cooked so much for two ordinary people. She had every kind of pie you could name, I think - except lemon pie. She said she had taken the prize for lemon pie at the Charlottestown Exhibition ten years ago and had never made any since for fear of losing her reputation for them."

"Were you able to eat enough pie to please her?"

"I wasn't. Gilbert won her heart be eating - I won't tell you how much. She said she never knew a man who didn't like pie better than his Bible. Do you know, I love Miss Cornelia."

"So do I," said Leslie. "She is the best friend I have in the world."

Anne wondered secretly why, if this were so, Miss Cornelia had never metnioned Mrs. Dick Moore to her. Miss Cornelia had certainly talked freely about every other individual in or near Four Winds.

"Isn't that beautiful?" said Leslie, after a brief silence, pointing to the exquisite effect of a shaft of light falling through a cleft in the rock behind them, across a dark green pool at its base. "If I had come here - and seen nothing but jsut that - I would go home satisfied."

"The effects of light and shadow all along these shores are wonderful," agreed Anne. "My little sewing room looks out on the harbour, and I sit at the window and feast my eyes. The colours and shadows are never the same two minutes together."

"And you are never lonely?" asked Leslie abruptly. "Never - when you are alone?"

"No. I don't think I've ever been really lonely in my life," answered Anne. "Even when I'm alone I have real good company - dreams and imaginations and pretendings. I like to be alone now and then, just to think over things and taste them. But I love friendship - and nice, jolly little times with people. Oh, won't you come to see me - often? Please do. I believe," Anne added, laughing, "that you'd like me if you knew me."

"I wonder if you would like me," said Leslie seriously. She was not fishing for a compliment. She looked out across the waves that were beginning to be garlanded with blossoms of moonlit foam, and her eyes filled with shadows.

"I'm sure I would," said Anne. "And please don't think I'm utterly irresponsible because you saw me dancing on the shore at sunset. No doubt I shall be dignified after a time. You see, I haven't been married very long. I feel like a girl, and sometimes like a child yet."

"I have been married twelve years," said Leslie.

Here was another unbelievable thing.

"Why, you can't be as old as I am!" exclaimed Anne. "You must have been a child when you were married."

"I was sixteen," said Leslie, rising, and picking up the cap and jacket lying beside her. "I am twenty-eight now. Well, I must go back."

"So must I. Gilbert will probably be home. But I'm so glad we both came to the shore tonight and met each other."

Leslie said nothing, and Anne was a little chilled. She had offered friendship frankly but it had not been accepted very graciously, if it had not been absoutely repelled. In silence they climbed the cliffs and walked across a pasture-field of which the feathery, bleached, wild grasses were like a carpet of cramy velvet in the moonlight. When they reached the shore lane Leslie turned.

"I go this way, Mrs. Blythe. You will come over and see me some time, won't you?"

Anne felt as if the invitation had been thrown at her. She got the impression that Leslie Moore gave it reluctantly.

"I will come if you really want me to," she said a little coldly.

"Oh, I do - I do," exclaimed Leslie, with an eagerness which seemed to burst forth and beat down some restraint that had been imposed on it.

"Then I'll come. Good-night -- Leslie."

"Good-night, Mrs. Blythe."

Possessed

Great essay by AS Byatt about her thought process while creating and writing Possession, one of my favorite novels.

This part amazed me:

There was a huge problem. I knew that modern forms were parodic- not only Eco, but the intelligent criticism of Malcolm Bradbury had been pointing that out - parodic, not in a sneering or mocking way, but as "rewriting" or "representing" the past. The structural necessity of my new form was that the poems of my two poets, the most important thing about them in my own view, should be in this no-longer ghostly text. And I am not a poet, and novelists who write poems usually come to grief. Robertson Davies, the Canadian novelist, had written a novel with a parodic libretto in fact made up of the poems of Thomas Lovell Beddoes. I said to the poet D.J.Enright at a party, that I was contemplating using the early poems of Pound that look as though they could be by Browning. "Nonsense," he said. "Write your own."

So I tried. My mind has been full since childhood of the rhythms of Tennyson and Browning, Rossetti and Keats. I read and reread Emily Dickinson, whose harsher and more sceptical voice I found more exciting than Christina Rossetti's meek resignation. I wanted a fierce female voice. And I found I was possessed - it was actually quite frightening - the nineteenth-century poems that were not nineteenth-century poems wrote themselves, hardly blotted, fitting into the metaphorical structure of my novel, but not mine, as my prose is mine.

It amazes me because frankly, that is how it feels when I read the book. The poems are certainly not to the level of Dickinson or anything like that- but they are good enough. Good enough to convey that they could possibly be "real". That is what is needed to give the book its authenticity, its whiff of reality. You have to feel like you are reading someone else's work, looking through someone else's old letters ... the author herself must disappear in this type of novel. And yet ... she doesn't. That's part of Byatt's trickery. That's part of the point she is making, about writers, about the writing of biographies, about literary research ... What IS invisible? What IS literary possession? What is left unsaid? We only have the treasure trove of the author's actual WORDs ... but what did he or she leave unsaid? You can see how literary theorists can become "possessed" by this kind of thinking (Byatt mentions the driving urge to dig up George Eliot's grave to get the letters that were buried with her). There is a sense that all CAN be known. Which is obviously untrue - because how can we ever know everything about a life? Isn't so much of life in what is between the lines?? To learn that Byatt was not a poet is quite extraordinary - but again, I am not surprised. I have read this book over and over, and I never skip the long long poems (some of them are 10, 12 pages long), although you would think I might. Because what you're seeing there on the page IS an act of possession - and it really shows. Two different poets, speaking with two different voices, written in the styles of the 19th century. It is an extraordinary feat.

I also love all the bits about colors - how as the book developed in her mind the colors for it changed:

There is a Gothic plot, I thought, of violence and skulduggery. The Gestalt got more lurid, purple, black, vermilion, with flying white forms.

Etc. There's more. You can feel all of this in the finished work, too.

The green and gold of Maud ... how she shimmers with the golden hair and all that ... the deep dark dirt of the ending scene ...

But to read about how carefully she constructed all of that is really inspirational.

I still have time

Check this out!!! I missed The General which is a bummer - but I still have a lot of things to choose from. Best part? They have a live piano player there to accompany the movies.

"Why does Howie Mandell scare me?"

Alex's hysterical Emmy round-up.

The Books: "Anne of Windy Poplars" (L.M. Montgomery)

Next book on my young adult fiction shelves:

Next book on the shelf is Anne of Windy Poplars by L.M. Montgomery.

Chronologically (in Anne's life) this book comes after Anne of the Island (excerpt here) - but in Lucy Maud's chronology, she wrote Anne's House of Dreams (excerpt here) next. Later, she went back and filled in the Windy Poplars blank. This also happened with Anne of Ingleside (excerpt here) - I think that was the last "Anne" novel she wrote - but it is not the last in the series, Rilla of Ingleside is. (excerpt here). World War I came along and swept away all of her distractions, all of her former concerns - Lucy Maud had to write about WWI, so she skipped ahead to Anne's children so that she could incorporate the war into a book.

Anne of Windy Poplars is the story of the 3 years Anne spends teaching in Summerside, PEI. She is now engaged to Gilbert Blythe - but they can't get married right away because he is going to medical school. She finds a room in a house in Summerside (and, of course, because she is Anne Shirley, the room has "scope for imagination") - and begins her adventures teaching there. The majority of this book is letters to Gilbert. And I've got to say this: Poor Gilbert. He's in medical school, probably buried in books, and he literally is receiving 30 page letters almost every other day from his chatty fiance - who blithers on about the smell of the violets, and the bitchy Pringle family, and the red cheeks of Rebecca Dew, and .... I mean, I'm just trying to see it from his perspective. Did he ever roll his eyes when he saw a BIG FAT letter in his mailbox? Did he ever feel like: "I cannot keep up with this ..." These have to be the most detailed letters in the history of letter writing. When did Anne have time to write them?? Because presumably she was also corresponding with Marilla, with Diana, and etc. etc. Also, the first time I read this book I was 15 or something like that - and I was SO frustrated that the lovey-dovey parts of the letters were NOT shared! Lucy Maud was very coy in that respect and I HATED that. Let me hear how Anne tells Gilbert she loves him! Also: Anne: why the hell does it matter what type of pen you have? Don't be such a tease. I guess (ahem) I'm still annoyed at that!! hahahahaha

So Anne lives in Summerside for 3 years. In that time she is responsible for, 5 matchmaking successes? I lost count. The best part of the book, I think, is her blossoming friendship with Katherine Brooke, another teacher at the school. Katherine is a tough nut to crack. She is bitter, snarky, and at times truly MEAN to Anne. She makes personal digs at her, as though she harbors some personal resentment. Anne doesn't get it. But Anne, being Anne, senses that ... there is "something" there ... that they could be friends if only Katherine would let go of whatever it is she's holding onto. Anne invites her home to Green Gables for the Christmas holiday. And lo and behold, the ice melts. Katherine is a really good character - very well-written.

Other episodes in the book that come to mind:

-- Anne is nearly run out of town by the Pringle family, who can't stand her - until she inadvertently shuts them up with an old journal she finds in an attic of their sea captain ancestor. In the journal, he descirbes a shipwreck he experienced - where he and his shipmates ate one of their friends who had died. The Pringles are so horrified that Anne has this blackmail chip held over their heads - that they call off the dogs, and never give her any problems again.

-- the whole Little Fellow thing ("I know his dog's name was Carlo") - and the mean father - and the photograph that changes everything

-- Rebecca Dew. Great characte.r Actually - both of the Aunts are great characters, too. You think they're gonna be picky and spinsterish - but in reality they are kind of dreamy, filled with fantasies - which they hide from one another, but feel perfectly fine whispering to Anne.

-- the triumph of Sophy Sinclair! I always loved that.

-- the ridiculous (and very VERY funny) episode in the Tomgallon House (for once, Anne has met her match in terms of TALKING - Anne can barely get a word in edgewise)

I decided to choose the following excerpt because it always made me laugh - and it also shows Lucy Maud's wicked and original sense of humor. I love that about her - especially now that I know the circumstances under which she wrote her books, and her general nervous disorder (or whatever she had - she had something, that's for certain).

Anne Shirley very quickly becomes the confidante of the young women in the town. Since she is engaged, she is 'safe' - she won't be their rival. So Trix Taylor comes to ask Anne for help. Her sister Esme is the shyest thing imaginable, afraid of everything ... and a handsome young doctor (Lennox Carter) is courting her ... but the entire Taylor family lives in TOTAL fear of their father's "sulking fits" - If he has a "sulking fit" on, forget it - don't even ask if you can borrow the buggy - just wait out the storm. Cyrus Taylor, the father, sulks - but not just sulks - he glowers - he sits in a towering silence - he TERRIFIES everyone around him. So Lennox Carter is going to come and have dinner at the Taylor household - obviously to ask Cyrus for Esmes hand in marriage - but it just so happens that Cyrus Taylor has suddenly taken on a "sulking fit" - and will not be snapped out of it. Trix is panicked. Esme HAS to marry Lennox ... but if Lennox asks for her hand THAT night, Cyrus will certainly say No. Because of the sulking fit. So she asks Anne if she wouldn't mind coming to dinner and ... working her magic ... smoothing the edges ... maybe drawing Cyrus out of his shell, so that Lennox and Esme can get married, and all will be well. Everything is quite urgent ... Trix basically BEGS. Anne says fine, she'll do what she can.

When she arrives at the Taylor household, she can feel the tension in the air. Everyone is tiptoeing around Cyrus - they have made his favorite meal for supper - they wait on him - and he just sits, in a towering sulky silence.

They sit down to dinner. So here's the excerpt. I love Mrs. Cyrus, just need to say that. I love her.

Excerpt from Anne of Windy Poplars by L.M. Montgomery.

Cyrus would not say grace. Mrs. Cyrus, blushing beet-red, murmured almost inaudibly, "For what we are about to receive the Lord make us truly thankful." The meal started badly by nervous Esme dropping her fork on the floor. Everybody except Cyrus jumped, because their nerves were likewise keyed up to the highest pitch. Cyrus glared at Esme out of his bulging blue eyes in a kind of enraged stillness. Then he glared at everybody and froze them into dumbness. He glared at poor Mrs. Cyrus when she took a helping of horseradish sauce, with a glare that reminded her of her weak stomach. She coudn't eat any of it after that ... and she was so fond of it. She didn't believe it would hurt her. But for that matter she couldn't eat anything, nor could Esme. They only pretended. The meal proceeded in a ghastly silence, broken by spasmodic speeches about the weather from Trix or Anne. Trix implored Anne with her eyes to talk, but Anne found herself for once in her life with absolutely nothing to say. She felt desperately that she must talk, but only the most idiotic things came into her head ... things it would be impossible to utter aloud. Was everyone bewitched? It was curious, the effect one sulky, stubborn man had on you. Anne couldn't have believed it possible. And there was no doubt that he was really quite happy in the knowledge that he had made everybody at his table horribly uncomfortable. What on earth was going on in his mind? Would he jump if any one stuck a pin in him? Anne wanted to slap him ... rap his knuckles ... stand him in a corner ... treat him like the spoiled child he really was, in spite of his spiky gray hair and truculent mustache.

Above all she wanted to make him speak. She felt instinctively that nothing in the world would punish him so much as to be tricked into speaking when he was determined not to.

Suppose she got up and deliberately smashed that huge, old-fashioned vase on the table in the corner ... an ornate thing covered with wreaths of roses and leaves which it was ost difficul to dust but which must be kept immaculately clean. Anne knew that the whole family hated it, but Cyrus Taylor would not hear of having it banished to the attic, because it had been his mother's. Anne thought she would do it fearlessly if she really believed that it would make Cyrus explode into vocal anger.

Why didn't Lennox Carter talk? If he would, she, Anne, could talk, too, and perhaps Trix and Pringle would escape from the spell that bound them and some kind of conversation would be possible. But he simply sat there and ate. Perhaps he thought it was really the best thing to do ... perhaps he was afraid of sayiing something that would still further enrage the evidently already enraged parent of his lady.

"Will you please start the pickles, Miss Shirley?" said Mrs. Taylor faintly.

Something wicked stirred in Anne. She started the pickles ... and something else. Without letting herself stop to think she bent forward, her great, gray-green eyes glimmering limpidly, and said gently,

"Perhaps you would be surprised to hear, Dr. Carter, that Mr. Taylor went deaf very suddenly last week?"

Anne sat back, having thrown her bomb. She could not tell precisely what she expected or hoped. If Dr. Carter got the impression that his host was deaf instead of in a towering rage of silence, it might loosen his tongue. She had not told a falsehood ... she had not said Cyrus Taylor was deaf. As for Cyrus Taylor, if she had hoped to make him speak she had failed. He merely glared at her, still in silence.

But Anne's remark had an effect ofn Trix and Pringle that she had never dreamed of. Trix was in a silent rage herself. She had, the moment before Anne had hurled her rhetorical question, seen Esme furtively wipe away a tear that had escaped from one of her despairing blue eyes. Everything was hopeless ... Lennox Carter would never ask Esme to marry him now ... it didn't matter any more what any one said or did. Trix was suddenly possessed with a burning desire to get square with her brutal father. Anne's speech gave her a weird inspiration, and Pringle, a volcano of suppressed impishness, blinked his white eyelashes for a dazed moment and then promptly followed her lead. Never, as long as they might live, would Anne, Esme or Mrs. Cyrus forget the dreadful quarter of an hour that followed.

"Such an affliction for poor papa," said Trix, addressing Dr. Carter across the table. "And him only sixty-eight."

Two little white dents appeared at the corners of Cyrus Taylor's nostrils when he heard his age advanced six years. But he remained silent.

"It's such a treat to have a decent meal," said Pringle, clearly and distinctly. "What would you think, Dr. Carter, of a man who makes his family live on fruit and eggs ... nothing but fruit and eggs ... just for a fad?"

"Does your father ...?" began Dr. Carter bewilderedly.

"What would you think of a husband who bit his wife when she put up curtains he didn't like ... deliberately bit her?" demanded Trix.

"Till the blood came," added Pringle solemnly.

"Do you mean to say your father ...?"

"What would you think of a man who would cut up a silk dress of his wife's just because the way it was made didn't suit him?" said Trix.

"What would you think," said Pringle, "of a man who refuses to let his wife have a dog?"

"When she would so love to have one," sighed Trix.

"What would you think of a man," continued Pringle, who was beginning to enjoy himself hugely, "who would give his wife a pair of goloshes for a Christmas present ... nothing but a pair of goloshes?"

"Goloshes don't exactly warm the heart," admitted Dr. Carter. His eyes met Anne's and he smiled. Anne reflected that she had never seen him smile before. It changed his face wonderfully for the better. What was Trix saying? Who would have thought she could be such a demon?

"Have you ever wondered, Dr. Carter, how awful it must be to live with a man who thinks nothing ... nothing -- of picking up the roast, if it isn't perfectly done, and hurling it at the maid?"

Dr. Carter glanced apprehensively at Cyrus Taylor, as if he feared Cyrus might throw the skeletons of the chickens at somebody. Then he seemed to remember comfortingly that his host was deaf.

"What would you think of a man who believed the earth was flat?" asked Pringle.

Anne thought Cyrus would speak then. A tremor seemed to pass over his rubicund face, but no words came. Still, she was sure his mustaches were a little less defiant.

"What would you think of a man who let his aunt ... his only aunt ... go to the poorhouse?" asked Trix.

"And pastured his cow in the graveyard?" said Pringle. "Summerside hasn't got over that sight yet."

"What would you think of a man who would write down in his diary every day what he had for dinner?" asked Trix.

"The great Pepys did that," said Dr. Carter with another smile. His voice sounded as if he would like to laugh. Perhaps after all he was not pompous, thought Anne ... only young and shy and overserious. But she was feeling positively aghast. She had never meant things to go as far as this. She was finding out that it is much easier to start things than finish them. Trix and Pringle were being diabolically clever. They had not said that their father did a single one of those things. Anne could fancy Pringle saying, his round eyes rounder still with pretended innocence, "I just asked those questions of Dr. Carter for information."

"What would you think," kept on Trix, "of a man who opens and reads his wife's letters?"

"What would you think of a man who would go to a funeral ... his father's funeral ... in overalls?" asked Pringle.

What would they think of next? Mrs. Cyrus was crying openly and Esme was quite calm with despair. Nothing amttered any more. She turned and looked squarely at Dr. Carter, whom she had lost forever. For once in her life she was stung into saying a really clever thing.

"What," she asked queitly, "would you think of a man who spent a whole day hunting for the kittens of a poor cat who had been shot, because he couldn't bear to think of them starving to death?"

A strange silence descended on the room. Trix and Pringle looked suddenly ashamed of themselves. And then Mrs. Cyrus piped up, feeling it her wifely duty to back up Esme's unexpected defense of her father.

"And he can crochet so beautifully ... he made the loveliest centerpiece for the parlor table last winter when he was laid up with lumbago."

Every one has some limit of endurance and Cyrus Taylor had reached his. He gave his chair such a furious backward push that it shot instantly across the polished floor and struck the table on which the vase stood. The table went over and the vase broke in the traditional thousand pieces. Cyrus, his bushy white eyebrows fairly bristling with wrath, stood up and exploded at last.

"I don't crochet, woman! Is one contemptible doily going to blast a man's reputation forever? I was so bad with that blamed lumbago I didn't know what I was doing. And I'm deaf, am I, Miss Shirley? I'm deaf?"

"She didn't say you were, Papa," cried Trix, who was never afraid of her father when his temper was vocal.

"Oh, no, she didn't say it. None of you said anything. You didn't say I was sixty-eight when I'm only sixty-two, did you? You didn't say I wouldn't let your mother have a dog! Good Lord, woman, you can have forty thousand dogs if you want to and you know it! When did I ever deny you anything you wanted ... when?"

"Never, Poppa, never," sobbed Mrs. Cyrus brokenly. "And I never wanted a dog. I never even thought of wanting a dog, Poppa."

"When did I open your letters? When have I ever kept a diary? A diary! When did I ever wear overalls to anybody's funeral? When did I pasture a cow in the graveyard? What aunt of mine is in the poorhouse? Did I ever throw a roast at anybody? Did I ever make you live on fruit and eggs?"

"Never, Poppa, never," wept Mrs. Cyrus. "You've always been a good provider ... the best."

"Didn't you tell me you wanted goloshes last Christmas?"

"Yes, oh yes; of course I did, Poppa. And my feet have been so nice and warm all winter."

"Well, then!" Cyrus threw a triumphant glance around the room. His eyes encountered Anne's. Suddenly the unexpected happened. Cyrus chuckled. His cheeks actually dimpled. Those dimples worked a miracle with his whole expression. He brought his chair back to the table and sat down.

"I've got a very bad habit of sulking, Dr. Carter. Every one has some bad habit ... that's mine. The only one. Come, come, Momma, stop crying. I admit I deserved all I got except that crack of yours about crocheting. Esme, my girl, I won't forget that you were the only one who stood up for me. Tell Maggie to come and clear up that mess ... I know you're all glad the darn thing is smashed ... and bring on the pudding."

Correction

Talking on the phone with Cashel on Friday night. Cashel was pretending to be a martian for the entirety of our conversation.

Cashel (in martian voice): "I wonder what this little hole in the wall is for! I know that you earthlings call it an electrical socket! What would happen if I put my finger in there?"

Cashel then makes a long bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz sound.

Cashel (in martian voice): "The electrical socket is bad."

Auntie Sheila: "Uhm - so am I talking to an electrocuted martian right now?"

Cashel: "No. You're talking to a DEAD electrocuted martian right now."

Cashel then collapsed into hysterical laughter.

We continued on in this manner for about 20 minutes more.

Dead Hand Flapping

I love this story. It made me LAUGH.

I love the cop. I love his beleaguered second visit to the house.

A-boo-hoo - no women!!

Interesting - found this in my referral log - and went to it, curious. Check it out. There's a complaint about how there "aren't many women blogging about history". (Yawn - that complaint again??)

And the rebuttal from Ralph Luker to that complaint is here - and it is along the lines of what I did here. Rather than get into the tiresomeness of the argument - which is NOT BASED ON REALITY ANYWAY - just provide a gazillion links to prove the complainer wrong. That's a much better system. Because women are everywhere. And some of them suck. Just like some of the men suck. But many are awesome. So stop looking on the blogrolls of the big boys - stop even thinking that "the big boys" are important or anything that you need to worry about. Stop waiting for Instapundit to link to women other than Ann Althouse - as though he is the arbiter of who is a legitimate blogger. This isn't Glenn's fault - he links to what he finds interesting. But it's not even 1 percent of 1 percent of the entire blog universe. I find blogs that I find interesting by clicking on links from bloggers I trust. This is how most people do it. I found Bad News Hughes from Beth who found it from Mimi. I found 15minutelunch from John, who emailed me the link, knowing I would like him. Etc. etc. Has Glenn ever linked to Bad News Hughes? Not that I know of. Does that mean anything? No. Patrick Hughes is still one of the best writers on the Web.

Anyway: I was surprised and happy to see that my name was included in the list of women bloggers who blog about history. You just never know who's out there, paying attention to what you're doing.

I'm also going to have to click around in the links listed there. Seems like there are some really good ones.

The Books: "Anne of the Island" (L.M. Montgomery)

Next book on my young adult fiction shelves:

Next book on the shelf is Anne of the Island by L.M. Montgomery.

I love this one. I love all of them but I love this one especially. This is the story of Anne's college years - and so many people come into the story here who become Anne's lifelong friends - and I just love them all. I LOVE Philippa (Phil, for short). She is a college chum - and a group of them end up renting a house together. Phil, Anne, Priscilla and Stella. These four girls make up the heart and soul of this book. You just wish you lived in that town and you could go hang out at Patty's Place (the name of their house). It's all very exciting - their classes, professors, their various romances ... Each girl is distinct. Lucy Maud is so good at letting us know WHO someone is, and then keeping that character consistent (through multiple books, written over a 30 year period - now that is quite a feat). Phil doesn't talk like Priscilla - you could tell who was speaking even if Lucy Maud didn't write: "Phil said" or "Priscilla said".

Gilbert Blythe is also at college - (as well as google-eyed Charlie Sloane. Poor Charlie Sloane.) He and Anne hang out together. They are "friends". Any time Gilbert tries to make it something more, he gets the brush-off. But Gilbert is now on the other side of the fence - he can't let it go. He tries to be her friend - but his feelings for her are more, and that's final. Anne, for reasons best known to herself (it has something to do with her Ideal Man, and Gilbert just is NOT that) just doesn't want to "go there" with Gilbert. She still has girlhood dreams of Prince Charming, and getting swept away by a tall dark stranger, and all that. Gilbert has been her friend since they were 11. He's studying to be a doctor. He just doesn't have that romantic aura of mystery. Gilbert goes through hell in this book. Eventually, he just comes out and states his intentions (GO, GILBERT!) He stops trying to move the conversation towards romance, or the future - and says what he means and what he wants. He tells her he loves her, and he wants to marry her. Anne, heart-stricken (because she does really "like" Gilbert) tells him no. And to please never mention it again. Their friendship is kind of ruined. Lucy Maud has one paragraph where she describes Gilbert's response - and it says it all:

There was another pause -- so long and so dreadful that Anne was driven at last to look up. Gilbert's face was white to the lips. And his eyes -- but Anne shuddered and looked away. There was nothing romantic about this. Must proposals be either grotesque or -- horrible? Could she ever forget Gilbert's face?

That happens halfway through the book. In the second half, Anne does meet a tall dark romantic stranger. During a rainstorm in the park, they meet up in a gazebo to keep dry. He is new at school. He is rich. His name is Royal Gardner. I mean, come ON. As a reader, it's frustrating - because you read about Royal - and you see how he says all the right things, lovey-dovey things, and he sends her flowers, and blah blah ... but ... but ... how on earth could they possibly be right together? But we've all made mistakes in love. We've all put our Ideals before Reality. Well, maybe not all of us, but many of us. Anne sees the trappings, and decides that he is Prince Charming. No matter that he doesn't really have a sense of humor. No matter that his mother is a total nightmare (the story of her surprise visit to Patty's Place is so funny!! Of course she shows up unannounced on the day the girls are cleaning). Anne is "in love". All of her friends, though, are kind of skeptical. They like Roy, but ...

This is not the only storyline in the book, of course. Other things happen: Diana gets married. Ruby Gillis develops consumption (the chapter where Anne goes to visit Ruby at night, and they sit in the moonlit garden and talk about the death that is approraching - is one of my favorite chapters in the book. SO GOOD. Her writing ...) Anne also does some summer-school teaching. The story of Phil's romance (or - her last romance, I should say) is wonderful. Phil is a great character: she's rich, she's smart, she's gorgeous, and she is not serious about anything. Or, no, that's not true: she's serious about math. She's a math whiz. She gets straight As. But other than her schoolwork, all she does is date 3 or 4 guys at the same time, keeping everyone hanging. And she has two guys at home waiting for her every word (uhm - Alec and Alonzo are their names, of course). If you look just at the surface of Phil, you might think she was a vain and silly girl. And maybe she is. But she also admits it. She says flat out, "I can't be poor. I'm just going to have fun while I can - and then marry a rich rich man." She seems to have a huge ego - and no sense that she could actually lose herself in someone else, that she could actually fall in love. Until she does. And of course it is with someone so inappropriate for her (in the eyes of the world, and her blueblood family) - someone she never would have picked out for herself - someone who has none of the "qualifications" she has listed for a husband ... but ... she falls head over heels. Why? Because he makes her laugh, and he also looks at her as though he SEES her. He sees right THROUGH her. He sees past the vanity, and the clothes, and the fun-girl facade - and sees the serious-hearted beautiful soul inside. She feels revealed. He is a minister. He is POOR. But she falls head over heels. And put a fork in Phil, she's done. No more dating, she kicks all the hovering guys to the curb, and decides: well, I guess I'm going to be a poor minister's wife. Because there's no other man for me. There's something in that whole Phil subplot that I really love, and always have. To me, it shows Lucy Maud's understanding of the depths we can go to to fool ourselves, and also - that sometimes all it takes is one person to say: "Yes. I SEE you. You know I do. I SEE you." And the best part is that Phil is the LAST person you would think would have such an experience. Isn't that the way it so often goes in life?

What are some of the other episodes you all love?? So many good ones to choose from this book.

Here's an excerpt. Anne is home in Avonlea for her summer vacation. Gilbert has proposed to her - and she said no. Not only does Anne have to deal with her own grief that she has ruined a good friendship, she also has to deal with all of her friends saying: "ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND, ANNE SHIRLEY?"

Excerpt from Anne of the Island by L.M. Montgomery.

Apart from this, Anne enjoyed her summer. Priscilla came for a merry visit in June; and when she had gone, Mr. and Mrs. Irving. Paul and Charlotta the ourth came "home" for July and August.

Echo Lodge was the scene of gaeities once more, and the echoes over the river were kept busy mimicking the laughter that rang in the old garden behind the spruces.

"Miss Lavender" had not changed, except to grow even sweeter and prettier. Paul adored her, and the companionship between them was beautiful to see.

"But I don't call her 'mother' just by itself," he explained to Anne. "You see, that name belongs just to my own little mother, and I can't give it to any one else. You know, teacher. But I call her 'Mother Lavender' and I love her next best to father. I -- I even love her a little better than you, teacher."

"Which is just as it ought to be," answered Anne.

Paul was thirteen now and very tall for his years. His face and eyes were as beautiful as ever, and his fancy was still like a prism, separating everything that fell upon it into rainbows. He and Anne had delightful rambles to wood and field and shore. Never were there two more thoroughly "kindred spirits".

Charlotta the Fourth had blossomed out into young ladyhood. She wore her hair now in an enormous pompador and had discarded the blue ribbon bows of auld lang syne, but her face was as freckled, her nose as snubbed, and her mouth and smiles as wide as ever.

"You don't think I talk with a Yankee accent, do you, Miss Shirley, ma'am?" she demanded anxiously.

"I don't notice it, Charlotta."

"I'm real glad of that. They said I did at home, but I thought likely they just wanted to aggravate me. I don't want no Yankee acent. Not that I've a word to say against the Yankees, Miss Shirley, ma'am. They're real civilized. But give me old P.E. Island every time."

Paul spent his first fortnight with his grandmother Irving in Avonlea. Anne was there to meet him when he came, and found him wild with eagerness to get to the shore -- Nora and the Golden Lady and the Twin Sailors would be there. He could hardly wait to eat his supper. Could he not see Nora's elfin face peering around the point, watching for him wistfully? But it was a very sober Paul who came back from the shore in the twilight."

"Didn't you find your Rock People?" asked Anne.

Paul shook his chestnut curls sorrowfully.

"The Twin Sailors and the Golden Lady never came at all," he said. "Nora was there -- but Nora is not the same, teacher. She is changed."

"Oh, Paul, it is you who are changed," said Anne. "You have grown too old for the Rock People. They like only children for playfellows. I am afraid the Twin Sailors will never again come to you in the pearly, enchanged boat with the sail of moonshine' and the Golden Lady will play no more for you on her golden harp. Even Nora will not meet you much longer. You must pay the penalty of growing up, Paul. You must leave fairyland behind you."

"You two talk as much foolishness as ever you did," said old Mrs. irving, half-indulgently, half-reprovingly.

"Oh, no, we don't," said Anne, shaking her head gravely. "We are getting very, very wise, and it is such a pity. We are never half so interesting when we have learned that language is given us to enable us to conceal our thoughts."

"But it isn't -- it is given us to exchange our thoughts," said Mrs. Irving anxiously. She had never heard of Tallyrand and did not understand epigrams.

Anne spent a fortnight of halcyon days at Echo Lodge in the golden prime of August. While there she incidentally contrived to hurry Ludovic Speed in his leisurely courting of Theodora Dix, as related duly in another chronicle of her history. Arnold Sherman, an elderly friend of the Irvings, was there at the same time, and added not a little to general pleasantness of life.

"What a nice play-time this has been," said Anne. "I feel like a giant refreshed. And it's only a fortnight more till I go back to Kingsport, and Redmond, and Patty's Place. Patty's Place is the dearest spot, Miss Lavender. I feel as if I had two houses -- one at Green Gables and one at Patt's Place. But where has the summer gone? It doesn't seem a day since I came home that spring evening with the Mayflowers. When I was little I couldn't see from one end of the summer to the other. It stretched before me like an unending season. Now ''tis a handbreadth, 'tis a tale.'"

"Anne, are you and Gilbert Blythe as good friends as you used to be?" asked Miss Lavender quietly.

"I am just as much Gilbert's friend as ever I was, Miss Lavender."

Miss Lavender shook her head.

"I see something's gone wrong, Anne. I'm going to be impertinent and ask what. Have you quarrelled?"

"No, it's only that Gilbert wants more than friendship and I can't give him more."

"Are you sure of that, Anne?"

"Perfectly sure."

"I'm very, very sorry."

"I wonder why everybody seems to think I ought to marry Gilbert Blythe," said Anne petulantly.

"Because you were made and meant for each other, Anne -- that is why. You needn't toss that young head of yours. It's a fact."

Free fallin'

More Joan Didion. I was reading an essay she wrote back in the 70s about the Los Angeles freeway system (if you have read her novel Play It Like It Lays then you know that Didion kind of obsessed about those freeways) - and came across a paragraph that gave me one of those beautiful moments of recognition. I remember, during my last trip to LA, one particular drive on the freeways where I went into this zone where I felt like I was flying. I had started off my trip with that horrible debacle and had been a bit jittery after that. But then - during one nighttime drive ...

I was about to elaborate on my experience but I realized that that was what I had pulled out the Didion for - she describes it so perfectly. She's a native Californian - most of her books (or a great number of her books) were devoted to trying to understand/excavate/explain/ruminate upon her home state. Water obsessed her, and roads obsessed her. Her essay "Bureaucrats" is about the Los Angeles freeways, and the bureaucracy it takes to keep them going (or not, as the case turns out to be. Bureaucrats never make things better or simpler.)

But the part I wanted to excerpt is this:

To understand what was going on it is perhaps necessary to have participated in the freeway experience, which is the only secular communion Los Angeles has. Mere driving on the freeway is in no way the same as participating in it. Anyone can "drive" on the freeway, and many people with no vocation for it do, hesitating here and resisting there, losing the rhythm of the lane change, thinking about where they came from and where they are going. Actual participants think only about where they are. Actual participation requires a total surrender, a concentration so intense as to seem a kind of narcosis, a rapture-of-the-freeway. The mind goes clean. The rhythm takes over. A distortion of time occurs, the same distortion that characterizes the instant before an accident. It only takes a few seconds to get off the Santa Monica Freeway at National-Overland, which is a difficult exit requiring the driver to cross two new lanes of traffic streamed in from the San Diego Freeway, but those few seconds always seem to me the longest part of the trip. The moment is dangerous. The exhilaration is in doing it. "As you acquire the special skills involved," Reyner Banham observed in an extraordinary chapter about the freeways in hi 1971 Los Angeles: The Architecture of Four Ecologies, "the freeways become a special way of being alive ... the extreme concentration required in Los Angeles seems to bring on a state of heightened awareness that some locals find mystical."

Fire

The pictures of the fire in the cathedral in St. Petersberg have a fierce and awful beauty.

Horrifying.

The Books: "Anne Of Avonlea" (L.M. Montgomery)

Next book on my young adult fiction shelves:

Next book on the shelf is Anne Of Avonlea by L.M. Montgomery.

As Anne fans will remember: at the end of Anne of Green Gables - [SPOILER ALERT - THIS SPOILER ALERT IS MAINLY FOR TRACEY WHO HASN'T READ THEM YET BUT WHO REALLY SHOULD - JUST BECAUSE I REALLY REALLY THINK SHE WILL FLIP OVER THEM]

Okay - so at the end of Anne of Green Gables (excerpt here) Matthew dies, and this huge life-event puts Anne's plans into a tailspin. She had graduated from Queen's College - a 2 year teaching college - and was going to go on for further education. The first girl on the Island to do so. But in lieu of the changed circumstances, she really didn't feel like she should leave Marilla all alone. Gilbert Blythe had been "given" the Avonlea school - he was going to be teaching there in the fall - but when he heard about Anne's situation, he secretly went to the Board and asked if Anne could take the position in the school, instead of himself. Because it would be so convenient for her - she could live at home, to help Marilla, AND have a job. It is a selfless act on Gilbert's part ... and for most of the book of Anne of Green Gables - she and Gilbert have been sworn enemies. Because he had pulled her hair and called her "carrot-top". When he was 11 years old. Anne is still holding a haughty grudge at age 17. hahahaha Actually, I wouldn't say that she and Gilbert are sworn enemies - because that would imply Gilbert feeling the same way. I think it's just that Anne considers Gilbert to be her sworn enemy, and even as she grows older - she feels that she just cannot give up her grudge. She is too proud for that. (Naturally, in the context of the book - all of this is VERY romantic.) So anyway - the fact that her sworn enemy would make such a sacrifice to help HER out - sort of snaps her out of her haughty hatred of him. He would do this ... for her??? The last scene in Green Gables is Anne going up to Gilbert - as they pass each other on the lane - and saying, "I don't know how to thank you ..." and finally, finally, these two people make up. They don't KISS and make up - oh no - not yet - we have a couple more books to wait for all THAT stuff to start happening ... but they shake hands, and from them on - they are friends. It's like they have walked out of childhood in that moment. They're going to be adults now. Adults don't hold grudges. And these two should definitely be friends. Gilbert, in a way, with his male intuition (often more primal and instinctive than female intuition), always sensed the, shall we say, chemistry between the two of them. He might not have been like, "I will marry her some day!" But he was like: "Wow. Look at that new girl. I NEED her to notice me. Because I think she's smart and I bet we could get along great." So - in his 11 year old boy personality - pulling her hair and shouting "carrot top" was his way of doing that, of saying "I like you. You;'re different. We should be friends." Anne is a bit slower to catch onto this. She truly believes that she hates Gilbert. Sometimes you want to SHAKE ANNE out of her ridiculous ideas! Especially when you get to Anne of the Island (excerpt here). I mean: GILBERT IS RIGHT THERE, ANNE. AND YOU GO OUT WITH THAT DARK-HARIED FOP??? OPEN YOUR EYES! Oh well, I guess we all have to go through something like that - although I have usually been on the Gilbert side of the fence, staring in horror at some guy I truly believed was IT - a guy I loved more than anything - and watching, in horror, as he marries some bossy bitch who treats him like shit.

But I digress.

So the next book in the series is about Anne's year of teaching in the little Avonlea schoolhouse.

There are some great episodes in this book - and one of my favorite ones in ALL the series happens in this book - when she and Diana are going to ask a neighboring woman if they can buy her platter (they really need it - and they THINK she has one just like the one they need) - and the lady is not home, so Anne crawls up onto the roof (Anne. That is so inappropriate) of the little pantry shed so that she can peek through the window in the roof, I believe, just to PEEK and see if she can see the platter. She doesn't want to STEAL it, she just wants to SEE it. And naturally the roof caves in. But not entirely. Anne is stuck halfway down. So her torso emerges from the damn roof, and her legs dangle down into this lady's shed. I am laughing out loud as I type this. I laugh out loud every time I read the episode. Diana tries to pull her out - but the beams poke into Anne's side - it cannot be done. So they just have to wait for the lady to return. Naturally, a huge rainstorm comes. Diana runs to the buggy, gets the umbrella, and gives it to Anne - then Diana sits in the buggy. So there is Anne, sticking halfway out of a neighbor's roof, HOLDING AN UMBRELLA. Seriously - I am laughing out loud right now. And naturally, the lady drives up the lane right at this point. And she is, naturally, somewhat amazed to see a girl sticking up out of her roof holding an umbrella. I just can see the whole tableau in my mind and it NEVER strikes me as anything less than hilarious.

I also love when she accidentally sells her neighbor's cow. She thinks she is selling her own cow, but in reality - she sells Mr. Harrison's cow. Like: Anne. Please don't sell other people's livestock. Her response when she discovers what she has done ... and of course, in true Anne fashion, she goes over to confess to her scary neighbor what she has done ... and eventually, they become lifelong friends. He is an old crank, a true curmudgeon - but there's something about Anne that delights him. She seems to have that effect on people.

Other episodes from the book (and please, dear fellow readers - tell me your favorite episodes from this book!!) are:

-- befriending Paul - her favorite student. A fanciful little boy who Anne truly believes is a genius
-- dealing with Anthony Pye - the sullen bully of the school
-- Marilla adopts twins. Marilla! Davy and Dora ... they are orphaned ... they are 8 years old, I believe and they come to stay at Green Gables. Davy is an absolute terror and Dora is goodness personified. Davy gets into some horrible scrapes - but of course - you love him more. You always love those who struggle more.
-- Oh, and Miss Lavender!! Diana and Anne discover an old romantic stone house out in the middle of the woods one day ... and there's a beautiful "old" lady living there - her hair is white, but I think she's only in her 40s. She is sort of like Anne - living in a fantasy world - only she's a full adult. Anne recognizes a kindred spirit immediately. They become friends. Dear dear friends. of course there was a sad thwarted romance in Miss Lavender's past - we eventually hear the whole thing (Lucy Maud is very big on MISUNDERSTANDING being the root of all evil. So many of her huge plot points, especially with romances, hinge on one person completely misunderstanding the message. Or not getting the message at all. "40 years ago, I wrote you a letter asking you to come join me and marry me!" The response is: "I never got the letter." Etc.)

Let's see. What else. Oh yes - Anne and Diana create an "Improvement Society" - they want to plant public gardens in Avonlea, and have rotted trees removed, and have so and so pull down his old crumbling barn, and basically improve the look of the place. A group of their friends join - and they take subscriptions and deal with resistance - and in general, try to shake Avonlea into some sense of civic responsibility.

There are many more great episodes - I'd love to hear some of your favorites.

The book ends with Mr. Lynde dying - and Rachel Lynde decides to move in with Marilla. Although they bicker and snipe at each other, they are truly good friends, and a comfort to one another. Mrs. Lynde can help raise the twins and help out Marilla. Which then frees Anne up. She then decides that she will go to college. The book ends there - on the crossroads. Anne is going to go to college. Her year of teaching is at an end. Oh - and Gilbert will be at the same college. So .... hmmmmmmm

Anyway, I had a hard time picking an excerpt - but I decided to go with something that I think demonstrates the true special-ness of Lucy Maud Montgomery's storytelling ability (as well as her writing). In a lot of her books - we read the protagonist's letters. Windy Poplars (excerpt here) is almost ALL letters. In the Emily series (which I actually like better than the Anne series - amazing!!) - the second book in the series has extensive excerpts from Emily's private journal. Lucy Maud doesn't just go for straight narration.

And listen to this letter. Anne is describing her teaching experiences to a friend. But ... I don't know ... what I really get from this excerpt is how many STORIES Lucy Maud has to tell. This letter feels REAL to me - as though she might have copied it verbatim from a letter she either once wrote or received. It seems that real to me. It also makes me laugh out loud. The student "Barbara Shaw" is the most clumsy girl in school. Disasters follow in her wake. Stoves blow up. Roofs cave in. Barbara is a magnet for tripping, falling, rolling, bruised knees ... anyway, the excerpt ends with Barbara's composition. We have already gotten to know Barbara's disasters. So listen to what she writes.

Excerpt from Anne Of Avonlea by L.M. Montgomery.

"Teaching is really very interesting work," wrote Anne to a Queen's Academy chum. "Jane says she thinks it is monotonous but I don't find it so. Something funny is almost sure to happen every day, and the children say such amusing things. Jane says she punishes her pupils when they make funny speeches, which is probably why she finds teaching monotonous. This afternoon little Jimmy Andrews was trying to spell 'speckled,' and couldn't manage it. 'Well,' he said finally, 'I can't spell it but I know it means.'

"'What does it mean?' I asked.

"'St. Clair Donnell's face, miss.'

"St. Clair is certainly very much freckled, although I try to prevent the others from commenting on it ... for I was freckled once and well do I remember it. But I don't think St. Clair minds. It was because Jimmy called him 'St. Clair' that St. Clair pounded him on the way home from school. I heard of the pounding, but not officially, so I don't think I'll take any notice of it.

"Yesterday I was trying to teach Lottie Wright to do addition. I said, 'If you had three candies in one hand and two in the other, how many would you have altogether?' 'A mouthful,' said Lottie. And in the nature study class, when I asked them to give me a good reason why toads shouldn't be killed, Benjie Sloane gravely answered, 'Because it would rain the next day.'

"It's so hard not to laugh, Stella. I have to save up all my amusment until I get home, and Marilla says it makes her nervous to hear wild shrieks of mirth proceeding from the east gable without any apparent cause. She says a man in Grafton went insane once and that was how it began.

"Did you know that Thomas a Becket was canonized as a snake? Rose Bell says he was ... also that William Tyndale wrote the New Testament. Claude White says a 'glacier' is a man who puts in window frames!

"I think the most difficult thing in teaching, as well as the most interesting, is to get the children to tell you their real thoughts about things. One stormy day last week I gathered them around me at dinner hour and tried to get them to talk to me just as if I were one of themselves. I asked them to tell me the things they most wanted. Some of the answers were commonplace enough ... dolls, ponies, and skates. Others were decidedly original. Hester Boulter wanted 'to wear her Sunday dress every day and eat in the sitting room.' Hannah Bell wanted 'to be good wihtout having to take any trouble about it.' Marjory White, aged ten, wanted to be a widow. Questioned why, she gravely said that if you weren't married people called you an old maid, and if you were your husband bossed yo; but if you were a widow there'd be no danger of either. The most remarkable wish was Sally Bell's. She wanted a 'honeymoon'. I asked her if she knew what it was and she said she thought it was an extra nice kind of bicycle because her cousin in Montreal went on a honeymoon when he was married and he had always had the very latest in bicycles!

"Another day I asked them all to tell me the naughtiest thing they had ever done. I couldn't get the older ones to do so, but the third class answered quite freely. Eliza Bell had 'set fire to her aunt's carded rolls.' Asked if she meant to do it she said, 'not altogether.' She just tried a little end to see how it would burn and the whole bundle blazed up in a jiffy. Emerson Gillis had spent ten cents for candy when he should have put it in his missionary box. Annetta Bell's worst crime was 'eating some blueberries that grew in the graveyard.' Willie White had 'slid down the sheephouse roof a lot of times with his Sunday trousers on.' 'But I was punished for it 'cause I had to wear patched pants to Sunday school all summer, and when you're punished for a thing you don't have to repent of it,' declared Willie.

