Parlez Moi Blog

PWA Update --- For Tonight!

2008-10-08T10:23:00.003-05:00

Tonight at 7 PWA Artist Mark Teiwes (above with his portrait of Joe) will present a workshop for photographers (amateur to professional). He will focus on night photography and environmental portraits. The workshop will be at the Pleasant Street Tea Company and is free and open to the public.

Mark's PWA presentation, "Faces of the Working Waterfront", will be presented at Capt. Joe's Lobster Company on East Main Street, Saturday Morning from 10-11:30am.
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seARTS Seafood Experience Raffle

Tickets available at all events and at Pleasant Street Tea Company.

Working in close collaboration with local businesses, seARTS is also announcing the "seARTS-Seafood Experience" drawing to support the programs. The PWA Business Partners have provided a tempting grouping of prizes. Joe Ciaramitaro, of Captain Joe's is looking forward to the show and to everyone being part of the waterfront.

First Prize includes all the makings of a fabulous dinner at home:

Intershell - a small diversified seafood processing and distribution company, supplying sushi distributors nationwide is contributing $100 package of sushi items
Captain Joe & Sons - Four 1 ¼ Lobsters + an Apron to be claimed before December 30, 2008
Virgilio's is contributing homemade sauce, olive oil, peppers and bread
The Building Center - proud to have served Cape Ann for 105 years is contributing a 19 quart seafood steamer.
Cape Ann Brew Company will provide a growler and t-shirt & fill your growler at a discount

Second Prize will give you a head start on your Holiday shopping with:

A gift from the Black Swan, a $25 gift certificate from Dogtown Books where you can choose from a variety of used books, from affordable reading for pleasure to collectible treasures; a Gift Certificate or a special item from the Dress Code that Barbara will choose especially for you. Barbara advises everyone to "Purge, recycle and renew." End your day with a $10 gift certificate for coffee, tea, sandwiches or soup at the Pleasant Street Tea Company and a bath with a gift from Bubbles.

Tickets will be sold at the October 9th Forum & throughout the day on the 11th. The drawing will take place on the evening of October 11th. Tickets are available for $5 or 3 for $10.

How To Explain...

2008-10-06T08:37:00.005-05:00

I spent the better part of the weekend right here in this chair bent over the computer working on the knitting book. When I wasn't sitting at the computer I was working on a bit of knitting trying to take something step-by-step in order to explain it. I remember when Mark was working on his book he said that, even though he worked on his lobster boat every day, when it came time to sit down and write what he did, he had no idea how to explain it. He would drive down to Pirates Lane, row out to his boat, and do what he did a hundred times every single day but watch the process step-by-step. He said he had no idea how many steps went in to hauling the traps on board, cleaning them out, re-baiting them and setting them back.

Knitting is a world away from lobster-fishing but I am going through the same thing. Even though I have been writing things down and photographing my work as I go along, there is still so much to explain.

The book has grown --- I knew it would. I want to do something a little different with this book. It is more about knitting theory than just an instruction book. I want to encourage people to be creative with patterns and fibers, to experiment, and, above all, to have fun. So, rather than give hard-and-fast directions, I want to tell you what the thinking was behind these creations, too. The directions will be there of course, but with lots of room for each individual knitter's creativity.

Back when I was in the corporate world I worked for several years for a fiber optics manufacturer. One of my jobs was to illustrate fiber optic components for catalogs and proposals. Yesterday, while working on the book, I realized I needed to do the same thing for the shawls. So I spent the better part of the day drawing diagrams and making illustrations like I did for fiber optic components but this time for shawls. It was quite a learning experience! I hadn't realized that I thought like an engineer when I was plotting a shawl.

I made four diagrams --- one for center-seamed, triangular shawls; one for rectangular shawls that have a center lace panel and then three lace sections knit around the perimeter; one for a long rectangular shawl with lace borders; and one for constructing a cocoon from a rectangular lace shawl. It was actually fascinating to do. I learned stuff even after all these years of designing knitted shawls. When I showed the diagrams to my friend Maureen she got very excited. Maureen is a crocheter and sometimes feels a little left out of our group of knitters. But, she said, after looking at my diagrams, she understood how to duplicate the general effect in crochet. She could use her own lace patterns with my diagrams.

As I sort though the pictures of my work I have taken over the last several years, I am realizing how much I have learned and how much I want to pass on in the book. This is exciting. All these years I've resisted writing a knitting book because I thought my combined handicaps of knitting with my yarn in my left hand, not being able to read written-out instructions, and being a large-sized knitter were prohibitive to the usefulness of such a project but, as I work on it, I realize it has given me a different perspective that might be useful to others.

Right now the book has five sections: My Knitting Autobiography & Process; The Mermaid Shawl; Emily's Shawl (left); Scarves, Stoles & Wraps; and The Cocoon. I am considering adding a section on Knitting on the Bias. I have a ways to go, but it is quite an adventure. I am approaching it like I used to approach instruction manuals for fiber optic systems --- only with knitting. Cool.

I also finished my breathtaking lace shrug, too. It is GORGEOUS! I knit it with a double strand of laceweight cashmere/silk in the most beautiful shade of yellow. I even found three exquisite Czech glass buttons to finish it. I was looking at all the photos I have of my lace bedjackets and thought that might be my next knitting book adventure --- Lace Bedjackets & Shrugs. In the future ---way, way in the future.

Thanks for reading.

Partner With An Artist and Block Party

2008-10-03T14:09:00.008-05:00

COMPLETE SCHEDULE AND INFO

In July, the Society for the Encouragement of the ARTS in Gloucester awarded grants amounting to $9000 to six area artists for the production of works of art related to Gloucester's distinguished literary history. Last night the first creation was unveiled in the Building Center's parking lot and more will be presented in the coming week. Of course the photo above is our good friend Joe Ciaramitaro from GoodMorningGloucester.org and the photo of him is by photographer Mark Teiwes who has created a series of photographs called "Faces of the Working Waterfront" that will be presented in a multimedia format at Captain Joe & Sons on East Main Street from 10 to 11:30 on October 11. The photographs were inspired by Vincent Ferrini's poem, At the Brink.