"I wish you could see some of their compositions ... so much do I wish it that I'll send you copies of some written recently. Last week I told the fourth class I wanted them to write me letters about anything they pleased, adding by way of suggestion that they might tell me of some place they had visited or some interesting thing or person they had seen. They were to write the letters on real note paper, seal them in an envelope, and address them to me, all without any assistance from other people. Last Friday morning I found a pile of letters on my desk and that evening I realized afresh that teaching has its pleasures as well as its pains. Those compositions would stone for much. Here is Ned Clay's, address, spelling, and grammar as originally penned.

"'Miss teacher ShiRley
"'Green gabels.
"'p.e. Island can

"'birds

"Dear teacher I think I will write you a composition about birds. birds is very useful animals. my cat catches birds. His name is William but pa calls him tom. he is oll striped and he got one of his ears froz of last winter. only for that he would be a goodlooking cat. My unkle has adopted a cat. it come to his house one day and wouldent go away and unkle says it has forgot more than most people ever knowed. he lets it sleep on his rocking chare and my aunt says he thinks more of it than he does of his children. that is not right. we ought to be kind to cats and give them new milk but we ought not to be better to them than to our children. this is oll I can think of so no more at present from

"'edward black ClaY.'

"St. Clair Donnell's is, as usual, short and to the point. St. Clair never wastes words. I do not think he chose his subject or added the postscript out of malice aforethought. It is just that he has not a great deal of tact or imagination.

"'Dear Miss Shirley

"'You told us to describe something strange we have seen. I will describe the Avonlea Hall. It has two doors, an inside one and an outside one. It has six windows and a chimney. It has two ends and two sides. It is painted blue. That is what makes it strange. It is built on the lower Carmondy road. It is the third most important building in Avonlea. The others are the church and the blacksmith shop. They hold debating clubs and lectures in it and concerts.

"'Yours truly,
"Jacob Donnell.

"'P.S. The hall is a very bright blue.'

"Annetta Bell's letter was quite long, which surprised me, for writing essays is not Annetta's forte, and hers are generally as brief as St. Clair's. Annetta is a quiet little puss and a model of good behaviour, but there isn't a shadow of originality in her. Her is her letter; --

"'Dearest teacher,

"'I think I will write you a letter to tell you how much I love you. I love you with my whole heart and soul and mind ... with all there is of me to love ... and I want to serve you for ever. It would be my highest privilege. Taht is why I try so hard to be good at school and learn my lessons.

"'You are so beautiful, my teacher. Your voice is like music and your eyes are like pansies when the dew is on them. You are like a tall stately queen. Your hair is like rippling gold. Anthony Pye says it is red, but you needn't pay any attention to Anthony.

"'I have only known you for a few months but I cannot realize that there was ever a time when I did not know you ... when you had not come into my life to bless and hallow it. I will always look back to this year as the most wonderful in my life because it brought you to me. besides, it's the year we moved to Avonlea from newbridge. My love for you has made my life very rich and it has kept me from much of harm and evil. I owe this all to you, my sweetest teacher.

"'I shall never forget how sweet you looked the last time I saw you in that black dress with flowers in your hair. I shall see you like that for ever, even when we are both old and gray. You will always be young and fair to me, dearest teacher. I am thinking of you all the time ... in the morning and at the noontide and at the twilight ... I love you when you laugh and when you sigh ... even when you look disdainful. I never saw you look cross though Anthony Pye says you always look so but I don't wonder you look cross at him for he deserves it. I love you in every dress ... you seem more adorable in each new dress than the last.

"'Dearest teacher, good night. The sun has set and the stars are shining ... stars that are as bright and beautiful as your eyes. I kiss your hands and face, my sweet. May God watch over you and protect you from all hard.

"'Your afecksionate pupil
"'Annetta Bell.'

"This extraordinary letter puzzled me not a little. I knew Annetta couldn't have composed it any more than she could fly. When I went to school the next day I took her for a walk down to the brook at recess and asked her to tell me the truth about the letter. Annetta cried and 'fessed up freely. She said she had never written a letter and she didn't know how to, or what to say, but there was a bundle of love letters in her other's top bureau drawer which had been written to her by an old 'beau'.

"'It wasn't father,' sobbed Annetta, 'it was someone who was studying for a minister, and so he could write lovely letters, but ma didn't marry him after all. She said she couldn't make out what he was driving at half the time. But I thought the letters were sweet and that I'd just copy things out of them here and there to write you. I put "teacher" where he put "lady" and I put in something of my own when I could think of it and I changed some words. I put "dress" in place of "mood". I didn't know just what a "mood" was but I s'posed it was something to wear. I didn't s'pose you'd know the difference. I don't see how you found out it wasn't all mine. You must be awful clever, teacher.'

"I told Annetta it was very wrong to copy another person's letter and pass it off as her own. But I'm afraid that all Annetta repented of was being found out.

"'And I do love you, teacher,' she sobbed. 'It was all true, even if the minister wrote it first. I do love you with all my heart.'

"It's very difficult to scold anybody properly under such circumstances.

"Here is Barbara Shaw's letter. I can't reproduce the blots of the original.

"'Dear teacher,

"'You said we might write about a visit. I never visited but once. It was at my Aunt Mary's last winter. My Aunt Mary is a very particular woman and a great housekeeper. The first night I was there we were at tea. I knocked over a jug and broke it. Aunt Mary said she had had that jug ever since she was married and nobody had ever broken it before. When we got up I stepped on her dress and all the gathers tore out of her skirt. The next morning when I got up I hit the pitcher against the basin and cracked them both and I upset a cup of tea on the tablecloth at breakfast. When I was helping Aunt Mary with the dinner dishes I dropped a china plate and it smashed. That evening I fell downstairs and sprained my ankle and had to stay in bed for a week. I heard Aunt Mary tell Uncle Joseph it was a mercy or I'd have broken everything in the house. When I got better it was time to go home. I don't like visiting very much. I like going to school better, especially since I came to Avonlea.

"'Yours respectfully,
"'Barbara Shaw.'"

Oh boy!

Want to let off some steam? I hope this becomes a tradition.

The Books: "Anne Of Green Gables" (L.M. Montgomery)

Next book on my young adult fiction shelves:

Next book on the shelf is Anne Of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery.

Buh-bye, Madeleine. Hello, Lucy Maud. Two of my obsessions back to back. Life is good. By the way, I went to Amazon to find a link to the book "Anne of Green Gables" - just flat out the book - just THE BOOK - and literally had a hard time finding a link to it. It has been so taken over - I;'ve seen copies of it that are abridged - ABRIDGED - it's not a long book to begin with!! Or dumbed-down vocabulary versions - for kids who have never heard of a dictionary. There are also Anne of Green Gables cookbooks, and journals, and audio books - and look, fine, you people are making a ton of money off of this industry, while Lucy Maud sleeps peacefully (God willing - and God knows she deserved it, after her miserable life) in her grave - but at LEAST let the first link on your stupid page be a link to, you know, THE ACTUAL BOOK THAT STARTED THIS WHOLE THING. HER book, not your dumbass abridged versions, or your dumbed-down "my first classics" versions. How 'bout giving me a link to HER BOOK? The one that compelled Mark Twain (MARK TWAIN) to write her a letter and say that "Anne is one of the immortal girls of literature, just like Alice ..." How 'bout that? I was pissed off scrolling through until page 9 or 10 to find a straight link to her actual book - with no doo-dads of gee-gaws or bric-a-brac added to it.

I got a comment rom an irate Canadian when I said I loved this book - this was long ago on this blog. The irate Canadian wrote in mostly caps: "YOU LIKED THIS BOOK? Canadians HATE this book!" I said to the irate Canadian that although it is hard to believe, I do not choose my beloved books using the criteria: Whether Or Not Canadians Would Approve.

The importance of this book in my life runs on multiple levels - first of all, it's flat out a great book. Anne is an amazing character - a complete original - I mean, once you meet that girl, you can never EVER forget her. She is emblazoned upon my brain. And it's also one of those books where - certain episodes seem to never fade from my mind. It's an episodic book - of the kind people don't really write anymore - and some of the episodes are now considered classic:

Anne dyeing her hair green
Anne getting Diana drunk by accident
The mouse drowned in the pudding
Smashing her slate over Gilbert's head when he calls her "carrot top"
Puffed sleeves

I mean, I could go on and on. L.M. Montgomery has woven some sort of spell - you literally watch this girl grow and change - You love her SO much, and there are times when you laugh out loud at some of the problems she causes, or some of the things she does - but ... it's never cute, or too moralistic, or too NEAT. Anne is strictly a human girl. She's not a lesson-to-be-taught, she's not a symbol. She LIVES.

Basically, the plot is: Marilla and Matthew Cuthbert are an elderly brother and sister, who live on a farm on Prince Edward Island. Their house is called Green Gables. They are in their 60s, and they figure they need some help on the farm - so they send to an orphanage for a young boy. They could raise him properly, but mainly - he could grow up to be a perpetual hired hand,. Some sort of fatal error occurs, the message is mixed up - and a girl is sent. A young fantasist with long carrot-orange braids - named Anne Shirley. An orphan. Who has had a hard-knock life so far, being shuffled about as a servant girl in horrible situations. A brou-haha ensues. Marilla is strict, stern (what an awesome character she is, huh??) ... eventually, of course, Anne stays.

The story is also about - how love can transform you. Marilla and Matthew find themselves LOVING this girl. For Matthew it is easy to love her. He is quiet, shy, kind, and just basically falls in love with Anne immediately. Marilla is a bit of a tougher nut to crack. "What use would she be to us???" she says sternly to Matthew. Matthew replies, 'We might be of some use to her."

So Anne stays.

This is a classic book of literature - even with all the brou-haha surrounding it - even with the INDUSTRY now devoted to keeping the Anne of Green Gables thing going - come hell or high water ... It's a classic book. Mark Twain was right. Anne Shirley is one of the "immortals".

Also, it's Lucy Maud's first novel. Way to hit it out of the park, LM.

One of the funniest parts of the book is watching Marilla - strict practical Marilla - try to deal with Anne ... especially in the beginning. Marilla has never been married, she doesn't have experience with kids anyway ... but this type of child? The type of child who lives in a fantasy world and who literally can talk for 20 minutes straight without a pause? Marilla has a hard time with that.

Here's an excerpt from the beginning of the book. Anne has just arrived. There is the brou-haha over her gender. Anne stays at Green Gables until the mistake can be sorted out. Marilla realizes, through experiencing Anne a bit, that she is almost a primitive child - like: she has not been brought up at ALL. She has all sorts of heathen-ish ideas about God and prayer - she hates church - she makes no bones about saying anything that pops into her head OUT LOUD ... so Marilla decides this child needs to be brought up proper, so she lets Anne stay. (Of course - you already get the idea that there are unplumbed depths in Marilla ... that perhaps this little redheaded witch has started to melt her down a bit ... )

This excerpt is where she tried (TRIES) to teach Anne to pray properly. She gives Anne a little card with a prayer on it and tells her to learn it by heart. Watch how Marilla desperately tries to deal with Anne ... it's so funny, in a way. Marilla is so stern and practical - and Anne just babbles on and on as though Marilla will completely understand what she is talking about .... It's hysterical, too, because the mere FACT that Marilla does not interrupt some of these long long monologues, shows that she gets sucked in in spite of herself.

Excerpt from Anne Of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery.

Anne set the card up against the jugful of apple blossoms she had brought in to decorate the dinner-table -- Marilla had eyed that decoration askance, but had said nothing -- propped her chin on her hands, and fell to studying it intently for several silent minutes.

"I like this," she announced at length. "It's beautiful. I've heard it before -- I heard the superintendent of the asylum Sunday-school say it over once. But I didn't like it then. He had such a cracked voice and he prayed it so mournfully. I really felt sure he thought praying was a disagreeable duty. This isn't poetry, but it makes me feel just the same way poetry does. 'Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed by Thy name.' That is just like a line of music. Oh, I'm so glad you thought of making me learn this, Miss --- Marilla."

"Well, learn it and hold your tongue," said Marilla shortly.

Anne tipped the vase of apple blossoms near enough to bestow a soft kiss on a pink-cupped bud, and then studied diligently for some moments longer.

"Marilla," she demanded presently, "do you think that I shall ever have a bosom friend in Avonela?"

"A -- a what kind of a friend?"

"A bosom friend -- an intimate friend, you know -- a really kindred spirit to whom I confide my inmost soul. I've dreamed of meeting her all my life. I never really supposed I would, but so many of my loveliest dreams have come true all at once that perhaps this one will, too. Do you think it's possible?"

"Diana Barry lives over at Orchard Slope and she's about your age. She's a very nice little girl, and perhaps she will be a playmate for you when she comes home. She's visiting her aunt over at Carmody just now. You'll have to be careful how you behave yourself, though. Mrs. Barry is a very particular woman. She won't let Diana play with any little girl who isn't nice and good."

Anne looked at Marilla through the apple blossoms, her eyes aglow with interest.

"What is Diana like? Her hair isn't red, is it? Oh, I hope not. It's bad enough to have red hair myself, but I positively couldn't endure it in a bosom friend."

"Diana is a very pretty little girl. She has black eyes and hair and rosy cheeks. And she is good and smart, which is better than being pretty."

Marilla was as fond of morals as the Duchess in Wonderland, and was firmly convinced that one should be tacked on to every remark made to a child who was being brought up.

But Anne waved the moral inconsequently aside and seized only on the delightful possibilities before it.

"Oh, I'm so glad she's pretty. Next to being beautiful oneself -- and that's impossible in my case -- it would be best to have a beautiful bosom friend. When I lived with Mrs. Thomas she had a bookcase in her sitting room with glass doors. There weren't any books in it; Mrs. Thomas kept her best china and her preserves there -- when she had any preserves to keep. One of the doors was broken. Mr. Thomas smashed it one night when he was slightly intoxicated. But the other was whole and I used to pretend that my reflection in it was another little girl who lived in it. I called her Katie Maurice, and we were very intimate. I used to talk to her by the hour, especially on Sunday, and tell her everything. Katie was the comfort and consolation of my life. We used to pretend that the bookcase was enchanted and that if I only knew the spell I could open the door and step right into the room where Katie Maurice lived, instead of into Mrs. Thomas' shelves of preserves and china. And then Katie Maurice would have taken me by the hand and led me out into a wonderful place, all flowers and sunshine and fairies, and we would have lived there happy for ever after. When I went to live with Mrs. Hammond it just broke my heart to leave Katie Maurice. She felt it dreadfully, too, I know she did, for she ewas crying when she kissed me good-bye through the bookcase door. There was no bookcase at Mrs. Hammond's. But just up the river a little way from the house there was a long green little valley, and the loveliest echo lived there. It echoed back every word you said, even if you didn't talk a bit loud. So I imagined that it was a little girl called Violetta and we were great friends and I loved her almost as well as I loved Katie Maurice -- not quite, but almost, you know. The night before I went to the asylum I said good-bye to Violetta, and oh, her good-bye came back to me in such sad, sad tones. I had become so attached to her that I hadn't the heart to imagine a bosom friend at that asylum, even if there had been any scope for imagination there."

"I think it's just as well there wasn't," said Marilla drily. "I don't approve of such goings-on. You seem to half believe your own imaginations. It will be well for you to have a real live friend to put such nonsense out of your head. But don't let Mrs. Barry hear you talking about your Katie Maurices and your Violettas or she'll think you tell stories."

"Oh, I won't. I couldn't talk of them to everybody -- their memories are too sacred for that. But I thought I'd like to have you know about them. Oh, look, here's a big bee just tumbled out of an apple blossom. Just think what a lovely place to live -- in an apple blossom! Fancy going to sleep in it when the wind was rocking it. If I wasn't a human girl I think I'd like to be a bee and live among the flowers."

"Yesterday you wanted to be a sea gull," sniffed Marilla. "I think you are very fickle minded. I told you to learn that prayer and not talk. But it seems impossible for you to stop talking if you've got anybody that will listen to you. So go up to your room and learn it."

"Oh, I know it pretty nearly all now -- all but the last line."

"Well, never mind, do as I tell you. Go to your room and finish learning it well, and stay there until I call you down to help me get tea."

"Can I take the apple blossoms with me for company?" pleaded Anne.

"No; you don't want your room cluttered up with flowers. You should have left them on the tree in the first place."

"I did feel a little that way, too," said Anne. "I kind of felt I shouldn't shorten their lovely lives by picking them -- I wouldn't want to be picked if I were an apple blossom. But the temptation was irresistible. What do you do when you meet with an irresistible temptation?"

"Anne, did you hear me tell you to go to your room?"

Anne sighed, retreated to the east gable, and sat down in a chair by the window.

"There -- I know this prayer. I learned that last sentence coming upstairs. Now I'm going to imagine things into this room so that they'll always stay imagined. The floor is covered with a white velvet carpet with pink roses all over it and there are pink silk curtains at the windows. The walls are hung with gold and silver brocade tapestry. The furniture is mahogany. I never saw any mahogany, but it does sound so luxurious. This is a couch all heaped with gorgeous silken cushions, pink and blue and crimson and gold, and I am reclining gracefully on it. I can see my reflection in that splendid big mirror hanging on the wall. I am tall and regal, clad in a gown of trailing white lace, with a pearl cross on my breast and pearls in my h air. My hair is of midnight darkness and my skin is a clear ivory pallor. My name is the Lady Cordelia Fitzgerald. No, it isn't -- I can't make that seem real."

She danced up to the little looking-glass and peered into it. Her pointed freckled face and solemn gray eyes peered back at her.

"You're only Anne of Green Gables," she said earnestly, "and I see you, just as you are looking now, whenever I try to imagine I'm the Lady Cordelia. But it's a million times nicer to be Anne of Green Gables than Anne of nowhere in particular, isn't it?"

She bent forward, kissed her reflection affectionately, and betook herself to the open window.

"Dear Snow Queen, good afternoon. And good afternoon, dear birches down in the hollow. And good afternoon, dear gray house on the hill. I wonder if Diana is to be my bosom friend. I hope she will, and I shall love her very much. But I must never quite forget Katie Maurice and Violetta. They would feel so hurt if I did and I'd hate to hurt anybody's feelings, even a little bookcase girl's or a little echo girl's. I must be careful to remember them and send them a kiss every day."

Anne blew a couple of airy kisses from her fingertips past the cherry blossoms and then, with her chin in her hands, drifted luxuriously out on a sea of daydreams.

Two book memes

1. First book to leave a lasting impression?
Charlotte's Web. That was the first book that made my heart HURT after finishing it. But that hurt also had some joy in it .... I mean, the last paragraph of that book:

Wilbur never forgot Charlotte. Although he loved her children and grandchildren dearly, none of the new spiders ever quite took her place in his heart. She was in a class by herself. It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer. Charlotte was both.

I ... I ... Here I am, many many years later, feeling that same mix of hurt and joy at those words. Tears. Extraordinary book. And that was the first one.

2. Which author would you most like to be?
I'm thinking maybe Madeleine L'Engle. She seemed like she has had a really nice life with a good balance between art and love and duty and pleasure. She also made a shitload of money. But most writers don't have it so good, and most of them have miserable poverty-struck lives. So let me not play it safe and let me then say: In terms of what she actually WROTE? I'd like to be Charlotte Bronte. Because, seriously. I would love to be inside her head for just an hour or so, see what was going on in there.

3. Name the book that has most made you want to visit a place?
Hmmm. Many thoughts are in my mind right now.
I have to say Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe made me ACHE to go Mr. and Mrs. Beaver's "house". Seriously. I wanted to be there so bad.

Robert Kaplan's Balkan Ghosts made me want to go to the Balkans - and Rebecca West's Black Lamb and Grey Falcon just solidified that. Next trip? Croatia, Montenegro, Serbia, blah blah blah. Must go there.

House like a Lotus by Madeleine L'Engle made me yearn to go to Greece.

Shipping News - made me want to flee to Newfoundland

I love this question - I'll have to think more upon it.

4. Which contemporary author will still be read in 100 years?
Oh boy. This is always a fun question - like: "what movies today will be considered classics in the future"?? (cough Groundhog Day cough)

I would say:

Madeleine L'Engle

John Irving

Probably AS Byatt

Stephen King

Edna O'Brien

Michael Chabon

Hmm. Just guessing. These people seem to have something timeless about their work.

5. Which book would you recommend to a teenager reluctant to try 'literature'?
Huck Finn, no question.

6. Name your best recent literary discovery.
Hmmm. Probably Jincy Willett. This novel of hers was one of the best pieces of fiction I had read in YEARS. Her first novel. David Sedaris writes about the feeling of unbelievable delight and happiness that came over him when he discovered her (after reading her collection of short stories) - and I had the same feeling. I couldn't believe how terrific she was.

7. Which author's fictional world would you most like to live in?

The Beavers house in Narnia. I know I've said it twice, but it certainly bears repeating.

8. Name your favorite poet?

Auden and Yeats. I refuse to choose. Thanks!

9. What's the best non-fiction title you've read this year?

I can't remember every book I've read this year - but the first book that comes to mind was the Stalin biography. You can look back in the archives to see the frenzy that that book engendered.

10. Which author do you think is much better than his/her reputation?
Awesome question.

The first thing that comes to mind is Elinor Lipman. She's got to be one of the most under-rated writers out there. I mean, she's successful, whatever - but she's so damn good. She doesn't get the props at ALL for how good she is. That's the damn shame with this chick lit bullshit. Really good authors get lumped in with mediocre authors because ... the genre fits?? But it doesn't really. Lipman is a real novelist - she's not a gimmick - she's been doing her thing for years, and I LOVE her. (I loved coming across her name in this post - and reading Fay Weldon's essay about Lipman. Couldn't agree more.)

Oh - and Stephen King. Yes, he over-writes. Yes, he needs an editor. Yes, sometimes he chooses an image that is just flat-out wrong. But this dude can write. And it makes me mad when people blow him off because he mainly writes in a genre.

And here is the second meme. And I'm sorry - but I truly cannot remember where I found each of these. I saved them a while back to "get to later" and now ... oh well.

• One book that changed your life.
Harriet the Spy. Helped make me who I am today.

• One book that you have read more than once.
Mating, by Norman Rush. (I wrote a huge essay about it here)
Hopeful Monsters, by Nicholas Mosley
Emily of New Moon, by LM Montgomery (actually the whole Emily series)
It, by Stephen King
All of Anne Lindbergh's journals
I read books "more than once" all the time, apparently. There are a ton more - but these are the first that leap to my mind

• One book that you would want on a desert island.
War and Peace. Or Remembrance of Things Past. I've read neither - and if I'm gonna be waiting to be rescued for a long time, might as well have something NEW (to me, anyway) and also LONG

• One book that made you laugh.
I Was A Teenage Dwarf - had to leave my high school library, due to being unable to hold back the laughter

Angela's Ashes - had to leave my graduate school library, due to being unable to hold back the laughter (it was Malachy with the dentures stuck in his face that did it)

Winner of the National Book Award - by Jincy Willett

Lives of the Saints - by Nancy Lemann

I'm not talking about chuckling - or smiling - or thinking to myself, "Wow, that's funny." I'm talking about guffawing and snorting and wiping away tears - making an embarrassing scene if you are in public (kind of like when I saw THIS yesterday)

Actually, At Swim-two-birds made me laugh outl oud as well.

• One book that made you cry.
Atonement by Ian McEwan. I actually don't think I ever need to read that book again. And again - I often have sort of intellectual responses to events in books: "Wow, that's sad" or "How awful" - but to burst into tears? To have to put the book down? Very few books have done that. Atonement was one of them.

The Adventures of Kavalier and Clay was another. The ending of that book ...

• One book you wish had been written.
Ulysses of course. Why not? Why not be a mad genius who causes everyone to chitter chatter? And they are all chitter chattering still ...

• One book you wish had never been written.
I'm not really digging this question. There are plenty of books I have hated - but do I wish they had never been written? No, cause someone else might love it. (cough Henry James cough)

• One book you are currently reading.

Re-reading The White Album - collectin of essays by Joan Didion

Reading Howard Hawks: The Grey Fox of Hollywood

Also reading the Ron Chernow biography of Hamilton

• One book you have been meaning to read.

The Chernow biography of Alexander Hamilton. Also Saturday by Ian McEwan. And the new John Irving.

Project Runway??

Thoughts??? I haven't watched it in a couple weeks but I have been obsessively reading posts about it. Jeffrey - BAH. You can actually be talented and not be such a JERK about it. Only I do not find him talented. Here's an interesting take on him.

But anyway. Project Runway fans ... Please share. Catch me up.

Bugs 'n beer

I can't explain it ... but I just love how Johnny Virgil tells a story. It's very subtle - or at least this one is (I'm thinking of some of his other bathroom stories as, er, NOT so subtle). But I just love this one. He's so observant. It ... again, I can't explain it. I'm still laughing.

The Books: "A Severed Wasp" (Madeleine L'Engle)

Next book on my adult fiction shelf is:

Next book on the shelf is A Severed Wasp by Madeleine L'Engle.

Yeah, whatever, this is my first post using MY NEW MAC. Whatever. It's not a big deal to me, or anything like that. I am totally OVER my NEW MAC. Yawn. It's just like any other day over here in Sheila's world. Time to do a new book excerpt. So I have a new Mac, so what?? Whatevs.

I'm just trying to pretend everything is normal when I know in my heart that everything has changed.

But: today's book excerpt is from A Severed Wasp - and this will be, sadly, my last Madeleine L'Engle excerpt. I have no more of her books. I think the only things I am missing are her volumes of poetry (I have no interest in those) - and maybe some of her children's books. I know she did an illustrated version of Jonah and the Whale. I don't have that. But I know I have all her major works ... and Severed Wasp is the last one on the shelf.

It is a sequel to her first novel - written 40 years after that first book was published. Which is kind of amazing, if you think about it. Katherine Forrester was 22 at the end of Small Rain, and when Severed Wasp opens she's in her 70s, I believe. What has happened to her over the intervening 50 some odd years? We find out in Severed Wasp. It goes back and forth between the present and all these different events in Katherine's life. Her marriage to Justin Vigneras (the piano teacher in the excerpt from yesterday). Their horrific experiences during WWII. Vigneras put in a concentration camp. He survived - but his hands had been broken - so that he no longer could play the piano - and I believe he sustained some sort of injury that had rendered him impotent. He emerged, after the war, a broken man. I haven't read the book in a long time so I can't remember the ins and outs of this whole thing - but I know that he encourages Katherine to sleep with other men - and also - to choose men well, men who could get her pregnant - so that she and Justin could then have children to raise. This is so against who Katherine is, her values, her morals- she hates Justin for even asking ... but eventually, she gives in - and they do eventually have children, fathered by a couple different men. Men who know what they're getting into, by the way. It's awful in a way, and life-affirming in another way. This whole book is full of stuff like that. Horrible events ... alongside transcendent ones.

Katherine in her 70 year old present-day - has finally given up her concert career - and has retired. She has moved back to Manhattan, and moved into her old apartment on Tenth Street, the one she lived in when she was in her 20s. Somehow - she runs into an old old OLD friend - (from the first book) - Felix somebody. Felix was a flighty bohemian dude in Small Rain - kind of corrupt - fun to be around, but not trustworthy at all. Felix is now in his 70s as well, and is a Bishop. A Bishop!! Anyway, through reconnecting with Felix, Katherine becomes ensconced in the world of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. Felix convinces her to give a charity concert, even though she is not a charity concert kind of person. She begins to make new friends - in her 70s. And Katherine is kind of a prickly personality - always has been. She needs solitude. She has her own private sorrows (which we learn about in the flashbacks - a son who died, and more horrors) - stuff which she does not share - and the jostle of a social life is not for her. But here she is in her 70s - coming out of her comfort zone - because life never stops challenging you, or never SHOULD ... and doing things which seem completely against her nature. She goes to dinner parties. She babysits. She befriends a young sullen girl named Emily who is supposedly a good musician. She is asked to speak about her long life and career at various events. She is old, she is set in her ways, but she finds herself saying "yes" to all of these requests.

The Cathedral is so lovingly and beautifully rendered in this book - it is definitely another character in the story. I used to live up in that neighborhood, too, and believe me: the Cathedral is ever-present. It is a part of the landscape at all times, and you always sense its presence.

There's way more to this book than just the plot and I probably haven't done a good job making this sound like a good read - but I'll just say this: I believe this is one of her best books. Plain and simple. It's very different from the books that have made her FAMOUS - it's not science fiction - and also; there are 50 characters to keep track of, as opposed to 5 or 6, like in her other books. But she manages it. We go back and forth in time effortlessly - the characters are consistent, and they have the breath of life in them ... Everyone is flawed, everyone is doing their best (which sometimes is ... just not good enough) ... and everyone has their little quirks and foibles. Even minor characters. L'Engle has NEVER been in such good form.

It's a great read. I highly recommend it.

Here's an excerpt from the book. Emily is a young girl, maybe a teenager - whose deepest goal in life is to be a pianist. (Oh - and her mother?? Is Suzy Austin, Vicky's younger sister. Suzy Austin is now a doctor.) Actually, wait: Emily's first goal in life (or vocation) was ballet. Member how I said L'Engle is best with people who have vocations, even if they are small children?? It's totally true. Anyway, Emily was a ballerina. This isn't just like kids ballet recitals - this is like - she was on her way to being Anna Pavlova. It was that serious, and she was that gifted. And then - hmmmm. I think she was hit by a car. And lost the use of her legs. She was 11, 12 years old - and she had to give up the dearest dream of her life. She is a different kind of child, because of that heartbreak. She has now switched her passion to being a piano player - something she works her ass off at ... and her idol is the great Katherine Vigneras - and lo and behold - suddenly Vigneras comes into her life, peripherally, and omigod, she is her idol, etc. Emily is not a likable child. That's flat out the truth. She's way too serious, she's awkward, she's way too intense ... People feel protective of her, rather than love her. There is something fragile in her intensity - and it makes people uncomfortable. Including Katherine Vigneras - who senses this girl's idolatry of her - and wants to put a stop to it pronto. Katherine is afraid to hear the girl play ... what if Emily is bad? How will she critique the girl? And you just know Katherine by this point ... you know that she would be physically unable to praise someone (especially a pianist) if they didn't deserve it. No mollycoddling in Katherine's serious world. But then comes the moment .... -

The way the scene unfolds is typical L'Engle beauty, in my opinion. Just sit back and enjoy. Lovely excerpt. It makes me want to cry. L'Engle gets that for some people - art is "Life-and-death". Even if you are only 11 years old.

Excerpt from A Severed Wasp by Madeleine L'Engle.

As she passed St. Martin's chapel, which Felix had said was always open for prayer, she paused, sensing a sound. Huddled in one of the chairs was Topaze, his face in his hands, his shoulders shaking with sobs. She hesitated, wondering if she should go in to him, and then decided that whatever caused it, his grief was private. He could hear her at the piano; if he wanted her he could, and probably would, come to her. She returned to the Bosendorfer.

When she played the Hammerklavier Sonata she could always hear Justin's voice, sometimes gentle, sometimes shouting at her in excitement, crying out that a single note could be, all by itself, a crescendo. "You are part of the piano," he often said. "Each movement of your head, of your body, is as much a part of what you are playing as your hands on the keys. You never saw Rachmaninoff play. He counteracted the most erotically emotional of his work by sitting at the piano as still as marble, no movement of torso, or head. That balance was part of his playing, part of his music.:

He took her to the ballet. "Your movements must be one millionth of a millimetere of what you are seeing, but it must be indicated. Every slightest movement of your head, your neck, says something."

For a while he had her take ballet lessons. "You are not comfortable with your body, and the things I had hoped to teach you I cannot teach you." She studied with a friend of Justin's at the Ballet Russe and learned quickly to take delight in the disciplines given her body. The ballet lessons stood her in good stead. She was not slumped.

They made friends with many of the dancers in the company and Justin began to compose music for the ballet. He made a quick success with a ballet to Moliere's La Malade Imaginaire, but comedy was not his forte, and both he and the company were happier with the music he composed for Sophocles' Antigone.

The study of ballet was reflected in Katherine's playing. She acquired a new understanding of cross-rhythms with syncopations and sudden sforzando, but the old problem with her hip caused the actual dance lessons to cease.

"You have learned what you needed to know," Justin said with no sympathy. "You are comfortable with your body; you are beginning to understand it. Stop being sorry for yourself. You were born to be a pianist, not a ballet dancer. Now pay attention to the crescendo. You are not listening, you are not understanding. Where are your ears? Don't you hear that the crescendo doesnt' lead to a fortissimo but to a pianissimo? Play it, and let me hear."

He never stopped teaching her, she thought, sittin gin the shadows of St. Ansgar's chapel, striving to push her as close to perfection as the human musician can get.

A movement disturbed her and she looked toward the pews to see Emily Davidson, eyes tightly closed, her expression one of intense concentration. When the music did not continue, she opened her eyes. Katherine fluttered her fingers in the child's direction. "How long have you been there, little mouse?"

"Oh, a while. When I used to watch ballet - especially the prima ballerinas - I saw what they were doing, and why, and how. I think I hear what you're playing, but I'm not sure why or how. When a ballet dancer does something unexpected, I expect it. I understand it has to be that way. But you do things and I don't expect them. I know they're right, but I don't expect them." She spoke with unselfconscious intensity.

"How do you know they're right?" Katherine asked with curiosity.

"Because they are right. Do you know anything about ballet?"

"A little."

"Sometimes you'll see a dancer move up into the air so slowly you wouldn't think anything that slow could be up; and then the coming down is even slower. You do that with your music. Especially in - I think it was Le Tombeau de Couperin."

"Close," Katherine said. "It was some of the original music Ravel used in Le Tombeau."

"Oh. But then you'll do something I don't understand at all, and I wonder if I'm just fooling myself when I think I can give up being a dancer, just like that, and be a pianist instead."

It was not just living in New York, as Dorcas had suggested, that made Emily need to be something. The child had not only exotic beauty but extraordinary determination and drive. Katherine said, "Talent in any one of the arts usually indicates understanding and talent in other branches. You've just shown that you have real understanding of music. Why don't you play for me now?"

The color drained from Emily's bronze skin. In the odd lighting of St. Ansgar's, her face took on a greenish hue. She murmured, "Maybe it's better this way, before I have time to work up a panic."

Katherine rose from the piano and Emily took her place. She played with technical competence a fairly simple Handel minuet. Then a Beethoven sonatina. She played well, as she had played when she accompanied the family. She listened to the music. Her wrists and her fingers were well placed. But the quality which John displayed when he merely picked up the violin was missing.

Katherine's heart sank as she stood by the piano. She could not lie to the child. Neither could she destroy her. What could she say?

Emily began a new piece, something Katherine did not recognize. It started out sounding like a piano rendition of one of the songs Yolande had sung, but then, instead of going into fear and sadness, it became lilting, merry, then dropped into wistfulness, and ended suddenly with a major arpeggio which flew all the way up and off the keyboard.

"What was that?" Katherine asked sharply.

Now color flooded Emiliy's cheeks. "Oh. It's one of Mrs. Undercroft's songs. Tory has a tape of it and plays it till I could scream. I like the beginning, but then it does things that give me the heebie-jeebies, so I changed it around so it says something I like to hear, and then I let it dance off the piano."

"You mean it's your own composition?"

"Well, it starts off with something Mrs. Undercroft--"

"Have you composed anything else?"

"Oh, sure."

"Play me something, then."

Emily hovered her hands over the keyboard as though thinking through her fingers, very differently from when she was about to start something from the classical repertoire, and then played what began as a derivative seventeenth-century minuet, and suddenly changed rhythm and dashed into extraordinary leaps up and down the keyboard as she modulated from one key to another and finally dropped back into the prim little minuet.

Emily's playing of her own compositions had a freedom it totally lacked in the pieces she had obviously studied with a piano teacher.

Trying to hold down, for a moment, her enthusiasm and relief at Emily's talent as a composer, Katherine said, "Does your teacher encourage you to write your own music?"

"Oh, no, he doesn't like it. But I thought maybe you would."

"And your parents?"

"Oh, they like it, all right, but they're both so busy they don't have much time for --"

"First of all," Katherine said in her most authoritative voice, "you will change piano teachers. Whoever you have is all wrong for you. Then you will learn harmony and counterpoint. The more you know of the old disciplines, the freer you will be to go off on your own. I'm not sure about you as a pianist, Emily. Your teacher has taught you some dreadful habits. Thank God you break them when you play your own music. But you are a composer. On the other hand, you need exposure to every kind of music possible. When I think of what you did with Yolande's--"

Emily interrupted. "You think I have talent?"

"I know you have talent." Katherine looked at her watch. "It's time for Llew or somebody to come and take me home. Are your parents going to be in this evening?"

"I think so. Unless one of them has an emergency."

"I'll call them. As for the piano lessons themselves -- would you like to study with me?"

Emily's voice was small. "I'm already sitting down."

Katherine made a conscious effort to keep her tone level. "I'm a hard taskmaster."

"Madame Vigneras, I'm not afraid of work."

"I know you're not. But you have a lot to unlearn, and that will be very hard work."

"Do you really mean it?"

"Hard work? Yes."

"That you will teach me?"

"I'll speak to your parents and if they can arrange transportation for you to come to me, we'll start at once."

"Madame Vigneras --" There were no dramatics in Emily's voice. "This was life-and-death for me."

Katherine spoke softly. "I know, my child."

"I could have been dead, and you've made me alive."

"It's your own talent, Emily. All I can do is help it grow."

"I can't say thank you. It's too--"

"You'll thank me by working." It was too intense. Katherine turned in relief as someone said, "Madame Vigneras," and she saw Mother Cat coming in. Emily gave a small curtsy, and Katherine marveled that she made so little concession to her artificial leg.

The nun smiled at them in greeting. "Madame Vigneras, a special chapter meeting has been called, something to do with Bishop Juxon's death, so Llew can't drive you home - the organist is part of the chapter. But Sister Isobel is waiting outside with the car. Are you planning to come to us on Sunday?"

"Yes, of course."

"One of us -- I hope I'll be the one, but I'm not positive -- will be down for you around four-thirty. I hope that will be convenient."

"Fine."

"And we'll get you home at a reasonable hour. We need to sleep, too. Will you be all right on your own, now?"

"Of course."

"The steps don't bother you? I should get back to the meeting, but --"

"I'll help her down the steps," Emily said.

The nun nodded. "Thanks, Emily. And then go on home, please."

"Yes, ma'am." Emily bobbed again. Perhaps manners were coming back at last.

trembly trembly ...

TREMBLY. I just made a purchase. A big purchase. I used some of my voiceover and freelance writing money. And I just bought a Mac. I am near tears with trembly excitement. I've been a PC girl all my life. I've been Bill Gates' beeyotch for way too long. But I'm not a big purchaser (uhm - take a look at the evidence that I had to have a DVD player basically FORCED UPON ME by a kindly guardian angel) ... and so ... I am freaking OUT with excitement.

I haven't even begun to set it all up because I ... I can't focus right now on the details. I need to spread out, and, uhm, chill out ... so I can calm down and set it up.

But here's what happened.

I've been leaning towards a Mac for a long time. I'm sick of PCs and all the crap and all the viruses and I'm sick of that stupid little Windows song I am forced to listen to, and I'm sick of the Windows opening credits ... and I just figured - it's TIME. Especially after I joined the land of the iPod people. Using the iPod is so easy and intuitive that I decided - That's it. I need to get a Mac. I was speaking with Bill about all of this and he said, "My PC is like an old syphilis-ridden whore." hahahaha Which is TRUE. I felt motivated.

And yet - like I said - I'm not a big purchaser. And I'm not rich - I don't have money to burn - but I do have this extra cash from my voiceovers and so there is no time like the present. If I didn't spend it on something GOOD, then it would end up disappearing into orange juice bought at the deli - or soap - or pencils - stupid stuff. I needed to make a GESTURE.

But then there is also the fear. Of change. Of spending a ton of cash. Of ... switching paradigms. No more PC. Was I ready? Yes, I was.

So who do I call? Cousin Kerry, who is one of those Mac FREAKS. Looking at her Mac in LA, and having her give me a little tour of it was really my first taste of ... Hmmmm. I like the look of this MUCH better than my stupid Dell. Sorry to be vague, but it just FEELS better to me. My brain fits with it. I understand it. Kerry is also one of those people who, uhm, comes to your apartment for the first time and before even taking her coat off begins to rearrange your closet. And the second she starts doing so, you don't think, "Hey, I like my closet the way it is!" You think, "Damn. She's totally right." She's the person you want to have with you when you make a huge purchase. She will help. She will KNOW. I NEED her. So we made a date to meet outside the huge glass cube Apple store on the corner of 5th Avenue and 58th. Right across from the baroque wedding cake known as the Plaza Hotel. Well, soon it will be known as Condominiums Only A Saudi Prince Could Afford ... but for now it is still the Plaza. We had a date tonight to meet.

The store is literally underground - and the entranceway is a huge glass cube sitting in a big open square - with an enormous Apple logo floating, as though in midair. Seriously, it is one of the coolest looking stores imaginable. You FEEL cool and futuristic just being in its vicinity. (You'll have to forgive me. I'm worked up and really happy.)

Kerry and I sat outside in the cool (loud) dusk and caught up a bit. Then we created our plan of action. Kerry asked about my computer use. What I need. What I want. What I am prepared to spend. What my priorities are. She then made recommendations. Meanwhile, I was watching the people streaming into that glass cube and then disappearing down the stairs. Soon she said, "Okay - let's go!" She was as excited as I was, I think! So there we were - in the Apple store. The look of the whole place, and the feeling of the salespeople, and just the general vibe made me turn my back on Dell forever. So accessible! And they're RIGHT THERE. And the store is open 24 hours a day. I can actually speak with a PERSON right in FRONT of me as opposed to some out-sourced dude in Calcutta.

Kerry and I browsed around a bit. We looked at different things. She showed me stuff. I was beside myself. Then we got the nicest sales clerk - who is one of those Mac FREAKS as well - like: the people who work there are not just there because it's a job and whatever. They are there because they LOVE MACS. They are zealots. Which could be intimidating or annoying if you felt it was imposed on you - like a used car salesman or something - but this dude was just excited to show me stuff, and even MORE excited when he learned that this would be my first Mac. Also, because Kerry was there - she was my translator. And also the tour guide. "Oh, show her the Dashboard." "Tell her about iDisc." "Can she get such and such with this?" "How about the formatting on her iPod? How will that work?" I mean, obviously I could have bought one for myself - but it was just so great to have her there with me. Telling me what I needed (warranty, procare card - free classes! etc. - I probably wouldn't have gotten that stuff if I was by myself.)

So I chose what I wanted. And - A FREE PRINTER/SCANNER COMES WITH IT. I am joining the ranks of the scanner nutjobs!! Get ready for many walk-down-memory-lane via photos posts from now on. I'm going to go insane. It will soon level out, but for a while I have a feeling this will become "Look at Sheila, age 6" photoblog. The printer is gorgeous, too - a beautiful sleek printer. FREE. Did I mention that? FREE!!! I almost fainted. Or wept.

The cashier dude was awesome - another Mac zealot - I couldn't believe I was almost there - that I was actually doing this - (I literally agonize over a 15 dollar pair of shoes and whether or not I should buy it or wait til next week when I get a paycheck ... You see what I'm saying?? This was huge for me.) Then - there I was. With my sleek little laptop, my printer (AND SCANNER) - wrapped up in Apple bags ... and then off we went, Kerry and I, giggling like little kids, SO EXCITED. She's been a great support. I can't wait to check in with her when I have the whole thing set up.

Then we walked across 59th to her subway stop - passing the Plaza, and the horse-drawn carriages - oh, and I saw that gladiator dude again!! - It was now 8:30, a deep blue dusk, the trees shadowy black to our right in Central Park, the streets crowded with breezy billowy summery New Yorkers - and in my arms I have this new gift I have given to myself with my hard-earned cash.

I can barely wait to set it up.

Kerry: I owe you big-time, dear woman - had a great time with you!!! And, uhm, Mardi Gras masks and all that stuff ... good to talk about THAT with you as well!

Buh-bye Dell.

Buh-bye Bill Gates.

Buh-bye PC.

You've been great ... really you have ... but it's time to say: BUH-BYE.

I love this crap

I love every bit of it. Mathematical recluse, the solving of a long-mysterious formula, the international math community all agog, the whole thing ... especially the recluse part of it. I understand NONE of it mathematically, but I love it because it's a great story.

"... but not the British children ..."

Guys, this is absolutely NUTS. A cartoon/rap song about George Washington. It's hysterical. (Oh, and normally I don't do this: but there are curses involved. So you might not want to blast it out at work.)

Thank you so much, Steve, for sending it to me.

The Books: "The Small Rain" (Madeleine L'Engle)

Next book on my adult fiction shelf is:

Next book on the shelf is The Small Rain by Madeleine L'Engle.

At last I can stop bitch-slapping one of my favorite authors!! It's okay, Madeleine - you wrote, what, 150 books? It's okay if a couple of 'em are stinkers.

The Small Rain is L'Engle's first novel - and for a first novel it is rather extraordinary. She has a firm hand, it's a sweeping story covering many years, and she never seems to be self-indulgent or showing off or lingering on her own good prose. It's quite marvelous. She was in her early 20s when this was published - an actress, touring the country in plays - she wrote most of this book sitting backstage in many theatres. I love that. You can feel the atmosphere in the book - at least I can.

There are some issues with the book - it probably could be broken up into a series - like her other books - We follow her heroine, Katherine Forrester - from when she's 8 to when she's 24 or something like that. It's a bit much. But still - that's a quibble. Katherine is interesting enough to spend all that time with. AND - many many years later -in the 1980s (Small Rain was published in 1945) L'Engle wrote a sequel - which is called The Severed Wasp - Katherine Forrester now in her late 70s or 80s - and that book is one of my favorites of all of L'Engle's books. It's an amazing accomplishment.

Katherine Forrester is the child of two accomplished musicians. She grows up sitting backstage at Carnegie Hall. She is a serious child, who is a musical prodigy herself. L'Engle writes about people who have a VOCATION so so well. Whether they are scientists, priests, mothers (yes, I see that as a vocation - and some have more of a CALLING for it than others), actors, writers - whatever. L'Engle understands people who have grand passions that sweep away all else. People who are serious artists are often not understood by the larger population - (as in: "Do you need to practice 4 hours a day? Can't you come out and play?" or "Why are you staying in on a Friday night to write? Everyone needs downtime!" Etc.) L'Engle writes about learning how to balance the demands of real life with the demands of art (or your vocation) - and how you just can't worry too much about making people happy. She writes about that in her own life as well. She was HAPPY when she took time out of mothering to write - locked her door - let the kids fend for themselves for a couple of hours. Without that time writing, L'Engle would have been no good to anybody. Someone who doesn't have that OTHER vocation - would look at that as neglect, would look at L'Engle's behavior as selfish. And you know what? It is. Nobody ever said being an artist was a SOCIAL thing to do. It is blatantly anti-social - and artists for the most part are okay with that. Katherine Forrester is, from the very beginning, kind of anti-social. Music is her only love. She gets lost in it. She sits at the piano and just GOES ... wherever it is that she goes.

The intricacies of the plot are lost to me - it's been a while since I read it - but I know that eventually her mother loses the ability to play piano (her hands are ruined?? In an accident?) and eventually, she dies - (argh - sorry, can't remember) - and it is such a loss, and so horrible - that Katherine is sent away to boarding school. Which is HORRIFIC for her. She has no privacy. She is not a social girl. She also has a slightly deformed hip - which means she has a limp - This is immediately noticeable to people and the girls in the school tease her about it. She is only "allowed" to play piano for an hour a day. Which is agony for her. It's like cutting her off from the wellspring of life! In a way, it ends up being a blessing - because eventually - Katherine makes a friend (Sarah) - and Sarah too has a vocation - she wants to be an actress - so she doesn't think it weird at all that Katherine would rather sit at the piano than play ping-pong or just sit around reading magazines. Sarah ends up betraying Katherine in a big BIG way (I remember being kind of devastated when I first read it ... like: how could she do that???) - but that's what happens sometimes between girls. When a man comes into the picture. It sucks.

Uhm - not sure what else happens. Katherine loses her virginity to a childhood friend named Charlot - a sweet character - She's 17, 18, something like that. He asks her to marry him and she is basically like, "Uhm, no." Finally, her term at boarding school ends, she's 18 - and she's able to be on her own. So she moves to Greenwich Village - into her mother's old apartment (I love L'Engle's description of that apartment on 10th Street - beautiful) - and begins her serious work as an independent artist. She practices for hours a day. She ends up meeting a group of real bohemians (and remember - this takes place in the late 30s - a very different New York back then) - actors, artists, playwrights - and the world of Greenwich Village, and its nightclubs, and night life opens up to her. She runs into Sarah again (this is before the betrayal - which basically ends the book). Sarah is in New York, trying to be an actress. Katherine begins to date Pete - something's not quite RIGHT there, though ... I like how L'Engle refuses to let things be NEAT. Because life isn't neat. Pete seems perfect. But you just know that something is not quite right ...

The book ends with Katherine alone again, with her music. Sarah has chosen Pete - and it's a betrayal - but as long as there is still music to play, Katherine will survive.

Now the beauty of all of this is; if you have gotten into this whole plot, if you have really invested in Katherine's journey (which I did) - to then go and read the stupendous Severed Wasp - and find out what happened to Katherine is just unbelievably satisfying. World War II, her children, her marriage, her career ... It really works. I am so glad that L'Engle decided to close that circle of her first novel.

Small Rain is a lovely book, full of well-drawn characters - and I love what it has to say about dedication to your art, whatever your art may be. I found this reader review on Amazon which pretty much sums it up:

As a pianist, I was deeply inspired by Katherine's sheer determination and drive. She is a very admirable character, and by the end of the book, I felt like I had made a new friend. I read the book two years ago for the first time, and was amazed at the depth and understanding that Madeleine wrote with--she seemed to fully understand the feelings and struggles of the musician, I felt that I could empathise with Katherine, and to me that is very important in a book. I've started reading it again, and was totally inspired to work and work with my music. I have been going through a dry period with my music and have not felt much like practicing. Upon reading this book for the second time, that has changed. I am now inspired, and have been practicing 3 hours a day. I feel like I am a born again musician. It's a thrill. I recommend this book for everyone who really wants to feel and empathise with a character, and especially for those of you who are musicians or artists.

Gorgeous.

Here's an excerpt from the whole boarding school section of the book. Katherine is aching to play more, aching for serious piano study ... It's literally like she has been ripped away from her own oxygen source. And I think maybe her parents intervened? Told the school to let her play more, or get her a good teacher? Can't remember.

Excerpt from The Small Rain by Madeleine L'Engle.

But the next morning Miss Halsey called Katherine up to her desk, told her that her music master was back in Montreux, that his name was Monsieur Justin Michel Vigneras, that her first lesson was to be at five that afternoon - adding crossly that Monsieur Vigneras was the most expensive of music masters and that she hoped Katherine would apply herself to her piano lessons better than she had to her schoolwork.

At five Katherine knocked on his door in the Music and Art building, her heart beating violently, because she was almost sure that it was the door to the studio from which the music had poured so wonderfully the night before. The same pleasant French voice said, "Come in: and she pushed the door open and stood in the doorway.

Monsieur Justin Michel Vigneras did not turn around. He stood leaning against the piano, looking bored and sulky, and this expression seemed even more like Charlot than the composed adult one of the night before. Sheila was at the piano, struggling with a Mozart Sonatina. She looked up in relief as Katherine arrived, jumped up quickly, and ran her fingers through the permanent wave that had become frizzy from the indignant washings of Miss Anderson, the school nurse.

Monsieur Vigneras' mouth set. "Finish," he said.

Sheila pouted, sat down, and began the Sonatina again.

"Not the whole thing." Justin Michel Vigneras raised his eyebrows. "Just from where you left off, please."

"I don't remember where I left off." Sheila stuck her hands out in front of her. The girls were not allowed to have long or lacquered fingernails, but Sheila had managed to keep the little finger of her left hand free from inspection, and the nail curved out from it, long and pointed, in contrast to the short clipped nails on her other fingers.

Justin Michel Vigneras pointed to the music. "Here. Begin here."

Sheila began to play and labored through to the end. "May I go now?"

"You certainly may. And if this term you would kindly practice at least half an hour between lessons, it would be less painful to us both."

"I practice half an hour every day except Friday, Saturday, and Sunday - that's the week's end," Sheila said righteously.

"And play at least one scale a week."

"All right," Sheila said, her pout gone and her best smile on, the heavy bands on her teeth in childish contrast to her permanent wave. "Good-bye, monsieur."

"Good-bye. And cut that absurd fingernail." He took a white silk handkerchief with a blue border out of his pocket and blew his nose. Then he turned to Katherine, looking at her for the first time as Sheila went by her and shut the door.

He smiled at her, and she thought -- It must have been an omen, his playing last night, and my hearing him. I'm glad I felt so awful and had to run and run. Otherwise, none of it would have happened --

"Are you my little friend of last night?" he asked.

"Yes. I am."

"Your name, please?"

"Katherine Forrester."

"What age have you?"

"Fifteen."

"You have studied the piano before?"

"Yes."

"Very well. Play something for me. Something not too long. I will probably stop you before you get very far, anyhow."

Katherine sat down at the piano; her hands felt cold and clammy; she was trembling. She reached up and felt for her mother's locket with unsteady fingers. -- I'm behaving like an idiot, a damned idiot -- she said to herself. -- If I let myself get all panicky like this I'll play badly. Mother'd be disgusted with me. -- She clenched her hands tightly together for a moment to steady them, then began a Scarlatti Sonata. Once she had begun to play, the fear left her. Her sureness of the music gave her courage, and she played well. When she had finished, Monsieur Vigneras was no longer leaning against the piano.

But the first thing he said was, "Do you speak French?"

"Yes, a little," Katherine answered, surprised and rather disappointed, because his English was very good and she knew she had played well. "I understand it all right."

He spoke in French. When he spoke his own language, his voice deepened and a new warmth came. "Play something else."

Katherine turned back to the piano and played the Bach Prelude and Fugue in F major.

"Now some Beethoven." When she had finished he asked, "With whom have you studied?"

"With my mother."

"Who is your mother?"

"Julie Forrester."

"Is she a musician?"

"Yes, she --- she --" Katherine's face grew crimson because he didn't know her mother was dead. "She was a very well known pianist in America."

"I will look her up. Where is she?" So he hadn't noticed the past tense.

"She -- she's dead."

"Oh. I'm sorry. When?"

"Last April. The seventeenth."

"She was training you to be a pianist?"

"Yes."

"Then why in God's name are you here?"

"Father wanted me to have some conventional education. I haven't been to school since I was ten. And I don't imagine he and Aunt Manya much wanted me around."

"Who is Aunt Manya?"

"My father's wife ... They love me a lot, both of them, and I love them, I adore them both, but after all, what would they do with me? I'd just be in the way, and Aunt Manya's opening in London ..."

"Opening what?"

"Opening in a play."

"Oh. Well, we'll see what I can do for you. Have you done much Chopin?"

"The Etudes and the F major Ballade. Just because I wanted to, though. I wasn't really ready for it."

"Well, we'll see what I can do for you. You shouldn't be here. Half an hour's practice every day."

"I'll do more. I'll sneak it in somehow."

She was suddenly terribly happy, with that sudden winging up of something inside her breast that seemed like the flight of a bird. She sang as she left the Music and Art building and went back to school, sang as she walked down the corridor, until Miss Halsey stopped her sharply. --I don't care -- she thought angrily, trying to keep the wonderful feeling from going. --I can learn here, the way Mother would have wanted me to. I'll study and make her proud of me. Nothing else matters--

She slipped out of the preparation hall and upstairs to one of the empty practice rooms. It wasn't used because the piano was so bad, but it was better than nothing. She went in and shut the door, standing by the window in the dark. The mountain sloped in terraces down to the lights of Montreux and the lake; and across the lake the mountains of France stood, shadowy in spite of the clear outline the snow gave them against the sky. Two lake steamers were moving slowly on the water in opposite directions, two small bands of gold lights approaching each other and crossing. In a straight line down the mountain ran the funicular, and, winding around, ran the small train. They were the only lights on the mountainside, and they seemed like something magic. Leaning there with her nose pressed against the windowpane, Katherine suddenly felt a sense of peace and strength. "I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help," she whispered, then withdrew from the window, turned on the unprotected ceiling light that glared down at her, sat down at the dreadful piano with the squeaking pedals and practiced until time for dinner. She went into dinner with a consciousness of her strength, of great indifference to the things that had been making her so miserable -- a consciousness that was too conscious to be real.

Why I love Joan Didion

For paragraphs like this, from her essay on Howard Hughes, written in 1967:

By July of 1967 Howard Hughes is the largest single landholder in Clark County, Nevada. "Howard likes Las Vegas," an acquaintance of Hughes's once explained, "because he likes to be able to find a restaurant open in case he wants a sandwich." Why do we like those stories so? Why do we tell them over and over? Why have we made a folk hero of a man who is the antithesis of all our official heroes, a haunted millionaire out of the West, trailing a legend of desperation and power and white sneakers? But then we have always done that. Our favorite people and our favorite stories become so not by any inherent virtue, but because they illustrate something deep in the grain, something unadmitted. Shoeless Joe Jackson, Warren Gamaliel Harding, the Titanic: how the mighty are fallen. Charles Lindbergh, Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Marilyn Monroe: the beautiful and damned. And Howard Hughes. That we have made a hero of Howard Hughes tells us something interesting about ourselves, something only dimly remembered, tells us that the secret point of power and money in America is neither the things that money can buy nor power for power's sake (Americans are uneasy with their possessions, guilty about power, all of which is difficult for Europeans to perceive because they are themselves so truly materialistic, so versed in the uses of power), but absolute personal freedom, mobility, privacy. It is the instinct which drove America to the Pacific, all through the nineteenth century, the desire to be able to find a restaurant open in case you want a sandwich, to be a free agent, live by one's own rules.

Awesome story

Go read.

A random act of human kindness. But also - like she says: if the guy had been a dick ... maybe she wouldn't have gone out of her way like that ... It's a real warm fuzzy of a story.

A hopeful tale on a kind of dark day.

Happy place

Uhm ... zany place as well.

Many "wows"

Wow. I so want that blown up to poster-size for my wall. What a gorgeous image.

Wow. I can't even see his eyes but his torment is clear.

Wow. I want to dress like her.

Wow. There's just something about this image I so love.

One last "wow". I have no idea where they find these images ... but every single one of them is eye-catching.

"Just four times more"

RTG writes a beautiful tribute to my sister Siobhan's music. sniff, sniff. I'm so proud of my little sister.

The Books: "A Live Coal In The Sea" (Madeleine L'Engle)

Next book on my adult fiction shelf is:

Next book on the shelf is A Live Coal In The Sea by Madeleine L'Engle.

This is L'Engle's last work of fiction - it was published in 1996. Since then, it's been all theological writing, which I think is best. Because, I'm sorry, Live Coal stinks up the field. Her novels have gotten progressively more preachy and - uhm - BAD - with the notable exception of Troubling a Star - the last in the Austin family series. I think her milieu is teenagers - when she tries to write about adult issues, it just doesn't fly. I also think that she is about 200 years old now, and her creativity is no longer looking for its outlet in FICTION. Her theological books are wonderful, I love them ... they are ruminations on the Bible, reflections of lessons learned in her own life ... The Genesis Trilogy is just awesome.

Live Coal is a long-awaited (not) sequel to her book Camilla, written in the 1960s. I don't even remember any of it - but I do remember that there is a big revelation that one of the characters is a "sodomite" - yes, she uses that word - and with that word, I pretty much closed the door on Ms. L'Engle. We all have our deal-breakers. When writing about these "sodomizers" ... L'Engle seemed so out of her depth. I found it offensive - mainly because ignorance offends me. If you don't know any gay people, and yet you feel you have the authority to write about them - then you're ignorant. And I have no time for that, because - uhm - I live in a world full of gay people, and I barely even notice. Oh, he's gay. Oh, she's wearing blue. Now if you don't live in a world with tons of gay people - that's FINE - but then don't pretend to be a fucking authority on what gay people are "like".

I read Live Coal, and I thought: "Man, must be nice living in your bubble, Madeleine." Which is so weird - because her other books SO don't strike me as that!! I think she got tired in the middle of Live Coal (she is, after all, 400 years old) and HAD to finish it. The book feels very obligatory to me. Nobody in it is interesting. She doesn't get inside of it. She has some themes, but they are really obvious - and the whole gay sub-plot, which is tinged with hysteria and ignorance, REALLY turned me off. A-boo-hoo, he's a sodomite, a-boo-hoo-hoo.

Now - not to be totally mean about this - Camilla is now an adult, and a professor of physics, I believe. There's a lot of cool science stuff in the book, things Camilla is working on. Camilla is completely neurotic about the fact that her mother was a big ol' slut - so in retaliation, or in self-defense - she has become a clammed-up celibate. Finally, though, she meets a dude named Mac who helps break down her walls. But - HORRORS - he's religious!!! Camilla is an atheist. She's a rational scientist. WHAT WILL SHE DO??? Again: Madeleine is a bit too on the nose here. Basically, it is up to Camilla to give up her certainty and accept faith into her life. Which - is fine, again - but the preachy and obvious tone of these passages made me want to throw the book across the room. hahahaha

Here's a section where Camilla goes to meet Mac's parents for the first time. Camilla's parents are a nightmare - she falls in love with Mac's parents. Little does Camilla know that Mac's father is, in fact, a-boo-hoo - a SODOMITE! Oh, and Madeleine also uses "sodomize" in its verb form - "they were there, sodomizing ..." I suppose if you're an ignorant person who ONLY reads the Bible that sentence would sound normal. But to L'Engle fans, who are, in general, a widespread group - made up of all KINDS of people - that sentence sounds just ... flat out WEIRD. Gotta be honest. Who's your audience, Madeleine? Your main audience is NOT hardcore take-the-Bible-literally Christians. As a matter of fact, many Christian groups have campaigned against your books, especially Wrinkle in Time, since their publication. Your books have been called dangerous. So anyway: you seem to have lost sight of who your audience is here, Madeleiene. And I guess that's cool, you're 134 years old, you're entitled to be a bit forgetful.

If this sounds a bit harsh, I'm fine with that. A lot of times on this blog - readers (who don't know me) make the mistake of assuming that because I'm - an actress? or ... an artist? ... uhm, I'm still not sure where the assumption comes from ... that I am TOLERANT. Or that they think I SHOULD be. They think that I am willing to hear all sides, that I am open to all sides. I am actually not. I'm like everybody else on the planet, believe it or not. I dislike the word "tolerance' anyway - because it seems to put whoever is being "tolerant" ABOVE the thing they are "tolerating". But anyway: no, there's a lot I am NOT tolerant of. End of story. Closed door. It's funny - cause the people who have assumed I should be tolerant of everything - who want to feel "comfortable" on my blog (yes, one dude emailed me that - he was truly disturbed that he didn't feel "comfortable" at ALL TIMES on my blog - so bizarre ... who feels "comfortable at all times"??? It's not my job to make people feel "comfortable at all times" for God's sake) - But anyway, those people - are usually the same people whose HEADS WOULD FREAKIN' EXPLODE - if I showed up in their comments section on their blog and tried to say, "You know, I actually love some of Maureen Dowd's columns. She can be totally hysterical." Or whatever. You get the point. They would tear me a new asshole. They would slam the door in my face. And they would not even realize that they were behaving in the same "hypocritical" way that I was.

So for me? Madeleine sounds like an ignorant judgmental person in this book, and I do not cut her any slack for that.

If you want to write a theological book, if you want to teach me your beliefs from the Bible - then write a book directly about that (Madeleine's theological books are among my favorite things of hers that she has ever written)- don't try to weave it into a novel. You never pull that shit with your young adult books - and they are FAR superior than your "adult" books.

Excerpt from A Live Coal In The Sea by Madeleine L'Engle.

Mac met her at the airport and drove her to the rectory, a spacious old house of soft-pink brick, a few blocks away from the church. A large screened porch in the back overlooked a green sweep of lawn at the end of which was a small stream. A ceiling fan moved the air so that there was a feeling of coolness. All the rooms were high-ceilinged and many-windowed to catch the breeze. There were marble mantelpieces surmounted by portraits in heavy gold frames.

"My wife's relatives," Mac's father told her, "mostly long gone. The camera has replaced the paintbrush. The present cousins, aunts, and uncles still aren't used to this second-generation usurping Greek American, but they all think Mac is perfect, and they can pretend that his name is really MacArthur instead of Macarios."

"Nonsense. Don't listen to Art," Mac's mother said. "The sun rises and sets on him, and my family is very aware of it, even if one of my cousins insists on calling him Arthur, knowing perfectly well his name is Artaxias. I'm sorry you couldn't come in the spring when this place is a riot of blossom. Right now we're mostly green." She noticed Camilla looking at a portrait. "That's my Great-something-or-other Aunt Olivia. I'm named after her. Isn't she lovely?"

"Lovely," Camilla agreed.

"There are some fascinating family stories about her behaving like a little flibbertigibbet but going behind the lines with messages during the -- what we still call The War. I'm told that her favorite place in all the world was a rambly old cottage up on the dunes in North Florida. I was left a nice piece of land on the beach between Jacksonville and Saint Augustine, and Art and I have built a little cottage, an escape route. I'd like to retire there, rather than Charleston. Art's father came from Florida."

"He was an itinerant peddler," Art said. "But he read classic Greek, which is not usual, and he believed I could do anything I wanted to do. I love the beach house."

"You'll have to see it sometime," Olivia said.

What was Olivia Xanthakos taking for granted?

Camilla had not been prepared - though why not? - to have the Xanthakoses be even shorter than Mac, both delicately-boned, with small hands and feet. But large in love and welcome. She had never been in a household like this before. No tension crackled from the walls. There was laughter, and acceptance.

How had they managed, Mac's parents, to get to the place of radiance in which they lived? Was there a secret? Mac was relaxed, and so was Camilla, far more than she had expected to be able to be. The second night, she helped Olivia prepare dinner, set the table with silver, china, crystal, light the candles.

"Quite a lot of the china is chipped," Olivia said calmly, "but I've never seen the point of saving it for special occasions. Every dinner that has us gathered around the table together is a special occasion and deserves our best. Now I think everything is ready. Let's call our men."

Our men, Camilla thought. Are they?

Art said grace, then turned to Camilla. "What do you know about Thales of Miletus?"

Camilla almost choked on a mouthful of rice and gravy. "He is believed to have calculated the height of a pyramid by measuring its shadow at exactly the moment when the length of his own shadow was the same as his height."

Art Xanthakos clapped his hands. "A mathematician's response!"

Camilla smiled at his enthusiasm. "It's a mistake to underestimate the pre-Platonic philosophers. Anaximander, also of Miletus, thought that our world was only one of an infinite number of worlds."

"Not so dumb, eh?" Art said. "Neither are you, lovey. I'm a Greek, but the average college education doesn't necessarily include the early Greek philosophers."

"And," Olivia said triumphantly, "Camilla likes my okra casserole. Not many Yankees like okra."

Mac smiled. "Camilla has an experimental palate. Not many people of any kind like the coffee I produce in the Church House."

Didion

This profile of her blew me away. Didion fans - you won't want to miss it.

She's a real idol of mine - always has been since I read her essay "Goodbye to all That". There are essays I go back to again and again - the "White Album" one, the one about the Manson Family and that summer in Los Angeles - her spectacular piece on Patty Hearst ... And of course I read her book written in the aftermath of her husband's death The Year of Magical Thinking. Since her husband died in 2003 - her daughter Quintana (very ill throughout Magical Thinking) died. Quintana was in her 30s. Magical Thinking was barely pleasant to read - and I had to force myself at times to get through it.

The book does not blink. That's the only way I can describe it. Didion doesn't blink as she stares at her own grief and tries to write it all down. Breathtaking and awful.

Like I said: she's an idol.

I am chilled, though, reading that piece. I think about her sometimes, even though I don't know her. And I wonder: "I know she's working on the script now ... but ... how is she doing? How's she holding up?" I feel really sad. I feel bludgeoned by the grief of a person I do not know.

I loved this, though - I loved it so much:

Who, I ask, were here formative influences? Her answer is surprising. 'Oh, Hemingway, really. Just Hemingway.' He seems to have fallen out of fashion, I say. 'Yes, but nobody writes sentences like Hemingway.

"Oh, Hemingway, really. Just Hemingway."

Damn. That piece shook me up. It really did.

Snapshots with Guy

-- Guy had said, "I'm on the corner of Ashland and Magnolia." So I had my cab driver (who appeared to fall deeply in love with me during the course of our 15 minute ride) drop me off on that corner. It was a quiet residential street. Big beautiful houses with porches (Kate: "and PORCHES...") and lawns and flowers ... cars parked in the streets ... quiet. I looked for the house number. Uhm ... the house number was nowhere to be seen. The cab driver (who, as I mentioned, was now deeply in love with me) left the car idling, watching me wander around the suburban streets like an urban orphan. I finally waved him away, because I could not deal with the strength of his emotions for me, it was way too much pressure. But ... there I was ... on a random street ... uhm ... I felt like screaming out into the quiet: 'GUY????" and see what would happen. Turns out Guy had given me the wrong cross street (he called me) and I had to walk one block down. He was standing out in front of his house ... I could see him ... we were the only two people out. He was like, "What is my problem? I totally gave you the wrong street. I'm an ass."

-- Guy and Sean's dog, Cleo, appeared to fall deeply in love with me. (Maybe it was something in the air that day?) Cleo sat at my feet, back turned to me, as though to say, "Whatever. I am totally NOT madly in love with you right now. I've got a LIFE, lady." But then I would catch her glancing back at me over her shoulder, in a kind of passive-aggressive way. Just to make sure I wasn't going anywhere. Her behavior was so clear. It was so CUTE. She would also jump up on the couch right next to me, and stare at me at point-blank range. For no apparent reason. Just to suck the soul out of my body or something.

-- Guy made gimlets. We ordered Chinese food. Delectable on both counts.

-- Guy is about to go on tour with Sweet Charity and he has the male lead opposite freakin' Molly Ringwald. Please. He gets to kiss Molly Ringwald, and that is pretty much all that needs to be SAID!!So if Sweet Charity comes to your town (I think the tour is starting in San Diego) go check it out!! Guy is amazing.

-- I introduced Guy to "He's a gay dancer boy" - the joke that Mitchell, Jackie and I have had for ... oh ... 15 years?? I can't even remember the genesis of that joke, but we have kept it going for many many many years. The song goes like this: I would sing: "He's a gay dancer boy" and Mitchell and Jackie would sing, as a chorus, "Yeah, he's gay!" And we would repeat ad nauseum. Exeunt. The song has no point. It has no point to make about life, it draws no conclusions. It basically just DESCRIBES something, and then stops right there.

"He's a gay dancer boy--"
"Yeah, he's ga-ay!"
"Oh, hee's a gay dancer boy --"
"Uh-yeah he's ga-ay-ay ..."

Guys. Shut up.

-- Guy did his character known as "MGM Baritone". It has to be seen to be believed. I actually find it rather terrifying - he was singing "Ol' Man River" as MGM Baritone dude - and he came to the part: "Get a little drunk and land in jaaaaaaaail ..." I watched him sing it ... with all the crazy facial contortions (Guy actually left me a phone message about a year ago - AS the MGM Baritone - I could hear Kate laughing HYSTERICALLY in the background ... Guy sang into my phone until the message cut him off. It is one of the funniest messages I have ever received.) But anyway, he sang - in that bullshit MGM Baritone way, "Get a little drunk and ya land in jaaaaaaaaaaaail...." His face was DEAD as he sang those words. It was somehow really terrifying to me. And I shouted at him, "THERE'S NO INNER LIFE! THERE'S NO INNER LIFE!" Please, MGM baritone, get an inner life. FAST. Do you have any FEELINGS about getting a little drunk and landing in jail? Or are you just DEAD inside? Apparently, whenever Guy becomes MGM Baritone now, Sean and Tim have to get up and leave the room, they are so sick of him. hahahahahahahaha

-- We drunk-dialed Kate. Who is pregnant. Nothing like being pregnant and having your friends drunk-dial you. We put her on speaker phone. Guy did MGM Baritone. Kate howled. I'm sure Tim got up and left the room on the other end, like: Oh for God's SAKE, MGM Baritone dude again?? hahahahaha Somehow I brought up our "Even for da babies?" joke - which I then had to describe to Guy. General hilarity ensued. "YOU GOT DA LION KING DOWN THERE??" Kate and Mitchell dancing at Berlin, singing, "Even for da babies - go girl, go girl ...Oh - EVEN FOR DA BABIES - go go go girl ... "

-- We missed Kate and Tim. We missed Sean, too - who is now on tour with Mamma Mia. Guy and I talked a lot about relationships. He and Sean have been together for 9 years. They're an amazing couple. When you're with them, you get that feeling of warmth and love and friendship and compatability so that not only do you think, "Wow, you two are so lucky" ... you yourself feel lucky to know them. That's what it's like. So Guy and Sean are now both on year-long tours - they have split up their home - one dog is going on tour with Guy - one dog is on tour with Sean - and it's stressful and hard to be apart - but great opportunities for both of them. Much talk about all of this. It was great.

-- Oh - and then we watched Blast From the Past - which Guy had never seen. Obviously I have seen it. Ahem. Every time I see it, Christopher Walken seems funnier and funnier to me. "The Politburo ..." his whispering voice, his hatred 6 feet back in his eyes. He's so CAMPY. I love Walken for his campiness. Guy loved, too, seeing Sissy Spacek get to be funny. Drinking her martinis, and slowly losing her mind. And every time I get to the part where Brendan Fraser sees the ocean for the first time, I get goosebumps.

-- Then we started to watch The Celluloid Closet and we both passed out on the couch. I think we might have even passed out simultaneously.

-- I woke up on Sunday at 7 am. Guy had gone off to bed - obviously he had woken up at some point - He left me sheets and a pillow - but - uhm - I slept all the way through the night. Fully clothed, including my bra - which - ICK. I hate sleeping with that contraption on. But the gimlets got the best of me. I woke up with no hangover at all, though. Maybe because we drank water all along with our gimlets??

-- Morning quiet. I was the first one up. I could not find any coffee. This was ... I can't even talk about it. It was so awful. I had to settle for tea. I am such a drug addict. I sat outside with my tea (BAH) and my book (a Georgette Heyer romance, if you MUST know) ... I wrote in my journal. It was early morning. Dew dripping off the grass and all that stuff. Beauty!!

-- Guy eventually woke up and with him came Cleo. Whose love for me only had grown stronger during the intervening separation of nighttime. Oh - and Guy found coffee. I had already basically SCOURED the kitchen ... but I had NOT looked in one of the green china canisters over by the sink. So Guy made a pot of coffee. At the first sip I started to feel like a HUMAN BEING again. Seriously - this addiction is hard-core.

-- Guy and I then watched some stuff on YouTube. We watched Judy Garland sing "As Long As He Needs Me". We marveled at her. We talked about her. Her naturalness - the way she suddenly and compulsively hugged herself at the end of the song - nothing is calculated, nothing looks planned. It's larger than life - and it's almost too raw sometimes to look at - her gestures are spastic ... yet ... they are never EVER manipulated by her. She's extraordinary to watch. Guy said a really great thing: "Every single song she sings - it's like she is going to die the second AFTER she finishes the song." Every song has that intensity - that in-the-moment rawness - that desperation to connect ... Life or death. It's life or death for her. Always.

-- Then we tracked down the classic Grover "skit" from Sesame Street - Grover Near and Far. We HOWLED watching it. His little skinny blue furry body running back into the distance, with his arms flapping, his breath coming in pants ... "Neeeeeeeeear ..." run run run back until he is very small - then Grover SCREAMS, throwing his head back to the sky, "FAAAAAAAAAAAAAAR" - etc.

-- We also found the famous opera-singing orange. Guy had not thought of this in - YEARS - so we watched it, and laughed so hard we cried.

-- We sat in the kitchen and became completely mesmerized - as in: we could not move - by the ongoing cross-fading slideshow of pictures on his Mac. Sean had uploaded, uhm, 5,000 photos? And they were in constant rotation. Sean's a wonderful photographer. Guy and I just sat there staring, occasionally commenting - Guy would point out people either I knew or didn't know - telling me where this photo was, where that one was - there were photos of Guy and Sean at the Grand Canyon, Guy and Sean wearing sombreros, Guy and Sean in Sedona, Guy and Sean in Florence, Guy and Sean on the Great Wall of China, Guy and Sean swimming through the oceans of Venus, Guy and Sean catapulting up into space, Guy and Sean tesseracting into another dimension ... The guys have been everywhere. I also saw photos of Kate and Tim's wedding (uhm - which we all were IN) - and I don't think I'd seen ANY photos before! Kate - have I?? They were gorgeous photos. Classic. Absolutely glowing. It was great to reminisce about it. How amazing it was.

-- Eventually, it was time to end our sleepover. We got in the car and headed for Newark - where Guy would drop me off at the Amtrak station. The second we hit Newark - we got lost. We lost track of the signs pointing the way to Penn Station. There were purple signs - with arrows - telling us: Penn Station. Or Federal Buildings. Or Historic Sites, or whatever. Those sorts of landmark signs were all PURPLE. We drove on Broad Street (which lives up to its name - sheesh - it's like a boulevard in a crumbling ex-Soviet state - miles across). But anyway - we were doing fine - following the purple signs - but then suddenly: no more purple signs. We were desperate for a glimpse of purple. "Where are those purple signs?" This, naturally, became a song. Sung to the tune of "Purple Rain".

"Purple signs
Purple signs
I want you to come with me and we'll follow purple signs
Purple signs
Purple signs
Let's keep moving forward and go to the purple signs ..."

Etc. We kind of couldn't stop singing "Purple Signs". Even though we were lost in Newark.

I still can't stop singing it.

"Purple signs
Purple signs
Let's drive on down ol' Broad Street moving to the purple signs ..."

Finally: we got a glimpse of purple. We took a wrong turn. We saw a terrifying tavern. We backed up. We backtracked.

We kept singing:

"Purple signs
Purple signs
Don't keep directions from me, please don't leave me, purple signs ..."

We saw some more purple signs. And next thing you know I was on my way home.

A beautiful weekend with Guy. I feel refreshed.

And remember: keep your eyes peeled for Sweet Charity the tour! Guy will be singing and dancing his way into towns across America with Molly Ringwald on his arm for the next year!

"Purple signs
Purple signs
Good weekend, gimlets, Guy and Cleo, and those purple signs ..."

The Books: "Certain Women" (Madeleine L'Engle)

Next book on my adult fiction shelf is:

Next book on the shelf is Certain Women by Madeleine L'Engle.

Now this is really bizarre. I obviously read this book - because I see my tell-tale markings in the margins - but I remember almost NOTHING about it. What I do remember is that it is about a man named David Wheaton - a beloved American stage actor - who is now dying, and his daughter Emma (also a successful actress) has come to be with him. David has decided to die on his boat - the Portia - and so most of the book takes place on this boat. Emma sits with her father, and he reminisces, and we go back and forth in time, and blah blah, but ... why am I supposed to care? The whole device of the book is that David Wheaton is based on King David - and there's an unfinished play he is haunted by - a play about King David - written by Emma's now ex-husband. David Wheaton always had a dream of doing that play with his daughter. David Wheaton had 8 wives and 11 children. The book is a little bit too heavy-handed in the ol' Christian subtext for my taste. L'Engle tries to make it subtext (meaning: subtle, felt but not stated) but she does not succeed. It's a preachy book. I hate preachy books. So ... I honestly don't remember much about it. Wheaton looks back over his long life - his many many marriages - and Emma, who has her own problems to deal with (her own divorce) sits beside him, listens to him reminisce, adds her own details to the stories he tells ... The book is also set up so that each of King David's wives (Bathsheba, Ahinoam, Maacah, etc.) has a contemporary counterpart - and each chapter is set up so we get to know a different wife.

I almost feel like this would have been a better book if it had not been a novel- but if she had made it like her Genesis Trilogy books (And it was Good, A Stone for a Pillow, and Sold Into Egypt) - a rumination on the story of King David, a look at each of the wives and what they have to teach us, the lessons L'Engle herself has drawn from those stories in the Bible ... I love those Genesis Trilogy books - but to try to wrench that stuff into a novel is difficult indeed, and you can't be too obvious about it. This is one of L'Engle's only "obvious" books ... and it suffers for it.

Also - it features yet another one of her adult heroines who seems more like a teenage girl. L'Engle's forte is not adulthood. It's just not. Her best filter is to show us adulthood through the eyes of a teenage narrator. Any time she has an adult as the star (except for A Severed Wasp, in my opinion) - it seems like that adult is suffering from arrested development.

One thing I will say about this book: it's wonderful to read a book about the world of theatre where the author seems to get it right. L'Engle was an actor in her 20s - touring with Chekhov and Shakespeare and Moliere - this was how she met her husband. She worked with some of the greats - Eva Le Gallienne was one of her mentors, who gave her her first break. L'Engle wrote her first novel while doing her first big show, sitting backstage scribbling in a notebook, in between her scenes. Writing eventually took over - but her husband remained an actor, and a very successful one, until the day he died. She is showing us that world - which is also a world that no longer exists - the world of Broadway in the 20s and 30s, when there were true giants of the stage working - when theatre was IT, when movies looked to THEATRE for its inspiration, as opposed to the other way around.

So. Certain Women. Should I read it again?? Anyone else read it out there who can comment?? I obviously read it once but retain almost none of it.

Here's an excerpt from the first chapter.

Excerpt from Certain Women by Madeleine L'Engle.

David had met Ben one year when he dropped anchor at Whittock Island, where Ben and Alice had grown up. Ben had come out onto the beach to see whose boat was nosing into his small bay, and invited David in for coffee and conversation, and thus began what was to become an enduring friendship, which was cemented the year David arrived at Whittock with an agonizing pain in his belly. Ben had taken one look at David, moved to the wheel of the boat, and had run, as fast as the little craft would go, to Prince Rypert, where Alice had taken out an appendix ready to burst. And David, who had thought never to marry again, and Alice, who had thought never to marry at all, had fallen in love. "It was crazy," Alice said. "I was set in my ways, much too old for romance, and there I was, like a silly schoolgirl."

The year after David and Alice were married, and Alice had uprooted herself and moved to New York, Ben shattered his right femur, alone, fishing for salmon. How he got the troller into dock no one ever knew. The leg was set inadequately, and the bone knit slowly, and not well.

So it was natural for Ben to take over the Portia when David could no longer manage it and Ben, with his lame leg, could not spend weeks alone on his troller, fishing. He kept the house on Whittock Island, but the Portia became his real home. Normally, he slept in the forward cabin, where he had his odd collection of books: Shakespeare, the Bible, Water Prey and Game Birds, Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Emma, Pride and Prejudice, Thoreau's The Maine Woods ... Emma could see them from her bunk, contained in a high-lipped shelf with an elastic cord.

Ben's lack of formal education did not bother him. He had an unselfconscious but firm self-esteem. He was a good fisherman. An adequate logger. He was also perforce a navigator, meteorolgist, astronomer, electrician, carpenter, mechanic, shipwright -- there was nothing Ben could not do, Emma thought. Occasionally he came up with plans for a kelp farm. The Pacific Northwest was in his blood. He was not happy anywhere else. Nor did he feel the need to be anywhere else. He had married when he was in his mid-twenties and within a few years his young wife had died of cancer. After her death, his life had been solitary and, ultimately, contented. He was nearly fifty now, but he looked younger.

"Emma, Emma,"David said. "I'm glad you're here, glad we can share memories. I've hardly had time to give Alice my memories, my stories, and I want her to have them."

Emma looked around at the white salt-washed stones of the shore, the dark green of firs predominating. She looked with loathing at the brown scars, acres of land where the trees had been indiscriminately logged, with only a small fringe of evergreen left at the waterline to disguise the carnage. David was indignant, pointing out ways that logging could bring in good living and not unbalance the precarious ecology. Some of the scars, Ben had observed calmly, were not man-made, but had come from slides, great roarings of trees and rocks and mud, started by wind and rain. Nature can be as brutal as her creatures, Ben said.

After dinner, they sat in the pilothouse with David, letting the long twilight wash over them like water, listening as David talked about his life in the theatre, until he was ready for sleep. Alice could mimic the call of a loon, and sometimes she was ansered, the long, lovely sound carrying across the water. David sipped a cup of vervain, watching the shadows of the great Douglas firs on the nearby islands deepen and darken. This was the time when he was most ready to talk, to unburden himself to the two women and Ben.

"The world changes," he said. "Behavior which is taken for granted now, in the sixties, which is socially acceptable, would not have been tolerated when I was a young man."

Emma sat in the revolving chair by the wheel and swiveled so that she could look at her father.

"If I'd had affairs, rather than marrying, I'd have been just another immoral actor. Because my wives were legitimate, I get a lot of grief that I could have avoided if I'd merely bedded instead of wedded. Not to excuse myself. I have been an immoral actor."

Alice was sitting beside him on the bunk. She put his hand lightly on his knee. "Not an immoral actor, Dave. You have been a most moral actor."

He laughed again. "An immoral man, then. Self-indulgent. Living all my fantasies instead of being satisfied with acting them on the stage. If I'd just had affairs, it would have been more practical as well as - in some cases - more honest. Forgive me, my dears, I maunder."

Ben folded the chart table to its closed position against the wall. "Tell us more theatre stories, Dave. When did you get your big break?"

"I don't think I had a big break," David said. "I worked into my career gradually. My first featured role was in a series of French one-act plays when Existentialism wasn't even a word. I played a very young Cyrano de Bergerac who didn't much resemble Rostand's hero except in the size of his nose. But the plays made a modest splash and so did I. Some critical acclaim but not very good box office. I met Meredith, who was to be the first of my wives, at the opening-night party. She wanted to know what had happened to my nose. I spent a long time explaining makeup to her, not just how I put the putty nose on and off. She was considerably older than I and had that strange kind of assurance that comes with being born very, very rich. She thought I was adorable, and I didn't understand that she saw me as some kind of exotic animal she could buy and keep on a leash. I loved the clothes she bought me, especially the wildly expensive Chinese robe I still wear in my dressing room. I didn't realize that the clothes came with the purchase, the way some women buy diamond-studded collars for their poodles."

Then he laughed. "But I exaggerate, as usual. We were in love like two animals. No, that's not fair, either. It is a human tendency to rewrite the past. What is true is that after we were married Meredith wanted me to leave the theatre. She had more than enough money for us both, she told me. I could not make her understand that I wasn't an actor for money. For money I'd have stayed in Seattle and worked in my father's bank."

He handed his empty cup to Alice, who put it on the wide shelf above the bunk, and continued, "If Meredith couldn't understand why I was an actor, I didn't understand that, for people in her social class, acting was still unacceptable work, but she liked to be avant-garde. We were obviously not suited, but Meredith was a stickler for the proprieties, so she took me to the altar. I was young and didn't know what I was doiong. My mother, bless her, your Bahama, Emma, begged me not to marry so hastily, to wait. My father threatened. They were right, but I was impetuous and thought I knew everything. Poor Meredith. She had too much money. Her family was terrified that I was going to try to get some of it when we divorced. She never married again." He yawned. "I'm tired now, my dears."

MxPx??

Your band name sucks: 50 of the inexcusably worst band names ever

As always with that kick-ass site, if you just scroll thru the list looking at the titles - you are missing the full glory - which is the WRITING.

The Books: "And Both Were Young" (Madeleine L'Engle)

Next book on my young adult shelves:

Next book on the shelf is And Both Were Young by Madeleine L'Engle.

When Madeleine L'Engle was 12 or 13, it became apparent that her father was dying. Her parents were consumed with their own tragedy and basically just could not deal with their daughter. Not in a bad way - they still loved her - they just didn't have the space to deal with her and raise her. So they sent her to a Swiss boarding school. L'Engle has written eloquently of those years - how lonely she was at first in the school, how she ached, how awful it was to be away from her parents, how she was never a real "joiner" - and boarding school was all about being a "joiner". She was a loner. She wanted to read. She wasn't a jock. Etc. She had a real tough time at first - but gradually, all of that changed - and she began to flourish. It's amazing what young people can not only get used to - but accept fully. L'Engle looks back on that time as one of the most formative of her life, in terms of becoming an artist.

Anyway - And Both Were Young (which was written when L'Engle was young, in her 20s - this was the 1940s) - and then, in the early 80s, L'Engle decided to update the book and reissue it. That's the version of it I have. L'Engle writes a little foreword, explaining that back then there were certain topics that were deemed unacceptable for a young audience - the main one being death. Death hangs over this book. It takes place directly in the wake of WWII - and in Europe - so it's a haunted place. Paul (the kid in the book) has lost his memory - because of withstanding a bombing raid on his town - he has no idea who he is - Also, the romance between Philippa and Paul (an innocent romance - they're 14 years old) had to be toned down. So later in her life - 40 years later - L'Engle put back in all the stuff she had been forced to take out and republished the book to great success. It's still in print. You can find it at any Barnes and Noble.

Any girl who has ever had a boarding school fantasy - this book will be like CANDY.

Philippa Hunter (nickname Flip) is dumped off at the Swiss boarding school - mainly because her father has a new young wife, and the wife SO does not want to have an awkward adolescent daughter. Philippa has led a sheltered American life - and all of the girls in this boarding school are breezily international, they all speak a gazillion languages, have boyfriends, and are fully ensconced. Philippa just doesn't fit in. She's a loner. She likes to read by herself - which is just seen as WEIRD. All of the other girls want to go skiing and flirt with men - or play ping-pong - or field hockey - and they don't get why Philippa wants to just be by herself!! They're mean to her at first. Not brutally mean - but mean in the way a pack of teenage girls can be mean to someone they sniff out as different. Eventually, though, Philippa proves herself to them - and she's accepted. L'Engle never takes the easy way out which I really like. She doesn't paint Philippa out to be an innocent victim - and all the other girls as bitches. No. She lets us know that Philippa has a lot of growing up to do. That sometimes it's better to not be so rigid with who you think you are - and maybe freakin' play some ping pong - because maybe you'll like it, and maybe you'll come out of your awkward shell a little bit.

Philippa, during one of her solitary walks, meets a boy named Paul. A beautiful boy. They click. In a very soulmate teenage kind of way. Philippa begins sneaking off the boarding school grounds to go hang out with him. This is strictly against the rules. But she doesn't care. Paul and Philippa just hang out in an abandoned barn (if I recall) and talk, and - become friends. Paul eventually reveals his secret - that he has no idea who he is. He was found in a bombed-out cellar, half-dead - and now he has no memory of the time before. He is tormented by this. Frankly, I can't remember how it all plays out.

But it does. Of course.

Lovely book. Perfect for teenage girls. I ate this shit UP when I was a young girl.

Here's an excerpt from the first chapter - when Philippa is having a HELLUVA time adjusting.

And the writing. I just want to mention one image - which is so good and yet - it's subtle - L'Engle doesn't LINGER on her good writing, she's not a showoff - but some of her images, and how she paints word pictures are startlingly fantastic. For example: //only a branch of elm appearing with shy abruptness as the mist was torn apart.// That whole section. Gorgeous. Well done.

Excerpt from And Both Were Young by Madeleine L'Engle.

Almost the most difficult thing, Flip found, was never being alone. From the moment she woke up in the morning until she fell asleep at night, she was surrounded by girls. She was constantly with them, but she never felt that she was of them. She tried to talk and laugh, to be like them, to join in their endless conversations about boys and holidays, and clothes and boys, and growing up and again boys, but always it seemed that she grew clumsier than ever and the wrong words tumbled out of her mouth. She felt like the ugly sister in the fairy tale she had loved when she was younger, the sister whose words turned into hideous toads, and all the other girls were like the beautiful sister whose words became pieces of gold. And she would stand on the hockey field when they chose teams, looking down at her toe scrounging in the grass, and pretend that she didn't care when the team that had the bad luck to get her let out a groan, or the gym teacher, Fraulein Hauser, snapped, "Philippa Hunter! How can you be so clumsy?" And Miss Tulip glossed over Jackie's untidy drawers and chided Flip because her comb and brush were out of line. And Miss Armstrong, the science teacher, cried, "Really, Philippa, can't you enter the classroom without knocking over a chair?" And when she fell and skinned her knees Miss Tulip was angry with her for tearing her stockings and even seemed to begrudge the iodine that she put on Flip's gory wounds.

If only I knew a lot of boys and could talk about them, she thought, or if I was good at sports.

But she had never really known any boys, and sports were a nightmare to her.