Other artists presenting their work are installation artists Susan Frey and Richard Emmanuel, musician Willie Alexander (left) who, in partnership with Virgilio�'s, will play a recorded singing of Ferrini�fs poems over minimal musical accompaniment on Virgilio�fs loudspeaker system on Main Street. Granite sculptor Martin Ray's (below),installation will take place on the granite rocks in front of the Fitz Henry Lane House on Harbor Loop. The public is invited to view the sculpture named "Maximus [Olson] and The Living Poem [Ferrini]". Performance artist Ian McColl, and installation artist Emily Sinagra also participate.

The event will also feature a panel discussion next Thursday evening hosted by one of our favorite people Peter Anastas. I'll be posting more about this event in the week to come but I wanted to warn you to save next Thursday evening and next Saturday for this unique celebration of Gloucester's literary heritage.

The Partner With an Artist (PWA) program is funded by seARTS and through grants from the Massachusetts Cultural Council John and Abigail Adams Art Program and the Boston Foundation Bruce J. Anderson Fund. The Partner with an Artist Program has evolved over the last 3 years with increasing interest and new thinking from artist applicants. This year, sixteen proposals were judged on quality and clarity of the project idea; inclusion of relevant literary texts in the conception or manifestation of the project; innovative adaptation/expansion of the artists' work to meet the criteria of the grant; a willingness and ability to be site-specific in the project proposal; and merit of previous work.

seARTS cultivates Cape Ann’s position as a world-class center for working artists. seARTS is a coalition of artists, art lovers, cultural institutions, businesses, and municipal organizations, all working together to improve the economic base for the arts and the larger Cape Ann community.

For more information about seARTS, contact Sara Young, Executive Director ed@searts.org or visit www.searts.org

Stay tuned and thanks for reading.

Download the Flyer with complete schedule.

And don't forget the 2nd Block Party. The first one was such a success that Number 2 is scheduled the evening of the PWA Walk - October 11. Be sure to see a special slide presentation of works by our photographer friends, Jay Albert and Jim Barber (click to enlarge image below):

Everything Is Useful

2008-09-30T14:47:00.002-05:00

I've said it a thousand times before but I don't know what people who do not write do --- especially when they are dealing with difficult times in their lives. I won't bore you with more about what a difficult summer this has been but one good thing is that I have been doing a lot of writing. Shortly after Mark died I went through a series of strange experiences that both overwhelmed and mystified me. With the help of a couple of friends who are more tuned into the metaphysical world than I am, I sorted all this out and, while I am not really ready to talk openly about it, it served as the basis for a story, “Sailor's Valentine”, that I am not entirely finished with but which I truly love.

Recently I was contacted by an editor friend who is looking for stories for an anthology she is working on and she asked if I would write something for her. The piece had to have an ecological component to it and, since I live in Gloucester, she thought I might have a unique perspective. I thought about it for quite awhile and then decided to write about something Mark talked about all the time, the fact that fishermen have a vested interest in preserving the environment and working to safeguard their workplace --- the North Atlantic Ocean.

At first it felt strange to be writing about something that I personally have limited experience with but, because I had the benefit of several years working with a highly gifted writer who knew all about it, I know more than the average person probably does. So I set to work.

As the story began to take shape and as I spent a good deal of time reading through old blogs about Mark and also through a lot of his old emails and notes I realized that he gave me an extraordinary gift that I had, so far, failed to appreciate. He brought me into his world and let me see not only the challenges and joys of it but also, through his endless capacity to observe minute details, he gave me words --- lots and lots of words --- describing both the world he lived and the man he was in living it. Writing this story has been pure joy.

A few years ago a brother lobsterman-friend of Mark's died --- also very unexpectedly --- and his widow and I became friends during that time. We talked a lot about the kinds of men both of them were and how unimaginable the world would seem without them. Now we both know. During that time I suggested to her that she start writing about her husband. I said that it might help her feel close to him. Shortly after Mark died she contacted me and we exchanged a lot of emails. Her husband has been gone for three years now and she still misses him terribly. In one letter she told me that she took my advice and that she had filled three notebooks so far --- and was still writing. She said it helped her enormously. I was so glad.

That's the thing. When someone dies that tremendous sense of loss can become overwhelming. Nobody wants to pass from the earth unremarked and, yet, so many do. But writing is such a gift because through our words and our stories --- the notebooks we fill for our own use or the stories we send off to editors --- we keep a part of them alive. Sometimes we even can share their lives with those who might otherwise not have known them.

So I am writing about lobster-fishing. Not from the perspective of someone who has done it but rather from the perspective of someone who was lucky enough to share the life of someone who has done it. There is both joy and solace in doing this.

I have to end this and get back to my story. And I am grateful to have it to write.

(The photos above are both by Jay Albert.)

Thanks for reading.

Sailing Ships and Knitted Beauties

2008-09-26T08:07:00.002-05:00

I want to show a few more of the designs that are scheduled to be in my forthcoming knitting book but before I get to that I wanted to post an exceptional photograph taken by our good friend Jay Albert at his wonderful photo blog Cape Ann Images.

Jay's work is so beautiful I want everyone to see it. So now on to knitting. These are four more designs, 2 shawls and 2 cocoons, that will be in the book. The first is a variation on the Mermaid Shawl that I call the Gypsy Shawl. It is knitted the same way until you come to where the lace patterns begin. Then a different set of lace patterns are used. And it is knitted out of 100% recycled silk from Nepal.

I love working with silk and when I can get a great buy on it --- as I often do through eBay or ColourMartUK --- I can justify using it. The next shawl is a rectangle than can also be used as a lavish scarf. It is a silk and rayon chenille that I purchased at Webs in Northampton a number of years ago. It is worked on #2 needles because chenille tends to worm unless it is knit tight but it is worth the time spent.
The next two cocoons are happy accidents. They both started out as shawls but, because I made some dumb decisions while working on them, they were too awkward as shawls so, rather than make them over, I transformed them into cocoons which I absolutely love. The first one is one of the few wool pieces I own --- I have problems with a lot o wool. But was purchased from Handpainted Yarns, a women's collective from Uruguay. I love that knitters in the US are supporting villages all over the world thanks to our obsessions with knitting. The silk from Nepal also came from such a collective. So this is their wool boucle in a color I adore called Barbie Rose. This is a comfortable, snuggle wrap that is as stylish over evening clothes as it is cozy over a nightgown (left).