So in the common room she stood awkwardly about and tried to pretend she liked the loud jazz records Esmee played constantly on the phonograph. Usually she ended up out on the balcony, where she could at least see the mountains and the lake, but soon it became too cold out on the balcony in the dark, windy night air and she was forced to look for another refuge. If she went to the empty classroom, someone always came in to get something from a desk or the cupboard. They were not allowed to be in their rooms except at bedtime or when they were changing for dinner or during the Sunday afternoon quiet period. She was lonely, but never alone, and she felt that in order to preserve any sense of her own identity, to continue to believe in the importance of Philippa Hunter, human being, she must find, for at least a few minutes a day, the peace of solitude. At last, when she knew ultimately and forever how the caged animals constantly stared at in the zoo must feel, she discovered the chapel.

The chapel was in the basement of the school, with the ski room, the coat rooms, and the trunk rooms. It was a bare place with rough white walls and rows of folding chairs, a harmonium, and a small altar on a raised platform at one end. Every evening after dinner the girls marched from the dining room down the stairs to the basement and into the chapel, where one of the teacher read the evening service. Usually Flip simply sat with the others, not listening, not hearing anything but the subdued rustlings and whisperings about her. But one evening Madame Perceval took the service, reading in hre sensitive contralto voice, and Flip found herself listening for the first time to the beauty of the words: "Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all the earth: make a loud noise, and rejoice, and sing praise. Sing unto the Lord with th eharp, and the voice of the psalm ... let the hills be joyful together." And Flip could feel all about her in the night the mountains reaching gladly toward the sky, and the sound of the wind on the white peaks must be their song of praise. The others, too, as always when Madame Perceval was in charge, were quieter, not more subdued but suddenly more real; when Flip looked at them they seemed more like fellow creatures and less like alien beings to fear and hate.

After chapel that evening, when they were back in the common room, Flip pretended that she had left her handkerchief and slipped downstairs again to the cold basement. She was afraid of the dark, but she walked slowly down the cold corridor, lit only by a dim bulb at the far end, blundering into the trunk room, filled with the huge and terrifying shapes of trunks and suitcases, before she opened the door to the chapel.

Down one wall of the chapel were windows, and through these moonlight fell, somehow changing and distorting the rows of chairs, the altar, the reading stand. Flip drew in her breath in alarm as she looked at the organ and saw someone seated at it, crouched over the keys. But it was neither a murderer lying in wait for her nor a ghost, but a shadow cast by the moon. She slipped in and sat down on one of the chairs and she was trembling, but after a while her heart began beating normally and the room looked familiar again.

She remembered when she was a small girl, before her mother died, she had had an Irish nurse who often took her into the church just around the corner from their apartment. It was a small church, full of reds and blues and golds and the smell of incense. Once her nurse had taken her to a service and Flip had been wildly elated by it, by the singing of the choirboys, the chanting of the priest, the ringing of the bells; all had conspired to give her a sense of soaring happiness. It was the same kind of happiness that she felt when she saw the moonlight on the mountain peaks or the whole Rhone valley below her covered with clouds, and she could lean out over the balcony and be surrounded by cloud, lost in cloud, with only a branch of elm appearing with shy abruptness as the mist was torn apart.

Here in the nondenominational chapel at school she felt no sense of joy; there was no overwhelming beauty here between these stark walls, but gradually she began to relax. There was no sound but the wind in the trees; she could almost forget the life of the school going on above her. She did not try to pray, but she let the quiet sink into her, and when at last she rose she felt more complete; she felt that she could go upstairs and remain Philippa Hunter who was going to be an artist, and she would not be ashamed to be Philippa Hunter, no matter what the girls in her class thought of her.

Want to let off some steam?

Emily is hosting a "Friday Fuck Off" thread.

"an ordinary chap"????

Here's a great anecdote from Kiss Me Like a Stranger, Gene Wilder's autobiography - which I am REALLY enjoying.

Silver Streak was a big hit and was chosen as the Royal Performance for the queen of England and the royal family. I couldn't go to London because I was filming The World's Greatest Love at the time, but a month later, when Prince Charles came to visit 20th-Century Fox, I was invited to attend a luncheon in his honor, to be held in the Fox commissary.

As I was walking along the small street that leads from the office buildings to the commissary, a taxi pulled up and I heard someone shouting, "Oh, Mr. Wilder! ... Mr. Wilder!" I turned and saw Cary Grant stepping out of the taxi. My heart started pounding a little faster, but I didn't throw up this time, as I did when I met Simone Signoret. Cary Grant walked up to me, and after we shook hands, he said, "I was sailing on the QEII to England with my daughter, and on the second day out she said, 'Dad-dy, I want to see the Silver Streak -- they're showing it in the Entertainment Room.' And I said, 'No, darling, I don't go to movies in public.' And she said, 'Dad-dy, Dad-dy, please - I want to see the Silver Streak.' So I took her to see your film. And then we saw it again the next day, and the next. Tell me something, will you?"

"Of course."

"Was your film in any way inspired by North by Northwest?"

"Absolutely! Collin Higgins, who wrote the film, loved North by Northwest. It was one of his favorites. I think he was trying to do his version of it."

"I thought so," Mr. Grant said. "It never fails! You take an ordinary chap like you or me ... (An ordinary chap like you or me? Didn't he ever see a Cary Grant movie?) ... put him in trouble way over his head, and then watch him try to squirm out of it. Never fails!"

Yeah, you know.

An ordinary chap.

Mm-hm. Completely an "Everyman".

I actually heard Gene Wilder tell this story in person when he came to my school - and it was hysterical because of his spot-on Cary Grant impression (the clipped syllables - "Dad-dy", etc.) - also the look on Gene Wilder's face after he said the words "like you or me" - hahahaha - Uhm -did Cary Grant just compare himself to me?? But I love it because part of what made Grant so amazing was his breezy obliviousness to his own extra-ordinariness and the fact that he is not, and had never been, an "ordinary chap"!!!!

The awfulness ...

... of the Insane Lifestyle Mentioner. I could not agree more. (I've bitched about the "I don't even OWN a TV" snots before - but she elaborates on that theme.)

It's under the heading HOSTILE TO CERTAIN SUBCULTURES ... but her whole post is worth reading - as her posts ALWAYS are.

The Books: "The Love Letters" (Madeleine L'Engle)

Next book on the shelf ... (we're in my children's and young adult bookshelves, by the way):

Next book on the shelf is The Love Letters by Madeleine L'Engle.

Okay - so this one was written in 1966, post Wrinkle - and it's one of her "adult" books - I lump together this book, Other Side of the Sun and A Winter's Love ... They have very tenuous connections to the rest of her work (in terms of repeat characters) - while all of her other books have this interwoven thing happening.

I actually enjoyed The Love Letters when I first read it - now I'm not so sure I would like it as much. I think AS Byatt did what L'Engle was attempting here and FAR better in Possession. L'Engle is best with teenagers, I think. Her adult heroines (Cotty in this book, Stella in Other Side of the Sun, and definitely Emily in Winter's Love) feel like adolescents. They don't seem like grown women emotionally. And maybe that's on purpose - but I don't think so. I think L'Engle's adult characters are the most realistically drawn when they are seen through the eyes of teenagers.

So - this book. What I remember is: Charlotte (or Cotty) has fled her marriage - in a panic - and she has gone to Portugal, because she has gotten into her head that she MUST speak to "Violet Napier" - who is a famous harpsichordist, but who is also her husband's mother. Violet is terrifying. A force to be reckoned with. Charlotte has not written ahead telling Violet she is coming - so when she arrives in Beja, she finds that Violet is in Paris. Charlotte is obviously not well (emotionally) - she is devastated by this news. It feels incredibly urgent that she see Violet and NOW. She has it in her head that Violet will tell her what to do.

Charlotte eventually gets a room in a local pensao. She has been wandering about in the rain - and she gets ill - she lies in bed - feverish, waiting - You don't know what the fuck is wrong with this whiny beeyotch. Is she 16? Or 25? Grow up.

Anyway - there's a book on a shelf in her room - the published letters of a Portugese nun - centuries old - a book of love letters. The nun had been in the convent in this small town. Are the letters to Christ? That kind of passionate "I give myself to you" language? Or was there something else going on? Something carnal?

L'Engle then splits her narrative. We have whiny sick feverish Cotty in the present - and we go back in the past - to follow the journey of Mariana, the Portugese nun. And we go back and forth.

It's a nice device - hard to pull off - and Byatt kind of cornered the market in it with Possession - and it makes you see how awkward L'Engle is here, how she struggles to make it work.

BUT - as always - there's some really good writing here. What I remember most about this book is the character of Violet - who is, in my opinion, one of L'Engle's most original creations. You can't forget her. I also remember the opening section - where Charlotte is wandering through the rainy streets of the small Portugese town - she's booked a room in a small pensao - but it's freezing there, she just can't warm up ... Eventually she moves to the convent (I think) - but it's so vividly written, Charlotte's growing fever, her aching limbs, her sense that she will never ever feel well again.

So I'll excerpt a bit from the beginning.

Excerpt from The Love Letters by Madeleine L'Engle.

She turned up a cobblestoned street with narrow sidewalks that were an intricate design of black and pale-gray mosaic. Mosaic at her feet: the colors luminous in the street lamps; ceramic tile on the white houses to her right and left; everywhere a sense of order, of design. But in Charlotte's own chaos she was unable to comprehend order, and she found that her sense of smell was less blunted than her sight. The air was sharp not only with impending rain but with the acrid stink of drains and of rancid oil and damp cold; the smell seemed to seep through her coat along with the night wind.

She went along a street of small shops, dark now for the night, so that their windows were blind expanses of glass, turned down a street of private houses, and then saw on her right a great white building gleaming softly in the dark. As she reached the top of the street, she could see a plaque on the corner of the building. She crossed and peered at the lettering in the dim light of the street lamp: CONVENTO DE NOSSA SENHORA DA CONCEICAO. The convent building faced a large mosaic terrace with marble benches and a life-sized statue of a woman. The building was entirely dark. Of course it would be, at this hour of the night - or morning. It would be time for the nuns to be up, soon. Where was the chapel? There would always be a light in the chapel. But she could see no glimmer of light anywhere, could sense only an empty darkness hanging about the convent. Or was she projecting her own desolation on her surroundings?

Beja.

She was in Beja to see Violet Napier, Patrick's mother, Charlotte's mother-in-law, who was also Dame Violet Napier the harpsichordist. And it was not for nothing that Violet had been nicknamed the Violent.

-- When Violet comes back tomorrow -- no, today -- and I can talk --

What made her think she could talk to Violet, Violet, of all people, Violet who was Patrick's mother?

Antonio de Tieve knew Violet, and this was only logical in a small town, not horrid coincidence. What would Violet think of Antonio's coming to the convent plaza, of his arrogant, blasphemous kiss?

The rain began to fall more heavily. Her pale hair, her coat were soggy. She could not stay here any longer. Would the nuns let her in?

Without thinking she crossed to the arched entrance of the convent. There did not seem to be any bell to the door, so she began to knock. She knocked and no one came, and it was the very lack of response that broke through her unthinking pounding and she withdrew her hand quickly.

If she was this tired, so tired that she could think of trying to rouse the nuns in an unknown convent in the middle of the night - and she was this tired - she might as well accept the fact that she was not thinking coherently, that she was really incapable of thinking at all. She had better return to the pensao and get back into the damp bed that was at least drier than the rain.

But when she had undressed and slid, shivering, under the comfortless weight of blankets, she could not sleep. There had been wine with dinner, and then too much coffee, and alcohol and caffeine warred in her blood. She turned to the dim lamp and sat up in bed, her arms circling her knees, and looked around as though seeking reassurance, as though she might see something the room had not revealed before; but no revelation was forthcoming in this dark, chill rectangle, only a foreboding sense of past time, of lost time, of things sought for and not found. Behind her the heavy carved wood of the bedstead loomed up almost to the ceiling; its very massiveness seemed menacing; there was no comfort to be found in the bed, nor in the great, cumbersome wardrobe that matched it. In the spring of the year, with sunlight brightening the dark chintz of the curtains, the spidery pattern of the wallpaper, the room might have seemed full of Old World charm and atmosphere; the feeling of the past pervading the present might have been a delight. In the dead of winter and the small hours of the night, it filled her with a sense of oppression that was suffocating.

She got out of bed and took her coat down from the wardrobe, pushed into it, through it was still matted with rain and pulled the collar up. The floor was icy under her bare feet. She crouched and opened the door to the night stand: on the bottom shelf was a chamber pot; above it were three books which she pulled out. Despite the inadequate light she would try to read herself to sleep. The first book was a Gideon Bible: even in Beja, Portugal? Essie, her father's housekeeper, beloved Essie, in all times of stress had reached for her Bible, opened it, and pointed a finger at a verse. There she was supposed to find the answer. Charlotte with the certainty of youth had told Essie that this was superstition if not sin, but, as she thrust the Bible aside, she wondered: -- But suppose it could answer me ...

She pulled it back across the covers, opened it, and put her finger down on the page. The psalms. My flesh trembleth for fear of thee; and I am afraid of thy judgments.

-- Well, Charlotte, what did you expect? Serves you right.

She turned to the other two books, both paperbound. The first was French, Lettres d'une Religieuse Portugaise. The second was Portugese, something about Soror Mariana; another nun, then. There seemed to be no escaping them, though nuns were not what Charlotte was fleeing from; more likely to: -- get thee to a nunnery. (Her father had sent her to convent schools not for religion but to learn manners. Or so he had said.) Sje opened the Portugese book and her smattering of Spanish helped her to pick out a few words, but at the end of the page she had made no sense of them, so she turned to the French book. At least it would hold a reasonable safety, because from this distance the years in the convent schools seemed to be haloed with an aura of comfort, if only the comfort of time past, passed through; but at least she had learned what to expect from nuns, so even a Portugese nun would not offer many surprises, would give a kind of familiar childhood reassurance.

She began leafing through the book at random. You made me completely yours with your violence; it was your love that made mine burst into flame; your tenderness melted me, and then your promises completely reassured me. My own awakening passion undid me, and the result of what started with such happiness is tears, and deathly despair, and I see no help anywhere.

Certainly there was no help here! She sighed. The language of the Religious, particularly the Latin Religious, in describing the reaction of the human to the divine love, frequently makes use of the language of secular love, of sexual love; there was nothing really new or startling here, so Charlotte, cold, tired, groping, read on: It's true that in loving you I felt a joy I hadn't known was possible, but I'm paying for it with a pain I didn't know was possible, either. If I had tried to resist your love, or held back out of false modesty; if I'd let my reason be stronger than my love, then you'd have a right to punish me now, and to use your power over me. But it seemed to me that you loved me even before you told me that you did: you made me believe that yours was a great passion. You carried me away and I gave myself entirely to love ...

She sighed again. This stuff was useless as a soporific . When she was twelve she had memorized large quantities of St. John of the Corss, wallowing in a romanticism far from that austere saint's intention. She still remembered much of it. Closing her eyes, she whispered,

Whither hast thou hidden thyself, and hast left me, O Beloved, to my sighing?
Thou didst flee like the hart, having wounded me: I went out after thee, calling, and thou were gone.
Sheperds, ye that go yonder, through the sheepcotes, to the hill.
If perchance ye see him that I most love, Tell ye him that I languish, suffer and die.

Since thou hast wounded this heart, wherefore didst thou not heal it?
And wherefore, having robbed me of it, hast thou left it thus
And takest not the prey that thou hast spoiled?

Well, St. John of the Cross was not only a great mystic, he was a great poet, which this Portugese nun was not.

She turned wearily back to the first of the letters. Oh, my darling, if only you had known when you first came to me what was going to happen! Poor love, you betrayed me, and you betrayed yourself by hoping for the impossible. You expected so much joy from our love, and all that is left is the pain of our parting.

She rejected the nun's letters with the same revulsion with which she had thrown down the Gideon Bible. What kind of answer was this? ... the result of what started with such happiness is tears, and deathly despair, and I see no help anywhere ...

-- What would you have made of that, Essie?

She put the three books down on the nightstand, turned out the light, and, still in the damp fur coat, plunged under the covers.

The strange words of the Portugese nun, the mystical words of St. John of the Cross, the searing words of Patrick whirled in discordant counterpoint in her head. She slid in and out of a half sleep, a sleep riddled with dreams that left her exhausted instead of refreshed. As soon as it was daylight she got up and dressed. Her throat felt raw and hot.

Today in History: August 17, 1790

On August 17, 1790 George Washington came to visit the Touro Synagogue in Newport Rhode Island. Dedicated in 1763 - the building is a masterpiece - a gem - and also an architectural landmark. It's the only existing colonial-era synagogue - we went there on field trips when we were in grade school. Look at that building.

On August 17, 1790, George Washington visited Newport - and visited the Jewish congregation of the Touro Synagogue. (Now just think about the times - and how revolutionary this is, in and of itself.)

The congregation presented an address to George Washington, welcoming him to Newport, and to their synagogue. (Click below to see the piece of parchment with this address on it. Gulp. It makes me just want to cry.) A couple of days later George Washington wrote an eloquent response ("gives to bigotry no sanction" - AMEN, George. FUCK YEAH.) Both the address as well as Washington's response were printed in all of the "national" newspapers at the time. A clear message as to what this new nation would be.

Below, I have posted the "Congratulatory Address to George Washington on Behalf of the Hebrew Congregation of Newport, Rhode Island" - and then I have posted the response from Mr. Washington.

August 17, 1790

Sir:

Permit the children of the stock of Abraham to approach you with the most cordial affection and esteem for your person and merits -- and to join with our fellow citizens in welcoming you to Newport.

With pleasure we reflect on those days -- those days of difficulty, and danger, when the God of Israel, who delivered David from the peril of the sword -- shielded Your head in the day of battle: and we rejoice to think, that the same Spirit, who rested in the Bosom of the greatly beloved Daniel enabling him to preside over the Provinces of the Babylonish Empire, rests and ever will rest, upon you, enabling you to discharge the arduous duties of Chief Magistrate in these States.

Deprived as we heretofore have been of the invaluable rights of free Citizens, we now with a deep sense of gratitude to the Almighty disposer of all events behold a Government, erected by the Majesty of the People -- a Government, which to bigotry gives no sanction, to persecution no assistance -- but generously affording to all Liberty of conscience, and immunities of Citizenship: deeming every one, of whatever Nation, tongue, or language equal parts of the great governmental Machine:

This so ample and extensive Federal Union whose basis is Philanthropy, Mutual confidence and Public Virtue, we cannot but acknowledge to be the work of the Great God, who ruleth in the Armies of Heaven, and among the Inhabitants of the Earth, doing whatever seemeth him good.

For all these Blessings of civil and religious liberty which we enjoy under an equal benign administration, we desire to send up our thanks to the Ancient of Days, the great preserver of Men beseeching him, that the Angel who conducted our forefathers through the wilderness into the promised Land, may graciously conduct you through all the difficulties and dangers of this mortal life: And, when, like Joshua full of days and full of honour, you are gathered to your Fathers, may you be admitted into the Heavenly Paradise to partake of the water of life, and the tree of immortality.

Done and Signed by order of the Hebrew Congregation in NewPort, Rhode
Island August 17th 1790.

Moses Seixas, Warden

And here is George Washington's reply:

August 21st, 1790

To the Hebrew Congregation in Newport Rhode Island.

Gentleman.

While I receive, with much satisfaction, your Address replete with expressions of affection and esteem; I rejoice in the opportunity of assuring you, that I shall always retain a grateful remembrance of the cordial welcome I experienced in my visit to Newport, from all classes of Citizens.

The reflection on the days of difficulty and danger which are past is rendered the more sweet, from a consciousness that they are succeeded by days of uncommon prosperity and security. If we have wisdom to make the best use of the advantages with which we are now favored, we cannot fail, under the just administration of a good Government, to become a great and happy people.

The Citizens of the United States of America have a right to applaud themselves for having given to mankind examples of an enlarged and liberal policy: a policy worthy of imitation.

All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship. It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people, that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights. For happily the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens, in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.

It would be inconsistent with the frankness of my character not to avow that I am pleased with your favorable opinion of my Administration, and fervent wishes for my felicity. May the children of the Stock of Abraham, who dwell in this land, continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other Inhabitants; while every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and figtree, and there shall be none to make him afraid. May the father of all mercies scatter light and not darkness in our paths, and make us all in our several vocations useful here, and in his own due time and way everlastingly happy.

G. Washington

George. George. We are not worthy.

In these days of darkness, danger and bigotry, I find it comforting to remember

how far that little candle throws his beams!
So shines a good deed in a naughty world.

Happiness is:

watching this bit of utter brilliance over ... and over ... and over ... and over ...

I have Ann Marie to thank for sending it to me. She informed me: It took 8 days of rehearsal and 1 take.

I love every single person involved in that project.

Songs I have re-discovered through the magic of iTunes

Songs I have absolutely LOVED at one point in my life ... songs I either have on cassette tape, for God's sake, or don't own at all ... but now I can HAVE ... Re-discovery!!!

They are (and this list is not exhaustive):

"Winter Kills" - Yaz

"Mama Told Me Not to Come" - 3 Dog Night

"Luck in my eyes" - k.d. lang

"Everybody Loves Me, Baby" - Don McLean

"The Kind of Love You Never Recover From" - Christine Lavin

"Man in the Mirror" - Michael Jackson

"Free Fallin" - Tom Petty

"Hell Is For Children" - Pat Benatar

"Big Time Sensuality" - Bjork

"Little Bird" - Annie Lennox

"If I Can Dream" - Elvis Presley

"Whole Lotta Lovin'" - Huey Lewis and the News

"Tell It Like It Ti-Is" - B-52s

"Lilac Wine" - Jeff Buckley

"Isolation" - Beth Hart

"Steamroller Blues" - James Taylor (the live version)

"Sixty Years On" - Elton John with, I think, the Sydney Symphony Orchestra behind him

"London Calling" - The Clash

"Working for the Weekend" - Loverboy

"If Love Is a Red Dress" - Maria McKee

"Joining a Fan Club" - Jellyfish

"Life By the Drop" - Stevie Ray Vaughn

"Red Hot and Blue Love" - Rick Springfield

"Christmas is the Time to say I Love You" - SR-71 (yes - I know Billy Squier did this - and I loved it soooooooo much when I was little - but this version of it? Off of one of those A Very Special Christmas albums?? It's so damn kick-ass that ... I can't even talk about it further. I have been haunted by the memory of that version of the song for, uhm, years? I tracked it down. Now I have it.)

"Drop the Pilot" - Joan Armatrading

The Books: "The Other Side of the Sun" (Madeleine L'Engle)

Next book on the shelf is:

Next book on the shelf is The Other Side of the Sun by Madeleine L'Engle. Another one of L'Engle's novel for adults ... I put it on this shelf because I need all of her books to be together. At least all of her fiction. I remember first reading The Other Side of the Sun and really getting a lot out of it. And now I can barely remember any of it. It's about the sprawling Southern family dynasty of the Renier family (ahem - we meet Simon Renier in Dragons in the Waters - Reniers pop up through all of her books). The Other Side of the Sun is the kind of book that has family trees in it - family trees that you actually need to consult in order to keep everyone straight. L'Engle, while she grew up in Manhattan as well as Europe (she went to a Swiss boarding school) - also has a big sprawling Southern family - her roots are in the south - and she writes eloquently about living with her extended family, the beach house, the food, the nosy aunts, the sound of the waves, the heat ... strong steel magnolia women, eccentric men - this is L'Engle's actual background. The Other Side of the Sun takes place in that world. If you read her Crosswicks Journals - you would even recognize the house the whole thing takes place in. I'm not saying she didn't invent most of this - but the atmosphere, the inspiration ... comes from that section of her life. She mainly writes about families living in old creaky farmhouses in New England. That is L'Engle's reflection of her own adult married life - where they always lived in old creaky farmhouses in New England. But her childhood was urban (Manhattan), European (Switzerland), and also Southern. Kinda wild.

Here's what I remember about this book.

Stella North, a fresh young British woman, has married Theron Renier (who is, like, the 4th Theron Renier in a long line ...) The story is told from Stella's point of view. She's the outsider. The book takes place - uhm - mainly in 1910. Theron works for the US government - in an incredibly secret capacity - so secret that he can't even tell his new wife where he is going on assignment. So he sends her to stay at the Renier family house in ... Savannah? Can't remember where. She's a newlywed, only 19 years old - but her husband has gone off to Africa on intelligent work - so she travels to America, and to ... whereever ... to stay at Illyria - the name of the family house. There are all of these old aunts there awaiting her - thrilled to welcome the new member of the family. They're a bunch of characters - some are spinsters, some are not - They all immediately love Stella, because she is family ... but there are dark clouds around this house. You can feel it. I know that some of it has to do with the spectre of slavery - still hovering on the sidelines in 1910. The Reniers had slaves - and many of the descendants of the slaves still live with and work for them, only as free people now. Everyone in the house has a LONG LONG memory. There's a lot of danger, too ... but what exactly is dangerous I cannot remember. Stella gets caught up in a friendship with a young black man named Ron - and the racism of the time starts to heat up - she cannot be allowed to take walks on the beach with him, and talk about mathematics (which is what they do). Forces that are larger than both of them start to press in. But ... ack ... there's more to it. Can't remember. That'll have to be it for now.

I liked the book because it easily describes the kind of family where the ancestors are almost as real as the living. There is no demarcation line between living and dead. L'Engle really gets that, in this book.

I'll excerpt from the very beginning, when Stella first arrives at Illyria - the childhood home of her husband - a place she has heard so much about. She has never been there, and she has never met any of his family - they got married in England.

Excerpt from The Other Side of the Sun by Madeleine L'Engle.

They were here on the veranda waiting for me when I finally reached Illyria, the four women: Honoria, tall, powerful, purply-black; the two old great-aunts, small and pale; Aunt Irene, half the age of the other three - but when one is nineteen, middle age is old. Honoria stood calmly aside as the others, twittering like birds, palm-leaf fans fluttering, rose to greet me. Aunt Irene held out her plump hands. "Stella! It is Stella, isn't it?

"Who else would it be?" one of the old ladies whispered.

I felt the eyes of all four probing me. I was being measured, judged. I smiled brightly to hide my discomfort.

"Stella, honey, welcome to Illyria. I am your Aunt Irene." She drew me to her. Her voice was bright-pink crushed velvet and she smelled of heliotrope. She called herself "Ant Ah-reen" and, probably because I was so keyed up, I almost giggled.

"And this is your Great-aunt Mary Desborough, and your Great-aunt Olivia."

The two old ladies moved forward. Unlike Aunt Irene, who looked like a fashion plate, they were dressed in rusty and old-fashioned clothes, with their hair parted in the middle, and their ears poking out in the fashion (I learned later) which had been popular during "The War". "Welcome, child," one of them pecked me on the cheek. "We welcome the new Mrs. Theron Renier. I am Aunt Mary Desborough."

"And I'm Aunt Olivia," the other old lady said, and reached to kiss me. She smelled lightly of lemon and lavendar; the old-grey watered silk of her dress rustled as she moved, and her voice was like it, a dry, gentle rustling.

"Clive! Clive! Ronnie!" Aunt Irene called. "Oh, there you are. Please see that Miss Stella's things are taken to her room so that Honoria can unpack them."

The old colored woman moved to me; there was something majestic about her; she took my hands in her very strong ones and looked into my face. I felt like a child instead of a married woman. "We welcome you, Miss Stella."

This, then, was Honoria. I knew that Honoria was important. Immediately after Mado's death it was Honoria who saw to it that her ring came to my Terry for his bride.

The Renier ring. Touching that ring got me through a lot of bad times. Not that I thought it had any magical properties, although I was to find that many people did indeed believe this. It was just that the ring always made me know who I was: Mrs. Theron Renier. I touched it now, a heavy ring, made of two beautifully etched gold serpents, entwined like those on a caduceus, with rubies for eyes.

"It came to Mado from Honoria," Terry had told me when he first showed it to me the night he asked me to be his wife.

"Mado --"

"My grandmother. Marguerite Dominique de la Valeur Renier. She was always called Mado."

"And Honoria?"

He hesitated. "I suppose you might call her Mado's housekeeper. I love her almost as much as I loved Mado. Maybe as much because they belonged together."

My husband, of all the Renier men, was the one who was most full of laughter, but when he took the ring out of its velvet box to give it to me, he was totally serious. "It carries a responsibility," he said, "a responsibility of healing. The serpent isn't always a symbol of evil. You remember that the twined serpent is the doctor's emblem, and my Grandfather Theron was a doctor."

(Doctor Theron, his young son,
There met Mado, loved and won,
But lost the War Between the States ...)

I looked at the ring, fingering the rubies. "How would a housekeeper get a ring like this?"

"Honoria was born in Africa," Terry had said, as though that explained everything.

Kirby ... again

Another tribute from Erik. Beautiful - go read it.

I love the main romance in When Harry Met Sally, but the romance between Bruno Kirby's character and Carrie Fisher's character is just as important to that film. It wouldn't work without him.

Yup. They call it a "supporting actor" for a reason. He does his job and he does it well - his job is mainly in "supporting" others, "supporting" the star. Therefore: these people rarely get the glory. But the stars being "supported" by these people could not shine as bright without these actors.

Bruno Kirby

Now THAT is a tribute. Here's one excerpt but it is so worth it to read the whole thing:

He made such an impression on me that I was completely unaware I was even watching him the next time I encountered Bruno Kirby on film, as it happened in a movie of considerably higher quality than Superdad. Kirby did a short-lived sitcom with actor Richard Castellano in 1972 called The Super, in which he played the rotund actor’s son, and by sheer coincidence, only a year after Superdad was released, he would play the young Clemenza, the role Castellano originated in the The Godfather, in that film’s sequel, The Godfather Part II. As Vin Scully might say, Kirby (born Bruno Giovanni Quidaciolu Jr. in 1949) went from the cellar to the penthouse in one short year.

"BABY FISHMOUTH! BABY FISHMOUTH!"

I'm sure everyone's heard that Bruno Kirby has died at the young age of 57. Sad, man. I just LOVE that guy. Seriously. I always have.

A hard-working character actor with a career that has spanned years - he would do anything (look at his resume) - which is why it is so wonderful that he appeared in movies that "hit" (so to speak) - like Harry Met Sally or Donnie Brasco or City Slickers - movies where he had a supporting role, but which millions of people saw. Character actors HOPE for such a chance. Bruno Kirby was always good. Always. I loved it when he got cranky. (The wagon-wheel scene in Harry Met Sally is a perfect example.) Somehow, his anger was funny. It's hard to do. It's hard to make rage funny - and yet also REAL.

Sad. I'm sad about this one. I have always really liked him.

His work had integrity. Always. You can't say that about too many people.

BABY FISHMOUTH! BABY FISHMOUTH!

Seriously. How insane is that. How funny is that?? But also: how REAL. Watch him in that scene again. He is really playing that game. It's so real which is why it is so funny.

This should be a recognizable image below. I was going to post a picture of him carrying the wagon-wheel table out onto the sidewalk (one of my favorites of his scenes) but figured this would be better. As a reminder of just how long he's been around, and just how good this guy really was.

Rest in peace, Mr. Kirby. You died WAY too soon, man.

Things seen/experienced in the woods this past weekend

-- a shooting star

-- the splash of jumping fish in the lake after dark

-- a feast of chicken on the grill

-- my pregnant friend Kerry lying out on the float in the lake, on her back, wearing sunglasses, wearing her bathing suit, with her pregnant belly rising magnificently to meet the sun

-- the exploding glory of a potato cannon - (constructed following the directions in a book called Backyard Ballistics) - We had a potato war with a dude across the lake who ALSO had his own potato cannon

-- campfire on the beach, all of us sitting wrapped up in blankets (chilly night air!!) around the fire

-- delicious fruit smoothie drinks

-- a cool morning run with my friends

-- a daddy long-legs hanging out on the underside of the umbrella table. He did not move for the entire time we were there. WTF?? What is his purpose in life? Make a web ... or SOMETHING. Don't just sit up there, you freak of nature.

-- the Big Dipper

-- a 70 year old woman windsurfing on a windless day - literally standing on her board with the sail up - in the middle of a lake so still it was like glass. She was 70. Apparently, her 80 year old husband had been out earlier on the windsurfer and got caught in some of the greenery protruding out into the lake - and Mike had gone to save him. The 80 year old man said something like, "The only issue is with my defibulator ..." A windsurfing dude, on a windless day, with a defibulator

-- endless conversation, wonderful, my wonderful friends

-- we had a surprise baby shower for Kerry that night ... it was great fun!! Also: keylime pie. mmmmmmmmmmmmm

-- we heard all about the nearby state fair and how Mike basically took over. He won the watermelon-eating contest - and then he randomly entered a peach and cherry pie he baked - and WON - much to the chagrin of the local ladies who didn't like being shown up by a man. His ribbons were pinned up all over the bulletin board

-- I read some of my Gene Wilder autobiography during a slow lazy afternoon

-- paddle boats

-- sunblock - major obsessive sunblock ... we had the spray-on sunblock - we had 15, 40, 65, 210 ... We talked about it constantly.

-- cool cool lake water, heavenly

-- outdoor shower. Omigod. I wish I could shower outside every single day. Seriously. Is there anything better? We all took showers just for the fun of it. "Gonna take another shower now!!"

-- salt and vinegar potato chips. GET THEM AWAY FROM ME.

Apropos of nothing

Jeff has been a longtime commenter here - and now he has a blog of his own!!

With a post like this he's getting off to a great start. That's some good writing there.

I look forward to reading more.

The Books: "A Winter's Love" (Madeleine L'Engle)

Next book on my young adult fiction shelf - although this is really adult fiction - but I like to keep all of Madeleine L'Engle's stuff together:

Next book on the shelf is A Winter's Love by Madeleine L'Engle.

Okay - so this is one of L'Engle's "adult" novels - and it was published before Wrinkle in Time - 1957, I believe - and you can feel her struggling to find her way as a writer. Basically, this is a big YAWN of a book. Her first novel was The Small Rain, published when she was 23? Published in 1945. Amazing - anyway, that first novel has much more confidence and interest and good writing than this book, published over 10 years later. L'Engle has written about the dark years before Wrinkle was published - when she struggled to balance her life as a mother of young children, a wife, and a writer ... You can feel that struggle in A Winter's Love. The main theme of the book is giving up on a chance at divine happiness and accepting your duty. Not really uplifting - although, yes, it's quite an adult theme. Adults know that sometimes we just HAVE to do something. But ... dreariness emanates off of this book. Duty has never seemed so dreary.

L'Engle has written extensively about her childhood - and her parents (especially in The Summer of the Great-Grandmother - excerpt here). When L'Engle was a little girl - her parents moved the family to Switzerland. Her father's lungs had been destroyed by the trench warfare in WWI - and he was a writer - and he had been unable to write - and he was also dying - and it was thought the air in Switzerland would do him good. But it was depressing. L'Engle grew up in a house with depressed parents, taken up with other things. She was left to fend for herself. And one day - L'Engle thought she was in the villa by herself, and she walked by her parents bedroom and she saw her mother - her glamorous capable breezy mother - lying on her bed, arms splayed out, weeping with wrenching sobs. It was a horrifying moment for the young L'Engle ... a snapshot of adult misery ... It was also a shattering of the image of her mother. She now knew what her mother was hiding at all times. She realized how strong her mother actually was ... to hide her grief so well.

That incident makes it into A Winter's Love and - I think it has some of the best writing in this preachy YAWN of a book ... so that will be my excerpt.

The plot is similar to L'Engle's childhood experiences. The parents - Emily and Courtney - take the family to live in Switzerland. The father is in a depression. He drinks too much. He has withdrawn. He feels he can no longer write. His depression takes up the entire family. They have a 12 year old daughter Virginia (who actually ends up being one of the participants at the conference in House like a Lotus - so we get to see what happened to Virginia) - Virginia is awkward, prickly, needs her mother right now - but her mother is totally unavailable because poor little Emily is so taken up with poor little Courtney's depression. (I didn't like the names in this book either. They rang false to me. Emily? Courtney? Then there's a guy named Abe. Nope. Not a good name either.) Emily ends up running into an old friend from New York - who is there for a ski vacation - his name is Abe. And a sort of love affair develops ... but in the end Emily picks up the shackles of her marriage and walks away. The whole thing is depressing because I didn't really like Abe all that much anyway. I wasn't DYING for them to commit adultery - I wasn't ACHING for them to kiss - which I guess I wanted. If you're gonna write a book about an affair - and one that's not supposed to be a tawdry coupling of desperate barflies ... then shouldn't you WANT them to commit adultery? Even if they DON'T?? Anyway, I read the whole thing totally indifferently. Whatever, have your affair, or don't ... but please stop whining. I also read it, thinking: Abe??? Ew. I don't like him. I don't like Courtney either. So basically Emily, you're up shit's creek, babe. Deal with it.

The book is written from multiple perspectives - Emily's - Virginia's - but ... it's not handled well. Or - it's not handled gracefully - you feel that L'Engle doesn't know what to do, doesn't know how to get "in" to the story - so she needs more than one narrator.

But the book is interesting to read - as a L'Engle fan - in terms of her development as a writer. It's like another writer altogether emerged with Wrinkle in Time. The books before that (except, strangely, for her very first novel - which has a sure and confident tone) seem to be struggling in the dark, hands outstretched. There's some awfully excellent writing in all of them ... but they just don't .... "hit it". They're off the mark, somehow. If she had never written Wrinkle in Time then these books would NEVER be read - they're not worthy enough.

But as lead-ups to Wrinkle, I find them fascinating.

Anyway, here's the excerpt - taken directly from L'Engle's own life. There's something very poignant about that for me.

Excerpt from A Winter's Love by Madeleine L'Engle.

After lunch Virginia went up early to dress for the dansant, running up the stairs silently in the old white moccasins she usually slipiped into after she had pulled off her boots.

-- Mother's amber beads, she thought. I bet she'd let me borrow them for this afternoon.

She stood for a moment at the top of the stairs, listening to the sounds of the house. Downstairs she could hear Mimi talking to Connie, could hear the sounds of her father's typewriter; upstairs, nothing except the sound of her old alarm clock ticking loudly against the silence. She moved, quiet as an Indian in the soft-soled moccasins, to the door of her parents' room. It was pushed to, but not shut tightly, and as she leaned against it it swung open and there upon the bed she saw Emily, lying face downwards, her arms flung out, her body across the bed in an abandonment of despair, her eyes closed but with traces of tears still clinging to lashes and cheeks. Unseen, unheard, Virginia backed out, trembling, and went to her own room.

She stood at the window in the room already beginning to darken with the approach of evening. The garden lay still and white under the snow, only hummocks and ridges showing where there might be bushes and flowers. Stars were already beginning to flicker, disappear, then shine steadily as darkness seeped into the valley. Up the mountains the great hotel lay sprawled in indistinct shadows, above it the sanitorium, and lights were coming on in their windows; and a stranger would not know which was which, which the hotel where there was dancing and champagne and gaiety, and which the sanatorium where there was illness and pain. She stared at the two buildings, trying to blot out with their image that of her mother flung across the bed, staring until the outlines of the buildings blurred, merged into each other, separated, blurred again.

-- I wish I were back at school, she thought.

And then -- My stomach hurts (transferring the pain to something physical).

She took out of her bottom bureau drawer the small pile of Christmas presents she had bought or made, and put them on her bed and stood looking down at them for comfort, each one tied up carefully in a different kind of Christmas paper. She picked up the last present that remained unwrapped, a small bottle of "4711" eau de cologne for her mother, and turned it over and over in her hand, reading and rereading the insciprtion. "No. 4711, Ferd. Mullens, Inc., always the first prize. Jedesmal den ersten preis. Toujours le premier prix." Then she wrapped it up, slowly, and put all the presents away, shutting the drawer as Mimi came in.

While they were dressing, Emily knocked and there she stood with the amber beads, saying, "Vee, I thought these might help with the velvet dress," and her face was freshly powdered and you could not tell that so short a time ago there had been tears on her cheeks.

"I was going to ask you for them," Virginia said.

Emily laughed. "Two minds with a single thought. Obviously they were meant for your dress, but mind you, I'm only lending them to you. I'm very fond of them myself."

"Put on Vee's lipstick for her, will you, Mrs. Bowen?" Mimi asked. "She never puts on enough."

I could get lost

in the photo below. I have been staring at it now for, oh, 5 minutes?

It is most definitely not a "happy place" but seriously ... it is truly an awesome (in the classical sense of the word) photograph.

Giants.

The march of history.

A beast slouching towards Bethlehem. A new world being born. Horrors.

It's all in that photograph.

Backrub Boy confirmation

Okay - so awhile ago - somehow I mentioned my disdain for what I call "backrub boys". I think it was in the comments section to some post ... and a huge discussion ensued about "backrub boys" and what they are, and who they are, and why girls hate them so much.

And now - Patrick Hughes - funniest writer on the Web - has come out with his latest - basically describing the trauma of seeing Burnt Offerings as a kid ... but within his essay - he PERFECTLY DESCRIBES the NASTINESS of the "backrub boy".

He gets it! He knows EXACTLY what I am talking about!! And a couple of readers here got a bit defensive during MY talking about "backrub boys" ... which just tells me that they are, themselves, "backrub boys" ... So I read Patrick's latest and just laughed out loud in triumph and glee!!

Here's the pertinent excerpt - but please: go read the whole thing!!!

Anyway, the movie Burnt Offerings was invented in 1976 in order to traumatize sensitive young innocent children such as myself. I was seven years old that year, an age that, like the Puerto Rican incident and her marriage to my pop, also fell into Mom’s pre-sapphic era. This isn’t really significant for any specifically lesbionic reasons or anything, but Mom’s lifestyle was pretty different before the switcheroo, so in those days I would get stuck with babysitters a lot while Mom did her single thing, working and partying it up all weekend with terrible Doug Henning-type righteous ‘70s dudes.

I suspect it was my early exposure to these dudes that resulted in a lifelong aversion to Doug Henning, whole wheat bread, mustaches, mellow vibes, magic tricks, jam sessions, rainbow suspenders, natural fibers, music with flutes, turquoise jewelry, Steely Dan albums and sandals, although I must admit for a brief period (the 1980s) I did enjoy their marijuana a great deal.

God damn, come to think of it, fuck Doug Henning-type mellow ‘70s dudes. Fuck their Dan Fogelberg 8-tracks, fuck earth tones, fuck tasty guitar licks, fuck that Jonathan Livingston Seagull book and fuck all that running free with the wind on the beach at sunset jive. Ladies, don’t be taken in by the friendly relaxing backrubs of the Doug Henning-type dude. These backrubs are not really meant to relax you as much as just relax your pussy armor, ugh.

AMEN.

But can we also just take a moment to revel in how funny his writing is. The "jam sessions" being included ... it's just perfect. I love him.

Warning: Huge creepy photo of Doug Henning in that post. I can barely look at it without shivering in the shame that only a child who grew up in the 1970s can feel.

Go read the whole thing

This one's for my dad

who loves Phil Ochs.

The Books: "Camilla" (Madeleine L'Engle)

Next book on the shelf ... (we're in my children's and young adult bookshelves, by the way):

Next book on the shelf is Camilla by Madeleine L'Engle.

Camilla is a book that is not in the Austin series or the Murry series ... although (of course) some of the characters do reappear in those books. For instance - Frank, the person Camilla befriends in this book, ends up being one of the members of the conference that Polly works at in House Like a Lotus - only now he is a middle-aged man. Camilla also "stars" in another later book - which is, I believe, the last novel that L'Engle (so far) has written - called Live Coal in the Sea. Camilla is 15 in the first book, and in the second book she is an adult.

Camilla was written in 1965. Camilla is another one of L'Engle's indelible teenage characters. She is a native New Yorker (just like L'Engle was - L'Engle grew up on the streets of Manhattan) - and her parents are wealthy. Camilla has a nurse, they have a maid, whatever - it's a kind of New York that is completely divorced from most people's reality. Camilla is very fortunate. BUT ... everything SUCKS ... because suddenly, her parents - her ROCKS - are behaving like strangers to each other. There's tension between them. Anger. Her mother starts taking calls from some random French dude named Jacques. Camilla hates Jacques with the burning of a thousand suns. Basically, Camilla's nice neat little world starts to fall apart. It is shattering. L'Engle gets how shattering something like that is. Seeing your parents, for the first time, as fallible, and human ... Camilla's best friend is Luisa (another great character) - Luisa's family has always been all messed up, and Luisa never wants to go home because she hates the atmosphere at her house. Now suddenly, Camilla understands. Luisa's older brother Frank (and I can't remember where he had been ... maybe off to World War II??) - for whatever reason, Camilla had never met Frank - and suddenly, during this crisis in her life - she does. And they hit it off. It's a kindred spirit soulful friendship. There's also deeply romantic feelings from Camilla - well, from Frank as well. They wander the wintry streets of New York City - both avoiding going home - sititng in drugstores talking about the world, going to museums, the zoo ... It all ends up with Camilla getting her heart broken for the first time. But for her - the crisis has passed. She has separated herself from her parents who are, in the end, kind of selfish people. She differentiates herself, through her friendship with Frank. I loved this book - I should read this one again as well.

Oh - and Camilla is a science whiz. Forgot about that. Science is her THING.

Here's an excerpt where Frank takes her into a music shop to play her some music he wants her to hear.

Excerpt from Camilla by Madeleine L'Engle.

The music shop was empty when we went in and a gray-haired man and woman were sitting behind the counter. The woman came around the counter and put her arms round Frank, and just said, "Franky, Franky," and kissed him as though she were his mother.

Frank kissed her and just said, "Hi, Mrs. Stephanowski," and then he shook Mr. Stephanowski's hand and then he said, "This is Camilla. I brought her today because I want you to know her."

They both looked at me and I felt somehow that what they thought of me was terribly important and I was filled with relief when Mrs. Stephanowski smiled and took my hand in hers. Some customers came in then and Mr. Stephanowski said, "Take Camilla into one of the booths and give her a concert if you feel like it, Franky."

"Thanks, Mr. Stephanowski," Frank said. "I'd like to." He picked out an album and we went into the last of the small listening booths. Frank had me sit down in the chair. "Do you know Holst's The Planets?" he asked.

I shook my head. "No. What is it?"

"It's kind of queer," Frank told me, "but it's kind of wonderful. I thought maybe it might be interesting to you. Of course it isn't scientific or anything, but I think it's sort of interesting to listen to a musician's conception of stars. There's one place that sounds to me like the noise the planets must make grinding against space."

He put the record on and it was different from anything I knew. I knew Bach, and Beethoven and Brahms and Chopin and I loved them, especially Bach, but this music - it was like stars before you understand them, when you think an astronomer is an astrologer, when they are wild, distant, mysterious things. And as I listened I realized that the music had a plan to it, that none of the conflicting notes came by accident.

"Why haven't I heard this before!" I cried, and Frank smiled at me and changed the record. When he smiled, his face lit up in a way that I have never seen Luisa's light up, and he seemed to me completely beautiful.

When The Planets was finished, Frank said, "What next, Camilla? You choose something."

But I shook my head. "I'd rather listen to something you like particularly."

"Well," Frank said, "I have a game I play. I have music for everybody. That was Johnny's idea, doing that, and now David and I do it too. I'll play yours." He went out into the shop, where several customers were now gathered about the counter, and came back with another album.

"What is it?" I asked.

"Prokofiev's Third Piano Concerto. Particularly the andantino. You probably won't think it sounds like you." His voice was suddenly gruff and embarrassed.

I listened and it didn't sound to me like me, but it was as exciting and different as The Planets had been, and as I listened I was filled with a great tremendous excitement. Oh, I love I love I love! I cried inside myself. So many people, so many things! Music and stars and snow and weather! Oh, if one could always feel this warm love, this excitement, this glory of the infinite possibilities of life!

And as I listened to the music I knew that everything was possible.

"I think that's enough for a start," Frank said, and we went back into the shop.

In honor of Ernest Thayer ...

whose birthday it is today, here's the only long-lasting thing he wrote. And - duh - if you're gonna write one thing, you might as well write a classic. It's a poem the O'Malleys know huge sections of by heart. I adore it. It's perfect. You can't get any more perfect than that last stanza.

It was published in The San Francisco Examiner on June 3, 1888.

CASEY AT THE BAT

The outlook wasn't brilliant for the Mudville nine that day,
The score stood four to two, with but one inning more to play.
And then when Cooney died at first, and Barrows did the same,
A pall-like silence fell upon the patrons of the game.

A straggling few got up to go in deep despair. The rest
Clung to that hope which springs eternal in the human breast;
They thought if only Casey could but get a whack at that--
We'd put up even money now with Casey at the bat.

But Flynn preceded Casey, as did also Jimmy Blake,
And the former was a lulu and the latter was a cake;
So upon that stricken multitude grim melancholy sat,
For there seemed but little chance of Casey's getting to the bat.

But Flynn let drive a single, to the wonderment of all,
And Blake, the much despised, tore the cover off the ball;
And when the dust had lifted, and the men saw what had occurred,
There was Johnnie safe at second and Flynn a-hugging third.

Then from 5,000 throats and more there rose a lusty yell;
It rumbled through the valley, it rattled in the dell;
It knocked upon the mountain and recoiled upon the flat,
For Casey, mighty Casey, was advancing to the bat.

There was ease in Casey's manner as he stepped into his place;
There was pride in Casey's bearing and a smile on Casey's face.
And when, responding to the cheers, he lightly doffed his hat,
No stranger in the crowd could doubt 'twas Casey at the bat.

Ten thousand eyes were on him as he rubbed his hands with dirt;
Five thousand tongues applauded when he wiped them on his shirt.
Then while the writhing pitcher ground the ball into his hip,
Defiance gleamed in Casey's eye, a sneer curled Casey's lip.

And now the leather-covered sphere came hurtling through the air,
And Casey stood a-watching it in haughty grandeur there.
Close by the sturdy batsman the ball unheeded sped--
"That ain't my style," said Casey. "Strike one," the umpire said.

From the benches black with people, there went up a muffled roar,
Like the beating of the storm-waves on a stern and distant shore.
"Kill him! Kill the umpire!" shouted some one on the stand;
And it's likely they'd have killed him had not Casey raised his hand.

With a smile of Christian charity great Casey's visage shone;
He stilled the rising tumult; he bade the game go on;
He signaled to the pitcher, and once more the spheroid flew;
But Casey still ignored it, and the umpire said, "Strike two."

"Fraud!" cried the maddened thousands, and echo answered fraud;
But one scornful look from Casey and the audience was awed.
They saw his face grow stern and cold, they saw his muscles strain,
And they knew that Casey wouldn't let that ball go by again.

The sneer is gone from Casey's lip, his teeth are clenched in hate;
He pounds with cruel violence his bat upon the plate.
And now the pitcher holds the ball, and now he lets it go,
And now the air is shattered by the force of Casey's blow.

Oh, somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright;
The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light,
And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout;
But there is no joy in Mudville-- mighty Casey has struck out.

Ann Dvorak

John has chosen Ann Dvorak for his "Monday Glamour" series. Go check it out.

I love this series of his - and I was excited to read his take on Ann Dvorak, especially because I'm reading the Howard Hawks biography right now - and he had a pretty major affair with her. As a matter of fact, I believe that she is one of the few actresses he used TWICE in two different films - It's not that he had a rule about only using actresses once. It's that he was on this constant search for the perfect female lead ... If you watch his films in order, you can almost feel Hawks' inner monologue: Is she the one? Is she the one? So Dvorak is up there with Lauren Bacall - as an actress Hawks found fascinating and juicy enough to use twice. Great stuff - Dvorak sounds like a really interesting person.

The Books: "An Acceptable Time" (Madeleine L'Engle)

Next book on the shelf ... (we're in my children's and young adult bookshelves, by the way):

Next book on the shelf is An Acceptable Time by Madeleine L'Engle.

This is another book in the "time series" - meaning: the story of the Murry family and now the O'Keefe family. Polly O'Keefe, daughter of Meg and Calvin, has gone to live with her grandparents in the country - they're the Nobel Prize winning scientists, the parents in Wrinkle in Time. She's been sent to live with them because of her aptitude for science - and the science program in her local high school is way too slow and rudimentary. Her parents think she would benefit from time studying and working with her grandparents - so Polly takes time off and goes to live with them. The book opens slowly - meanderingly - Polly walking through the autumn woods, admiring the foliage ... and suddenly there in the woods - she sees Zachary - the guy she had met in Athens. What the ... what is he doing there?? He apparently is doing an internship at a law firm in Hartford and he tracked her down. He wants a romance. She pushes him off. Also, in the first chapter - during her walk - she sees a man first - standing there with a dog - he looks ... out of place ... odd - his hair is long and in a braid - and then later - she has a brief encounter with a girl ... also odd-looking ....

Anyway, it turns out that Polly has basically strolled through a time gate in the woods. There's a rip in the space-time continuum and Polly keep strolling through it ... back 3,000 years in time. There are basically Druids roaming through the New England woods.

It turns out that a Bishop in the nearby town had also discovered this time-gate and has been traveling back and forth with some frequency - collecting Ogam stones, doing research, etc. Bishop Colubra is friends with the Murrys - and when Polly mentions, casually, at the dinner table (before she knows about the time gate) that she saw these two odd-looking people in the woods, Bishop Colubra freaks out. He fears that Polly might get caught back in the past- that she will not be able to find her way back. There are other things going on back then, 3,000 years ago: warring civilizations, human sacrifices, Samhain is somehow involved ... the details are lost to me. I haven't read the book in almost 10 years.

What I can say about it - and what I do remember about it - is the loveliness of the writing. The vividness of all of the worlds created (the Murry farmhouse - the Druid world) ... and also the characters. Zachary, again, in his specificity and complexity - L'Engle has been including him in books for 30 years now, and you never feel that it gets old. He is incredibly consistent. But also the Druidic people - especially the two that Polly befirends - Anaral and Karralys ... They're foreign to us, they're from another time completely ... but L'Engle has this way of letting us into their experience, they become real to us. You start to get the sense of the continuity of human experience - that even back then, all the same shit was going on. People are people. People were loving, living, learning, growing back in remote times as well. Time flows backwards as well as forwards. I wish I could remember more of the book but you know what I wish even more? I wish she would write more books about Polly. I wish I could learn what kind of adult Polly would be, who she ended up as. An artist? A scientist? A CIA operative? For Polly - anything would be possible ... I love her, too. I'm sad that this, probably, is it. No more about her.

Anyway - here's an excerpt from the beginning of the book - when it becomes clear to the Murry grandparents that Polly has tripped through a rip in the space-time continuum and also that the Bishop has been going there all along.

Excerpt from An Acceptable Time by Madeleine L'Engle.

Polly's grandparents were in the kitchen. Everything was reassuringly normal. Her grandfather was reading the paper. Her grandmother was making pancakes. Breakfast was usually catch-as-catch-can. Mrs. Murry often took coffee and a muffin to the lab. Mr. Murry hurried outdoors, working about the yard while the weather held.

"Good morning, Polly, Nason." Mrs. Murry sounded unsurprised as they pannted in, Polly scratched and disheveled from her plunge down the precipice. "Alex requested pancakes, and since he's a very undemanding person, I was happy to oblige. Join us. I've made more than enough batter."

"I hope I'm not intruding." The bishop seated himself.

Polly tried to keep her voice normal. "Here's another Ogam stone. Where shall I put it?"

"If there's room, put it beside the one Nase brought in last night," her grandmother said. "How many pancakes can you eat, Nase?"

"I don't know. I'm not sure I can eat anything. I don't think I'm hungry."

"Nason! What's wrong? Don't you feel well?"

"I'm fine." He looked at Polly. "Oh, dear. What have I done?"

"What have you done?" Mr. Murry asked.

Polly said, "You didn't do anything, Bishop. It just happened."

Mrs. Murry put a stack of pancakes in front of him, and absently he lavished butter, poured a river of syrup, ate a large bite, put down his fork. "I may have done something terrible."

"Nason, what's going on?" Mrs. Murry asked.

The bishop took another large bite. Shook his head. "I didn't think it would happen. I didn't think it could."

"What?" Mrs. Murry demanded.

"I thought the time gate was open only to me. I didn't think --" He broke off.

"Polly," her grandfather asked, "do you know what all this is about?"

Polly poured herself a mug of coffee and sat down. "The man by the oak, the one both Zachary and I saw, lived at the time of the Ogam stones." She did her best to keep her voice level. "This morning when I went off for a walk, I -- well, I don't know what it's all about, but somehow or other I went through the bishop's time gate."

"Nase!"

The bishop bent his head. "I know. It's my fault. It must be my fault. Mea culpa."

Mrs. Murry asked, "Polly, what makes you think you went through a time gate?"

"Everything was different, Grand. The trees were enormous, sort of like Hiawatha -- this is the forest primeval. And the mountains were high and jagged and snow-capped. Young mountains, not ancient hills like ours. And where the valley is, there was a large lake."

"This is absurd." Mrs. Murry put a plate of pancakes in front of her husband, then fixed a plate for Polly.

"Nason!" Mrs. Murry expostulated.

The bishop looked unhappy. "Whenever I've tried to talk about it, you've been disbelieving and, well -- disapproving, and I don't blame you for that, so I've kept quiet. I wouldn't have beleived it, either, if it hadn't kept happening. But I thought it was just me -- part of being old and nearly ready to move on to -- But Polly. That Polly should have -- well! of course!"

"Of course what?" Mr. Murry sounded more angry with each question.

"Polly saw Annie first at the pool." The bishop used the diminutive of Anaral tenderly.

"Annie who?"

"Anaral," Polly said. "She's the girl who came to the pool last night."

"When you were digging for the pool," the bishop asked, "what happened?"

"We hit water," Mr. Murry said. "We're evidently over an aquifer -- an underground river."

"But this is the highest point in the state," Polly protested. "Would there be an underground river this high up?"

"It would seem so."

The bishop put down his fork. Somehow the stack of pancakes had disappeared. "You do remember that most holy places - such as the sites of the great cathedrals in England - were on ground that was already considererd holy before even the first pagan temples were built? And the interesting thing is that under most of these holy places is an underground river. This house, and the pool, are on a holy place. That's why Anaral was able to come to the pool."

"Nonsense --" Mrs. Murry started.

Mr. Murry sighed, as though in frustration. "We love the house and our land," he said, "but it's a bit farfetched to call it holy."

"This house is -- what? --" the bishop asked, "well over two hundred years old?"

"Parts of it, yes."

"But the Ogam stones indicate that there were people here three thousand years ago."

"Nason, I've seen the stone. I believe you that there is Ogam writing on them. I take them seriously. But I don't want Polly involved in any of your -- your --" Mr. Murry pushed up from his place so abruptly that he overturned his chair, righted it with an irritated grunt. The phone rang, making them all jump. Mr. Murry went to it. "Polly, it's for you."

This was no time for an interruption. She wanted her grandparents to put everything into perspective. If they could believe what happened, it would be less frightening.

"Sounds like Zachary." Her grandmother handed her the phone.

"Good morning, sweet Pol. I just wanted to tell you how good it was to see you yesterday, and I look forward to seeing you on Thursday."

"Thanks, Zach. I look forward to it, too."

"Okay, see you then. Just wanted to double-check."

She went back to the table. "Yes. It was Zachary, to confirm getting together on Thursday."

"Something nice and normal," her grandfather said.

"Is it?" Polly asked. "He did see someone from three thousand years ago."

"All Hallows' Eve," the bishop murmured.

"At least he'll get you away from here," her grandmother said. "Strange, isn't it, that he should know about the Ogam stones."

Polly nodded. "Zachary tends to know all kinds of odd things. But what happened this morning is beyond me."

The bishop said gently, "Three thousand years beyond you, Polly. And, somehow or other, I seem to be responsible for it."

Mr. Murry went to the dresser and picked up one of the Ogam stones. "Nason, one reason I've tended to disbelieve you is that, if what you say is true, then you, a theologian and not a scientist, have made a discovery which it has taken me a lifetime to work out."

"Blundered into it inadvertently," the bishop said.

Mr. Murry sighed. "I thought I understood it. Now I'm not sure."

"Granddad. Please explain."

Mr. Murry sat down again, creakily. "It's a theory of time, Polly. You know something about my work."

"A little."

"More than Nase, at any rate. You have a much better science background. Sorry, Nase, but --"

"I know," the bishop said. "This is no time for niceties." He looked at Mrs. Murry. "Would it be possible for me to have another helping of pancakes?" Then, back to Mr. Murry: "This tesseract theory of yours --"

Mrs. Murry put another stack of pancakes on the bishop's plate.

Mr. Murry said, "Tessering, moving through space without the restriction of time, is, as you know, a mind thing. One can't make a machine for it. That would be to distort it, disturb the space/time continuum, in a vain effort to relegate something full of blazing glory to the limits of technology. And of course that's what's happening, abortive attempts at spaceships designed to break the speed of light and warp time. It works well in the movies and on TV but not in the reality of the created universe."

"What you ask is too difficult," the bishop said. "How many people are willing to take lightning into their bodies?

Mr. Murry smiled, and to Polly it was one of the saddest smiles she had ever seen. "You are," her grandfather said.

The bishop said softly, "It was as if lightning flashed into my spirit ... and with the light such a profound peace and joy came into my heart. In one moment I felt as if wholly revitalized by some infinite power, so that my body would be shattered like an earthen vessel." He sighed. "That's John Thomas, a Welshman in the mid-1700s. But it's a good description, isn't it?"

"Very good," Mr. Murry agreed. "But it also shocks me."

"Why?" the bishop asked.

"Because you know more than I do."

"No -- no --"

"But you don't know enough, Nase. You've opened a time gate that Annie -- Anaral, whatever her name is - seems to be able to walk through and which has drawn Polly through it, and I want it closed."

The Books: "A House Like a Lotus" (Madeleine L'Engle)

Next book on the shelf ... (we're in my children's and young adult bookshelves, by the way):

Next book on the shelf is A House Like a Lotus by Madeleine L'Engle.

I can't really describe how much this book meant to me when I first read it - I always think of it, in a way (even though it's not) as a companion book to Ring of Endless Light. They have nothing to do with each other (although they do share some characters - mainly Zachary) - but to me, they are thematically similar - and - I found the reading of them to be an incredibly cathartic and healing thing. Hard to talk about them without making them sound like "message" books - or books meant to be uplifting. I don't think they are. I think L'Engle knows the story she wants to tell, first of all - but underneath all of that, underneath the plot points - is the theme she wants to bring out. Like in Arm of the Starfish - we have Adam making all these choices in the beginning which end up having devastating consequences. Stuff he will have to live with for the rest of his life. He is destroyed, emotionally (we can see that when he shows up in Ring of Endless Light) But - and L'Engle is subtle about this, no hammering over the head - Calvin O'Keefe in that same book is working with starfish, trying to learn about regeneration. Regeneration of limbs. A scientific pursuit. But by the end of the book, you can see that L'Engle has also been working on another level, a metaphoric or spiritual level. We all make terrible choices in life. And some of those choices have repercussions that will last a lifetime. Can we regenerate ourselves like the starfish? Are some wounds forever? What can the starfish teach us about forgiveness - forgiving yourself? I love that about L'Engle. The multiple levels. I always feel like I'm a better feckin' PERSON after reading one of her books - and that's really something, isn't it??

I read House Like a Lotus in the middle of a huge crisis in my life - one of the biggest, at that time. I read it my first year of college - after my senior year of high school had ended in a rather - sharply defined horrible crisis. I was left hurt, scared, and - I can only say scarred. I thought I'd never recover. And the reality was - it took me years to get over it, and I still go back and forth on what happened - and we all still have to deal with the ramifications of what went down back then. My friends will know of what I speak - I'm being vague, because - duh - I choose not to share the details. But anyway - this book came out at around that time, when I just ... did not know how to go on. I was in college and supposed to be all excited about the new experience. But I was - dragging my shadow around in a circle (thanks, Sylvia Plath!!). This book is ALL ABOUT this kind of experience. I read it over and over again. I remember finishing it (the book made me cry - it still does) - and starting it again immediately. It was a deep healing drink. No easy answers. Eventually, when you get right down to it, you have to take responsibility for your own life. You have to admit: I need to heal myself. Otherwise - you let the situation victimize you. I was in need of healing. I could not get over it. This book helped me at least clarify the depths of the situation. It couldn't be avoided. I couldn't ignore what had gone down. I had to deal.

Here's the plot, briefly:

Polly O'Keefe (daughter of Calvin O'Keefe and Meg Murry) is 17 years old. When the book opens, she is sitting at an outdoor cafe in Athens - writing in her journal. It's a first-person narrative book - which is the first time we've been inside Polly's head like that. So we know immediatley that something is wrong with Polly. She feels shell-shocked. She stares at her surroundings, but - she feels dead to them. There's a pain in her. Her heart has been broken. We don't know why. And we won't for a while. The book unfolds slowly. (Uhm ... like a lotus??)

Turns out - that Polly is on her way to the island of Cyprus to be a "girl Friday" at an international conference. And she ends up having an unexpected layover in Greece for a couple of days. Her uncle Sandy (uhm - member him? Sandy Murry??) was supposed to meet her there - he's some kind of secret contractor with the US government - he travels the world - nobody knows what he really does - But anyway, he was supposed to meet her in Greece, spend a day or so with her, and then get her to Cyprus. He was going to be delayed - so Polly has a couple of days to kill by herself. She is so raw at this point that this unexpected delay from her beloved uncle feels like yet another betrayal. But she settles in to being by herself.

She promptly meets a glamorous guy named Zachary (uhm - we've met him before) - who pretty much picks her out of a crowd and pursues her. Polly is confused and put off and flattered - He turns on the charm. But Polly is not available - she's too hurt, by whatever happened. Too damaged. Zachary senses this - and doesn't push - but he definitely keeps pursuing her.

As this present-day story develops - we also go back to the beginnings of the story of whatever it was that so destroyed Polly. Back in South Carolina - where her family now lives - she was kind of an outsider at high school. Polly has lived abroad and on islands all her life (Calvin being a marine biologist) - she speaks a gazillion languages - she's a weirdo. Her uncle Dennys (Sandy's twin - ahem) is a neurologist - and he arranges an introduction between Polly and a woman named Max who lives nearby. Max is a patient of his - and he somehow thinks they would hit it off. Max is an older woman, she's a painter - she lives in this amazing house (L'Engle describes it so well) ... and ... she and Polly do, indeed, hit it off - even with the age difference. Max becomes a kind of loving mentor to Polly. Polly blossoms. Max becomes the most important person in her life.

L'Engle has a lot to say here - about the dangers of idolizing those who mean the most to us.

It's a fantastic book, everyone - again, I think it's a shame, sometimes, that her books are relegated to the children's section of bookstores - because - many of them don't belong there. I mean, yes, 14 year olds can read them and love them ... but does that mean it's not serious literature? To an adult who isn't into young adult fiction - a book like House Like a Lotus doesn't read like "young adult fiction" - it reads like a damn good book, and that's final.

Polly eventually gets to Osia Theola - the conference center on Cyprus - and a whole second section of the book begins: the people she meets ... they're all so vivid, so flawed and so real. YOu love them all. Polly works her ass off at the conference - and learns so much - just from being in the presence of all of these people, many of whom have had tragic things happen to them - many of them coming from war-torn countries. It's not that Polly learns to trivialize her own hurt ... it's that during this experience she basically joins the human race, she joins the world of adults ... where no one is exempt from being hurt, no one is excused, and also: no one is perfect. Children can think other people are perfect. But adults can't get away with that for long. It's hard to give up childish things. But that's what happens for Polly, working at this conference.

She meets a man from an island called Baki - his name is Omio - and they basically become kindred spirits. There's something in him she needs, she senses it immediately. She is still cringing inside her shell - and through her friendship with kindly Omio - she starts to come out again. A bit chastened, perhaps - that's what your first hurt will do to you ... but she's coming out again. Oh - and Zachary, true to form, tracks her down to Cyprus. Keeps calling her at the conference center ... but she's already in a new headspace ... Zachary's glamour and his pushing for sex and his cynical view of the world - is not for her. Even though, in a way, she likes him. But Omio is the one who ushers her into healing. (There's a whole section in the beginning of the book about Epidaurus - and in an example of L'Engle's weaving of two different levels through her book - the Epidaurus episode happens, Polly is unable to accept healing yet - it baffles her ... but then there is Omio - at the end ... who basically becomes an Epidaurus for her.)

I haven't read this book in a while - it's one of my favorites.

Here's an excerpt from the second half of the book. Polly's at the conference, getting to know everyone. Omio rising ....

Excerpt from A House Like a Lotus by Madeleine L'Engle.

Bashemath and Millie were drinking tea, sitting at the table. I hoped I didn't look as though I'd been crying. Norine came toward me. "Where were you, Polly?" she accused. "That same young man phoned you again, and I couldn't find you."

Bashemath said, in her calm, deep voice, "She doesn't have to tell you whenever she goes for a walk, Norine."

"Well, you missed him once more," Norine said to me.

"Is he going to call again?" I asked.

"He didn't say."

I wasn't sure whether I wanted him to or not. This world of Osia Theola was a completely different world from Athens, and Zachary seemed alien to it. Still, I was glad he had called. I was glad he had sent flowers.

"Tea, Norine?" Millie asked. "Polly?"

"No, thank you," Norine said. "I have work to do."

"Do you need me?" I asked. "I've typed Bashemath's stencil. Shall I run it off?"

"Not now, Polly. I'm going over some of my lectures."

"Then I'd love some tea," I said.

Norine trotted across the dusty compound to the office, and Bashemath got a mug, and Millie poured me tea from the large pot on the table.

Millie said, "There are some hot peppers by the dormitory building. I've picked a few, to add to the dinner tonight. This food is good, but not overly seasoned."

Bashemath spoke, following her own train of thought. "Do not let Norine bother you with her sharp ways. She has a heart of gold."

"She doesn't bother me," I replied. "And I'm here to work."

"But not to be overworked."

"Oh, I'm not, and I like work."

Omio drained his mug. "We're not likely to have another free afternoon. How about a swim? Or is it too hot?"

"Much too hot," Bashemath said.

"I don't swim. I'm afraid of crocodiles," Millie said.

Omio laughed. "But this is Cyprus, not Cameroon.

"Nevertheless," Millie said firmly, "no. Thank you."

"I'd love a swim," I said.

"Let's meet under the fig sycamore." Omio smiled at me.

He was there, waiting for me, and we started downhill. "Polly, forgive me."

"For what?"

"I have given you, lo, a romantic picture of Baki. It is not only the Christians there who have done bad things. If the missionaries were not overly concerned, about whether or not the women covered themselves, it was because they were more concerned about the black magic, the witchcraft. Using hateful, hurting magic was as bad as beating a man and rubbing salt in the wounds. Worse. It could kill. We Bakians and the Christians were alike, some good people, turning the heart to love, others wicked, turning to greed and power."

He was holding my hand, swinging it, as we walked. I said, "I guess everybody's like that." And then I asked, "Does your Laughing Christ always laugh?"

His hand squeezed mine. "It is said that in time of great disaster tears fall from his eyes. My great-grandfather is supposed to have seen him cry before a tidal wave which killed many of our people. I have seen only the laughter, and there have been bad things in Baki. But if I ever saw him cry, I think I would be very afraid."

Did the statue on Max's landing ever weep?

We left the houses of the village and moved quietly along the path protected by high walls of grasses plumed with pale fronds, bleached by the fierce sun. And then we came to a tiny pasture I hadn't noticed the night before in the dark. In the pasture were the most beautiful little goats I'd ever seen, with soft, silky hair, and long, drooping ears. We stopped and admired them. They looked at us with great, startled eyes, then went back to grazing.

When we reached the place which Vee had tried to clear of stones, Omio sat down in the water and began to throw stones far up on the shore, to make the path wider. I joined him, throwing the rounded stones as far as possible.

"If we keep at this a little every day," Omio said, "we will keep the path open. I think Vee has tender feet. She is a poet."

That seemed rather a non sequitir, but I thought it likely that Vee did have tender feet, or she wouldn't have bothered to move the stones. My cut foot was not that tough, either. I was glad of the path.

When we had finished throwing what Omio decided were enough stones, he said, "Last night you held back because of Vee, and that was nice of you. But I think you swim well. Let's race." And he splashed into the water and threw himself under a breaker.

I followed. I have learned that it is not a good idea for a girl to beat a man in a race, even though I think that's stupid. However, I did not have to hold back with Omio. It was all I could do to keep up with him.

"How do you come to swim so well?" he asked while we were splashing into shore. The sun was low on the horizon; evening came early to Cyprus; and the sky was flushed with a lovely light.

"I've lived on islands most of my life. We swim a lot."

Omio took my hand, and we walked on up the beach. "You are promised?" he asked.

"What?"

"You have a boyfriend? A special one?"

"No."

"In Baki, by your age, a woman is at least promised."

"In my country I'm considered too young. At least my parents would certainly think so."

Omio swung my hand. "It's time we went home." He gave me his shining smile. "It's home, isn't it?"

Yes. Already the monastery was home.

After the evening meal, with the dark closing in, Krhis said that we would stay in the cloister for the staff meeting instead of going to the upper room. He had each of the staff members talk a little bit about what they planned to do. Bashemath expected to have everything ready for a book fair, posters and all, by the first weekend. Millie hoped they'd be telling their own stories. Frank talked about the hope for small presses, and then, at his urging, Millie sang for us, and then Norine suggested that Omio do one of the Bakian dances.

Without embarrassment, Omio stood up and stripped off his T-shirt, kicked off his sandals. Then he moved into a dance which started with his entire body undulating in slow rhythm. Then the tempo accelerated until Krhis began to clap, joined by Frank, then Millie and Norine. Then Omio squatted low to the ground, with one leg, then the other, stretching out, somewhat like Russian Cossack dances, but much more quickly, incredibly quickly, and then he rose, rose, until he was leaping high into the air, fingers stretching him taller, higher ...

Then the clapping began to come more slowly, winding him down. He was glistening with sweat, breathing in short, panting gasps, and the clapping changed from being an accompaniment to the dance, to applause.

"Lo, now we must sing Saranam." His voice was breathless, and he looked to Millie, who started singing.

In the midst of foes I cry to thee,
From the ends of earth, wherever I may be,
My strength in helplessness, O answer me,
Saranam, saranam, saranam.

Make my heart to grow as great as thine,
So through my hurt your love may shine,
My love be yours, your love be mine,
Saraname, saranam, saranam.

"What does it mean, 'saranam'?" I asked.

"Refuge," Norine said.

"God's richest blessing," Millie added.

Krhis said, "There is no English equivalent."

Frank laughed. "There doesn't need to be. Saranam says it all, loving, giving, caring."

Omio said, "I think it is like a Bakian word which means that love does not judge."

Vee added, "Love is not love which alters which it alteration finds."

"What's that?" Bashemath asked.

"Shakespeare, from one of the sonnets."

"Shakespeare?" Millie asked.

"Sonnets?" asked Bashemath.

Suddenly I realized that things I'd taken for granted, as part of my background, were unknown to people of other cultures.

"Shakespeare is probably our greatest writer in the English language," Vee said, "and the sonnet is a form of poetry. I'll talk about it in one of the workshops. I even hope to have people writing sonnets."

Another thing I realized was how little I knew about Vee. I knew from her poems and novels that she had loved, and passionately. Because of Norine I knew she had an insane husband. There were a few chinks my imagination could fill in, but I realized something else that evening. I realized I was too young to understand much that had happened in the lives of these people who had quickly become my friends.

We finished the lemonade, which was tart and lovely, and Krhis sent us off to bed. I walked across the compound with Omio and Vee.

"Too late for a swim," she said. "Ah, well, we'll make time tomorrow."

"Too bad Frank can't come with us," I said.

Vee nodded. "He does swim at home, in a pool. He misses it."

"Lo, he is a kind man, is Frank," Omio said.

"Yes," Vee agreed. "I wonder if someone who has never suffered, known loss and pain, is capable of true kindness?"

Omio took my hand. "We find much true kindness here in Osia Theola."

iTunes ...

... is evil.

It is like crack.

Seriously.

I feel like I am not responsible enough to deal with iTunes. I feel like I need to have some outside authority limit what I am able to do on iTunes. Like: Oops, Sheila has overstayed her welcome ... she is now cut off until next month. I feel like one of those mindless drones pouring their welfare checks into the slot machines. 10 minutes go by and I could spend 200 bucks. 99 cents a song?? That's NOTHING!! Click, click, click, click ... 50 songs later ...

It's evil.

And yet ... ohmigod ohmigod.

Old favorites I have tracked down on iTunes ... things I only had on cassette tape ...

SPLIT ENZ. Uhm ... that one album ... where every song is awesome? Found it. Click, click, click. I have been listening to Split Enz all day. I freakin' LOVED Split Enz. I'm sorry but I think "Nobody Takes Me Seriously" is just a classic song - I can't get enough!!! "What's the Matter With You"?? Another awesome song - but the album doesn't have a bad song on it. "I Got You". "Shark Attack".

Seriously. I had that thing on cassette for years ... never upgraded to CD because I am retarded ... but now I have it!!

More:

"Better Be Home Soon" by Crowded House. Uhm ... great song? Help me deal with the wistful greatness of that song!! Haven't heard it in years ... but suddenly it popped into my head and I NEEDED to have it.

"House of Fun" by Madness. MADNESS. I can't hear Madness without thinking of Meredith ... just because we listened to that album at her house ALL THE TIME. What a RIDICULOUS album. "Our House" was by far their LEAST good song. "House of Fun" is psychotic. I adore it. And now I have it.

N-n-n-n-n-n-no no miss
You misunderstood
Sixteen big boy
Full pint in my manhood
Im up to date
And the dates today
So if youll serve
Ill be on my way
Welcome to the house of fun
Now I've come of age
Welcome to the lions den
Temptations on his way
Welcome to the house of fun

Uhm ... come again?

"Paint it Black" - Rolling Stones. I'm actually not a huge Stones fan ... but this song? Kicks some seeeeerious ass. Now I have it. Took a run this morning with that damn thing blasting in my ears. That song makes me feel like a bad ass, like: do not. Mess. with me.

"Cool Jerk" - by The Go Gos ... This is another one which always makes me think of being at Mere and Jayne's house in high school. Mere had a bass. She would play the bass. We would listen to "Cool Jerk". Life can't get any better.

"Don't Think Twice, it's all right" - Bob Dylan. Had a LONG overdue crying jag this afternoon listening to that exquisite song. I have a bunch of other Dylan but for some reason - not that one. It touches me. On this deep and almost deja vu level.

"Fell On Black Days" - Soundgarden - Uhm ... YUM.

"Livin' la vida loca" SHUTUP. Great song. But ... Ricky ... I have so many questions. How does a bullet through the brain TAKE AWAY your pain? I mean, yes, with death ... but ... is that really the analogy you're after? And the lines "her skin the color mocha" reaches a level of cheese RARELY achieved. It's so hilarious. And woah: she'll "make you take your clothes off and go dancing in the rain". Man. That is so WACKY. Like: she sounds PSYCHOTIC AND DANGEROUS! Take your clothes off and dance in the rain? What kind of SICK SHITE IS THAT? hahahaha Like: THAT'S the example he uses to show the "danger" of this woman? Sounds pretty benign and fun to me. But woah. It freaked him OUT. Love that song.

And "La La" by Ashlee ("love your body the way it is ... DOH") Simpson. I don't even know anything about this woman's music - except for her various live-performance acid-reflux debacles - but I do know that I heard this song, randomly, on the radio one day last year and found myself jamming out. Then on came the DJ: "And that was Ashlee Simpson!" What?? Great song. LUDICROUS lyrics. Like: you're embarrassed for her. I do not want to think of Ashlee Simpson being a French maid. Or a stray cat. Lapping up the milk on the kitchen floor. I do not want to think of Ashley "dressed up in dirt" (how would that work, exactly? Ashley? How do you get dressed up in dirt?) Also, Ashley - if someone throws you like a boomerang, then it probably isn't good manners to come back and beat them up. Because you say in the first verse of the song that you "like it better when it hurts". So ... if you "like it better when it hurts" - then you really have no call to beat someone up just because they whipped you off towards the horizon like a boomerang. You SAID you like pain, ya little French maid. But whatever. Rockin' stupid song - great for working out.

Joan Armatrading!!! I was SO into her in college (it was kind of a prerequisite if you wanted to be friends with Mitchell. He showed me the ways of the Armatrading). Me Myself I!! Awesome song! I Love It When You Call Me Names. Terrific. And then - the achey-heart song "Love and Affection" - which resonates so deeply with me right now that I kinda can't even listen to the song yet. Soon. What a song. She's marvelous.

And lastly:

"Rock Lobster" - B-52s. It just never gets old.

Back away from the iTunes, Sheila. Back away.

The Books: "The Arm of the Starfish" (Madeleine L'Engle)

Next book on the shelf ... (we're in my children's and young adult bookshelves, by the way):

Next book on the shelf is The Arm of the Starfish by Madeleine L'Engle.

I don't care how old you are - this is a great book. It's NOT just for adolescents - so in a way, I wish it would be integrated into fiction shelves for adults - becaues I bet some adults would miss it otherwise, and that is a damn shame. This book has it all. It's basically an international spy thriller - but there's also that L'Engle touch of having it also be about a young man's coming of age. L'Engle knows that "coming of age" is almost never a graceful process - and a lot of times, something awful has to happen to jerk someone up out of childhood. Something wrenching.

This is a book starring Adam Eddington (the Adam from Ring of Endless Light) - and from the very start, he makes a decision to trust Kali - the hottie he meets at Kennedy International Airport. This ends up being a fatal decision with truly devastating consequences. When we meet Adam in Ring of Endless Light he is still recovering from the experience, still trying to forgive himself, live with his own actions.

Arm of the Starfish has an intricate plot - it involves foreign countries, and embassies, and limousines cruising through the midnight streets of Lisbon, carrying international businessmen up to NO GOOD ... but it also is about the confrontation between good and evil. Innocence and corruption. What happens to innocence in this world? What happens to innocence in the face of corruption? What is true innocence? Does innocence = naivete? Or is there a deeper kind of innocence - an innocence that accepts the corruption of the world but refuses to succumb? Adam is caught up in that battle from page 1 of this book. Kali is a babealicious international hottie with a rich father. But it's her looks ... and her flattery of Adam ... that get him hooked. He mistakes beauty for goodness. A lot of people do. Most people do, I would say. Beauty seems to equal Good. Adam learns, eventually, how wrong he was in his assessment of Kali - but the true thing about Kali is not that she is EVIL, not so much. But she is corrupt. She represents a corrupt world. Corruption will NEVER trust innocence because corruption always thinks there needs to be an angle. Corruption will NEVER trust that anyone would behave altruistically. I know "corrupt" people. In the context of L'Engle's book, corruption doesn't just mean: Oh, he cheats on his taxes, and he ciphers money out of the company and buys private jets ... Corruption is often used only in a financial context. But there's a spiritual context as well. L'Engle is looking at both contexts in this book. Adam throws his trust with Kali - and he sees the O'Keefes and Canon Tallis through her eyes - She has told him not to trust them. So even though they come at him with openness, friendliness, and goddness - because he is seeing through Kali's eyes, he wonders to himself, "What's their angle? Are they really what they seem??"

Great book. I HIGHLY recommend you pick it up - I won't even tell you more about it.

Let's just say that Adam, a marine biology student, is traveling to a small island off the coast of Portugal - to work with Calvin O'Keefe for the summer (from Wrinkle, of course) - Calvin is now married to Meg - and he is a famous marine biologist - but because, of course, he's in a L'Engle book - he's working on some stuff that powerful forces out there want to control. His main interest is in starfish, and limb regeneration. Adam is going to live with the O'Keefe family (and their bazillion kids) for the summer and be Calvin's assistant. Polly (and actually I was wrong - this book comes before Dragons in the Waters - Polly is 14 in Dragons - and she's only 12 years old here - still a little girl) attaches herself to Adam. She adores Adam. Adam - because of the distrust placed in his head by his encounter with Kali - doesn't really succumb to the experience. He's more spying on Calvin than learning from him.

Horrible-ness ensues. It's a fantastic book.

Oh - and there's another great character - his name is Joshua Archer. Friend of the O'Keefe family and friend of Canon Tallis. Adam is asleep in a hotel room in Portugal - he will be picked up by Calvin later in the day, apparently - so he is sleeping off his jet lag. When he opens his eyes - after hours of sleep - an unknown man is sitting in his hotel room with him. It turns out that his name is Joshua. He is there to take Adam to the O'Keefe family. But ... well, there's way more to Joshua than meets the eye. He is an amazing character. L'Engle tells a great story about the writing of this book. She had been on a trip to Portugal - and the place was so rich for her, so ... vivid ... that she knew she had to write a book that took place there. She was in a fever. The plot came to her. O'Keefe family ... starfish ... young man coming into the mix ... and she said that she was writing about Adam sleeping, and suddenly Joshua showed up. She had not planned Joshua, she had not made Joshua up - she was writing the episode, and AS she wrote it - she was like: "Wait ... where did HE come from? Who is he?" Joshua is the vortex of the book - he becomes the moral center of this entire book. But L'Engle hadn't planned for him, made space for him ... He just HAPPENED. She has said that Joshua Archer is one of the only times in her writing life when that ever happened to her. When her writing took her over. When she didn't create Joshua, oh no - Joshua INSISTED on being part of the story. I love that.

Anyway - here's an excerpt from the beginning of the book. Adam has woken up to find Joshua in his room. Joshua is in charge of taking Adam to the O'Keefe's. A lot of crazy shit has already gone down - Adam a pawn - Adam has to choose whether or not to go on to the O'Keefe's. Nobody knows about Kali and her powerful tycoon father ... who have basically hired Adam to spy.

Excerpt from The Arm of the Starfish by Madeleine L'Engle.

They left the hotel without speaking to anybody, without giving in keys at the desk, without further communication with Arcangelo. Joshua turned to the right and they walked briskly for about ten minutes through the sweet summer darkness. They stopped before a narrow house faced in gleaming blue-and-white patterned tile. "Ever seen the Portugese tile before?" Joshua asked absently, not waiting for Adam to respond. "It's quite famous." He put his key in the door. "I have the top floor. Modest, but mine. I love this stairway. Pink marble. Beautiful, isn't it?"

"Yes." Adam followed him up three flights.

At the top was a blue painted door, which Joshua also unlocked, saying, "Gone are those innocent days when I didn't worry about keys. I got awfully tired of having my things gone through. So 'Gelo very kindly helped me fashion a lock that is impossible to pick or duplicate."

"Who is Arcangelo?" Adam demanded.

"My very good friend." Joshua flicked a switch and in the ceiling a crystal chandelier sparkled into life.

Adam looked around. They were in a fair-sized room, a room that smelled of tobacco and books. It was, indeed, more of a library than a living room, as there were books not only on all four walls but piled on tables and window sills. Adam saw in a quick glance a record player and shelves of records, a sagging couch covered with an Indian print, an old red rep easy chair, a large desk that looked as though it had been discarded from an office. It was a good room, the kind of room Adam had dreamed of having some day. He looked at a Picasso print over one of the bookshelves, a sad-eyed harlequin on a white horse. The harlequin reminded him of someone, and suddenly he realized that it was Joshua himself.

Joshua pointed to an open door. "Bedroom and bath. Go in and make yourself at home. Your stuff's all in there. I'll make us some coffee. I don't have a proper kitchen, just a hot plate, but it does."

Adam nodded and went into the bedroom. It was a small, bare room, furnished only with a narrow brass bed, a chest of drawers, a straight chair. The walls were white and absolutely bare. The room was cold and austere in comparison to the cluttered warmth of the living room.

Adam washed his hands and face. He was not being sent back to America. He was going to Gaea. He could not help liking Joshua. But if he should see Kali again how would he feel? So far he had managed to tell Joshua nothing of any importance, and Joshua did not seem to be going to pursue his questioning.

-- Play it cool, Adam, he seemed to hear a voice in his ear. Kali's voice.

As long as nobody knew that it was Kali who had come to him at the Avenida Palace, that it was to Kali's apartment he had gone, that he was expected to work for Typhon Cutter as a -- what had Mr. Cutter said? Patriotic duty, wasn't it? -- then he had not yet committed himself to either side. And as long as he didn't commit himself he couldn't do anything too terribly wrong. Could he?

-- I wish thing were black and white, he thought savagely. -- I wish things were clear.

He remembered his math teacher back at school, a brilliant young Irishman, telling of his personal confusion when he first began to study higher mathematics and discovered that not all mathematical problems have one single and simple answer, that there is a choice of answers and a decision to be made by the mathematician even when dealing with something like an equation that ought to be definite and straightforward and to allow of no more than one interpretation. "And that's the way life is," the teacher had said. "Right and wrong, good and evil, aren't always clear and simple for us; we have to interpret and decide; we have to commit ourselves, just as we do with this equation."

As though reading his thoughts Joshua came and lounged in the doorway. "Don't hold off too long, Adam. The time comes when you have to make a choice and you're not going to be able to put it off much longer. Unless you've already made it?"

"I don't know." Adam rubbed his face with a clean rough towel.

"The trouble is," Joshua said, "that I can't guarantee you anything. If you decide to work with Dr. O'Keefe I can't in any honesty tell you that anything is going to be easier for you than it has been for the past few days. I can tell you that nobody expected things to start breaking quite so soon, or we wouldn't have let you come. You were never supposed to be in any kind of danger. It was pure coincidence that it was this summer that Old Doc decided you were worth sending to Dr. O'Keefe to be educated. Of course neither Canon Tallis nor Dr. O'Keefe believe in coincidence. I'm afraid that I do, and that we're often impaled upon it. Then, on the other hand, I can't help wondering if it was pure coincidence that made Canon Tallis finish his work in Boston at just the moment he did so that he and Poly were on the plane with you."

"But if he was lecturing there," Adam protested, "he'd know when he was going to be through."

"Oh, did he tell you he was lecturing? Well, probably he was," Joshua said somewhat vaguely. "The main thing is that if you're worth educating then I suppose you ought to be up to facing whatever there is to face, oughtn't you?"

"What is there to face?" Adam sat at the foot of Joshua's bed.

Joshua did not answer his question. Instead: "Maybe it'll help you if I tell you that it wasn't easy for me, either. I don't know about you, Adam, but I can't look forward to pie in the sky. I'm a heretic and a heathen, and I let myself depend far too much on the human beings I love, because -- well, just because. I guess the real point is that I care about having a decent world, and if you care about having a decent world you have to take sides. You have to decide who, for you, are the good guys, and who are the bad guys. So, like the fool that I am, I chose the difficult side, the unsafe side, the side that guarantees me not one thing besides danger and hard work."

"Then why did you choose it?" Adam demanded.

Joshua continued to lean against the door. "Why? I'm not sure I did. It seemed to choose me, unlikely material though I be. And it's the side that -- that cares about people like Polyhymnia O'Keefe." He wheeled and went back into the living room. In a moment the sound of music came clear and gay, Respighi's The Birds, Adam thought, following him into the living room. Joshua grinned. "It's the fall of the sparrow I care about, Adam. But who is the sparrow? We run into problems there, too. Now let's have our coffee."

He picked up a battered white enamel percolator from the hot plate on one of the bookcases. "Want to go to the Embassy when we're through?"

Adam watched Joshua pour the dark and fragrant brew. "Why? Do we have to?"

Joshua handed him a cup, indicated sugar and milk. "No. Not if you don't want to."

"I'm not sure it would make things any clearer." Adam put three heaping spoons of sugar in his coffee. "I don't want to telephone anybody. I mean, why bother Old Doc? I think he feels about me kind of the way you feel about Poly, if you know what I mean, so it would just be upsetting to him to have me ask him to help make up my own mind. I mean, I have to do it msyelf, don't I?"

"When you get right down to it, yes," Joshua said.

"And the whole idea of the Embassy business is very confusing to me. I mean, you working there, and then both the O'Keefes and the Cutters seeming to know everybody, and everybody thinking the Embassy's on their side and it can't be on everybody's side. I think I'd rather stay clear of any more confusion for a while."

"Okay," Joshua said. "I follow you. I thought it might help, but I see your point. What about your passport, by the way?"

Adam felt the by-now-familiar jolt in the pit of his stomach. "I suppose it's still at the Avenida Palace. I'd forgotten all about it."

Joshua reached in his breast pocket and handed the thin green book to Adam. "Here. But it's something you'd better remember from now on. Think you could do any more sleeping?"

"You wouldn't think I could, would you?" Adam asked, yawned, and laughed.

"Good. Let's just have coffee and maybe listen to a little music and go to bed. I'll take the sofa in here; I'm used to it. In the morning we'll go to Gaea. I hope you won't mind flying with me. Actually I'm a pretty fair pilot."