And finally, what says luxury more than black cashmere? This beautiful cocoon was originally a shawl that I knit widthwise instead of lengthwise and I soon discovered that it stretched much too much when I wore it as a shawl. So I transformed it into a cocoon and I wear it all the time. It looks great with a long skirt or with jeans. The cashmere was an eBay find and I at first I thought it was a little stiff but once I finished knitting and washed it --- yum! Total luxury.

I've gotten some amazing fibers from eBay. Several years ago I purchased a 50 silk/50 cashmere yarn in a lovely sunny yellow. After many starts that didn't go well it is now being transformed into the laciest shrug imaginable. I hope to get it finished in time for the book. It looks like we are in for a cold, rainy weekend so I'm planning to stay home and work on the book and, of course, my knitting. Hope yours is wonderful wherever you are and whatever you do.

Thanks for reading.

The Mermaid Shawl & other Beauties

2008-09-22T18:33:00.002-05:00

A couple of years ago I created a shawl out of Knit Picks Suri Dream that I called the Mermaid Shawl. I posted pictures of it on my blog and I have been inundated with requests for the pattern ever since. I tried having a KAL and it went fairly well --- several people completed the shawl and sent photos but there were a few kinks I had to work out of the pattern and it has been on my To-Do list forever. Well, I'm finally doing it.

Yesterday my good friend Jane offered to act as model so I could take some pictures for a knitting book I am working on. I'm calling it The Mermaid Shawl & other Beauties: Shawls, Cocoons and Wraps. At present I have the Mermaid Shawl and two variations on it, two cocoons, and four shawls/scarves all of them featuring lacy stitch work and all of them easily adaptable by size. It is my intention to have the book ready by the first of the year.

Here are three of the designs that will be featured. Below is the original Mermaid Shawl in Suri Dream. I also have a variation called the Gypsy Shawl made from recycled sari silk.

This one is a striped, open-work rectangle made with Knit Picks Shimmer, an alpaca and silk blend. It works up fast and gets it's soft color changes by knitting with two strands held together in alternating changes. (That's my car in the background.)

And this is a rather fanciful wrap made of recycled raw silk from a thrift store sweater that I unraveled. I realize people will not be able to find a similar sweater but it is a good example of how you can turn odd finds into treasures.

In addition to the patterns I want to write about how I adapt patterns and designs to accommodate available stash, how to transform a problem piece into something entirely new, and other random things I have discovered in my 40+ years of knitting. I'm even including a short story that tells a fictional account of the origin of the Mermaid Shawl. As promised, those who have written to tell me they purchased and read The Old Mermaid's Tale, will get a free copy of the book as soon as it is available. I'm going to post more designs later this week.

I want to thank Jane for being such a lovely model. I also want to thank Tom Ellis for conveniently positioning the Thomas E. Lannon Schooner off Ten Pound Island while we were shooting. He didn't know about it but I thank him anyway. This is the proposed cover. What do you think? Would you buy this book?

Thanks for reading.

Alternative Business in a Changing Economy

2008-09-21T21:52:00.000-05:00

Nobody needs me to tell them that the economy is frightening right now. Just looking at the papers is enough to know that and, while heaven only knows where all of this will take us, there are a lot of folks who are starting now to think about alternative and/or additional sources of income. One of the things that is a big asset to many of these entrepreneurs is the internet.

I was thinking about this because my friend and client Leslie Wind told me something amazing recently. Leslie is a very talented jeweler/goldsmith who creates some of the most unique and innovative designs I've ever seen. She has supported herself as a goldsmith for nearly 40 years but she tells me that the internet has taken her to a new level. Back in April I suggested to Leslie that she try adding a PayPal shopping cart to her web site. She told me last week that her sales are up over 30% since we did that and, not only has she increased sales, but she has connected with a number of merchants who now carry her products. She has also begun teaching workshops making shawl pins and is traveling all over the place teaching --- all thanks to the internet.

Now let me add, Leslie is an ambitious marketer. Good for her. First we redesigned her web site to really show off her craftsmanship, then we added a blog to help her connect with potential customers, and then the shopping cart. Leslie works the internet, too. She calls it “mining the internet” and that's an excellent term. There is no denying that putting up a web site is just the beginning. If you have a web site that accurately reflects the quality of your service or product you are ahead of those whose sites are poorly thought out. But learning to think like a marketer --- who is my ideal customer? how can I reach them? what new markets can I cultivate? --- is a great way to approach your online time.

The majority of people, especially those under 50, use the internet to research services and products. One of the biggest businesses that depends on an internet presence for decision-making information is the wedding business. Florists, photographers, caterers, function halls, musicians, etc. etc. are researched in advance by today's brides over the internet before they make decisions. I have recently re-designed a number of web sites for wedding-related businesses to create a web presence that will specifically appeal to today's savvy, sophisticated brides-to-be. Two of these are Amore Photography (above) and Pepperberry Flowers (below)

It is these small, independent businesses that I find most creative and innovative. Artists and artisans, photographers, performers, merchants, crafts people are all learning ways to do their own marketing on the internet.

One area that is especially dear to my heart is the indies --- indy publishers, indy musicians, indy designers. They are doing amazing things. One of my favorite designers if Clare Higgins who loves cats and has created an adorable and clever set of cat-related art work products that she calls Modern Art Cats (left). She has setup a shop through Cafe Press and is selling all kinds of products with her designs on them. Carla Rey Lankford, a reader of this blog and a beautiful designer has a shop for her exquisite, dreamy designs (below) at Wednesday Wandered on Etsy. Others use Zazzle.

e-Publishing is all the rage. Ever since Amazon introduced Kindle other electronics developers have been scrambling to come up with something as clever. But e-books and reading materials can be downloaded to all sorts of hand-held devices and carried with their owners to be read and enjoyed whenever they have a few free minutes. You'll be hearing more about this in the weeks ahead.

So, I decided it was time I do a few things of my own. I have finally updated my gallery of web sites I've designed and have put them into a presentation on my Valentine-Design web site. This includes a Featured Web Site of the Month, and I've been adding to my blog about marketing tips, Marketing Musings by Valentine Designs.

These are challenging times, we all know that. But they can also be exciting and creative times. The truth is, no matter what happens, the world keeps turning, and it is up to each of us to decide how we face that. It's not always easy but it certainly can be interesting and even fun.

Thanks for reading.

I'll Take The Pain

2008-09-16T19:35:00.001-05:00

I met a friend for dinner tonight and then gave her a ride home after she dropped off her car to have some work done on it. Since she lives near the art association I went out there to the parking lot afterwards to watch the sun go down. That is the first time I have been able to bear doing that this summer. I met Mark there so very many times to just sit and talk and watch the sun go down --- we did that for years. This summer I have not done it at all.

While I was there David, the fisherman who owns the Black Sheep now, was out working on the boat. I watched him working on the deck and then motoring across the cove to a slip --- I don't know what he was doing, maybe picking up bait so he can lobster fish tomorrow. It was sweet watching him go about his work. It was sweet remembering all the many conversations that took place in that parking lot --- almost always about writing. How do you tell a story? How do you build suspense? How much poetry is allowed before it becomes obnoxious? What is the difference between emotional honesty and sentimentalism? How much truth can we bear to reveal? These were all things we talked about endlessly. I miss you, Mark. I really do.

Sometimes I think I feel his presence near me. I think I feel his hand --- that big, hard hand --- touching the back of my neck, the way he used to do. Sometimes I think I hear him say my name in that quiet, low voice of his --- “Kath”. He was one of the few people who called me that. Sometimes in the morning I think I hear him open the back door from the deck for one of his early morning visits. Sometimes it's just the “himness” of him that won't leave me.

I think about the first three and a half years versus those last few months when things were so estranged between us. I blamed myself for the fights. Actually, he always denied that we fought. He said we “disagreed”. He didn't like the word fight. But it was so strained then. He said he wanted me to start editing his second book, Code Flag Alpha, and I said he needed to work harder at promoting the one that was already out. He said I wasn't being supportive of the proposed movie deal. I said I would be thrilled when the check cleared the bank. He said I was paying more attention to other books I was working on than I was to his. I said I needed to earn more money. He said I was being negative. I said I was a mess. My father had recently died and I had a book just out that I didn't have time to promote and on and on and on... Now I know there was so much more than I did know.

His mother tells me that I need to remember how sick he was. She says he was taking a lot of medication and it effected his temperament. We, neither she nor I, knew that at the time. Last Thursday night she told me that in one of their last conversations he told her how much he hoped he'd be able to pay me back for the things I had done for him. I think he knew what was coming, I really do.

I guess this is what happens when there is a loss greater than you think you can bear --- you keep going over ever tiny detail and wondering if it meant more than it did. I have a box full of manuscripts with his handwritten markups on them and notes and little “parables” he would write on the backs of envelopes and stick under the windshield wiper on my car. I look at his handwriting and wonder what earthly piece of him remains in that. Sometimes, after he had a disagreement with someone in his family, he would come over here for a little consolation and he would look at me with those big, warm, soft eyes of his and say, “They're not my family, Kath. You're my family.”

I still have not been able to go into Halibut Point. I struggle going into the coffee shop. I get weepy when I pass by one of our special meeting places. I miss him and it hurts and yet and yet and yet...

Hemingway always said to write the truest thing you know and this is mine: If I had a choice between all this pain and never having known him at all, I'll take the pain.

Thanks for reading.

“The Devil's Martyr's”

2008-09-14T19:13:00.000-05:00

Recently someone gave me a copy of Rabbi Harold Kushner's classic When Bad Things Happen To Good People. I had never read it and, though it is not that I think anything so terrible has happened in my life, I found reading it a comfort and an affirmation of much of what I personally believe: That Life happens --- and that God is not about altering the vicissitudes of life but rather about giving us strength and courage in facing them.

In the book Rabbi Kushner mentions what he calls “The Devil's Martyrs” --- people whose loss causes their loved ones to become angry and bitter and rail against God and ask “what kind of a God would do this to someone?” Seems there are a lot of folks around these days who turn their dead into Devil's Martyrs. And one of the things Rabbi Kushner says is, “The facts of life and death are neutral. We, by our response, give suffering either a positive or a negative meaning.” And he goes on to say that we, as the living can either make some one a Devil's Martyr or we can make them witnesses for God and for Life. He says, “The dead depend on us for their redemption and their immortality.”

I found this not only comforting but reassuring. Particularly because I have been so obsessed with Mark's book. He was so proud of that book and the thought of it dying with him is terrible to me. The book has its flaws as all human endeavors do. But it also has great beauty. And as I was reading Rabbi Kushner's words this morning I remembered a beautiful passage in the final chapter of Mark's book. He believes he is about to die and he is remembering things that happened in his life. He is begging God not to let him drown and he begins to think about something he was a part of as a young man. I'll post those paragraphs here and let Mark tell you in his own words what thoughts were in his mind as he was facing death. I hope they stayed with him in those moments of his life that really were final:

(Photo at left: Mark back in his lifeguard days.)

But a long time ago, when I was young and dumb, I actually saw Him. Yeah, that’s right. I saw God. Of course, I didn’t know it at the time but it was definitely Him—the apparition of God on Earth in human form.

Toward the end of summer lifeguards everywhere have spent too many days in the sun. After a week long stretch of sunshine we would do rain dances or call up people who seed clouds—anything to get a rainy day. It was finally a cloudy day on Wingaersheek Beach. There were four of us guards on duty. Only a few people were on the beach. Three of us played poker and the fourth guard patrolled the beach paying special attention to those parts hidden from the guard shack by the rocks.

The tide was out and, with the gradual incline of the beach, it was ten times as big at low tide as it was at high. Wingaersheek is one big beach at low tide. The current from the Annisquam River scoured out a pool behind one of the largest rocks. The pool was a good thirty feet in diameter and dropped off gradually to about six feet in the middle. It was there that I was to see God.

I had just drawn a third queen to the two I already had when we heard yelling. We were all up and looking for its source. The roving guard emerged from behind another rock at a dead run, headed toward the tidal pool, blasting on his whistle, dropping his white safari hat and hurling his red jacket high in the air—all signs that something was terribly wrong.