Without knowing why Adam realized that he would feel perfectly safe with Joshua at the controls of plane, boat, or car. It was an instinct that the wariness acquired in the past three days could not shake, no matter how little at the moment he trusted his instincts.

Situational crush

Don't read this story looking for a big finish. There is no big finish. There is merely a split-second of utter perfection, and that is what I want to describe.

I had what I call a "situational crush" on Kyle. I do that sometimes, if I'm bored and need to liven up my daily routine a bit. I'll create a random crush on, oh, the guy who gives me my coffee every morning. So I can look forward to seeing him, have a flirty-flirt, and go on with my day unscathed. It breaks up the routine. I will also create a situational crush if I'm having a particularly great time in my life - (doing something that is out of the ordinary routine). Sometimes the situational crush will blossom into something significant - but more often than not, it's just something to pass the time in a more pleasant way. I believe that a lot of actor marriage breakups begin as "situational crushes". As in: Okay, I am making this movie in Mozambique, and I am out of my ordinary routine for 4 months, home is far far away, I am SO busy doing this movie ... and so .... hmmm ... my costar ... let me just get a little crush on him to make my time here even MORE fun and sparkley and shimmery, etc. If you're married, then the Mozambique situational crush can turn into a tabloid debacle - but if you're not married? Have at it!!

Situational crushes don't need to go anywhere. Situational crushes don't need to be referred to, spoken about, or acknowledged. You do not ever need to declare yourself to your situational crush (ie: "I have a wicked crush on you. Will you please kiss me before I go insane?") . Nothing even needs to HAPPEN with the situational crush. It is just there to be enjoyed, savored. Situational crushes are also good if you are bruised a bit from heartache, and don't feel ready to risk it all again - and yet don't want to traipse through the boroughs of Manhattan having sordid one-night stands. Because there is very little risk in the situational crush. You can pretend you're 13 years old again (but without the baby fat, and crank calls, and horrific social rituals). You can have a crush without needing ANYthing from it. You can just enjoy the other person, and get a little stomach fluttery at the thought of seeing them ... A situational crush can remind you, in key moments, in low moments, that you are still alive. That you are still capable of having those feelings again. Again: without the risk. Did I mention that part? Without the risk. That's my favorite part.

I think sometimes people THINK they are having a situational crush ... they THINK they can handle it ... but then they get all nuts, and they ride a roller coaster of emotion ... and they end up sobbing drunkenly at a party because the situational crush is now making out with the prop girl ... and what about your feelings for him??? What do you do with that crushy feeling NOW?? Uhm, not that I've done that or anything.

You can mistake a situational crush for the real thing because the emotions are so intense. Especially if you're in a vulnerable spot. You can mistake the sweep of 13 year old flirty-flirt for "soulmate comin' towards ya". This is the huge danger with the situational crush. You can get CRUSHED by the situational crush which defeats the whole purpose.

Situational crushes, basically, are not for amateurs.

I have honed my craft. I have it down to a science now. I may not know how to do many things but I know how to do THIS. I have slipped up a couple of times, but I treated those failures as learning experiences. As in: Oh. Okay. I truly thought he was my soulmate, when really - I'm just a wee bit bored right now and I love how he smiles at me when he hands me my beer ... and I am mistaking that friendly bartender smile for true love ... only because I am BORED and looking for excitement. (Again: that is just a hypothetical. Ahem.)

But Kyle? By the time I met Kyle, I was a true expert in this fine art. I knew what I was doing. And I knew it as I was doing it. I was having a particularly intense and important experience (working on my thesis project in grad school) and I wasn't in love with anyone, or dating anyone ... and I just felt that yearning to have a crush. I wanted to add romance to the mix desperately - just for excitement. Not to have anything HAPPEN. But just for FUN. To heighten everything. (withouttherisk. Member that part? withouttherisk)

And then along came Kyle, the stagehand, and after our first conversation I knew I had found my crush for the run of the show. I had been looking for someone - and voila, he appeared. I had been in the cloister of grad school for 3 years. I knew all the guys. I was either not interested in them, vaguely disgusted by them, full of white-hot hatred for them, or they were involved with someone else. It was like being a senior in high school when the dances lose their shimmer and excitement because ... uhm ... who ya gonna meet that you haven't met already??

If you don't understand the lure of the situational crush yet - either your constitution is not cut out for it (and a lot of people are like that - nothing wrong with that - different strokes and all) or I haven't explained it well enough. My interest in Kyle had no GOAL. It was the equivalent of meeting up with Keith M. in the hallways between class, and having a brief amusing conversation before the bell rang. I had no expectation that Keith M. and I would be Homecoming King and Queen. Or Jack and Diane. Or Brenda and Eddie. No. Seeing him in the hallways was something to look forward to, something that gave the monotony of high school a shimmer. Innocent. With no needs. Nothing put on it. It was nothing other than what it was: a crush. Beautiful. I think when we reach adulthood, with our experiences, our heartbreaks, we forget how to do that. There is nothing so lovely as an innocent crush.

And that's what I had on Kyle. He was a stagehand, as I mentioned. He wore baggy battered jeans and big RUINED Doc Martens. He had a beaten-up leather belt - with tools attached to it - all the way around. Like Harriet the Spy. (Scroll down here to see what I'm talking about. That image, by the way, is the wallpaper on my laptop. Check out her belt with all that stuff hooked to it.) Kyle was the go-to man. As all stagehands should be. "Kyle - I need to cross by back here in the dark ... can I get some glow tape?" Kyle whips the glowtape roll off his belt and bites strips of it off - to place along the floor in the darkness so the blind actor can see her way. "Kyle - any idea why this door is stuck? I need to throw it open when I enter but I always have to jerk at it!" Kyle whips a small oil can off his belt and oils the hinges so the door flings open. "Kyle - I need brain surgery - can you remove the tumor before I have to go onstage?" Kyle whips out a scalpel from off his belt and begins to cut open the actress' head. He could do ANYthing - and every tool he needed was on that belt.

Kyle was shlumpy. Blurpy. I do not believe he ever darkened the doors of a gym. But he was sturdy. He could lift entire flats by himself, he could carry an entire single bed on his back (I saw him do it), but he would never be seen pumping iron somewhere. He wore thick Elvis Costello glasses, he was pale - pale like some small glowworm you'd find under a rock - he had a shock of curly blonde hair - and he was from Alabama so he had a mellifluous accent. Not to the people from Alabama, to be sure, but to me it was a beautiful accent. He also was absolutely NUTS. He would show up at cast parties, having changed out of his battered jeans - into black leather pants. He would dance so hard that sweat would literally fly off of his golden locks as he gyrated around. He would do copious shots of tequila in the kitchen with Anya, the gorgeous actress from Russia with the nosejob and the Brazilian wax who weighed 63 pounds. But then there he would be, the next day, in his battered jeans, marking out glow tape all over backstage for the blundering night-blind actors. Kyle was WILD.

Perfect for a situational crush.

I would be sitting in the house, during tech rehearsal, waiting for them to call me - and he would make funny banter-y comments to me as he strolled by (carrying a damn bed on his back, or whatever). He always said Hello. I cherished those moments. Let it just be said here, so we're clear: I was so BUSY, and so all-consumed with my project ... that I didn't want to get all involved in a love affair. I wasn't trying to make anything happen. I didn't give him a second thought outside of our interactions. That would have defeated my purpose. I knew that I was going through a once-in-a-lifetime thing: my thesis project!! And it was, to put it mildly, kind of a struggle to make it all happen. I was consumed with my work. I didn't need any complications, any distractions. But to fully enjoy, in a stomach-fluttery way, Kyle's flirty-flirts with me as he staggered by beneath an armoire? Hell yes.

I don't want to make this into some big build-up. Because the moment I am moving towards probably lasted less than a second - maybe a second - if that. But if you're going to have a situational crush, if you're going to decide to focus your 10 minutes of free time a day on some random person - then it might as well end up in a moment of utter perfection. A moment of, dare I say it, art. I have always made my love affairs into art. Maybe it's just a matter of perception. How I see things. Like Meryl Streep's character in Postcards says, "I want life to be art." So do I. And you know what? More often than not, it is. It's just how I see it. Sometimes it is an unbearable burden. Because then every random guy I meet (Uhm ...) becomes a piece of art. But I can't help it. That's how I see it. That's how I make my way through the maze. My encounters with these people are art. What Kyle did to me was art. I think "art" in its purest form, whatever form it takes, is perfect. That's what I'm leading up to here. Not a makeout session, or a relationship, or a love affair - all of those things which may be beautiful, they may be fun and exciting - but they are always flawed. What I am leading up to here in this story is a moment. Just a moment. And a moment can be perfect.

I guess that's why I remember it. No other reason to remember Kyle, the classic situational crush .. I've had a million of them, and 99% of them I don't remember - but I will ALWAYS remember Kyle ... because the whole thing culminated in a perfect second of art.

I was playing Maggie in After the Fall. It was a rigorous part. I had done a shitload of work on it ... and by the time we opened, all I needed to do was just sit back, relax, and be alive onstage in those imaginary circumstances. But there was most definitely a certain headspace I needed to be in to do this part - it took up a TON of space in my life. I couldn't just roll into the theatre half hour before curtain, slap some makeup on, and go onstage. Or maybe I could have ... it would have been interesting to see what would have happened if I HADN'T had that time ... I'm sure I would have stepped up - but where I was at at that time in my development: getting ready for the show that night took up half my day ... at around 1 or 2 pm, I'd start to get into the headspace of Maggie, and then just keep it percolating until curtain time. Not boiling over, of course not. Boiling over was for the audience. But the percolating always started early in the day. I've done parts where it takes me 5 minutes to get into the headspace of the character. Maggie - just like her character in the play - took up a TON of room. And I gave her that room.

I had two costumes. Now this will be important later. And now is when I really wish I had my own personal scanner because I could show you the two costumes so you could get the idea.

My first costume was: a skintight champagne colored dress. It was zippered up the back and it was made of a thick almost upholster-y fabric. Very early 1960s. It was gorgeous. I had on little white kid gloves. I had on pumps. I also had on a head scarf over my bouffant-ish hairdo. There was jewelry involved. I wore cat-eyed sunglasses. It was a perfect outfit. Based on a couple of different Marilyn Monroe stills taken by Sam Shaw. (This one gives you some idea of what I was going for.) I gave that image and a couple others to the costume shop - and they executed my version of it brilliantly. It's one of my most favorite costumes I have ever worn. I don't mind saying that I looked perfect - and by that I mean: exactly what I dreamed. That's what you want your costume to be. You want to be able to step into your own dream of the character when you put it on. When I put that dress on - it did half my work for me. I didn't have to turn myself inside out, or "work" on Maggie. The dress did most of it. I looked at myself and saw Maggie.

My second costume was much simpler: big striped men's pajamas. Bare feet. Nothing else. This was Maggie coming unglued. This was Maggie at 3 a.m. In her sugar daddy's pajamas. Drunk. Insomniac. Desperate. Terrified. In a hotel room. She has no home. She is famous. But she has NO ONE TO CALL at 3 a.m. She is beloved by the masses but she is the loneliest person in the world. She doesn't even have her own pajamas. The pajamas were my idea. The original costume sketches came to me and I saw the revealing negligee that had been designed and I thought: Uhm. No. That's not right, it's too on the nose. It has to be counter to what you expect. The way I saw it was: she's not a sexpot - like her public image - she's a lonely little girl, swimming in pajamas that are too big for her. Men's pajamas. Which, even unexplained, give a kind of pathetic air to her - also sort of ... it hints at the casting couch which is near Maggie at all times. She deals with the casting couch, she accepts it, she uses it ... but ... at 3 a.m. - all of her choices start to catch up with her. NONE of this is said in the script - but I thought men's pajamas would point to that subtext. You wouldn't NEED the words.

I had a 12 second costume change between these two costumes. I had to go from the full dress to the men's pajamas in 12 seconds - and be back onstage in time to pick up my first cue. All of this would happen in the front lobby of Circle in the Square Downtown - and I would be assisted in this feat by two members of the costume crew. I would exit from my first scene - and then pretty much stand TOTALLY still - as they whipped the clothes off me and put the pajamas on. All I would have to do, pretty much, would be to step out of my shoes - and then lift each one of my legs into the pajama bottoms. But I would not be in charge of any of the dressing itself. Not enough time. (This reminds me that I do need to do a post about memorable Quick Changes in the Theatre - there are so many good stories!!) It just takes practice - nothing left to chance. We worked it out during the first tech - we had our own costume-change rehearsal - it needed to be run. Everyone had their job. It never altered. Ellen would unzip my dress - I would begin to wriggle out of it - she would whip it off me. Meanwhile, Anne would be squatting beside me - holding open the pajama legs - all scrunched up - so I would just step my foot into the hole and she would pull them up. Zoom! At the same time - Ellen will have tossed the dress aside and held open the pajama top for me - I hold out my arms - she puts my arms through the sleeves - ZOOM! I buttoned it myself - only 2 buttons. Off with the earrings. And then BOOM! Onstage for the next scene! Completely changed! 12 seconds! Lights coming up ... and voila ... I stroll right into the scene.

Of course - DURING that frenzied costume change - I am also silently gearing up for the next scene, which requires a completely different mood than the first scene. First scene? I am wandering through the park, I'm kind of a lost little girl, I meet this man, I'm overwhelmed by his kindness, I attach myself to him (a stranger) forevermore ... So first scene I needed to just be totally open, and GUILE-less. An innocent. A sense that she could be taken advantage of at any moment. A softness. A vulnerability. Second scene? Totally different. She's drunk. Drunk drunk drunk. And it is a couple of years later. She is now famous. But she has nightmares. And she is terrified of the closet. And she is having a full-blown panic attack when the scene starts. Okay - so you get the change that needs to occur within Maggie in between those scenes? It's kinda massive.

But I had done all my homework, we had rehearsed it like crazy ... so I was able to do my emotional transition as Ellen and Anne were whipping clothes off of me and throwing clothes onto me. I lifted my feet up, wriggled my body a bit to get the dress off over my hips, lifted my foot up, lifted my other foot up, held my arms out, buttoned 2 buttons ... all going into my Scene 2 Mindspace.

We got this change down to a science. We were able to do it without thinking. There is great exhilaration in a well-done quick change (but I will save those ruminations for a later post.)

I have strayed far from Kyle, my blurpy crush, but I needed to do the set-up - because the moment of perfection would be meaningless without the set-up.

I would arrive at the theatre early and go to the dressing room. I was usually the first one there. I would set my hair in a leisurely manner. I would take the curlers out. Do a bit of teasing. Spraying. No rush. All the time I'm moving slowly into performance mode. I would put on my makeup. It was a ritual. I put on my eyelashes. Then on came the costume. By this point - it was half-hour. So all the other actors are arriving. But I'm done. So I would put on the finishing touches and then go out into the backstage area - quiet, shadowy, blue-lit, deserted - and sit in a chair that I had put back there. I could hear the audience start to come in out in the theatre. But this was my quiet meditative time. The sound of the audience was part of that. Gettin' ready for show time now.

Okay so now we MUST bring Kyle back in because he was such a big part of this blue-lit backstage time.

It was his quiet time as well - he had nothing to do. All glow tape had been placed. All door hinges had been oiled. All beds carried to their proper backstage spot. All brain surgery performed. So he just hung out on the sidelines, a dark hovering presence, quiet, alert. Once the curtain went up - this man would be busier than ANY of us. Moving furniture into place, striking props, sliding flats from here to there ... but for now? He waited. As I waited.

He's used to theatre people - after all, this is his job - so the first night that I sat in that chair backstage, he whispered to me, through the blue light, "Break a leg. Is it okay if I talk to you?"

Stomach fluttery crushy-crush. "Sure. It's okay. We'll have to stop talking in 10 minutes though." (My internal clock ... like i said: Maggie was a demanding bitch!!)

So every night it was a ritual - I would come backstage. Before anybody else. I sat in the blue light - wearing my va-va-voom champagne colored dress, my pumps, my head scarf, my sunglasses - like a woman stepped out of an earlier time ... and he would stand right in front of me, kind of fidgety in his blurpy body (he had a lot of excess energy) and he would crack jokes and make me laugh. He flirted with me. He would silently show me his new "dance moves" - which were too funny to even describe - and I would whisper at him, "Please stop ..." because I was afraid I'd start to laugh so hard I would cry and then my fake eyelashes would drip off. He was so unselfconscious. I loved that about him. He was a PERFECT situational crush. No demands.

Then, I just knew when we would have to stop talking ... because the noise of the audience out front was more intense, louder, curtain-time was probably 10 minutes away ... and I needed to just go within, do my actress thing ... so I would whisper, "Okay. We have to stop talking now." And suddenly, he would disappear. No explanations needed. He's a stagehand. He's an experienced stagehand. Actors have their process just like he has his. It takes both sides to make this show happen. If you have contempt for an actor's process - whatever it may be - then don't feckin' be a stagehand. If you roll your eyes and snicker at the silly vocal warm-up sounds Laurence Olivier makes backstage before going on - then you get fired. That's the deal. It's a collaboration. Two-sided. Practical considerations and artistic considerations. An actor needs to be unselfconscious in her process. You also need to be respectful of others, and do your warmup in a way that doesn't hinder anybody else. But if you have to sit backstage, and do head rolls and make crazy grimacing faces in order to waken up the muscles in your face - then do it. Stagehands (good ones) keep doing what they have to do - double-checking props, murmuring to the stage manager on headset, stepping around the actors doing their silent thing. It's a beautiful collaboration.

Kyle totally got that. I didn't have to patiently explain to him, "Okay ... you need to stop talking to me after the 15-minute call to places ... because I need to get into performance mode ..." I only had to say once, "Okay. No more talking" and POUF. He disappeared in a cloud of smoke. hahahaha But that was our ritual, every night for the run of the show. A whispered hilarious flirty-flirt ridiculous conversation, bathed in the dark-blue and midnight-black of backstage - all colors disappeared - my skin glowing blue - the lenses of his glasses reflecting bluely at me - his pale glowworm skin taking on a bluish tone - and the rest of his body swathed in blackness ... He would make me laugh. He kept me loose. I didn't tense up. I just sat back there, and enjoyed the 5 or 10 minutes of innocent banter. It was one of those small gifts of the run of the show. It's funny the things you remember. I might have gotten overly serious if I hadn't had Kyle to distract me in those moments. I might have over-thought things. But he and I would just sit back there, giggling about, oh, Calvin and Hobbes ... and it was perfect.

Like I said before: relationships are never perfect. But situational crushes can be - IF YOU RECOGNIZE IT AS A SITUATIONAL CRUSH and don't try to make it into something more. It's the "something more" that causes all the problems.

Now comes the split-second of utter perfection. Since it was a situational crush and I recognized it as such - I didn't start behaving like a lovesick girl around him. I didn't hover near him at a party, hoping to talk to him. I didn't angst about it. I didn't think: "Hmmm. Maybe this can go somewhere!" (Good thing I didn't - because it turns out the entire time we had our blue-lit flirty-flirt, the entire run of the show - he was having a TORRID love affair with someone - and it actually ended up being a long-lasting relationship ... so I would have just got my heart broke, and who needs that? Not from a situational crush. No no no.)

But the whole thing culminated in a moment of such ... almost cinematic perfection ... that I still think about it sometimes, and it always makes me laugh. It makes me thankful that the moment happened. Because ... what are the odds? How many people EVER get to experience such a thing when they are having a situational crush?? This could ONLY happen in the theatre - where fantasy and reality don't just blend. They are totally the same thing.

The show was up and running. Everything was going beyond my wildest dreams. And one night - after the first scene - I came rushing off through the audience into the empty lobby - where Ellen and Anne stood, frozen like statues with my next costume in hand (Anne already squatting near the ground, holding out my pajama bottoms). I stood in my position, kicked off my shoes - Ellen went to unzip my dress - and immediately: terror. The zipper stuck. It stuck. Now we only had 12 seconds. So every second was essential. I felt the zipper stuck - we all felt it - I heard Ellen murmur, "Shit" which was enough to send panic flood-waves reverberating through the lobby. The dress was so tight that I could not pull it up over my head, I could not wriggle out of it - I was trapped in my champagne-colored creation. What follows feels like it took 15 or 20 seconds - but it honestly could only have been 2 or 3. How is that possible? So much happened - and I remember it all, every moment. It was Ellen murmuring "Shit" that escalated everything. Okay - so the costume girl is murmuring "Shit"?? We're in big trouble. The next scene started with me. I couldn't be late. How could I get out of this dress? Ellen kept yanking at my zipper. I wanted to RIP MY DAMN DRESS OFF WITH MY BARE HANDS. I immediately was out of my mind. "Oh my God ... ohmigod ohmigod ... get it off me ... get it off me ..." Ellen kept yanking at the zipper - I was wriggling around - the music cue out front was nearing the moment where I was supposed to enter ... Someone save me!! How will this all end???? I MUST GET ONSTAGE. I would have had to do the second scene in my dress - if push came to shove - which would have ruined the entire effect and made for a very confusing audience experience. ("Uhm ... it's 2 years later ... but she's still in that same dress??")

There were other actors in the lobby - waiting around to make their entrances ... and they sensed the panic in the 3 of us - and they all moved back ... watching nervously. (Funny - my friend Eileen said to me later, "Somehow I just knew - that when you went on for your second scene after that disaster - it was gonna be so damn good ... Like: Uh-oh. Look out." )

The zipper-struggle felt interminable - Anne had given up her squat-position and had joined Ellen behind me - looking at the zipper, trying to yank it out of its stuck position. I was almost whimpering. I admit it. I have never felt so trapped. "oh god oh god please get it off me get it off me ...."

At that moment, Kyle entered the lobby - in the middle of his scene change. He was carrying a bench and a lamp, or something like that. He was loaded down with furniture. Ellen hissed, "Kyle - her dress ..."

In a flash, Kyle had put down all the stuff he was carrying - and was there - behind me - Ellen whispered, "It's stuck - the zipper ..." Kyle held onto my arm, whispered to me, "Hold still, baby," (uhm, anything you say, sir) - and I saw him whip his retractable razor blade off of his belt - his awesome belt - I heard the click of the razor come out - Ellen whispered, "Don't move" - and in one quick movement, one flashing movement of his wrist - he sliced my dress off of me - down the seam so the costume designer wouldn't have to remake the entire dress. Let me reiterate: I stood as still as I could (man, it was hard not to wriggle - the sense of urgency was so strong), and Kyle - the guy I had a crush on - the guy I felt all stomach-fluttery about - neatly sliced my dress off of me with a razor blade.

I think lots of people enjoy simple little crushes - with a bartender they see once a week, with a co-worker who comes in from out of town once a month, with the guy at the corner deli who sells the newspaper ... But I think very few women actually get to experience having their crush slice off their dress with a razor blade. It was one of the most delicious erotic ridiculous moments in my entire life. Of course I didn't have time to revel in what had just happened. We were all too intent on just getting me out onstage.

But there was Kyle - a savior with a tool belt - and then whoosh - my dress came off me - and then on went the pajama top the pajama bottoms and I raced onstage - absolutely hysterical - and yes, Eileen was right. I was in such a crazy state that pretty much anything I did in that second scene was correct. Maggie is supposed to be manic, upset, she can't sleep, she's pacing, she's a mess ... I didn't have to act one damn thing that night. I just ran onstage, and kept the vibe going from that lobby when I was trying to get my damn dress off.

It was only later that I could linger over, in my mind, the absolute perfection of that moment. Kyle and I laughed about it at the cast party later that night - we re-enacted it 5 times, we regaled everyone with the story, we told it in tandem ("Okay -now you tell YOUR part!!") - it was a great story - one of my best "quick change" stories that I have. Being cut out of my dress.

Oh - and Kyle's cut was so accurate and so sure - that all the costume designer had to do was put the damn thing under the needle again and sew the seam back up. Kyle, in that fevered moment of urgency, with a wriggling panicky actress under his hands, hadn't cut into that fabric. He had 5 million things going on in his head at one time. First of all: he was in the middle of a set change. He had 3 other things to do before his OWN job was complete. But an emergency came up and he had just the tool for the job. He had to get me out of the dress - that was priority #1 - and if he had to rip the fabric, then so be it. But Kyle also had in his head the costume designer's priorities - so he aimed for the seam - and sliced down it in a straight line. The dude amazes me. The whole thing amazes me to this day.

To be sliced out of my dress in ANY romantic situation is an awesome thing to contemplate. It's like a movie. Where people don't worry about fabric, or whether or not you can replace something. RIP IT OFF.

Like I said in the beginning of this essay, this is not a story with a big finish. This is a story about a breathless moment of almost baffling perfection, gone in a flash, not meant to last ... but it has a reverb in my memory. I was not ever hurt by Kyle. My crush stayed where it needed to be in order for me to enjoy it. But in one tremblingly alive moment, in one panicky moment of need, he - in the most matter-of-fact, and most gentle way possible - holding onto my arm to keep me still - sliced off my dress with a razor blade.

If you're gonna have a situational crush, you might as well have one who can do THAT!

I want life to be art. And in that moment it was.

The Books: "Dragons in the Waters" (Madeleine L'Engle)

Next book on the shelf ... (we're in my children's and young adult bookshelves, by the way):

Next book on the shelf is Dragons in the Waters by Madeleine L'Engle. This is the first book in the next generation of the Murry family ... I LOVE this one. Okay - so Meg Murry marries Calvin O'Keefe. We know this from Swiftly Tilting Planet. Meg and Calvin proceed to have a bazillion children - two of whom are named Polyhymnia (Poly for short - although in later books she adds an "l" so she's a more conventional "Polly" - she's one of my favorite characters L'Engle ever wrote) - and Charles (obviously after their uncle Charles Wallace).

This is another one of those books where characters from other series appear. L'Engle is not creating a linear world with all of her books - it's more like a tangled web. It's just so fun. So we have Mr. Theo - the music teacher from The Young Unicorns - we also have Canon Tallis - who shows up in many of L'Engle's books (he is, actually, a real person - L'Engle admits that - he was obviously very important in her life, her Crosswicks journals show that). But she uses him in her fiction all the time. Simon Renier, the 13 year old "star" of this book is a member of an illustrious (now fallen on hard times) Charleston family - and if I recall correctly, the Reniers are also the subject of her earlier novel The Other Side of the Sun. There's more overlap here - but all of that just gives you an idea of the kind of tangled-up and interconnected thing that L'Engle was always going for. I adore that part of her books.

Anyway, the plot - briefly - Simon Renier lives with his Aunt Leonis - a doddering wise old woman - one of L'Engle's great creations. The book opens with Simon boarding a boat - on its way to Venezuela - and he is with his cousin (a grown man) named Forsyth Phair. It all comes out later that: Simon and Forsyth are on a journey to Venezuela - in order to return an heirloom painting (of Simon Bolivar) to its rightful place. (The book is written in a chopped-up way - going back and forth in time - short sections - past to present and back - I really like the style here, it's a bit different from most of her other books). It's not a cruise line or anything like that - it's a small steamer, and there aren't many passengers. Poly, Charles and Calvin O'Keefe are 3 of the other passengers. Poly is 14 years old, with flame-red hair, and she's kind of a prodigy. Speaks a ton of languages - but she's not a prodigy in a precocious or obnoxious way (or - she's no more obnoxious than any rambunctious early teenager) ... She's a prodigy in the way her Uncle Charles Wallace was a prodigy - only maybe she's a bit more lighthearted. You kind of love her from the minute you see her. Her younger brother Charles is more of an intuitive prodigy - you know those kinds of people with intense emotional understanding? That sometimes goes beyond what is feasible or can be grasped? The people who just KNOW things about other people? Charles is like that.

Simon, with his fallen-from-grace family background, and his lack of exposure to kids his own age - doesn't quite know how to handle Poly and Charles ... but Poly and Charles basically decide to befriend him. They are the only kids on the boat.

Things take a sinister turn almost immediately - In the opening scene, Simon, while walking on the dock toward the boat - is suddenly pushed into the water by Poly (they don't know each other yet) - and she goes falling in after him. Turns out - there was a forklift coming towards them, huge, and dangerous - the "accelerator stuck" and it could have run them over flat. Charles (with the intuition) feels that - it wasn't an accident. Something tells him that something is not right.

Very soon after their journey is underway, Cousin Forsyth (a man who showed up at Aunt Leonis' shack to inquire about the Bolivar painting) is murdered.

Great book. It's got a lot in it. L'Engle's books sometimes have intricate plots - but her books never ARE the plots. There's always something more. I always end up feeling like a better and deeper person after reading one of her books.

So here's an excerpt from the beginning of the book - before Forsyth is murdered - when Poly and Charles come over to Simon in the ship's dining room- which is full of chattering adults - and befriend him.

Excerpt from Dragons in the Waters by Madeleine L'Engle.

Simon closed his eyes, suddenly overwhelmed with sleep.

"Simon ..." It was a whisper.

He jumped. Poly and Charles stood in front of him. "Oh. Hi. I was just sleepy for a minute."

Geraldo came up with a small tray of half-filled demitasses and a pitcher of hot milk, put it down on the table, and then bustled back to the other passengers.

Poly sat down beside Simon. "I'll pour. Have some, Simon?"

He nodded. "I've never had coffee before. Aunt Leonis and I drink tea."

"You may not like it, then. Put lots of sugar and milk in; then it tastes sort of like hot coffee ice cream."

Simon followed her instructions, tasted, and smiled.

"Oh, Simon," Poly said, her long legs in green tights stretching out under her plaid skirt, "I'm so glad you're you. Suppose you'd been some awful creep? Whatever would we have done, all cooped together like this?"

Simon nodded in solemn agreement. "I'm glad yawl are you, too." Now that he was relaxed, his voice was warm and rhythmic.

Poly flashed her brightest smile. "I like the way you talk, Simon. It isn't all nasal and whiny like some of the Southerners we've met."

"I was born in Charleston." It was a simple statement of fact.

Poly giggled. "Snob."

Simon blushed slightly. "I like the way you talk, too. It isn't British -"

"Of course not! We're American!"

"-- It's just clean and clear. Aunt Leonis loves music more than anything in the world, so voices are very important to her. Her voice is beautiful, not a bit cracked and aged. Somebody compared her voice to Ethel Barrymore's -- I guess she was some kind of famous actress in the olden days."

Poly poured Simon some more coffee and hot milk. "Hey, look at all the grownups over there, nosing each other out. And we knew about each other right away."

"Well, they didn't almost get drowned together," Simon said. "You saved my life, so that means --"

"It means we belong together forevermore," Poly said solemnly.

Charles was looking across the salong at the adults. "They've forgotten how to play Make Believe. That's a sure way to tell about somebody -- the way they play, or don't play, Make Believe. Poly, you won't ever grow too old for it, will you?"

"I hope not." But she sounded dubious.

Simon pushed back a lock of fair hair from his face. "My Aunt Leonis is very good at it. Actually, she's my great-grandaunt, or something. When people get ancient they seem to remember how to play again - although I don't think Aunt Leonis ever forgot. She says you can tell about people - whether they're friend or foe - by your sense of smell, and that most people lose it."

"Fe fi fo fum," Charles intoned, "I smell the blood of an Englishman."

"It's probably our pheromones," Poly said.

"Our what?" Simon asked.

"Pheromones. They're really quite simple molecules, eight or ten carbon atoms in a chain, and what they do is send out -- well, sort of a smell, but it's nothing we smell on a conscious level, we just react to it. For instance, a female moth sends out pheromones at mating time, and a male moth comes flying, but he doesn't know why, he just responds to the pheromones, and we're not any more conscious of it than moths. At least most of us aren't. Charles is, sometimes." She stopped, then said, "It's obvious that we're children of scientists. Maybe Aunt Leonis's sense of smell is simpler and just as good." She sniffed delicately and looked with quick affection at Simon. "You smell superb, Simon."

He sniffed in his turn. "You smell right lovely yourself. Maybe it's your red hair."

But Poly sighed. "I haven't worn a hat in years because I keep hoping that if I keep my hair uncovered and let the salt air and wind and sun work on it, maybe I'll bleach out and turn into a blonde. It hasn't shown any signs of happening yet, but I keep on hoping."

"You look right nice exactly the way you are," Simon said firmly.

He might be a year younger than she was, but Poly felt a warm glow. "Look, your Cousin Forsyth is playing bridge with the Smiths and Dr. Eisenstein. That's a funny combination."

Simon looked at the card table. Bridge was another unexpected facet in Cousin Forsyth, who was shuffling with great expertise.

"At any rate," Poly said, "we're certain about Mr. Theo."

"Certain?" Simon asked.

"That he's all right. He's a friend of Uncle Father's and that means he's okay."

"Uncle Father?" Simon asked.

"My godfather. Canon Tom Tallis. You remember, we were talking about him at tea."

"Why do you call him Uncle Father?"

Poly gave her infectious giggle. "Rosy, our baby sister, started it when she was just beginning to talk, and we all took it up. We see more of Uncle Father than we do of our own grandparents, because we live so many thousands of miles apart, but Uncle Father was in and out of Portugal for a while, so he's sort of an extra grandparent for us. And I guess I trust him more than I trust anybody in the world."

Charles said, "But he warns you about that, Pol. He says that no human being is a hundred percent trustworthy, and that he's no exception."

Poly shrugged. "I know, but I trust him anyhow. Trust isn't a matter of reason. It's a matter of pheromones. I trust Simon."

Simon beamed with pleasure.

The Books: "Troubling a Star " (Madeleine L'Engle)

Next book on the shelf ... (we're in my children's and young adult bookshelves, by the way):

Next book on the shelf is Troubling a Star by Madeleine L'Engle.

This is the second to last novel L'Engle has written (so far)- since then, all of her books have been Christian theological books (all of which I own and posted excerpts from a gazillion years ago when I was on my "religion shelf". I swear. I'm borderline autistic.) I mean - the woman is still alive, so I guess there's still hope that she will write more fiction - but I'm doubting it. She's 500 years old by now. She seems to want to concentrate on the glory of God, and the Bible - and who can blame her? She's strolling into that ol' white light soon - maybe her imagination is no longer going into the fiction landscape. Sniff. Her last novel was A Live Coal in the Sea - which, in all honesty, I can say is the only novel of hers that I DIDN'T like. Hard to imagine - since her books are all so amazing to me - but in my opinion she started to lose the drive in that last book.

Troubling a Star is the next Austin family series - written 15 years after Ring of Endless Light - so when it came out - and I was a young woman living in Chicago - and I happened upon it in a Bares & Noble, I freaked OUT. I was basically in junior high when I read Ring of Endless Light ... so ... omigod .... is it another Vicky Austin book??? What?

She had written a million OTHER books in between - also beloved books to me - but they were mainly having to do with the O'Keefe family ... so anyway, Troubling A Star came out of what felt like nowhere, and I was really excited about it.

The plot is, briefly: Vicky's grandfather is now dead. The Austin family has moved back to Thornhill, their country home. Vicky, after her summer with Adam and the dolphins and all that, feels very weird - like she can't adjust to normal life again, and just being a regular high school student. She has grown up, basically. There are school dances - she's never invited ... and yet she gets these amazing letters from Adam, the older guy (let's say he's 20 or so) who took an interest in her the summer of the dolphins. She's not interested in high school life. So she is very excited when Adam comes back to town - and invites her to come have dinner with his great-aunt Serena who lives nearby or some such other literary coincidental device.

His Great-Aunt Serena is a fascinating old lady - who I believe was a marine biologist in her younger days (the details are lost in the fogs of time) - Her husband - also named Adam - was also a marine biologist and if I'm remembering correctly - he disappeared during one of his jaunts to Antarctica ... Bah. Can't remember. Anyway - Vicky goes over to meet her and Serena ends up becoming a kind of mentor to Vicky. Vicky who is such an adolescent BRAT. Serena senses this in her - and basically ends up offering Vicky a trip to Antarctica. There's a boat going - with a bunch of scientists - Serena somehow wangles a way to get Vicky a spot on the boat, thinking it will be really good for her to see the world, stop brooding, stop writing bad poetry, and stop feeling so different and self-absorbed. Somehow, Dr. and Mrs. Austin end up letting Vicky go. She has a chaperone - a dude named Cook - who has a very interesting background, the details of which are lost in the fogs of time. He's one of those great L'Engle characters - wise, patient, understanding - something every teenager needs.

Oh wait -now I remember - After it is decided that Vicky is going to join the expedition - she gets a couple of strange anonymous postcards - threatening - warning her NOT to go on this trip.

Why? Cannot remember.

So then there is Vicky - alone on this boat - with an international group of scientists. Oh yeah, and she's also really excited because Adam, supposedly, is going to be at Antarctica at the Marine Biology station there - so she is soooo looking forward to seeing him. Looking forward to it TOO much perhaps??

But then everything takes a turn. The boat they are on stops in port in Vespugia (L'Engle fans: hmmmm, sound familiar??) - a small dictatorship in Central America - which is basically a police state. But they are there to see ... uhm ... the Mayan pyramids or some such Inca nonsense? Again: fogs of time. Vicky - who has lived a sheltered life - suddenly finds herself asking questions about politics, becoming aware of repression, how other people live, how awful this fascistic Vespugia is.

Vicky ends up becoming a pawn in an international intrigue having to do with somehow shipping radioactive material out of (or into??) Vespugia ... and Vicky somehow becomes the linchpin of this whole thing, dangerous forces moving in on her, using her ... she ends up being kidnapped and deposited on a lonely glacier, bobbing in the southern ocean.

Of course she is saved. And the plot is discovered. And all is well again - but in all honesty - I can't remember why these powerful forces choose VICKY to be their pawn ... it all makes sense in the book, though.

The parts that I remember in the book (naturally) have to do with Vicky's internal journey. Her awe at the beauty of Antarctica. Her secret love for Adam, and how you can just sense that ... her heart's gonna get broke. Not that he's a bad guy, but that the timing is not right.

Here's an excerpt from the beginning of the book - when Vicky and Great-aunt Serena talk about her upcoming trip to Antarctica.

It's funny - I find Vicky kind of annoying here - like: Stop holding onto your illusions! LIfe is ROUGH, sister, and the sooner you know that the better!

But ... uhm ... that's not the point. If I were a teenager, I might relate to Vicky's resistance here - and also: Vicky needs to come through things on her OWN, she needs to learn things on her OWN ... and she's lucky enough to have found people in her life who let her have her own journey.

Excerpt from Troubling a Star by Madeleine L'Engle.

I went downstairs as I heard Daddy's car drive up. He was coming directly from the office. I met him in the sitting room, and the photograph album was open and on the table, waiting. Stassy said she'd bring Aunt Serena right down, and for us to make ourselves at home. We bent over the album and looked at snapshots of penguins, the babies huddled together in what Aunt Serena had told me were called creches. They were balls of fluff, and very cute.

I turned to my father. "I'm actually going to see them!"

Aunt Serena, leaning slightly on Stassy, came in and joined us. "You will find that penguins are totally communal creatures. If one penguin heads for the sea, two or three others will follow. If they stray from each other, they become easy prey for their predators."

"Who are their predators?" I asked.

"Skuas, which are large, brown, carnivorous birds. Raptors. And seals. But while penguins are communal, living in community, they have no intimacy. They are dutiful with their babies, but they do not love."

"Why?" I looked at a snapshot of a line of penguins which seemed to be hurrying down to the water.

"Life is too treacherous. If you become intimate with spouse or child who may be eaten in the next hour, you are too vulnerable. You cannot afford affection."

Something in her voice made me shiver. "Penguins," I said. "But human beings can't live that way."

"Sometimes they have to," Aunt Serena said. "When parents knew that they are going to lose their babies and young children to scarlet fever, diptheria, measles, they could not afford the kind of secure love that exists between parents and children today."

My father said, "It's only in the past few generations that parents have been able to count on raising their children to adulthood. Modern medicine has changed a lot of things."

"But people still loved each other, I mean, they always have!" I cried.

"True," Daddy said. "But we allow ourselves to love more easily now that we have a greater hope for a reasonable life expectancy."

I looked at a fluffy grey ball cuddling up to a grown penguin. "But mothers nursed the babies! How could they help being intimate?" I'd watched Mother nursing Rob. I'd watched Daddy watching Mother nursing Rob.

"They couldn't help it," Aunt Serena agreed, "but you already know, Vicky, that the more people you love, the more vulnerable you are."

Yes, that was true. If I hadn't loved my grandfather in a most deep and wonderful way, I wouldn't miss him so much. If I didn't love Adam, I wouldn't be hurt because he'd signed his second letter "All the best," instead of "Love".

I said, "Maybe our intimacies are more precious if we know they may be taken away."

Daddy looked at me and smiled and nodded slightly.

Aunt Serena said, "You are wise, my child. I do not regret my intimacies, no matter how expensive, not with any of the people I have loved: my husband, Adam. I loved him with great utterness, and when he died my life was split in two as though by lightning. And then my son --" She caught her breath. "I have known people who have drawn back after one devastating hurt, but that is a kind of suicide, at least to my mind. I am very fond of you, my dear, and I think you are fond of me."

"I am! I love you!"

"But you know quite well that I will die long before you do."

I whispered, "I know it's a -- a statistic."

"It's what being mortal is all about. I believe that Antarctica will awe and delight you, but you will be glad that you are a human being."

"I am glad." Then I added, "But I don't think I like statistics."

Aunt Serena nodded. "Statistics help free us from the compassion that is part of intimacy. Statistics do not understand that until we accept our mortality we canot even glimpse the wonder of our immortality."

Before I had time to digest that, Stassy came in to announce that Mother had arrived with Suzy and Rob. They had come in the back way, so they could chat with Cook, and would join us in a moment.

We could hear voices and laughter from the direction of the kitchen. Then Mother and Suzy and Rob came in, and Rob hugged Aunt Serena, and Suzy turned right to the photograph album and the pictures of the penguins.

"I'm green with envy," she said to me. "Promise me you'll keep a list of everything you see."

"Sure. There isn't that much wildlife, but I'll do my best."

"There are lots of different kinds of penguins," she said. "What's this?" And she pointed to a picture of a church outside which was a very large double arch.

"The jawbones of two whales," Aunt Serena said. "It gives you an idea what enormous creatures they are, the largest in the world."

We moved into the dining room. Stassy helped Aunt Serena into her chair. "Meanwhile, my dear Vicky" -- Aunt Serena reached for a crystal glass and took a sip of water -- "we need to double-check that you have all the right clothes for Antarctica."

We'd checked and rechecked my wardrobe several times. "Two pairs of lined jeans. Long johns. Thick socks."

Mother said, "And I think we'll get Vicky a new pair of boots, because the treads on her old ones are one down."

Stassy came back in with a cheese souffle, high and puffy and golden.

"Aunt Serena," Suzy asked, "why did Adam - your Adam - want to go to Antarctica?"

Aunt Serena smiled. "He had an inquiring mind, like you." Suzy smiled with pleasure. Aunt Serena continued, "He loved marine biology. And he'd traveled to the Falklands with Adam Cook to visit Seth, Cook's brother. Seth had been to Antarctica several times and waxed lyrical about it, and the two Adams were always ready for adventure."

"Two Adams?"

"Adam Eddington and Adam Cook."

I could tell that Suzy had a lot more questions, but she let Aunt Serena talk about some work Adam II had done with icefish, fish which adapt to the low temperature of the water by becoming transparent. The conversation was mostly about marine life, which kept Suzy happy, and it was an okay evening, though I realized that I was used to having Aunt Serena to myself.

Happy place

Two of my favorite actors ever. They starred in three films together - The Awful Truth, My Favorite Wife, and Penny Serenade. He always said, reluctantly because he didn't want to hurt his other leading ladies' feelings, that she was his favorite leading lady. Apparently he whispered to her once, "You're my favorite. You smell so nice."

There's something so ZANY about them together (uhm - Awful Truth??) - but also something so SWEET about them together (the scene at the beach in Penny Serenade when, frankly, I think he's never been sexier or more NORMAL. It's one of his only times playing a middle-class normal guy - and he's sooooo sweet and sexy). Clearly, they brought out the absolute BEST in one another.

Like another one of the big stars of the day - Bogart - Grant didn't really work with a floozy lady. There was something wrong in the pairing. Jimmy Cagney seemed suited to floozies - there was something about him (as an actor, I mean) that WORKED with a kind of floozy broad. But it didn't seem right with Bogart or Grant. They didn't do well either with domesticated pretty little things either. No. They did well (and by that I mean: shone - as actors) with women who were sharp-witted, pretty, independent, and gave as good as she got. Women who played the mating game really smartly and wittily (watch how Irene Dunne makes Cary Grant SWEAT IT OUT at the end of My Favorite Wife until he is finally reduced to putting on a damn Santa outfit in order to be allowed to get into bed with her.)

Bogart and Grant needed "ladies". And by "ladies" I do not mean "good girls" because those two guys didn't work well with that type either. I mean: women. They needed a very specific type of woman in order to bring out their special individual brand of masculinity (and star quality as well). Ladies. Not doormats. Not polite women, either. God save us from polite women. Not women who succumbed to the stupid rules of society. But women who had their shit together.

Irene Dunne was always the epitome of that. I love it when she gets silly and zany. But when she lets her guard down ... it's exhilarating. Because ... she makes you wait for it. She doesn't give it all away. She reminds me of my friend Kate. She has that same deep-down decency - it radiates off of her - and yet there is also such a streak of utter LUNACY that LOOK OUT when she gets going.

Anyway - Cary Grant and Irene Dunne.

The two of them together. It kinda can't be topped.

Yesterday in History: August 7, 1934

The US Court of Appeals judged Ulysses by James Joyce to be NOT obscene and declared that the book could be admitted into the United States. Here's what the first American edition of that book looked like:

Gives me shivers. I must admit. It LOOKS important.

Morris L. Ernst, counsel for Random House - who successfully defended the book against obscenity charges in 1933-34 - wrote in his foreward to the 1934 edition:

It would be difficult to underestimate the importance of Judge Woolsey's decision. For decades the censors have fought to emasculate literature. They have tried to set up the sensibilities of the prudery-ridden as a criterion for society, have sought to reduce the reading matter of adults to the level of adolescents and subnormal persons, and have nurtured evasions and sanctimonies.

See Judge Woolsey's decision in its entirety here.

Let freedom ring!

This race and this country and this life produced me, he said. I shall express myself as I am.

The Books: "A Ring of Endless Light" (Madeleine L'Engle)

Next book on the shelf ... (we're in my children's and young adult bookshelves, by the way):

Next book on the shelf is A Ring of Endless Light by Madeleine L'Engle.