Hats and jackets were airborne in a heartbeat. Three of us headed right at the pool. I was ahead of the other two, about twenty yards from the pool, when the rover hit the water. As I closed on the pool I could see an unrecognizable object seeming to float in the middle. I slid to a halt at the edge and there He was—God. All that was visible of Him were His hands and arms. He was holding his little sister above the water’s surface. He was totally submerged—drowning. Even though he was about to die he still held his baby sister above the water. I hit the water swimming, head up, eyes locked on the victim as I’d been taught. Just as Guard #1 reached her, the arms collapsed. The girl fell into the water, screaming. Guard #1 grabbed her as the arms disappeared from sight. He pointed down as he treaded water holding the girl. I grabbed her brother on the first dive. As I surfaced with him the two reinforcements arrived. We swam the boy to the beach. He was breathing on his own before we had him out of the water. He said his sister stepped in over her head and began drowning and he went after her. The catch was, he couldn’t swim a stroke but nothing was going to hurt his baby sister, he told me. All he could do was stand on the bottom and hold his sister out of the water. He had no idea we were on the way. Four lifeguards were awed by his audacity.

In three years as a commercial diver and almost twenty as a Gloucester fisherman, it is not that I have never seen such a display of selflessness and courage. It is that I’ve never heard of one without wondering if maybe God appears on earth from time to time and manifests Himself in this manner to show us that He really does exist. All it takes is some brilliant bastard like myself, who only took twenty years to figure out exactly what it was he witnessed that day and pass it on. Maybe it’s just that simple. It don’t take religion, it don’t take education, it don’t take philosophy or a strong belief in the hereafter. It sure don’t take using the word “God” five times in every sentence. Maybe it just takes the good luck to be a witness to, or the courage to be a part of, someone willing to die to save someone else. Someone willing to “lay down his life for his brother”. Perhaps every time one of these instances occurs the human race takes a little step farther on the evolutionary plane to wherever we are supposed to be evolving to. - Mark S. Williams

Thanks for reading.

Once Upon A Time In Texas

2008-09-13T13:29:00.006-05:00

It was Spring time and I was in love. He was very tall and blond and was from Australia. He had the most wonderful accent. So on this beautiful Spring night he invited me to go to Galveston with him for the evening. I was always happy to go to Galveston and going with him was going to be especially wonderful.

We drove down I-45 and over the bridge into Galveston. To me there was always something magical about Galveston. I'd been there many times but this was a particularly special night. Some nights are just seething with that delicious aura of wonderfulness. It was a night like that. He said he wanted to take me someplace where we could dance, how about The Balinese Room? Excellent idea.

I had been in the Balinese Room before. I had walked the length of the deck and purchase souvenirs in the shop and had more than a couple beers in The Ice House, the casual bar there. But I'd never been there at night, to dance, with a man I was in love with.

I've always been attracted to the nightclub scene of 1940s and 50s. I think in a past life I was a torch singer with one of those bands. I've always said that of all the characters I've ever created Ruby in My Last Romance is the closest to being my alter ego. I think Ruby was conceived on that night. In My Last Romance when Ruby sets out to seduce Silvio she makes herself a lipstick red dress and, as she says, “I looked like sin itself strutting into The Balinese Room that night.”

My dress was more of a rose red, I still remember it, crinkled gauze with a peasant neckline that drooped off my shoulders. And white wedgie sandals and a necklace made of white seashells I had purchased in the gift shop there a few years earlier.

The Balinese Room stood at the end of a 600 ft covered pier stretching out into the Gulf of Mexico. It was famous for its bands and its raucous, slightly shady atmosphere, and the fact that all kinds of glamorous people of bygone eras had frequented it --- Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, all those guys who invented the whole concept of nightclubs. There had been a notorious casino in the last room of the building and the 600 ft. pier made raids difficult because, by the time the cops, ran the length of the pier, all the evidence of misbehavior could be stashed away. And there were rumors of ghosts --- wonderful ghosts who appeared dressed in their finest gowns and cruised the dark corridors looking for their missing dance partners.

The murals on the walls depicted exotic island women in colorful clothes with dark hair and mischievous eyes and seductive posture. There were pillars decorated to look like palm trees and wrapped in twinkling gold lights. The place smelled of generations of booze and perfume and cigarettes all washed by fresh Gulf air. It was the sort of place where you could snuggle up to your dance partner and pretend it was another time, right after the War, maybe, and tomorrow was a million years away. All that mattered was tonight. It was the sort of place where you could go outside to watch the waves roll in and the sun go down and kiss and kiss and kiss.

That wasn't the last time I went to The Balinese Room --- with the Australian and later without him. But it was a time that will linger on the edge of my sweetest memories forever. I have often said that if life was perfect I would live in Gloucester from May through November and in Galveston the rest of the year. I dreamed about more nights in The Balinese Room --- maybe not as magical but every bit as delicious.

Early this morning Hurricane Ike ended that fantasy. The Balinese Room was ripped to shreds and tossed carelessly into the Gulf and over the seawall. It is no more.

I've had a bad year for losses and, in many ways, this is yet another one. But, like the others, the memory is sweet. And it is mine and I am grateful for that.

Thanks for reading.

Coffee and Canning Tips

2008-09-09T08:13:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I was early for a meeting with a client at my favorite little local coffee shop and the place was packed. I got my coffee and then realized that every table was taken and everyone seemed settled in. What to do? Then I noticed someone sitting alone with his coffee and a muffin. He is a nice gentlemanly guy who used to own one of the big fishing boats here. We see each other around town and speak so I went over and asked if he would mind if I shared his table. He said he would be pleased to share. Thus began one of the most interesting half hours I have had in a long time.

He grew up in Sicily he told me and he still speaks with a heavy accent although he's been here for nearly sixty years. He came here in his early teens, married, bought a fishing boat and raised a family. He told me about what it was like to fish out of Gloucester back then --- quite and adventure and quite an opportunity for a young man with ambition to make something of himself. And that is what he most assuredly did. “I love America,” he told me, and, in the keeping of so many immigrants who come here in search of a better life, he has done well. “Here,” he said, “if you work, you can have whatever you want. I love to work.”

And work he does. After selling his boat a few years back he bought a new business here in town and that is going well also. And then there is the work at home.

“I just came back from a big farmer's market,” he said. “I bought 750 lbs. of tomatoes. My wife and our two daughters are canning sauce.”

SEVEN HUNDRED AND FIFTY POUNDS!!!

“Yes,” he said. “Last year I bought 600 and it wasn't enough.”

So we talked about canning, a tradition that my family also practiced. I told him about making sauerkraut, a hundred gallons of sauerkraut at a time. He told me about the different sauces his wife makes and about the fresh, homemade pasta she makes at canning time for them to enjoy with the first batch. It was a wonderful conversation to have over breakfast.

My client arrived and he said he had to go, he had an appointment shortly and then he said, “Thank you for sitting with me.” Thank you for having me, I said. This was a treat.

When my client returned with her coffee I told her about our conversation. “Oh,” she said, “My husband just came back from the farmer's market with 150 lbs. of baby cucumbers. He loves to put up pickles.” I asked if she was from New York or Pennsylvania and she said yes, how did I know? You said “put up” pickles --- you never hear people say that around here. In Pennsylvania we put up pickles, too. Or put them by.

The world is a crazy place sometimes --- it moves too fast and often people seem so disconnected and alienated but it is mornings like that which serve to remind me that there are still wonderful moments to be had. Moments of sharing with someone new, moments off connecting, and of realizing that people on the whole might be a challenge but on an individual basis can be quite wonderful.

I guess as long as we can find time to share a cup of coffee and talk about the things and the people we love and swap a few recipes life will be okay. We just need to take the time.

Thanks for reading.

Helen Mirren's Date-Rape Story

2008-09-03T19:52:00.001-05:00

When I first read the report about Helen Mirren's date-rape experiences I started shaking and I was horrified at the outrage and condemnation that was flung at her --- mostly by people who weren't even born at the time her rapes happened. Today we live in an era where there has been a lot of press about date-rape and both men and women know what it is, call it by name, and know that it is not acceptable. Men know that if they force themselves on a woman they are committing rape and women know that they have the right to say “no” and “no” means “no”. That's how things are now. But it hasn't always been so. This is a thing I know more about than I wish I did.

Helen Mirren is a few years older than I am but both of us were young and dating in a time when there were no laws to protect women from these situations. Not only were there no laws but chances were good that if you talked about them you were a.) told to shut up and b.) shamed and asked what you did to provoke it. This is also a thing I know more about than I wish I did. I think Mirren was very brave to be so honest and I understand her point of view given the era in which her rapes occurred. It would be different now if such a thing happened and she reported it but in the 1970s things were very, very different.

In 1972 I was 22 years old, just out of college, had my first job and my first apartment in a town a few miles from where I grew up. It was a fun time. One night a bunch of people were at my house and we were drinking and partying and having a great time. At some point people started leaving and I got up and went to bed. What I didn't realize was that there was someone still in the house. He had gone into the spare bedroom and fallen asleep on the floor. He wasn't someone I knew particularly well --- he hung around with our group but I actually found him kind of repulsive and stayed away from him. But, in the middle of the night, he woke up and you can fill in the blanks.

The worst part of the whole thing was that I was so ashamed. I was mortified that people would find out he had had sex with me, I was humiliated that he would tell people. I had hit him and punched him and tried to get him to stop but he wouldn't. It was awful. When I told someone I thought it was safe to tell the first thing she said was, “What did you do to get him all riled up?” the second thing she said was, “Well, that's what you get for being drunk.”

I never saw him again after that. I went back to college a year later and then had a different group of friends. I don't know what happened to him but I still get slightly nauseous at the thought of him.

The second time was a few years later. I had met a guy and had been on a few dates with him. We were at the necking stage but I wasn't sure I wanted more than that. One night when he brought me home after a date he asked if he could use the bathroom. He was a very big man and I was attracted to him and kissing him was nice. But then he wouldn't stop. And that was where I stopped having a say in the matter. I never went out with him again after that. I confronted him and I used the word “rape” but he laughed at me and said, “You wanted it, I could tell.” And then he said, “Nobody would believe you weren't asking for it.” I never told anyone --- I was too ashamed.

What would have happened in 1972 and 1976 if I had tried to go to the police? It was a small town. Every one knew everyone. Everyone talked about everyone. I had a a lot of family and I was scared to death my parents would find out. They would be furious and embarrassed and I can assure you it would have been my fault. This is what all those young feminists who are furious with Helen Mirren don't understand. They live in a world where it is commonly understood that a woman has a right to say “no”. Helen Mirren and I did not live in that world. And we did not live in a world where we would not have been shamed and despised and told we were sluts who were asking for it if we had told our stories. That's how things were back then.

It's easy to get all high and mighty and self-righteous about things you know nothing about. I admire Dame Helen for having the courage to say what she did. If her ideas are old-fashioned it is because she is, well, like me, old enough to have lived in an era where such ideas weren't irresponsible --- quite the opposite. They were the only way to retain some sense of dignity. Now, as I am not too many years from sixty myself I can be brave and tell my story too. But there was a time when I couldn't --- and I remember all too well the shame and humiliation of that time. Don't shame us twice for reacting like we did, you young feminists, you didn't live with what we lived with.

Thanks for reading.

Comments from Stan Stone on the Daniel vs. Defonseca/Lee Hearing

2008-09-02T18:22:00.004-05:00

Stan Stone, a member of the Hovey House Witer's Group and the author of the blog, On the Cove, attended the hearing last Thursday and posted some very insightful comments on a message board where the case was being discussed. I thought they were worth posting here for an additional perspective:

I was at the hearing on Thursday (I ended up sitting on the Misha side, kinda like a wedding). It was very unfortunate that the judge had not read the supporting casework of Daniel's attorney regarding Mass Rules of Civil Procedure, Rule 60, Relief from Judgment.

Mass Rules of Civil Procedure

RULE 60.

RELIEF FROM JUDGMENT OR ORDER

(a) Clerical Mistakes. Clerical mistakes in judgments, orders or other parts of the record and errors therein arising from oversight or omission may be corrected by the court at any time of its own initiative or on the motion of any party and after such notice, if any, as the court orders. During the pendency of an appeal, such mistakes may be so corrected before the appeal is docketed in the appellate court, and thereafter while the appeal is pending may be so corrected with leave of the appellate court.