This is my favorite of all of her books. Can you have 2 favorites? Because Wrinkle in Time is also a favorite ... but this book? It's taken on an almost Harriet the Spy level of importance in my own life personally. I couldn't BELIEVE it when I first read it - I still remember my first impressions. I wanted to step into the book. I loved every damn page. It seemed to describe life - yet not everyday life. It seemed to describe everyday life from the eyes of someone who was intensely aware of everything. So there is an intensity on every page. The meals they eat, the books they read, the sunsets they see ... all of it takes on this deep rich intensity which I SO responded to. The book is about a family gathering around their beloved Grandfather who is dying - they spend one last summer with him, basically knowing it will be their last. And so because of that awareness of death approaching - everything else takes on this unbelievably potency. It comes across in the writing.

This is the next book in the Austin series (although - chronologically - it should come AFTER one of my favorite books in the Murry series - The Arm of the Starfish - haven't gotten to that one yet - I love how these series overlap). The Austin family, after spending a year in New York, have moved to be with their Grandfather who lives on Seven Bay Island - where he was a minister for many years. The Austin family would go and visit him every summer and stay for a month. But now they are going to stay indefinitely. They are going to stay until he dies.

So it's already intense. Vicky is as introspective and moody as ever - and she's trying to deal with her grief of losing her grandfather. And yet ... he's still alive! So how do you grieve beforehand? And how do you celebrate someone's life in the little time you have left? These are some of the challenges Vicky faces. She's not always graceful as she is learning these lessons - that's what I love about Vicky Austin and about Madeleine L'Engle's writing. She knows that learning life lessons is HARD and that sometimes, in order to learn the lesson, you have to give up something. And giving up something is not always easy - even if it makes you unhappy. You have to give up, say, your penchant for feeling sorry for yourself. Or you have to give up blaming your parents for everything. You have to "give up childhood things" - and that is not always a graceful process. Looking back, we might wish it were - but Madeleine L'Engle writes about these moments from the ground-level. If you're Vicky's age when you read the book (she's 15) - then you will TOTALLY relate to her.

Vicky has quite a summer. Zachary (member Zachary?) tracks her down - much to the family's chagrin. Oh - him again?? They go out on dates. Zachary tries to impress her. Takes her flying. Takes her out to expensive meals. Somehow she still likes him - even though he is CLEARLY a mess. In a very key moment, though, he abandons her. This is not a fun-loving summer for Vicky - and - when push comes to shove, Zachary can't handle what she's going through. He takes off. This will not be forgiven. She might not hold a grudge forever - but Zachary revealed his character once and for all in that moment.

Vicky's older brother John is now at MIT - and he has an internship that summer on Seven Bay Island where there is an internationally known Marine Biology research center. He immediately befriends a guy named Adam (who also is in Arm of the Starfish - Adam knows the O'Keefes from the Murry series - okay, I'll stop now) - who works at the station. Adam works with dolphins. And this, for me, is where the book stops being a typical (although wonderfully written) young adult novel - and starts being a really GOOD book period, about BIG subjects. Vicky comes to visit the Marine Biology station one day and Adam observes her interactions with some of the dolphins. Her intuitive understanding of their behavior - and the rapport she immediately gets with them - peaks his interest. He asks her if she wouldn't mind being his assistant on his own special independent project he's doing. He is an older guy - he's 20. But he treats her with respect. As an equal. Vicky is head over heels. But she also just falls in love with the work she does with the dolphins. The work involves ESP.

That's enough to set up the excerpt. Adam takes Vicky out into the ocean - they swim out (Vicky's a great swimmer) and hang out with some wild dolphins. They all have names. Vicky gets to know them. A couple days a week, she swims out and hangs out with them. Adam observes her. They then swim back to shore, sit on the sand, and have long conversations about their observations about the dolphins.

Here is one of those days.

Excerpt from A Ring of Endless Light by Madeleine L'Engle.

"Hey, I'll race you along the beach to the big rock and then you can change into your bathing suit and we'll go out and communicate with Basil and Co. And -- each other."

"I have to get my suit out of the bike basket." I scrambled to mym feet.

"I'll get it for you."

I padded along the beach, and then speeded up as Adam came along with my bathing suit.

We swam out and I floated and thought: Njord.

Njord.

He came, but not alone.

Norberta was with him, and as they approached she flapped her flukes at me, splashing me with great deliberation, as though to scold me for summoning Njord without her, telling me in no uncertain terms that Njord was not old enough to go off on his own.

I burst into laughter.

"What's so funny about being splashed?" Adam asked.

I told him.

He laughed, too. "You're absolutely right. That's just what she was telling you."

Njord flicked toward me and nudged me. I caught hold of his dorsal fin and away we went, like a tachyon, toward the horizon.

Speed.

Much faster than Zachary with his foot down on the gas pedal.

I was gloriously excited and frightened at the same time. A baby dolphin may be a lot smaller than a grown one, but it's a lot bigger than I am, and Njord was stronger than he realized. He would never hurt me on purpose, but he might overestimate my strength.

Norberta wouldn't let him.

If I trusted him to come when I called, I had to trust him all the way.

He swung around so suddenly that I almost let go, but not quite, and we went racing back to Norberta. Njord dove and dumped me, and I came up to the surface, sputtering, and both Njord and Norberta began to splash me, making loud laughing noises.

"Calm them down," Adam said. "Tell them you want to ask them some serious questions."

What should I ask? What would be serious to both the dolphins and to me - and to Adam?

Dearest Norberta and Njord. Do you live in the now, or do you project into the future, the way I do, far too often?

I felt a gentle puzzlement coming from Njord.

Maybe he's too young to understand about the future. When Rob was a baby, everything was now for him. Now embraced both yesterday and tomorrow.

Norberta?

Again I felt puzzlement, not puzzlement about her understanding, but my own. Norberta wasn't sure I'd be able to understand.

Try me.

I rolled over onto my back and floated and Norberta moved her great body toward me until we were touching, and I was pressed against the beautiful resiliency of dolphin skin. And a whole series of pictures came flashing across the back of my eyes, in the dream part of my head.

The ocean.

Rain.

A rainbow, glittering with rain.

Snow, falling in great white blossoms to disappear as it touched the sea.

And then the snow turned to stars, stars in the daytime, drenched in sunlight, becoming sunlight.

and the sunlight was the swirling movement of a galaxy

and the ocean caught the light and was part of the galaxy

and the stars of the galaxies lifted butterfly wings and flew together, dancing

And then Norberta, with Njord echoing her, began making strange sounds, singing sounds, like the alleluia sounds Basil had made, and they did something to my understanding of time, so that I saw that it was quite different from the one-way road which was all I knew.

Norberta was right. There was much she understood that was beyond anything I'd ever dreamed of.

She and Njord slapped the water with their flukes in farewell and vanished over the horizon.

I rolled over and began to tread water.

"What did you ask them?" Adam swam to me.

"About time. Adam, their time and ours is completely different."

"How?"

"Norberta tried to tell me, but it was in a language I didn't know, and it translated itself into images, not words."

Treading water, he held out his hands to me. "Hold. And try to tell me what she told you."

I held his hands tightly. Kept moving my legs slowly. Closed my eyes. Imaged again what Norberta had imaged me.

I heard Adam sigh and opened my eyes.

"Nonlinear time," he said. "She was trying to tell you about nonlinear time."

"What's that?" I was still holding on to the beauty of Norberta's images, so it didn't quite hit me that Adam and I had communicated in the same way that I communicated with the dolphins.

"Time is like a river for most of us, flowing in only one direction. Get John to explain it to you. Physics isn't my strong point. But there's a possibility that time is less like a river than a tree, a tree with large branches from which small branches grow, and where they touch each other it might be possible to get from one branch of time to another." He let go my hands. "I'm not explaining it well."

"Do you mean maybe for dolphins time is less - less restricted and limited than it is for us?"

"Isn't that what Norberta was trying to tell you?"

"Yes. Adam, did you see the butterflies?"

He nodded. "Like the one we saw at the cemetery."

"You saw it, too?"

"And so did your grandfather."

"And Grandfather would kow what Njojrd and Norberta were singing."

"Dolphins don't sing." Adam's voice was flatly categorical. "Only humpbacked whales sing."

"Call it what you like," I said. "To me it was singing."

He was staring out to the horizon, where they had vanished. "Granted I've never heard dolphins sound like that before. Hey, are you sure you don't want to go in for marine biology?"

"It's a thought," I said, "but somehow I have a hunch that if I were scientific about them I might not be able to talk with them."

"You may be right. Maybe that's why I resisted you, because I'm too scientific."

"No," I replied quickly. "I was wrong. I went at you without thinking what I was doing."

"And today?"

My body felt as though the water had instantly dropped several degrees. "Did you really see what Norberta showed me?"

"I think so. You're cold, sweetie, and your lips are blue. Let's swim in and have some tea and then we can check it out."

"Okay." He'd called me "sweetie" again. It was as beautiful as the dolphins singing.

"Then I have to spend the rest of the afternoon working on my report. Forgive my repetition, but you've thrown my project for a loop."

"Do you mind?"

"Minding doesn't have anything to do with it. I simply did not expect John Austin's kid sister would be thunder and lightning and electricity."

Cautiously, I asked, "Not -- not like whoever it was last summer?"

"Not like. Very definitely not like. Okay. I'll come along back over to the stable in plenty of time for that moussie or mucksie --"

"Moussaka."

"Yah. I'll be there for it." Imitating the dolphins, he dove down and swam underwater, emerging yards away.

The song of Norberta and Njord echoed in my ears.

And it was joy.

And joy, Grandfather would remind me, joy is the infallible sign of the presence of God.

But I couldn't tell Adam that. Not yet.

Doing scales

Something I'm working on. It's a work in progress.

Haircut

Erin had cut all her hair off that morning, on impulse. Meandering down Clark Street in the sun, on her way to Max's Deli to meet Molly for breakfast, she saw a poster of Jean Seberg in the window of a video store. Erin's own hair fell down her back, as it had done since she was four, a green bandana clamped over the top of her skull. She had a sudden power surge, a rush of courage, and an hour later, Erin floated down the sidewalk, feeling like her cheekbones were higher, her eyebrows were nicer, her nose wasn't so weird anymore. Everything felt lighter, sparkley. She sat in front of her mirror at home, preening, gloating, turning this way and that, in a Marie Antoinette display of vanity which Erin found deeply embarrassing when she looked back on it later. But she loved the look of her face, without all the hair around it. She stared at her reflection, confused, happy. There I am. That is my face. For the first time, Erin saw that she actually looked like a woman. A grown woman.

She strolled in to meet Zack that night at Compton's, and he, as usual, had beat her there, and was already halfway through his first round, talking closely with Lou across the bar.

Lou cried out at first sight of her, "Erin! The hair! You are beautiful, young lady."

Erin, still sparkley, laughed, pleased, her hand flying up to touch the new 'do.

"You think, Lou? Is it good? You like it?"

"Turn around for me." Lou ordered like a drill sergeant.

Erin dutifully turned. She felt bald. Nude.

Lou applauded. "I love it. Havin' the regular?" He faded into the background, leaving Erin and Zack alone. Zack was staring at her. He had had no visible response to the haircut. Nothing. His face had gone dead.

Erin hopped onto a bar stool and met his weird dead gaze. "What's up with you?" He couldn't be hurt that she hadn't checked with him before making such a drastic move! That couldn't be it!

Zack picked up his beer, took a long swig (in a vaguely hostile way. Erin felt like he was drinking at her), put the bottle down firmly, and said, "You're breaking up with me, aren't you." It was not a question.

This confused Erin on multiple levels. "Are we even going out?" she asked.

Zack repeated, "You are. You are definitely breaking up with me."

"What are you talking about? 'Cause I got my haircut?"

Zack imploded into glowering silence and could not be talked out of it. Erin badgered him to explain his comment for fifteen minutes and then gave up.

"Whatever, Heathcliff. Let me know when the tantrum ends." She went off on her Seberg-ian way to play five Stevie Ray Vaughan songs in succession. For Z.

With the opening strains of "Life By the Drop", Zack turned, looked at Erin, who was grinning up at him, and Heathcliff disappeared in a puff of smoke. Music had soothed the savage beast.

Later in the evening, Erin brought the whole thing up again. He had said, "You are breaking up with me." They had never spoken in relationship terms and Erin had found the lack of definitions supremely relaxing. They had never been to the movies. They had never gone out to dinner. She had never seen him in a suit and tie. Nate, calling her from Riyadh, had asked her, "So, you seein' anybody?" She had bumbled an answer, "Well, no ... uh, I guess. Sort of." Her parents had never met Zachary, and still didn't even know of his existence. They thought she was still in mourning for Charles. Erin found it nearly impossible to imagine Zachary sitting at her parents' shiny maplewood dining-room table, making small talk with her father, having a nice civilized glass of wine. As a boyfriend would do.

Boyfriend?

"This is my boyfriend, Zack."

A strange pained hope rose within her, like Excalibur, and then hands suddenly stretched out, defensive. Warding the sword off.

"This is my boyfriend, Zack."

Those hands again, pushing back, pushing back.

"So what was going on earlier when you saw my haircut? Why did you say what you said?" Erin expected a brush-off. A diminishment. Zack did not like to be pushed.

But surprise surprise, he voluminously poured out his philosophy of the social ramifications of haircuts. "Whenever a woman is going to make a big change in her life, she gets a haircut. Or she dyes it. Or whatever. Every single time a woman has broken up with me, she'll show up with all her hair cut off. Or, she'll get her hair cut, and then nothing will happen for a while, but I'll know that it's just a matter of time before I get the axe. By the time that hair comes off, she's already made the decision to drop me and there's nothing I can do to make her stay. It's over."

"Hm. Well. For me, it's just a haircut."

"No, it's not. Something's going on." He said this as though it didn't matter to him one way or the other.

"I just wanted to get rid of my hair, Z. I had had it with the locks."

"Yeah, you've had it. You've had it with me."

"Cut it out. You're annoying me now."

"See? You're breaking up with me."

"Would you get over yourself, please?"

Suddenly Zachary burst out laughing, a real laugh, a free laugh, practically bouncing up and down on his stool in enjoyment. "You are so pissed OFF right now! I love it!"

"Oh, fuck off."

This made him laugh even harder. She hated him very much. She wanted to devour his head.

"Your face, Erin ... it is so serious right now - with your glasses - You look SO MAD. It is too fucking funny."

"Yeah. It must be hilarious." Erin retorted, which sent Zachary into another fit. She finally surrendered; it was pointless to resist. "Okay, jag-off, okay."

Zack reached out his big hand and scruffed up her hair. It reminded Erin of wrestling with her older boy cousins when she was a kid: there was fondness in his touch, definitely, but it bordered on being too rough.

She had no idea what was happening, felt lost.

She pushed his hand away and said, before giving it a thought, "Are we 'going out', you think?"

Zachary cringed. Literally. "Oh, come on, let's not do that."

Erin barreled on. She thought maybe it was the lack of hair that filled her with such reckless abandon. Not to mention the three beers she had already downed. "I mean, when you talk about me to your friends, for example, what do you say? How do you describe what we're doing?"

"I don't talk about you to my friends," was the monotone response.

It was a slap in the face. Involuntary tears came to her eyes, as unconnected to emotion as a sneeze. She said, "Okay, that completely hurt my feelings." She almost got up and walked out, but suddenly she was smothered in a messy St. Bernard embrace. He kissed her face, her short hair, she couldn't move, her glasses were knocked askew.

Still holding onto her, he pulled his head back and said, at point-blank range, "I am never supposed to make you cry. You got that? Never." Erin opened her mouth to speak, and he rode right over her: "You crying has nothing to do with You and Me." She heard the capital letters. Like they were a corporation.

"All right, Z. All right."

They drank their beers, Erin savoring the coldness moving down her throat. Her eyes were still moist, she could still feel his mouth, kissing her head, she had a soft opening in her solar plexus, thin threads of connection unfurling out indiscriminately. She loved Lou, she loved Stevie Ray Vaughn, she loved Sam Adams, she loved the hovering chick she noticed at the end of the bar, she loved the rowdy group of guys doing kamikaze shots behind them, she loved her whole life.

Zack said to her, with such difficulty her heart went out to him, "No - I don't talk about you - to my friends - but not because ... well, not how you took it ... I just don't want them to know about us - how we are together ... 'cause ... I don't know. It's like an invasion of your privacy or something. They're good guys and everything, but I don't want them looking at you and thinking ... stuff about you ... They know I hang out with you all the time. But that's it. That's all they need to know."

She took this in, considering it, weighing it on the tiny scales of Truth vs. Bullshit, always perched on a shelf in her brain. The verdict came. "Okay. I get that."

But her conscience pricked at her. She regularly regaled her entire group of friends with the minute details of her time with Z, gleefully upending her Zachary filing cabinets, spreading his fossils out on the floor, for all to see. Her friends knew everything: how fast he drove, the whole one-fork phenomena, how he spent half an hour showing her his new electric can-opener (as though he was from a third world country, unused to modern appliances), how he loved her to be on top, how he bragged about his nieces and nephews. Erin proudly displayed her hickeys and bruises to her friends, like a little girl showing her ruffled underwear to the adults. Erin certainly did not respect Zachary's privacy. When her friends met him, they had a newsreel of intimate Z images flickering by, a plethora of mental pictures to choose from: Zack sleeping, Zack babbling about his rocking chair, Zack fucking her, Zack laughing, Zack lying beneath her, holding her waist, encouraging her in a soft dirty whisper, pulling her down to kiss her.

Erin was ashamed of herself.

More in this story:

The rocking chair

Answering machine messages

He only had one fork

What did they talk about

A snapshot

This made total sense in the context of our conversation:

"So. Would you rather shit in a hole or dig the Lincoln Tunnel?"
"I'm shitting in the hole."
"Yeah. Me too. And THAT'S OKAY."

The Books: "The Young Unicorns" (Madeleine L'Engle)

Next book on the shelf ... (we're in my children's and young adult bookshelves, by the way):

Next book on the shelf is The Young Unicorns by Madeleine L'Engle.

It's been a while since I read this book (which I love) - I think this is the beginning of Madeleine's mystery/suspense books - usually having to do with the Austin family. The Murry family time-travel and help build Noah's Ark and tesseract ... the Austin family gets mixed up in international intrigues. So here's what happens:

The Austin family is now living in New York City - where Dr. Austin has been hired to come on board with some research project. So suddenly, the country kids are in the city. L'Engle wrote this book in 1968 - when Manhattan waa much more visibly dangerous than it is now in its Disneyfied incarnation. She's writing about the New York we see in Midnight Cowboy - when the subways were almost like a Mad Max situation, grafitti everywhere, and a sense of lawlessness and anything-goes. I remember that New York. So there's a sense of real danger on the outskirts of the little family unit.

Now as I recall it - There are a couple of new people in the Austin family's lives now. There is Emily - a young girl, a teenager - who had been blinded in some mysterious accident - (she was attacked?? Nobody knows why or who it was - although through the course of the book it all becomes clear). Emily is a piano prodigy. She stays with the Austin family - the apartment they are renting used to be where Emily lived - and it is thought by her doctors that to stay in a familiar place might help Emily. Oh - and I believe that there is no medical reason for her blindness. It is a mystery ... Emily's best friend is a great character, a teenager named Josiah Davidson, although everyone thankfully calls him Dave. Dave used to be in a gang. He was a bad kid. He has since turned his life around - mainly because of his devotion to Emily. He helps her to and from her music lessons. He reads out loud to her. Meanwhile, the opening scene of the book shows him hurrying through the darkened streets - with old gang members taunting him from the shadows. He is trying to stay clean.

Uhm - it gets really involved. There's something called a Micro-Ray - there are two physicists who are working on some huge project (I'm thinking of Austin Powers right now) - if this Micro-Ray got in the wrong hands it would mean ... apocalypse - or something like that.

Also - the book opens on a creepy haunted autumn night. The Austins sit around the dinner table. Emily and Dave are both there. And it comes out that all the kids, walking home from school that day, had passed a weird little antique shop called Phooka's Antiques. They see a genie's lamp sitting on a crate outside - and as a joke, they pick it up and try to call up a genie. Darkness is falling. And suddenly from behind them they hear a voice - they turn - and there is standing a huge scary-looking genie. He asks them if they have any wishes. Emily blurts out, "Please make me see again." Suzy Austin gets angry at that wish and knocks the lamp out of Emily's hand. Then, from behind them, comes an English-accented voice, "I think you are beyond that kind of wishing." They all turn, and there stands a man holding a big black umbrella. He has no eyebrows. They have no idea who he is. He says to them, "I would be suspicious of a twentieth-century genie, children." and then walks away. The genie, meanwhile, has vanished into the night. Leaving the children baffled and a little afraid. They end up telling Mr. and Mrs. Austin about this. The Austins believe them. It turns out, later - that the genie is actually not a real genie - but somehow part of the dark evil forces who want to co-opt this Micro-Ray thingie - shit, I am totally not remembering how it all comes out ... but there are many different angles into this, and it's very dangerous - the Austin kids, along with Emily and Dave - decide to solve this mystery - which ends up bringing them into contact with some very dangeorus people - people who know the secret behind Emily's attack - and I think who know that Dr. Austin is working on this Micro-Ray project - and want to steal it from him. To use it for their own nefarious purposes. If anyone remembers more details about all of this, let me know.

My memories of the book have to do with the beauty of the characters. Emily is not an easy girl. She is pissed at being blind ... she now has to re-learn how to play the piano - Music is her only solace, but not only that; it is her WORK. Madeleine L'Engle understands that: people who have WORK to do. Even if they are only a child. There is such a thing as genius and Emily has it. But she's temperamental, and not adjusting to blindness with grace. Dave is a WONDERFUL character - you just love him. It is not easy for him to turn his back on a life of crime ... but the kindness of the Austin family, their belief in him, as well as Emily's need of him - helps him.

Throughout all of this intrigue - we get the typical L'Engle touches of ... life lessons being learned. Redemption being possible.

Oh - and this is also her first book where the Cathedral of St. John the Divine - up near Columbia - is almost another character. L'Engle was very involved in that cathedral - she probably still is. She went to church there with her family, she also worked part-time in their library. It is a second home to her. The Cathedral shows up in many of her books as a kind of vortex. A place where the truth eventually will come out.

I love this book - I should read it again.

The excerpt I chose is from the beginning. It's after the kids confess about their encounter with the genie. Dr. Austin says he will go by the antiques shop the next day to ask some questions ... Vicky Austin, actually, was NOT with the others when the genie appears. She is bummed about it. She also is worried about her father - who seems different, troubled, secretive. One of L'Engle's running themes is that moment all children have: when they realize their parents are HUMAN. Fallible. It can be a very upsetting thing ... Vicky has noticed her father's preoccupation and is obsessing over what it means. She and Emily have a conversation about it all before going to bed.

Excerpt from The Young Unicorns by Madeleine L'Engle.

In the bath Emily was singing. Vicky had learned that Emily did two kinds of singing: when she was happy she invented her own melodies; when she was angry or upset she picked more formal themes from the composers she was studying. Bach always indicated deep and serious thinking, coming to terms with some kind of problem. Chopin or Schumann were indications of self-pity, but were seldom heard. A purely intellectual problem, like trouble with her studies at school or memorizing from the unwieldy Braille manuscripts, was apt to be approached with Beethoven or, by contrast, Scarlatti.

Tonight the music that came from the tub was Bach, not a theme from one of the fugues, but one of the more introspective chorale preludes.

-- What would I be singing, Vicky wondered, -- if I sang out my moods?

If Emily had been one of her friends in the country, Vicky would have blurted out, "I'm scared. Something's wrong with my father. Always, always he's wanted to work in a big hospital where he could concentrate on his research, and now that he's got exactly what he's always wanted something's wrong. It isn't just tonight, but the way he snaps at Mother for no reason. And I went into his study once and he was just sitting there with his head in his hands."

But she couldn't wail in front of Emily. If she thought for a moment about all the problems Emily had to face, then a complaint even about somehting as fundamental as a change in her father, who had always seemed perfect, wasn't possible.

Emily came out of the bathroom, wrapped in a large white towel, her long fine hair dark against it. "Vicky --"

"Yes. I'm here."

Emily moved towards the voice and sat by the other girl on the window seat. Vicky turned from the river, from watching the lights across in New Jersey, a barge crawling up the river, cars streaming north and south on the West Side Highway, the lights of the park baring the dark branches of the trees, and looked at Emily. -- I wonder, she thought, -- if Emily used to sit here this way, looking out and dreaming ...

"Vicky," Emily said, "I love your mother, you know."

"I know."

"I don't even remember my own mother, not really. I was only four when she died. Sometimes I think I remember things, but I'm never sure whether or not it's something Papa's told me. All I've really known have been housekeepers, and some of the teachers at school. Oh, Vicky --" Emily spread out her arms and Vicky dodged to avoid being hit on the nose, "when Mrs. McTavish went back to Scotland to live, and you all came to stay in Dr. Shasti's and Dr. Shen-shu's apartment, I thought I'd absolutely hate it when Papa arranged with your mother to have me eat with you and everything. I thought I was going to lose my freedom. I even talked to Dave about running away with him. But it's been -- splendiferous."

"It's been pretty splendiferous for us, too," Vicky said. "Not financially, but getting to know you and Dave, and being friends."

Emily gave a small sigh. "Mr. Theo think my guardian angel arranged it. He says it's about time it started paying attention to me. Vic, I know Suzy was right, to knock the genie's beastly old lamp out of my hands yesterday, but it's you I want to talk to about it."

Vicky said nothing, simply sat there on the window seat, waiting. The small boat moved on up the river under the delicate pale green lights of the George Washington Bridge, and slid out of sight. The wind moved the trees on the Drive back and forth across the street lamps so that light and shadow mingled and intermingled. She wanted to touch Emily for comfort, as she would have Rob, but she kept her hands in the lap of her bathrobe and looked steadily out over the river. The arch of the great bridge seemed to sway lightly in the wind. She shivered.

As though she had seen, Emily said, "It's cold tonight." She put her arms out and spread the palm of her hand against the window glass. "Well ... when I could see, and I was practicing the piano, and I'd forget something - and the funny thing is that the pieces you forget are the ones you've memorized the longest - well, what would happen would be that if I tried to think what the notes were, I couldn't, or if I tried to think with my mind which was the fingering Mr. Theo had worked out, I couldn't. My mind just wouldn't remember. You've had piano lessons. Do you know what I mean?"

"Yes," Vicky said. "And just the way you say, always with the pieces I'd known by heart best. I'd get my fingers mixed up and get stuck."

"So what did you do then? Look it up in the music?"

"Not always," Vicky said slowly.

"Well, what did you do?"

Vicky said reluctantly. "I closed my eyes and thought about something else. If I sort of went into a daydream, or made plans about something or thought about homework - then, usually, I'd remember the notes."

Emily's strong fingers closed about the cushion of the window seat. "But it wasn't your mind that remembered, was it? Your fingers would remember for you?"

"Yes. It always struck me as sort of funny, how my fingers could do it when my eyes or my mind couldn't. But I'm not a musician, Emily. I love music, all our family does, but Mother's the only one who really might have been good at it if she hadn't married Daddy. I love to fiddle around at the piano, but I used to goof off on my practicing."

Emily frowned, turning the subject back. "I hated to have to look something up in the music after I'd memorized it. I used to make my fingers remember for me, when my mind had forgotten, and they almost always would. I think it's called kinesthetic memory or something. Anyhow, I always had it, you see. And that made things easier, I suppose. I mean about what was most important. Even so, I've never quite believed it. Being blind. I know it with my mind. I mean, I do understand that there isn't going to be a grand and splendid operation the way there is in TV or the movies. But I don't know it with me. I don't suppose I ever will, no matter how used I get to it. I still dream seeing. I dream seeing all of you. I wonder if you really look the way I dream you? I know your mother has purply-blue eyes Suzy's, but I see them as grey. And your father's a brown person. So're you, but not as dark a brown."

"Mouse," Vicky muttered rather bitterly.

"And I can see your apartment. Your mother described all the colors and furniture to me one day, and I can see it. I used to be afraid to go back up, but now the apartment is you, all of you, the Austins ... Well. I forgot to brush my teeth. Be right back." She hitched the towel around her like a Roman toga and left the window seat. From the bathroom she called over the sound of the water, "You know the Englishman --"

"What Englishman?" Vicky asked vaguely. This was the first time Emily had ever talked about her blindness, or had referred, even directly, to the accident that had caused it.

But Emily had moved far beyond her last thought. She sounded impatient. "Oh, you know, Vicky, the one who spoke to me after I called the genie up. The one Rob said had no eyebrows. Do you suppose we'll ever see him again?"

"I doubt it."

"I don't," Emily said.

Diary Friday

This is kind of a short one - wrapping up the entry from last week. I continue to blab on about the most Important Thing on the Planet: filling out my senior yearbook blurb.

January 13

My favorite songs are pretty self-explanatory. I think "Celebrate Life" is really called "Life is a Celebration" but I know what I mean. [Oh man - Betsy - member that song?? It was from the TV show "Fame". ] I also put The Hall of the Mountain King. [bwahahahahahaha]

My pet peeves speak for themselves. Instead of "authority abusers" I was tempted to write "Mr. Ameoba" - but in my mind those two are one and the same. I also put "Junior Year" down - I knew I was gonna write that even before my junior year ended. [Oooh. You're psychic, Sheila.]

For "Who do I want to be on a desert island with" I was gonna write "Band-Aid except for Bananarama" [holy crap - that's hysterical] - but that seemed to me a little bit kinky. 5,000,000 guys and ME?? [Uhm ... yes ... so what's the problem here?] So I wrote Matt Broderick [Matt. Not Matthew. Yeah.] He is my #1 most favorite actor living on this earth today.

For my goal - I wrote : To always remain aware - to always have ambition - to always look at the stars.

I don't know where that came from. I couldn't ever think of anything to put for my goal that didn't sound really trite and stupid. "To be an actress" "To get married" "To always succeed". No - how 'bout "To sound really stupid when I write down my goal"? Besides - to be an actress is what my life will be. It is too personal to me, it makes me feel too emotional to just write "La la la to be an actress la la la" I KNOW that that is my goal for what I'm going to do - but how I'm going to live - how do I want to LIVE my life? So I don't know where I wrote came from - I just said it - and I mean it - and that's about the only thing in my blurb that is real - I mean, the Sheila that I am deep down.

When I saw the words "Favorite Hero" there was no one else for me write except Jimmy. [No last name necessary apparently] He is. He is my Hero. My idol. My ideal. [Hon, he made 3 movies and then died. But ... okay. He's your hero. That's cool!!]

I loved writing my Favorite Hangout - I wrote "Bonnet Shores". A lot of kids put down stuff like "whereever the party is" - Yeah, nice life. [But ... didn't you party a lot at Bonnet Shores? Why so judgmental?]

Ever since Picnic, so many new things have entered myh life - new people, new places, new feelings, new experiences - I feel so much more alive and excited by life. If I had filled out my senior blurb last year, I don't think one of my answers would have been what I wrote down now. I didn't even know that those people existed, that 280 Bonnet Shores was even there - I'd never heard of the play Picnic - and now look at me! All of a sudden!

The hardest part of the blurb was filling out the will. Oh dear. I decided that when I sign all my friends yearbooks - that's when I'll tell them how much I love them. I only had a few lines for my will. I had to write really small as it is and I couldn't leave something to everyone I wanted to - like Stephanie or Keith or Laura -

It took me five drafts to get to my finished product. It was so funny how seriously we all took it.

I have such an awful cold. I look like Death. [Yes. I capitalized it] My nose is red and all chapped. My lips are so chapped that they crack when I smile. I have tan-grey shadows under my eyes and my right eye - maybe I have pink eye or something, but it's all bloodshot and glassy. So I'm a real beauty queen at this moment.

January 14

I am doing so bad this quarter. Oh my God. Except in English. I'm so scared. But I really don't care. As long as I pass. As long as I live through these last weeks. Ugh. I feel so dead and dreary. I can't breathe through my nose. I can't taste food. Why is everything so awful now? I feel so gross and miserable.

Something happened to me on Friday during school. It all started with that awful TS ordeal. [He was the guy I had been sort of dating - although I have no memory of the "awful ordeal" I reference here] It got me depressed. Then I got worse and worse during study - Sometimes I get so listless. Sometimes nothing seems to matter and everything seems so much bigger than we are. Life is so big. Right now, in my life, I have no enthusiasm for anything. I really do feel dead. I look like a corpse. I am getting terrible grades. My nose is stuffed up. I can't fuckin' breathe. I hate it at school. I hate that building. I hate high school so much. Right now, I feel nothing.

When I lovewd DW, part of the beauty of it was how much I felt. No matter what feeling I was having, it somehow assured me that I was alive. I mean, when I was totally miserable, at least I was feeling something. It was even a little joyous to have that misery because it was so intense. I'd never felt that much before. I was living.

I don't feel anything now.

I think Brett's birthday is this month. I've got to realize that I'm HUMAN - I can't help it. I miss him so much.

I love January and February because walking home from the library is so spectacular. I don't even mind the cold. It's all part of the freezing beauty of the sunset. On Saturday, I almost cried. I came outside. I had worked 12 to 5 in that stuffy library and this rush of cold air stung my cheeks. There's snow on the ground and - if I disregarded the stoplights and the paved road - I could completely imagine that I was back in time, in a little colonial town. The church spire across the street - I could see it through the treetops - which looked really dark against the sky. The sun had just set and the whole sky was a really deep blue. Then peeping through the trees behind the church was a flaming orange and crimson sunset - with thick heavy lavendar clouds. And the snow. And the cold. I stood on the steps. The white church glowed bluishly in the dusk, and way way up in the sky next to the steeple was the first glimmering white star. Seeing that star - I felt so full. I stood there staring, and sort of let myself feel a prayer, feel a wish.

On the walk home, I kept that star in view.

I love winter. I love the cold and the exploding sunsets. I feel such wonder.

I think I'd rather feel pain than nothing. I really would.

Today was so awful.

1st period - Math - got back a test - 68
2nd period - Physiology - got back a test - 66
3rd period - English - paper assigned for tomorrow - had to write an in-class intro today (yeah, I was really in the mood after my spectacularly wonderful morning)

Something feels really wrong. Nothing is moving me. I tried to cry when I got home from Phys Wrecks - I really felt like crying inside - but I couldn't. I just stared at my face in the mirror. Every study period I sit, head in my arms, TRYING to think - pray - find something that makes me happy - or sad.

I feel like I need to see Brett. Let him call. I need him now. I think about seeing him again, and my heart flutters - I feel shivery and strange - seeing his face - his real face - touching him, talking to him, being with him - I miss him. Maybe seeing him again will make me start feeling again. I have tears in my eyes. I miss him. I really need him to call me. He probably won't. But I ache for it anyway.

Look what I found today. I wrote this the day after my junior year ended. I totally forgot I had written this:

"When life overwhelms me -
When my entire existence revolves around a sterile brick building called High School -
When it begins to seem as though I am taking time out from school to go home -
When I start to convince myself that because I fail one quiz I am destined to be an apple seller -
And that because I didn't go to the Prom it's time to think about convents -
I wonder.
But then I remember -
End of EXAM WEEK Junior Year
Going to the beach at sunset
Dancing hysterically on the shore, jeans rolled up
While the sky explodes in the west -
And the silvery foam whirls around our toes -
We run madly on the sand
As darkness gently rains down.
The stars, and the tinsel moon, and the ocean reflecting
the liquid orange-gold-crimson
And us - my wonderful friends and I -
celebrating our freedom, our youth
The sky was so vast it overwhelmed me.
I am just on the threshold - OF WHAT?"

I wish I knew who I was. Oh yeah, I found out today: I got "Best Actress" (yippee). Is that who I am? I feel so dead today. I'm tired of everything.

Omigod

This is the best story ever. I have lived it vicariously.

The Books: "Moon by Night" (Madeleine L'Engle)

Next book on the shelf ... (we're in my children's and young adult bookshelves, by the way):

Next book on the shelf is Moon by Night by Madeleine L'Engle.

This is the second book in the Austin Family series. The book opens with Mr. Austin announcing to the family that he has been offered a great job in a hospital in New York City - and so the entire family is going to re-locate there. They are country kids, living in a farmhouse - so it's all gonna be a big change. But before they move to Manhattan - they've decided to take the summer off, and drive across country. Sort of a way to transition their lives. So they pack up the station wagon - they're going to go camping - see all the national parks, visit family in Oklahoma, in California ... and when the summer is done, they will fly back - and start up their new lives in New York City.

Big changes for the Austin Family!! Vicky is 14 years old and is deeply into her awkward introspective difficult teenage years ... she's not interested in hanging out with the family all the time, she needs time "to herself" - to write poetry, and think, and have her own experiences - but of course because she's 14 she's kind of obnoxious about it. She doesn't want to be a little girl anymore - but her parents are insistent that this is a family trip - and they have to do things as a FAMILY. (Hmmm. I am thinking of the O'Malleys in Ireland when I refused to get out of the car to go see yet another monastery!)

So they drive across the country. At one of the campsites - a rich family sets up camp beside them - the Austins are vaguely judgmental towards them and their hoity toity camping equipment that they don't know how to use. There is a son in this family - who will become hugely important not only in this book but in MANY other books L'Engle writes. He crosses over between the Austin Family series and the Murry Family series - he's a major character in both. Obviously L'Engle found him fascinating enough to keep him going through multiple books. He is a great character - troubled, annoying, complex, devious, contrite - His name is Zachary. He's a rich kid - he's about 16 years old. His parents kind of ignore him - he's a troubled person so he's shuffled off to boarding schools, because no one knows what to do with him. He's a know-it-all. He wrote the book on "been there, seen it". Nothing can surprise him. There's something cynical and corrupt about him. And yet - on a dime - all of that can collapse, and suddenly all of his sadness comes out, he knows he's a fuck-up, he wishes he could change ... he's lonely, he's sad ... Also, let's just admit it: He (apparently) is gorgeous. From L'Engle's descriptions, he sounds like Peter Gallagher. THAT kind of good-looking. Black hair, pale skin, black eyebrows - a sharp intelligent face - he's got charisma. Oh, and let's just add this to it: He also has rheumatic fever. He's not well. He gets out of breath doing the simplest things - which totally sets him apart from the jocky atmosphere of boarding schools - He can't be an athlete because of his illness.

All of this comes out slowly over Moon by Night - because basically Zachary befriends Vicky - she finds him unlike anyone she has ever met, and even though she hates his cynicism - they end up going for walks together, and arguing about things - the 2 families keep meeting up at different campsites. At first it seems coincidental, but then it becomes clear that Zachary is making his parents follow the Austins and go wherever the Austins go. Mr. and Mrs. Austin are not wacky about this new friend of Vicky's. Actually nobody is. Nobody likes Zachary. But Vicky is sort of dazzled by his interest in her ... by the fact that he has chosen her ... also by the fact that she has never met anyone like him before. But Zachary ends up causing all KINDS of trouble - Mr. and Mrs. Austin want Vicky to spend all her time with the family. Vicky rebels. She wants to hang out with Zachary - even though his cynicism drives her insane. She wants Zachary to just accept that people are GOOD, that there is a possibliity for GOODNESS on this earth - it becomes one of her missions.

Everything comes to a head when they are in California. The Austins are staying with Uncle Douglas - a beloved uncle, who's a painter. Zachary and his family are nearby, I believe - and Zachary ends up taking Vicky out on a date to see a play of The Diary of Anne Frank. And Vicky ends up having a soul-crisis watching that play. She can barely speak of what is happening inside her - and Zachary can't really understand (want to be clear that there is a strange sort of sweetness to Zachary) - she is having a crisis of faith, basically is what has happened.

Her family interprets this "crisis of faith" in the same way they interpreted her sulking fits, or her tantrums. "Oh, that's just Vicky being Vicky." Rolling their eyes. L'Engle SO gets that adolescent moment - the moment when you need to separate yourself from your family - and try to work things out on your own. And even if your family loves you - they probably won't like it that you have separated yourself from them - but that's part of life. Vicky can't talk to her family about what the Anne Frank play meant to her - she can barely be with it herself - so Uncle Douglas steps up to the plate - and the conversation that he has with Vicky is the excerpt I've chosen for the book.

It may sound preachy to some ears, but it doesn't to mine. Messages like this were ESSENTIAL for me when I was 14 years old and very much like Vicky.

And later in the book - when a REAL crisis comes up - Vicky harkens back to this conversation withi Uncle Douglas - it gives her the strength to meet the challenges in front of her.

I love this book. L'Engle takes teenagers seriously. L'Engle knows that any person worthy of the name "human being" will probably ask the question at some point in their lives - "Why did Anne Frank have to die?" - and she takes that moment seriously. And if you think there's an easy and certain answer to that question? Then you do not understand sensitive teenagers and it's a good thing that YOU'RE not writing young adult novels for them. I worked through my own rage about Anne Frank while reading this book.

Excerpt from Moon by Night by Madeleine L'Engle

Uncle Douglas came into the room where I was lying on the bed, not reading or anything, just lying there. Vicky's moping again, Suzy would say. "How about letting me do a few sketches of you, Vicky? Come on into the studio."

I sat with my arms on the back of a chair and my head down on my arms and Uncle Douglas began sketching me. I don't know how long it was with me just sitting and Uncle Douglas working before he said, "What's up, Vicky?"

I shrugged. When I shrug it infuriates the family, but Uncle Douglas doesn't get enough of it to have it bother him. We don't see him that often, and when we do I'm usually at my best instead of my worst. This was his first real dose of what I suppose you'd call my worst.

He asked, very gently, "Want to tell me about it, Vic?"

"I want to," I said. "But I don't think I can."

"Try."

"If I try it'll just sound dopey. I mean, I know everybody thinks it's something that happened with Zachary. But it isn't that. It's sort of everything. Uncle Douglas, why did Anne Frank have to die?"

"Because the Nazis put her in a concentration camp," he answered in a reasonable way.

"But it wasn't right."

"No. It was terribly wrong. But it happened."

"But it wasn't fair!"

Uncle Douglas just nodded slowly, as though to himself, and went on sketching me. Finally he said, "It's a bit of a shock, isn't it, when you realize that things aren't fair in life? It comes particularly hard to you, Vicky, because your parents are eminently fair. IT comes hard because of your grandfather. But it was your grandfather who once recited a little poem to me. Want to hear it?"

"Sure," I said without much enthusiasm. I expected something religious and comforting, and the whole point was that the comforting things were what scared me most, because Zachary was right; they didn't make sense.

"The rain is raining all around,"

Uncle Douglas quoted,

"It rains on both the just and the unjust fellow.
But more, it seems on the just than on the unjust,
For the unjust hath the just's umbrella.

All I'm trying to get at, Vicky, is that life isn't fair, and your grandfather, who is one of the greatest human beings I've ever known, is quite aware of it. He doesn't have anything to do with pie in the sky." (Pie in the sky again. It almost sounded as though Uncle Douglas could read people's minds.) "Your grandfather knows that the wicked flourish and the innocent suffer. But it doesn't destroy him, Vicky. He still believes, with a wonderful and certain calm, that God is our kind and loving father."

"But how can he!" I cried. "If God lets things be unfair, if He lets things like Anne Frank happen, then I don't love Him, I hate Him!"

Uncle Douglas didn't look shocked. He just looked thoughtful. "Tilt your head a little to the right, Vicky. That's better. Hold it." Then he said, "I guess you know I'm the heathen of the family."

"You're not a heathen."

"Thanks, dear. Happily your grandfather doesn't think so, either. Nor that I'm a heretic, bless him, though I have some pretty unorthodox ideas. I get mad at God, too, Vicky. I've gone out alone and bellowed in rage at God at the top of my lungs. But the fact that I bellow at him I suppose proves that I think he's there, doesn't it? Go ahead and be mad at God if you feel like it, Vicky. I happen to agree with your grandfather that the greatest sin against God is indifference. But remember when you're yelling at God, what you're doing is saying, Do it MY way, God, not YOUR way, MY way."

"How can things like Anne Frank be God's way? I don't want God if things like that are His way. It's a cockeyed kind of way. Look at Maggy. Both her mother and father died and she was too young. And the most cockeyed part of it is that she's probably turned out a much nicer kid than if they hadn't died the way she was being brought up and everything. Does that make sense? It's crazy. What kind of a God does things like that!"

"Do you mind if I give you a little lecture?" Uncle Douglas asked. "Your mother says that you've been very resistant to parental preaching lately. Do you mind a little avuncular philosophy?"

"Go ahead," I said stiffly.

"As I told you, sweetheart, I'm the heathen of the family. This is nothing to be proud of. It's just a fact we have to face. But if you go on the assumption - and I do - that man has freedom of choice, then you have to assume responsibility for your own actions. You can't go on passing the buck to God." I must have looked blank, because Uncle Douglas wriggled his eyebrows. "How can I explain it to you? Look, Vicky, you remember your bike accident, don't you?"

"How could I forget it?"

"Why did you have the accident? Because you exercised freedom of choicde to do something you knew perfectly well you oughtn't to do. When you went on the back road in the dark you did wrong and you knew you were doing wrong, and when you were in the hospital afterwards, you didn't whine around saying why did God do this to me? You accepted the responsibility for your own actions."

"But Anne Frank didn't do anything wrong. She didn't do anything to put her in a concentration camp."

"When you had your bike accident do you think you were the only one who suffered? Everyone in your family was hurt. And what you had done was not so terribly wrong, after all. But when the Germans set up concentration camps that was a very big wrong, and certainly many millions of people suffered because of it. Man exercised the freedom of choice to do wrong, and innocent people paid for it, but I don't think you can go around blaming God for it."

"He could have stopped it," I said stubbornly.

"IF he interferes every time we do wrong where's our freedom of choice?"

"But it wasn't fair. It wasn't right." I persisted.

Uncle Douglas sighed. For a while he worked on his sketch of me. Then he sighed and said, "One of the biggest facts you have to face, Vicky, is that if there is a God he's infinite, and we're finite, and therefore we can't ever understand him. The minute anybody starts telling you what God thinks, or exactly why he does such and such, beware. People should never try to make God in man's image, and that's what they're constantly doing. Not your grandfather. But he's extraordinary. So in my heathen way, Vicky, when I wasn't much older than you, I decided that God, a kind and loving God, could never be proved. In fact there are, as you've been seeing lately, a lot of arguments against him. But there isn't any point to life without him. Without him we're just a skin disease on the face of the earth, and I feel too strongly about the human spirit to be able to settle for that. So what I did for a long time was to live life as though I believed in God. And eventually I found out that the as though had turned into a reality. I think the thing that did it for me was a jigsaw puzzle."