(b) Mistake; Inadvertence; Excusable Neglect; Newly Discovered Evidence; Fraud, etc. On motion and upon such terms as are just, the court may relieve a party or his legal representative from a final judgment, order, or proceeding for the following reasons: (1) mistake, inadvertence, surprise, or excusable neglect; (2) newly discovered evidence which by due diligence could not have been discovered in time to move for a new trial under Rule 59(b); (3) fraud (whether heretofore denominated intrinsic or extrinsic), misrepresentation, or other misconduct of an adverse party; (4) the judgment is void; (5) the judgment has been satisfied, released, or discharged, or a prior judgment upon which it is based has been reversed or otherwise vacated, or it is no longer equitable that the judgment should have prospective application; or (6) any other reason justifying relief from the operation of the judgment. The motion shall be made within a reasonable time, and for reasons (1), (2), and (3) not more than one year after the judgment, order or proceeding was entered or taken. A motion under this subdivision (b) does not affect the finality of a judgment or suspend its operation. This rule does not limit the power of a court to entertain an independent action to relieve a party from a judgment, order, or proceeding, or to set aside a judgment for fraud upon the court. Writs of review, of error, of audita querela, and petitions to vacate judgment are abolished, and the procedure for obtaining any relief from a judgment shall be by motion as prescribed in these rules or by an independent action.

You can see that Mass.R.Civ.P. 60(b)(6) is not bound by the one year limitation--it give the courts a way of rectifying egegious judgements. Since Defonseca's own admission that her story completely false only happened in February of this year, the request for relief comes in a reasonable period of time.

Earlier comments in this thread indicate that the judge and jury found Daniel to be guilty, so that must be the truth. One would hope in normal circumstances that the court systems "finds the truth", but it is quite obvious that Defonseca completely fooled everyone. I use fooled graciously here--she is a pathological liar. Establishing herself as a holocaust survivor that was being cheated by an unscrupulous publisher gained her the sympathy of the court, and lessened the level of proof she needed for her case. I believe that Vera Lee benefited from this situation--that Daniel was completely vilified an therefore must be guilty of cheating Lee too.

One of the damning points of Defonseca's case was that Daniel set up an off-shore account to hide the money. I think when anyone hears "off-shore account" they immediately think of hiding assets and nefarious doings, but in this case, it was a legitimate business practice to manage how profits are brought into this country from foreign sales (which came from selling the foreign language rights of the book). It is a legitimate business practice, but foreign to most of us who do not have foreign profits. If you have suspicions about a person, then an off-shore account sounds pretty shady.

From documented evidence (not hearsay) we know that Defonseca was not in dire financial straights as she claimed. She and her husband were con artists of the highest level. For Lee to benefit from their fraud is a travisty.

You have to remember that the copyright of the book was taken from Mt. Ivy press and given back to Defonseca (normally the publisher retains the copyright while the book is in print). All of the profits that were made from the book should have gone to Mt. Ivy press and Defonseca would have been paid royalties--as stated in the standard publishing contract she signed. Not only was Mt. Ivy press deprived of the profits, Daniel was deprived of her inheritance from her father in the settlement. Her house is essentially owned by the attorney of Lee (she can remain there until it is sold). This judgement was based on the fraud Defonseca purpurtrated on the court as she represented herself.

I hope that Daniel prevails in having the judgement relieved--instead of just being taken by a very skillful con artist, she was sued in court who was awarded one of the largest judgements in Massachusetts history (now that's a con artist extraordiaire). I hope there is some justice found in this case. Defonseca not only caused extreme harm to Daniel (Daniel spent a night in Norfork prison for her inability to make restitution payments), but a mocky of the court. Pray this never happens to you.

- Stan Stone

________________________________________________________

This case is drawing a lot of attention all over the country and the world. Serge Aroles, the French physician and expert on feral children, has sent me a couple of articles from French periodicals discussing the case. The conventional wisdom is that Defonseca's next tactic will be to put forth the suggestion that she is a victim of Recovered Memory Syndrome and that the entire store was something she only recently came to realize is not true. However on August 6, 1998 she knew what her mother's maiden name was, and knew her date and place of birth because she signed a bank card with that information written on it. It is posted on the BESTSELLER blog.

Here in Massachusetts both Mass Lawyers Weekly and New England Law Journal have expressed an interest in doing articles about the case. It is receiving a lot of much deserved attention. The big question --- as previously stated --- is this: Will the Commonwealth of Massachusetts vacate the judgment because it was based on fraud and perjury or will Defonseca get away with her deception? Stay tuned.

Thanks for reading.

Gloucester's Annual Schooner Races

2008-09-01T11:47:00.003-05:00

This weekend Gloucester was host to the annual Schooner Festival. Our good friend Jay Albert at Cape Ann Images as incredible photos. I'm trying to talk Jay into doing a calendar or even a book of his incredible photography of boats. He is the photographer who contributed over a dozen images of Gloucester fishing boats to the new version of Mark's book, F/V Black Sheep. I'll shut up and let you go look at Jay's incredible work.

Thanks for reading.

Defonseca in court August 28 - the truth, proof and other concepts...

2008-08-30T09:01:00.003-05:00

Genealogist Sharon Sergeant was responsible for many of the findings that lead to Misha Defonseca's exposure as a fraud and subsequent confession in Belgium last February. Sergeant also was responsible for an investigation into the Defonseca's finances. Using public records she discovered that at the same time Misha was begging funds from area Temples she had hundreds of thousands of dollars going through various bank accounts. Sharon was in court on Thursday. This is her summation of the situation. Also, an excellent article on hANOVER fIST blog.

by Sharon Sergeant

The AP reports on the Defonseca hearing yesterday focus on the statute of limitations for normal fraud, as opposed to fraud upon the court, perjury that tainted the whole proceedings because Misha was believed to be telling the truth about everything, not just her Holocaust story.

These AP reports appear all over the world and are essentially the same content, though newspapers tend to cut from the bottom or select a few statements when they do not post the whole article. However, they do change the headlines they use.