"A jigsaw puzzle?"

"A jigsaw puzzle. Hold still. Chin a little higher. You know those puzzles with hundreds of tiny pieces? YOu take one of those pieces by itself and it doesn't make sense, does it? You look at one piece and it doesn't even seem to be part of a picture. But you put all the pieces together and you see the meaning of it all. Well, what I, in my heathenish way, Vicky, feel about life, and unfairness, is that we find it hard to realize that there is a completed puzzle. We jump to conclusions and decide that the one little piece we have in our hand is all there is and it doesn't make sense. We find it almost impossible to think about infinity, much less comprehend it. But life only makes sense if you see it in infinite terms. If the one piece of the puzzle that is this life were all, then everything wouold be horrible and unfair and I wouldn't want much to do with God, either. But there are all the other pieces, too, the pieces that make up the whole picture. Now I'm just going to slap some water color on this. Can you hold it a while longer? Maybe when I'm done I'll cut it up into tiny pieces and put them in an envelope and give them to you to fit together. So you can find out what Vicky is. The jigsaw puzzle is a nice, stretchable metaphor. You can use it for almost anything. Now let's stop talking abstractions and get down to specifics. Did Zachary do anything to you that he shouldn't have done?"

I started to shake my head, then remembered that Uncle Douglas was painting me. "You mean did he make out too much and stuff?"

"And stuff," Uncle Douglas said.

"No stuff," I said. I don't know why I wasn't furious with Uncle Douglas. I would have been if it had been Mother or Daddy.

"Then ..." he left it up in the air.

"You guessed it," I said. "It was all the stuff you were talking about. Did Daddy tell you about Zachary's rheumatic fever and his heart and all?"

"Yes."

"Does Daddy think Zachary's going to die?"

"Why don't you ask him? Your father hasn't examined Zachary, so he can't really tell. But, he says, on a superficial guess, it looks more as though Zachary were trying to kill himself than as though he really had to die young. I don't honestly think he's a very healthy person for you to see, Vicky."

"Nobody likes him," I said bitterly. "Nobody's even bothered to know him."

"You like him?"

"I don't know."

"We're not trying to interfere, Vicky. And we're not trying to keep you from growing up. We'd just like to try to make it as easy as possible, because we love you."

"But you said that nothing that was worth anything was easy."

"Touche. But it doesn't need to be quite as difficult as you can make it if you insist on going at it completely alone. After all, the only way man has gone as far as he has is by benefitting from other people's experience."

Aunt Elena'd finally switched from her finger exercises which had been sort of boring into our subconscious like a drill, and gone into a Bach fugue.

"It's like a fugue, too," Uncle Douglas said, as Aunt Elena started the fugue over again. "Elena and I are lucky ones. She has music and I have painting. They give form and shape to everything we do. It was music that kept Elena from being destroyed when Hal died. You'll be better off when you know what you want to be, Vicky."

"But I haven't any talents," I said, "the way John and Suzy do."

"I think the trouble is that you have too many talents. There are all kinds of directions you could go. You're an artist of some kind. That I'm sure of. It's the roughest of all lives, and the most rewarding. There. That's all I'm going to do today. Want to see it?"

I got up and looked at the painting. "I'd just as soon you didn't cut it up into little pieces."

"Like it? So do I. You're on your way to being a real beauty, child, but it's all in what's behind your face. Right now everything's promise. I'm not going to let you have this because I like it too. As a matter of fact it's one of the best darned things I've ever done. Let's go show it to Elena."

"But she's practicing."

"Right. And I never interrupt her except for something special. Bless you, Vicky, my darling!" His voice soared happily. "I've finally broken through to something I've been reaching for for weeks and was beginning to despair about. Come on! Hi, Elena! Vicky and I've done it!" He grabbed me by the hand and pulled me in to Aunt Elena, and he was so happy that I completely forgot that I was miserable.

Happy place

Beauty. The beauty is in the caught-by-the-camera candid feel of it.

Music geekiness

High maintenance survey from Tanya:

What's a great late night song?
"The Man That Got Away" - Judy Garland

Name 5-10 wistful/bittersweet songs:

In My Life - The Beatles
Watershed - Indigo Girls
Don't Think Twice, It's All Right - Bob Dylan
14th Street - Rufus Wainwright (more the music than the lyrics)
Bill - Showboat
In My Mind - Pat McCurdy (ouch)
Desperado - The Eagles

The 4 Best Songs Ever Written: I will discount classical ...

In My Life - The Beatles
Bye Bye Love - Everly Brothers
Skylark - by Hoagy Carmichael
Danny Boy - Frederic Edward Weatherly

there are so many more ... but these are the first ones that come to mind, for me

3 Current Favorite Songs:
No One Knows - Queens of the Stone Age
I don't know what it is - Rufus Wainwright
Stars and Planets - Liz Phair

Classic Early Evening Drinking Music:
early swing-y Frank Sinatra

3 All Time Faves That Never Get Old To You
all time? Sheesh. Uhm ... going back to childhood now, to think of the songs I loved then that I still listen to, or still can BEAR to listen to:

American Pie - Don McLean
This Train - Bob Gibson
Galway Bay - the Clancy Brothers (I still feel like laughing every time I hear that song - and honestly, adding up my childhood years and the fact that I still listen to that album now - I probably have heard that song about 8,000 times.)

Song You Want (or did) To Play At Your Wedding:
Lucky Charm - Stray Cats

4 Records You Really Dug from 2005
I'm not really a big current-music buyer - I am more inclined to spend my time buying, oh, Pat Benatar's Greatest Hits - but here goes - and if these came out in 2006 or 1004 - I just can't help it. I don't have time to look it up and I don't give a shit, frankly.

Foo Fighters double album
Queens of the Stone Age - whatever that album was called - with Dave Grohl on drums
The Wicked soundtrack
Rufus Wainwright - Want Two
Confessions on a dance floor - Madonna

Favorite Records From This Year So Far:
(see comment above.)

Fiona Apple's new album - I think it came out in 2005 though - ack
I can't do this one, sorry - I don't follow trends

Good Angry Songs:
Father of Mine - Everclear
Rape Me - Nirvana
Mother Mother - Tracy Bonham
You Hurt Me (And I Hate You) - Eurythmics
Sweet Lorraine - Patty Griffin

One of Your Favorite Lyrics:
One of them is, without a doubt:

Till I collapse I�m spilling these raps long as you feel em
Till the day that I drop you�ll never say that I�m not killing them
Cause when I am not then I am stop pinning them
And I am not hip-hop and I�m just not Eminem.
Subliminal thoughts when I�m stop sending them women are caught in webs spin and hauk venom
Adrenaline shots of penicillin could not get the illing to stop.
Amoxacilin is just not real enough.
The criminal cop killing hip-hop filling minimal swap to cop millions of Pac listeners.
You're coming with me, feel it or not you�re gonna fear it like I showed you the spirit of God lives in us.
You hear it a lot, lyrics that shock
Is it a miracle or am I just a product of pop fizzing up?
Fo shizzle my whizzle this is the plot listen up
You bizzles forgot
slizzle does not give a fuck.

Also, the lyrics to my sister Siobhan's song "Belly Under":

It's second nature now,
the third time around trying to be cured.
Second nature comes naturally.
I did double takes,
third time's a charm to be fourth rate.
I plead the fifth to what went on.
I stood too close,
hoping it would make us closer,
but that's a bad theory.
And I forgot the difference
between friend and foe (it's tough I know)--
flip a coin between friend or enemy.

But all those circumstances?
Fuck em all, just take my chances!

It ain't enough to sit and wonder.
It ain't enough to say I care.
No wonder I'm going belly under
from all the world's tear and wear.

Pins and needles got in my feet
(sat too long in my seat)--
at least I know I still got my senses.
But it makes it hard to hustle
with blood and bone inbetween muscle...
that's all I know about anatomy.
Blood and bone can look so gruesome on their own--
skin covers what we dont' wanna see.

But a heart beating on its own,
won't beat long all alone!

It ain't enough to sit and wonder.
It ain't enough to say I care.
No wonder I'm going belly under
from all the world's tear and wear.

In Times Square,
I feel like i'm not even there.
(the ghost under the marquis).
The marquis' read the latest,the greatest,
the highest-paidest--
household names ain't what they cracked up to be.
From the sky,
they can't make out the words on the signs.
That's okay, the angels don't wanna know.

Heaven sent and heaven goes--
even they can't decide i suppose

It ain't enough to sit and wonder.
It ain't enough to say I care.
No wonder I'm going belly under
from all the world's tear and wear.
From all the world's tear and wear
from all the world's tear and wear

5 Cover Songs Arguably Better Than the Original:
Hit me baby one more time - Fountains of Wayne
You're gonna make me lonesome when you go - Shawn Colvin
Those were the days, my friend - Dolly Parton
Somebody to Love - George Michael
All Apologies - Sinead O'Connor

Ironic Song to Brutally Murder Someone to in a movie:
You Are My Sunshine

Great Dance Song You Maybe Never Realized Was a Great Dance song Back in the Day:
Tragedy - Bee Gees (thanks for showing me the way, Michael)

Good Albums To Workout To:
Kelly Clarkson - Breakaway
Madonna - Immaculate Collection
Eminem - The Eminem Show

Good Album to Clean The House To:
I always clean my house to Metallica's black album. I cannot explain it but ... I hear the first chords of the first song, and I find myself yearning for Windex.

Good Dining Music:
Allison Kraus

Good Album To Have Sex To:
anything by Prince
also The Color and the Shape, Foo Fighters

A Good Album To Put You In the Mood (that is NOT Sade, Marvin Gaye or Barry White):

album? How 'bout just a song? I will admit that Tempted (by Squeeze) does the trick for me. Perhaps I should be mortified but honestly, this is an important topic and why be embarrassed about what works? Life's too short. I wouldn't care if MMMM Bop put me in the mood. If it works, why be embarrassed.

Another good one is Happiness Is a Warm Gun - by the Beatles

Good Album To Sleep To:

I play a CD of a thunderstorm - a mild mild thunderstorm with a torrential rainfall - to put me to sleep. Beautiful. Or if we need music here - then definitely the album Pink Moon, by Nick Drake.

5 Good Rock Songs That You Can Dance To: rock?? I'm just gonna list what makes me dance without worrying about the damn genre, okay chappie?

Lithium - Nirvana
Rock Lobster - B 52s
Time Warp - rocky horror
Freeze Frame - J Geils
Vogue - Madonna (probably doesn't qualify as rock but again, chappy, see my comment above)

Song That Is Too Damn Sad:

Washing of the Water - Peter Gabriel (a YOWL of pain)

Great Love Song:

Dream - Everly Brothers (makes me swwon)

An Album Full of Tenderness:

Cliff Eberhardt - The Long Road

Song To An Ex That Isn't Meanspirited:

The heart of the matter - Don Henley (do NOT even get me started on that song)

Song To An Ex That Is Kinda Meanspirited:
(I love Tanya's answer: "Joe Lies" by Lily Taylor.)

Also: Gone - Kelly Clarkson

Song to Listen to While in The Country Looking at Stars:

One Vision - Queen

Song to lose your Mind to:

Crazy on You - Heart

Song To Cry In Your Pillow to:

Watershed - Indigo Girls (it's not particularly a sad song - I just know that I actually have cried into my pillow many times and that song happened to be playing, so I'm just sayin'. A to B)

Songs That Make You Feel Amped and Inspired:

London Calling - the Clash

Great Semi-Obscure B-side:

I would say the genius Fountains of Wayne acoustic cover of Britney Spears' ... Baby One More Time qualifies

Song That Makes You Miss Your Mom:

anything by Joan Baez

That's Baby Makin' Music (No, Really):

Love and Happiness - Al Green

Criminally Underrated Band That Didn't Get Attention and Then Broke Up:

I need to think about this one

Best Fuck You I Am a Teenager in Pain Song:

It's my party and I'll cry if I want to

Feel No Shame: Great Current Pop Songs:

anything by Kelly Clarkson

Album No One Would Expect You To Love:

I have no idea how people perceive me so I cannot answer this. I like all kinds of music so I can't see why there should be any expectations of me.

Album No One Would Expect You To Dislike:

I'm not wacky about most Jackson Browne. I love one or two of his songs - but the rest? No. This would probably surprise (and maybe hurt) some.

Album No One Would Expect You To Really Know:

The Tourists - The Tourists

Emo Album You Actually Like:

I know nothing about that emo shit. I'm old.

Good, But Overrated Cause Of Indie Revisionism:

Overrated? How 'bout Big Bad Voodoo Daddy? I love them though. I actually don't understand this question.

5 Desert Island Discs off the top of your head (30 sec clock):

No clue what this even means. I'm dumb!

3 Contemporary Artists That Were Your Faves 10 Years Ago:
U2
Elvis Costello
Lenny Kravitz

Music That Makes You Feel Sophisticated:
My mix of Scott Joplin rags
Glenn Gould playing the Goldberg Variations

Fave Electronic Record You Own:

See I'm really showing my ignorance - is "electronic" a genre of music? Isn't that electronicA? I'm not answering this one.

Fave Hip-Hop Record You Own:

probably The Eminem Show - just in sheer amount of times I have listened to it.

Hip-Hop Song You Know All the Lyrics Too:

many of them.

Random Album You Loved In High School But Are Afraid To Admit It:

Haven't you read Diary Friday? I am obviously not afraid to admit ANYthing about high school.

Let's see. I adored Adam Ant with the fire of 1000 suns.

Album You May Have Listened To More In Highschool than Any Other Album:
Time - ELO That was my favorite album EVER. MADE.

Also:

Beauty and the Beat - Go Gos

If You Could Enter A Wrestling Ring to a Song It Would Be:

some Chieftains song, with a nutty bodhran solo - like Up Against the Bauchalawns

Album To Clear A Room With:

a Kenny G Greatest Hits album

The Books: "Meet the Austins" (Madeleine L'Engle)

Next book on the shelf ... (we're in my children's and young adult bookshelves, by the way):

Next book on the shelf is Meet the Austins by Madeleine L'Engle.

So we're now done with the Time Quartet - although those characters still show up in her books - She has another series - I guess it's called The Austin Family series. These are not science fiction - these people do not have supernatural experiences, just real-life ones. The Austin family is loosely based on Madeleine L'Engle's own family (the one she had as an adult). There's a father who's a doctor, and four kids: John the oldest, Vicky, Suzy and Rob. In the first chapter, a tragedy happens - I think they get the call that an uncle died, a favorite uncle - this is Vicky's first encounter with death (the book is a first-person book, told from Vicky's point of view) - and they end up adopting Maggy, the uncle's daughter. L'Engle and her husband also did this - there was an adopted child. Maggy is a handful. According to Vicky, she doesn't seem to be grieving properly. Vicky has a lot to learn. Maggy is a brat, and her big fat brattiness is one of the ways she expresses her rage at being left an orphan. The family needs to adjust to Maggy - and that's what this whole book is about. It's a simple book - no unicorns or time travel - but L'Engle has a way of writing about family life that seems very real. For example, there is an entire chapter about the aftermath of little Suzy reading Charlotte's Web. Suzy realizes, in a terribler a-ha moment - that the bacon she eats every morning could be Wilbur! So she refuses to eat bacon. But the whole thing becomes a family crisis - Suzy literally cannot recover from reading that book, it has rocked her little 9 year old world. It's that kind of observational stuff that L'Engle does best - the DETAILS.

Anyway, it's not a great book - but it is the introduction of the family who is the star in many more of her books (some of which are my favorites) - so of course I love it.

I'm going to post my favorite bit of writing in the book. I knew exactly what I wanted to choose. There is an ice storm. The farmhouse where they live loses power. Mr. Austin is stuck at the hospital. So the family hangs out at the house - and ... it's just how L'Engle describes the whole thing. If you've lived through an actual ice storm, you'll know that she writes it down perfectly.

This book has an ease to it ... it's not about anything big, it's not trying too hard to make a point, or have a lesson ... It's about a couple of months in the life of this one family. L'Engle commits to the details: what the kitchen is like, how Mrs. Austin plays the piano when she's stressed out, how the family talks to each other over dinner, what they argue about, where people get STUCK in life - how sometimes you need to be smacked out of a bad mood (not literally - but there's a nice "tough love" aspect to the Austin parents) ... It's just a nice simple book.

Excerpt from Meet the Austins by Madeleine L'Engle.

During the afternoon the wind shifted, swinging around from the southeast to the northwest, and the thermometer dropped down to a shivering ten degrees. Even when the furnace is working full time the house is coldest when the wind is blowing hard from the northwest. Mother stationed us in front of the fireplaces and we kept putting logs on and as long as we stayed right close we weren't too cold. Mother began to worry about the pipes, and she and John went upstairs and draped blankets over the radiators to try to keep them from freezing. The office phone rang once, but when we went to answer it, it was completely dead.

Have you ever noticed how things look different when it's terribly cold? I don't think it's imagination to say that things look harder - the grasses and small trees especially. And things don't have as much color, they fade. Uncle Douglas says that this is observant of me, and absolutely true. And then there's the feel, the cold against your face as though your skin had been turned to polished metal. And I always feel, for some reason, terribly clean when it's specially cold. And all kinds of wood, trees, and the wood of the house, creak in protest.

About six o'clock Daddy walked in, and we all rushed at him and tried to climb up on him, until Mother shouted, "Children! Daddy's tired! Leave him alone!" And she sent us all to sit in front of the fireplace in the kitchen while she got dinner at the fireplace in the living room, and John and I knew she was telling Daddy about who Sally really was and everything that had happened.

We all went to bed early because in an ice storm that's the coziest, warmest thing to do.

I don't know how long we'd been asleep when I felt someone shaking me, and I opened my eyes and it was Mother, holding a flashlight. "Put something warm on, Vicky," she said, "and come downstairs and see fairyland."

I put on my bathrobe and fuzzy slippers and wrapped a blanket around myself and ran downstairs, and so did everybody else. Daddy had Rob rolled up in a blanket and was carrying him, which pleased Rob very much. We looked outdoors and the moon was high and full and it streamed through the trees and every single tiny twig was cased in ice and shimmering like diamonds. And the ground shimmererd, too, because it was covered with spangles of ice. The two birches were twin shining arcs of ice that seemed to be spraying off rays of light. As the wind shook the trees tiny bits of ice would break off and catch the moonlight as they fell to the ground. Little clouds scudded across the moon, and it made the moon look as though it were flying across the sky; and then the trees made long delicate shadows that came and went along the icy ground. It was so beautiful we couldn't speak, any of us. We just stood there and looked and looked. And suddenly I was so happy I felt as though my happiness were flying all about me, like sparkles of moonlight off the ice. And I wanted to hug everybody, and tell how much I loved everybody and how happy I was, but it seemed as though I were under a spell, as though I couldn't move or speak, and I just stood there, with joys streaming out of me, until Mother and Daddy sent us up to bed.

Happy place!

Hahahaha

Movie cliches

Movie cliche #1:

A hot crowded New York sidewalk. There were actually jackhammers in the vicinity, as well as a shrieking ambulance, caught in traffic. I pushed my way through the crowd - and on the opposite sidewalk - suddenly saw him. HIM. Haven't seen him in years. I literally stopped still, in the middle of the sidewalk, as though struck by lightning. My immediate instinct was to quickly cross the street and avoid him. What?? I spent less than 24 hours, total, with that person. Why such a dramatic response? Can't explain it - but that's the way it's always been when I run into him. I stood stock-still - in the middle of the chaos - trying to decide what to do. And in that split second came

Movie Cliche #2

He saw me. He stopped stock-still as well. As though struck by lightning. He looked visibly excited and visibly uncomfortable. I could tell that he wanted to run away as well. But ... ack ... so awkward ... we've seen each other ... so now there is nothing to do but accept

Movie Cliche #3

a slow approach to one another, across the chaotic street, surrounded by busy harassed commuters, raging homeless people, fashionistas on their cellphones who seem unperturbed by the heatwave ... Sirens blared. Jackhammers shattered the air. But if this were a movie - all the sound would have melted away. We met up on the corner. And then enacted

Movie Cliche #4

The awkward hug. The hug that people CRINGE when they watch it, in the movies. There was no hostility, oh no ... just ... thwarted feeling, embarrassment, yearning, and a sense that time was already slipping away so quickly that the encounter was almost over. He is so big. I had forgotten his bigness. Our hug was brief, and jittery with awkwardness. We barely know each other, truth be told. But on another level, we know all we need to know. Seriously. That's what's so weird about it. Then I opened my mouth and said

Movie Cliche #5

"I thought you were in Paris!"

We both had sunglasses on. He seemed incapable of putting together a sentence - which I suppose I could call

Movie Cliche #6.

He's not just articulate - he's scarily articulate, and frighteningly brilliant. But in my presence - he always became a bumbling idiot. He would blurt out inappropriate things, suddenly declare himself and then back off ... I haven't seen him since 2002. This dynamic is still going on. He said something like, "Yeah ... I'm back now ... just in New York for a couple of days ..." Then came

Movie Cliche #7

Awkward meaningless chit-chat, shimmering with sexual tension. It was ridiculous. I knew I was behaving like a cliche but I couldn't seem to stop it. We said stuff to each other like,

"So ... how are you?" I said "How are you?" probably 3 times. He was unbelievably vague in his responses. I tried to get us to be specific. I asked about his book. He gave me a weird look, like: "How do you know about my book?" Then I said

Movie Cliche #8

"I remember everything."

Which suddenly catapulted us into a new landscape. We're always on the edge of that landscape. Honesty? Perhaps. We've never said what needed to be said - mainly because - the timing was flat out NOT RIGHT. And that's final. So you have to watch what you say. But it's true. I remember everything. I didn't say it in a threatening stalker way. It's just the truth, dammit, and he knows it. I remember everything. He had told me all about his book a couple years ago and he let me read a couple chapters. How could he not remember? When I said "I remember everything" then came

Movie Cliche #8

The long potent pause. It was somehow delicious. I suddenly became preternaturally calm and unruffled, and I watched him deteriorate into awkwardness. This happened the last time I saw him, when it was even MORE inappropriate. I waited it out. I didn't say anything. He looked in agony, truth be told - and I guess I could have put him out of his misery - but it just didn't seem right. We're separate. I know we're doppelgangers and all that ... but he's got his journey I've got mine. Then I decided after what felt like 20 minutes of silence (again: I was unaware of the jackhammers or the sirens during this whole thing) to help him out, so I said

Movie Cliche #9

"I wish you nothing but success with it. Keep working. I loved what I read. You're wonderful." I then watched

Movie Cliches #10, 11 and 12

wash over his face. He wanted to kiss me. But he didn't. He said, "Sheila. Sheila." That was all he said. I said, "I know. I know. It's okay." He shook his head, wordlessly. I shook my head, wordlessly. We stood there. Wordless. He shook his head again. I nodded in response. This was all like a conversation. Everything was completely clear to me. I knew what we were saying.

I felt like we could have just kept going in that manner, shaking head, nodding head, not saying anything ... so I initiated

Movie Cliche #13

I reached out and put my arms around him and hugged him. "It was so nice to see you," I said.

Meanwhile, he was experiencing

Movie Cliche #14

He hugged me as though I were a liferaft. I was so sweaty and sticky that I was almost embarrassed he would be like: Ew. You're a sweaty mess. But he was clutching on me. This has happened before with him. I don't know what's going on, but I know that it's his journey not mine. So then came

Movie Cliche #15

I extricated myself and said to him, kindly, and with WARMTH - I could feel myself emanating warmth: "You take care of yourself. SO good to see you." He nodded, inarticulate again. I backed away - wishing that I was a fashionista, wishing that I could go through a heatwave looking cool and glowing and unperturbed - instead of being a sweaty sticky-haired beast of the pasture. But he was looking at me as THOUGH I was a fashionista- which was distinctly strange.

Then came our final

Movie Cliche

He lifted his hand at me, with a grin. Sort of a sad weird grin. I lifted my hand back, and mouthed, "Bye" - then - had to do it, had to do it ...

I turned my back on him and I walked away.

And suddenly I could hear the sirens again. And the jackhammers. And the traffic. And the ragings of the homeless people. Back to life. Back to reality.

Changes

Major changes in my friends lives right now. Chrisanne is finally moving out to La-La Land to be with Alex. This is huge. It's been really hard for them to be apart - they're such a team. Chrisanne moving has impacted Mitchell's life - since he's been living with the two of them for a couple years now. He has found a new place to live ... but at the moment ... it is all upheaval. Exciting times ... but stressful!!

Chrisanne has worked at the same job for many years and so she is now leaving that job ... Alex linked to a photo-gallery showing one of the most inventive (and funny) good-bye gestures I've ever seen. Chrisanne's co-workers went all out. I love that they included the gas tank in the car! And the hubcaps! I laughed as I clicked through the photos. Then there's Chrisanne - her laughing face as she realizes what has been done - I got a little misty-eyed seeing her, truth be told. I love her.

And then the images of Chrisanne driving off into the sunset ...

It's fabulous - just go see.

The thought of Alex and Chrisanne being back in the same state, and together again - makes me happy to think of. I'm sad for Mitchell - well, changes like this always have a bittersweet component.

But what a joyous send off!!

Gorgeous-ness

John at Greenbriar Picture Shows has some terrific images up of premiere parties. I love the two chicks with the massive fur muffs. hahahaha You'd be splashed with blood by PETA freaks if you tried to wear those now!! I know it's great that we're more health-conscious now and everything - but I look at pictures like these, and you know everyone has a cigarette case in their pocket, and everyone is boozing it up - and it seems a bit more RAW - even though it is WAY more glamorous than today ... I would love to go back in time. And look for a blurry image of Clark Gable in the background of one of the photos, cigarette dangling from his lips. Now THAT'S what I'm talkin' about. Decadence.

The Books: "Many Waters" (Madeleine L'Engle)

Next book on the shelf ... (we're in my children's and young adult bookshelves, by the way):

Next book on the shelf is Many Waters by Madeleine L'Engle.

Chronologically, this should be the third book in the Time Quartet - falling in between Wind in the Door and Swiftly Tilting Planet - but she wrote it many years (many waters?) after Swiftly Tilting Planet. It came out when I was in high school.

I LOVE THIS BOOK. I have read it over and over and over. It never palls. There's magic in it. There's magic in all of her books - but for whatever reason, this one completely haunts me. Also, it's one of those books where: every time I read it it feels like a new book. It has new messages for me, new lessons to teach, new themes ... things I feel like I missed the first time around. But no, I didn't miss them. I just wasn't ready for those particular messages.

Marvelous book. I tormented myself with picking out an excerpt.

Meg, Calvin and Charles Wallace have nothing to do with this book - which makes it stand out from the rest of the quartet. The "stars" of this book are the twins - Sandy and Dennys - the ones in the other books who are practical, "normal", good students, jocks, good-looking - they don't worry about echthroi or tesseracts .... They are good kids, but they feel like they are the only regular people in a family full of weirdos. They're smart, too - they don't have the tortured genius thing of Meg and Charles Wallace. They read, they absorb what they read, they do well on tests ... they're "average". I love it that this book is about them - because there's a point to be made there, a very important point. The Murrys are not your average family - the parents are Nobel prize winning scientists ... Meg is awkward, does horribly in school, and yet has some kind of genius. Charles Wallace is 5 years old and could give Einstein a run for his money. The twins in the other books are peripheral .... but if L'Engle had kept it that way she could have been seen to have making a point about worth. Who is worthy to go on these time-traveling adventures? Certainly not AVERAGE people. I'm not saying I picked up on that in the other 3 books - I just know that reading Many Waters is a delight, and one of the reasons it is a delight is because Sandy and Dennys, the so-called "normal" ones - are actually extraordinary people. Deep, smart, willing to learn and grow ... They are just as amazing as the rest of their amazing family - it's just that the two of them have a much better "game face" - They are much more socially acceptable. They play hockey. They get in fights to defend their sister. They gripe about tests and chores. But does that mean that they are not capable of having great lives? I feel like I'm not making the point here .... but for me the book packs a punch because the two heroes are so "normal". It gives hope to us all. Not all of us are geniuses, or amazing, or weird, or out of the ordinary ... But the possibility of greatness and depth reside within us ALL. L'Engle was right to give Sandy and Dennys their moment in the sun.

The book takes no time in set-up. Sandy and Dennys are home alone. They are teenagers. The two of them are connected in a way only twins are. They kind of speak with one voice, they're totally attuned to one another. They're home, they're making an after-school snack, it's a freezing cold day - the winter is long - they end up going into their parents lab - where Mrs. Murry is in the middle of some kind of experiment. As a joke, Dennys goes over to the computer and types: "TAKE ME SOMEPLACE WARM". Sandy says, "Hey - we shouldn't mess with that ..." but before anything else can happen - there is a huge sonic BOOM - and the two of them are suddenly standing in the middle of a desert. A blazing hot desert - stretching out on all sides, nothing else in sight. Much confusion and alarm ensues. What did we do? Where are we? How do we reverse what we just did????

They wander about, they think they see palm trees, they are dying of the heat. Eventually, they meet a small (4 foot tall) hairy man - there is much alarm - a clash of civilizations basically - who are these 2 tall pale giants??? Who is this short hairy midget??? One of the twins begins to get ill - from the heat. They end up being taken back to an oasis.

Now - long story short - and as always - describing her plots make them sound hokey - eventually it becomes clear that they have gone back in time. WAY back in time. To the time of Noah. This is revealed very slowly - Sandy and Dennys are both quite ill from the desert heat - one of them almost dies from it and spends a good deal of time healing - but eventually they realize where they are and what the did.

The book, though, really develops all of these characters - characters that we know from the bible. Noah isn't just the dude in the bible. He's a kind of cranky crazy father of a large family - a man who gets messages from "El" on a daily basis - who is confused by the messages. He seems like a real person. The women in the story also become real - and they're barely mentioned in the Bible. We get to know Noah's daughters - the wives of his sons -

Great changes are coming. There is going to be a clash of some kind - of the old world and the new - of good and evil - .

There are creatures who roamed the earth then - seraphim and nephilim - and to me, this is where L'Engle's genius comes out. Her descriptions of this race of beings - what they are, what they do, what their argument is with one another - It's one of the many "ways in" to this book. There will always be those who are in alignment with the light. Meaning: good. And there will always be those who are in alignment with the dark. Meaning: bad. The age-old struggle. The seraphim and nephilim do battle over the humans in their midst - corrupting or enlightening - trying to protect, or trying to bring down ... It's terrifying.

Sandy and Dennys, once they realize what story they are in, become alarmed. They know the end. They try to remember the details of the story from the Bible but they can't. Both of them become great friends with Yalith - one of Noah's daughters. She is not mentioned in the Bible. Sandy and Dennys wonder, tormentedly, why not. Why didn't she "make it' into the story? What is going to happen to her??

It's a terrific book. I love it. Just flipping through it this morning made me want to read it again.

Here's an excerpt where Yalith walks across the oasis ... it is night ... seraphim and nephilim appear ... you get the sense of big frightening changes coming. Yalith is young. She has no eye for the future, but she can feel the transformation approaching.

Why I love this book is in its healing message. But I also love it for the details of the writing. Like how she describes the smell of the nephil's wings below.

Excerpt from Many Waters by Madeleine L'Engle.

After leaving the grazing grounds around Lamech's tent, she walked through one of his groves that led her onto the desert of white sand lapping against brown grasses. Wherever there were not enough wells to provide for irrigation, the desert took over. But she preferred walking across the street to the dusty, dirty paths of the oasis. Stars were bright against the velvet black of sky. At her feet, a late beetle hustled to burrow itself under the sand until morning. To her right, high in the trees of Lamech's groves, the baboons were chittering sleepily.

She looked toward the horizon, and on an outcropping of rock similar to the one the earthquake had made when Sandy and Dennys met Japheth and the mammoth Higgaion, she saw the shadow of a supine form. She looked to make sure it was a lion, then called softly, "Aariel!"

The creature rose slowly, languidly, and then leapt down from the rock and loped toward her, and she saw that she had been deceived in the starlight, for it was not a lion but one of the great desert lizards, called dragons by most people, although its wings were atrophied and it could not fly.

She stood frozen with anxiety on the starlit sand, her hand holding one of the tiny arrows. As the lizard neared her, it rose straight upward to a height of at least six feet, and suddenly arms were outstretched above the head; the tail forked into two legs, and a man came running toward her, a man of extraordinary beauty, with alabaster-white skin and wings of brilliant purple. His long hair was black with purple glints, and his eyes were the color of amethysts.

"You called me, lovely one?" He bent down toward her tenderly, a questioning smile on his lips, which were deeply rosy in his white face.

"No, no," she stammered. "Not you. I thought -- I thought you were Aariel."

"No. I am Eblis, not Aariel. And you called, and here I am," his voice soothed, "at your service. Is there anything you want?"

"Oh, no, thank you, no."

"No baubles for your ears, your lovely little neck?"

"Oh, no, thank you, no," she repeated. Her sisters would think her stupid for refusing his offer. The nephilim were generous. This nephil could give her everyhthing he had offered and more.

"And all of a sudden you have changed," he said. "You were a child, and now you are not a child any longer."

Instinctively, she folded her hands across her breasts, stammering, "B-but, I am a child. I'm not nearly a hundred years old yet ..."

He reached out one long, pale hand and softly pushed her starlit hair back from her forehead. "Do not be afraid of growing up. There are many pleasures ahead for you to taste, and I would help you to enjoy them all."

"You?" She looked, startled, at the glorious creature by her, light shimmering like water from the purple wings.

"I, sweet little one, I, Eblis, of the nephilim."

No nephil had paid attention to her before. She was too young. Then she saw, in her mind's eye, the strange young giant in her grandfather's tent. She was no longer a child. She did not react to the young giant as a child.

"There are many changes to come," Eblis said, "and you will need help."

Her eyes widened. "Changes? What kind of changes?"

"People are living too long. El is going to cut the lifespan back. How old is your father?"

"He must be, oh, close to six hundred years. Middle-aged." She looked at her fingers. Ten. That was really as far as she could count accurately.

"And your Grandfather Lamech?"

"Let's see. He was very young when he had my father, not quite two hundred years old. He, too, has lived very long. His father, Methuselah, my great-grandfather, lived for nine hundred and sixty-nine years. And his father was Enoch, who walked with El, and lived three hundred and sixty and five years and then El took him --" Involved in the great chronologies of her fathers, she was not prepared for him to unfurl his great wings and gather her in, enveloping her in great swirls of purple touched with brilliance as with stars. She gasped in surprise.

He laughed softly. "Oh, little one, little innocent one, how much you have to learn, about men's ways, and about El's ways, which are not men's ways. Will you let me teach you?"

To be taught by a nephil was an honor she had never expected. She was not sure why she was hesitant. She breathed in the strange odor of his wings, smelling of stone, of the cold, dark winds which came during the few brief weeks of winter.

Enveloped in Eblis's wings, she did not hear the rhythmic thud as a great lion galloped toward them across the desert, roaring as it neared them. Then both Yalith and Eblis turned and saw the lion rising to its hind legs, as the lizard had done, leaping up into the sky, a great tawny body with creamy wings, gilt-tipped, unfurling and stretching to a vast span. The great amber eyes blazed.

Eblis removed his wings from around Yalith, hunched them behind his back. "Why this untoward interruption, Aariel?"

"I ask you to leave Yalith alone."

"What's it to you? The daughters of men mean nothing to the seraphim." Eblis smiled down at Yalith, stroking his long fingers delicately across her burnished hair.

"No?" Aariel's voice was low.

"No, seraph. A nephil may go to a daughter of man. A nephil understands pleasure." He touched a fingertip to Yalith's lips. "I would teach you, sweeting. I think you would like what I can give you. I will leave you now to Aariel's tender ministries. But I will see you again." He turned away from them, toward the desert, and his nephil form dropped into that of the great dragon/lizard. He loped away into the shadows.

Yalith said, "Aariel, I don't understand. I thought I saw you on the rock. I was sure it was you, and I called, and then it wasn't you, it was Eblis."

"The nephilim are masters of mimicry. He wanted you to think it was I. I beg you, little one, be cautious."

Her eyes were troubled. "He was very kind to me."

Aariel put his hand under her chin and looked into her eyes, clear and still childlike. "Who would not be kind to you? Are you on your way somewhere?"

"Home. I took Grandfather Lamech his night-light. But, oh, Aariel, there is a strange young giant in Grandfather Lamech's tent. Japheth carried him there. He has a terrible sunburn. He can't be from anywhere around here. He says he is not a giant, and I have never seen anyone like him. He is as tall as you are, and his body is not hairy, it is smooth like yours, like the nephilim, and his skin, where it wasn't burned red, was pale. Not white, like the skin of the nephilim, but pale and tender, like a baby's."

"You seem to have observed him carefully," Aariel said.

"There's never been anyone like him on the oasis before." She flushed, turned slightly away.

Aariel asked, "What is being done for his burn? Does he have fever?"

"Yes. Higgaion is keeping him sprayed with cool water, and they are going to ask a seraph what to do for him."

"Adnarel?"

"Yes. The scarab beetle."

"Good."

"He is not one of you, this young giant, and he is not one of the nephilim. Their skin burns white and whiter in the sun, like white ash when the fire has burned fiercely in the winter weeks."

The creamy wings trembled, the golden tips shimmering in the starlight. "If his skin burns, he is not of the nephilim."

"Nor of you."

"Does he have wings?"

"No. In that, he is like a human. He seemed very young, though he is as long as you, and thin."

"Did you observe his eyes?"

She did not notice the twinkle in his own. "Grey. Nice eyes, Aariel. Steady. Not burning, like -- not giving out light, like yours. More like human eyes, mine, and my parents' and brothers' and sisters'."

Aariel touched her gently on the shoulder. "Go on home, child. Do not fear to cross the oasis. I will see that you are not harmed."

"You and Eblis. Thank you." Like a child, she held her face up for a kiss, and Aariel leaned down and pressed his lips gently against hers. "You will not be a child much longer."

"I know ..."

He touched her lips again, lightly, and a moment later a large lion was running lightly across the desert.

O'Malley Promotion

Sadly - I do not have Showtime! sniff, sniff ...

but my cousin Kerry O'Malley has a part in the new Showtime series Brotherhood - which I've heard from certain quarters (cough Lisa cough) is really good! Lots of hot pale Irish-y guys too.

If you've got Showtime, you should check it out! Also - the whole thing takes place in Rhode Island. Which just adds to the glory of it all.

Go, Kerry!!

Happy Place!!

There's so much I love about the image below.

1. The random pair of legs in the air. The girl is upside down. I love her. I want to be her. Can you see the grin on her upside-down face, too?

2. Look at the diversity of the crowd. This was taken in 1939. I just love how mixed it is - the true democratic spirit of good music, huh? - and good dance - and all the smiles on everyone's faces.

3. I love that pretty girl way over to the left, looking back over her shoulder, her eyes going off-camera. It's such a spontaneous moment. She looks like she's having fun. She's lovely. Like a teenage Jessica Lange.

4. I want to be there!

5. Check out the dancing dude in the center - with the horizontal striped shirt. He is SO having to ALL!! I love his suspenders, too.

The Books: "A Swiftly Tilting Planet" (Madeleine L'Engle)

Next book on the shelf ... (we're in my children's and young adult bookshelves, by the way):

Next book on the shelf is A Swiftly Tilting Planet by Madeleine L'Engle.

Third in the Time Quartet. Actually - years later - Madeleine wrote Many Waters - which, chronologically, would come after Wind in the Door - but she wrote Swiftly Tilting Planet first. We're back with the Murry family. Meg is now married to Calvin and pregnant with their first chidl (who will end up being Polly - and the star of yet another one of L'Engle's series!) - and ... it's been a while since I read this one. Charles Wallace is now 15 - and - he's gotten even weirder and more brilliant. The book opens on a Christmas holiday - everyone is home at the old farmhouse - Calvin is a doctor, and is out of town, but his mother - a drunk woman named Mrs. O'Keefe - is at the Murrys. And Mr. Murry is called to the phone to consult with the President ... because (as I recall) some insane dictator of a tiny country is threatening to send off nuclear missiles to destroy the earth. Something like that - the details are not clear. Mr. Murry is an adviser to the president, obviously. So the family sits around - and there's a sense of danger in the air - intense danger - imminent destruction - how I imagine the Cuban missile crisis felt to those who lived through it. Life is sharp, poignant, sweet - but there are evil forces at work out there, to threaten the light. Charles Wallace - with his intuition - somehow knows that there is something he must do - and naturally, he hooks up with a unicorn, and goes back in time to adjust some of the might-have-beens that have led the world to this point. Again, it's nearly impossible to talk about her books without making them sound silly. Charles Wallace has a gift - what is known as "kything" - a very specific kind of telepathic communication - the opening sequence of Wrinkle in Time makes reference to it - how connected he is to Meg, how he always seems to "know" about her ... As he gets older, this "kything" thing becomes more urgent - a gift he has been given that he can actually use. But not without paying a huge price. Charles Wallace, a little boy, essentially, carries the weight of the world on his shoulders. He internalizes suffering - he understands so much - he is incredibly wise. He is old before his time.

The book becomes a journey of kything - Meg lying in her bed at home, pregnant - Charles Wallace time-traveling - the two of them intimately connected, feeling what the other is feeling - across space and time.

If anyone remembers anything else more specific about this book, please share it. I am blurry on the details. I do know that the drunken Mrs. O'Keefe who seems like she would be no good in a crisis starts to chant this old ancient rune - which seems meaningless and annoying - but it ends up being the connecting thread - the thematic glue that holds the book together. L'Engle is great that way.

Here's a scene from the beginning when Charles Wallace - suddenly knows that somehow - even though this is a political world issue - he knows that there is something HE must do about it. But what? He can't figure out - so he goes out into the garden - to think. To ponder and reflect.

Excerpt from A Swiftly Tilting Planet by Madeleine L'Engle.

Charles Wallace continued to walk along the familiar route.

Hand resting on Ananda, the tingling warmth flowing back and forth between them, Meg followed her brother's steps. When he reached the open space where the star-watching rock was, Ananda's breathing quickened; Meg could feel the rise and fall of the big dog's rib cage under her hand.

There was no moon, but starlight touched the winter grasses with silver. The woods behind the rock were a dark shadow. Charles Wallace looked across the valley, across the dark ridge of pines, to the shadows of the hills beyond. Then he threw back his head and called,

"In this fateful hour
I call on all Heaven with its power!"

The brilliance of the stars increased. Charles Wallace continued to gaze upward. He focused on one star which throbbed with peculiar intensity. A beam of light as strong as a ladder but clear as water flowed between the star and Charles Wallace, and it was impossible to tell whether the light came from the piercing silver-blue of the star or the light blue eyes of the boy. The beam became stronger and firmer and then all the light resolved itself in a flash of radiance beside the boy. Slowly the radiance took on form, until it had enfleshed itself into the body of a great white beast with flowing mane and tail. From its forehead sprang a silver horn which contained the residue of the light. It was a creature of utter and absolute perfection.

The boy put his hand against the great white flanks, which heaved as though the creature had been racing. He could feel the warm blood coursing through the veins as the light had coursed between star and boy. "Are you real?" he asked in a wondering voice.

The creature gave a silver neigh which translated itself into the boy's mind as "I am not real. And yet in a sense I am that which is the only reality."

"Why have you come?" The boy's own breath was rapid, not so much with apprehension as with excitement and anticipation.

"You called on me."

"The rune --" Charles Wallace whispered. He looked with loving appreciation at the glorious creature standing beside him on the star-watching rock. One silver-shod hoof pawed lightly, and the rock rang with clarion sound. "A unicorn. A real unicorn."

"That is what you call me. Yes."

"What are you, really?"

"What are you, really?" the unicorn countered. "You called me, and because there is a great need, I am here."

"You know the need?"

"I have seen it in your mind."

"How is it that you speak my language?"

The unicorn neighed again, the sound translucent as silver bubbles. "I do not. I speak the ancient harmony."

"Then how is it that I understand?"

"You are very young, but you belong to the Old Music."

"Do you know my name?"

"Here, in this When and Where, you are called Charles Wallace. It is a brave name. It will do."

Charles Wallace stretched up on tiptoe to reach his arms about the beautiful beast's neck. "What am I to call you?"

"You may call me Gaudior." The words dropped on the rock like small bells.

Charles Wallace looked thoughtfully at the radiance of the horn. "Gaudior. That's Latin for more joyful."

The unicorn neighed in acquiescence.

"That joy in existence without which ..."

Gaudior struck his hoof lightly on the rock, with the sound of a silver trumpet. "Do not push your understanding too far."

"But I'm not wrong about Gaudior?"

"In a sense, yes; in a sense, no."

"You're real and you're not real; I'm wrong and I'm right."

"What is real?" Gaudior's voice was as crystal as the horn.

"What am I supposed to do, now that I've called on all Heaven with its power and you've come?"

Gaudior neighed. "Heaven may have sent me, but my powers are closely defined and narrowly limited. And I've never been sent to your planet before. It's considered a hardship assignment." He looked down in apology.

Charles Wallace studied the snow-dusted rock at his feet. "We haven't done all that well by our planet, have we?"

"There are many who would like to let you wipe yourselves out, except it would affect us all; who knows what happen? And as long as there are even a few who belong to the Old Music, you are still our brothers and sisters."

Charles Wallace stroked Gaudior's long, aristocratic nose. "What should I do, then?"

"We're in it together." Gaudior knelt delicately and indicated that Charles Wallace was to climb up onto his back. Even with the unicorn kneeling, it was with difficulty that the boy clambered up and sat astride, up toward the great neck, so that he could hold onto the silver mane. He pressed his feet in their rubber boots as tightly as he could against the unicorn's flanks.

Gaudior asked, "Have you ridden the wind before?"

"No."

"We have to be careful of Echthroi," Gaudior warned. "They try to ride the wind and throw us off course."

"Echthroi --" Charles Wallace's eyes clouded. "That means the enemy."

"Echthroi," Gaudior repeated. "The ancient enemy. He who distorted the harmony, and who has gathered an army of destroyers. They are everywhere in the universe."

Charles Wallace felt a ripple of cold move along his spine.

"Hold my mane," the unicorn advised. "There's always the possibility of encountering an Echthros, and if we do, it'll try to unseat you."

Charles Wallace's knuckles whitened as he clutched the heavy mane. The unicorn began to run, skimming over the tops of the grasses, up, over the hills, flinging himself onto the wind and riding with it, up, up, over the stars ...