The International Herald Tribune chose

US author of faked Holocaust book fights for money

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/08/28/america/NA-US-Holocaust-Book-Hoax.php

This Google search shows other headlines chosen:

http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&q=woburn+defonseca+aug+29

E.G.:

*Author of Faked Holocaust Book Fights Publisher for Millions*

Author of fantastical Holocaust book fights publisher

Memoir faker fights publisher

Author of book hoax fights for profits

Author who fabricated Holocaust memoir fights publisher over profits

Author: Publisher 'too late'

*Author of hoax memoir asks judge to toss lawsuit*

**Author of faked Holocaust book fights for her millions

Fake book author wants profits

*Author of faked Holocaust book fights for millions*

Despite lies, US author of faked Holocaust book fights to keep $33 million

Holocaust Book Hoax

Holocaust story author asks suit dismissal

Author of faked Holocaust book fights for millions

What clearly isn't comprehended by the press at this point is that the millions of dollars at stake in this law suit were purported damages - not actual profits in the US!

Here's a fairly accurate report of the court hearing yesterday - focusing on whether the truth matters.

http://www.gloucestertimes.com/punews/local_story_241224905.html

The real millions, and actual profits, are actually in the hands of the global publisher Bernard Fixot, his collaborator Marie Therese-Cuny, and Defonseca. Their post 2001 trial version published in 18 languages, and sold as film rights to Vera Belmont. was made possible by Fixot and Cuny. They hid Misha's true identity behind a fake "hidden child" Valle name and the removal of identifying photos from the original US book by Mt Ivy/Daniel.

Judge Timothy Feeley, yesterday's hearing judge, was unprepared to really examine the 2001 case in any detail. Particularly the issue of statute of limitations involving fraud upon the court and contamination of the entire proceedings. The court belived that Misha was telling the truth.

There were other important issues of discussion that relate to relevance and truth.

First, Judge Feeley questioned whether it mattered that Misha's Holocaust story was untrue.

"Is it important that it was a work of fiction or a memoir?" Feeley asked at one point during the hearing. "I have trouble seeing how this new information changes the extent of the wrong found to be inflicted," said Feeley.

In addition, Frank Frisoli, Vera Lee's lawyer in Lee's absence, adamantly contends that Misha didn't lie, nor confess to any lies. Frisoli eventually wandered off into references for repressed memories for sexually abused children. The judge thought that was not a relevant analogy, but at the same time time was still questioning whether the truth of Misha's story was relevant. There was much discussion about what how the market value of damages was determined based on the truth of Misha's Holocaust story.

Never directly addressing the impact of Misha's lack of truthfulness in any part of the proceedings.

Maria Malagardis addressed attempts to separate Misha from her story, or the value of a true story versus a fiction, in the July XXI Paris journal article.

"The story of the book is the story of the woman."

Vera Belmont's feature film production (reportedly at a cost of $9 million) is foundering, rather than the planned distribution in 20 countries, because it is now known that the story is not true.

Fixot cavalierly maintains that he would have published the story even if he had known it was not true. Fixot defends his direction to change the "hidden child" name from DeWael (Misha's real name as it turns out) to Valle, and remove identifying photographs, to protect his publishing company from defamation suits.

Had the US version been translated and distributed with that identifying information, Misha's childhood friends, who knew it was a fraud, might not have been castigated as anti-Semites, jealous or ridiculing Misha's misery over the years - more than a decade since the original 1997 French publication by Fixot when he was with the Robert Laffont publishing house .

In fact, Serge Aroles, the wolf-child fraud researcher, would also have been able to find the real DeWael family, instead of reaching a dead end with his Valle family research. Aroles correctly used a the scientific methodology as by the forensic genealogy team, but did not have the DeWael name that had been suppressed by the destruction of the US version through the 2001 law suit by Misha and Vera Lee against Daniel/Mt Ivy Press.

Bernard Fixot has now commissioned another ghost writer to work with Misha on her "true story," which they claim is more horrible than her Holocaust story. However, the revelation that Misha's Holocaust story is not true has now been shown to affect the market value vis a vi the problems Vera Belmont now reports that she faces with the film distribution, as well as Fixot's intent to market the "true story" in another book..

Misha appeared "pro se" yesterday (representing herself) before Judge Feeley, but her lawyer from the 2001 trial, Ramona Hamblin (now not a practicing attorney for reasons we haven't yet determined), was sitting next to Misha, and likely wrote the statement that Misha read to the court. Misha claims that she believed her story was true, and that she did not lie.

Hamblin went on record in a Boston Globe letter that "The irony is that Defonseca's real story seems to be even more compelling than the fabrication." Echoing the Fixot escape hatch.

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/letters/articles/2008/03/07/taken_in_by_a_holocaust_memoir/

Misha and Fixot's plan seems likely to be to "explain" in Misha's new book how she came to believe her story as a result of her "real trauma." A key to her defense against being a liar, perjurer and fraud.

Judge Feeley also questioned whether the exposure of Misha's real identity wasn't at hand back in the 2000-2001 preparations for the trial based on one clue in her exposure - a US bank signature card, containing a birth date, birth place and mother's maiden name.

Feeley has not processed the fact that the bank signature card was accepted as a false ID provided by Misha's "hidden child" identity as her only only known ID info. This bank ID card did not resolve the DeWael versus Valle maiden name, nor that the Valle story published by Fixot was claimed by Misha to be her "real" story. Nor did it surmount the closed Belgian civil records law of 1955, or the other clues found in the Mt Ivy/Daniel version repressed by the legal proceedings.

Meanwhile, Vera Lee the original ghost writer, herself a Jew as well as an academic scholar, has been quoted as saying that she filled in pieces of Misha's story herself, but that she always believed the Misha Holocaust story, yet also somehow claiming that statement when she also said questioned the Misha story but that Jane Daniel dismissed her questions.

This is another relevant piece of circular logic. Judge Feeley questioned whether Lee should be held as accountable as Misha - even if the truth is relevant.

Misha also said in her statement to the court yesterday that she was telling her story long before the book [reportedly since 1989] and the court action, to prove that she didn't make anything up to defraud the court. Yet she and Fixot have been claiming since the Belgian 28 February 2008 statement in Le Soir, just hours before Misha's confession statement, that Jane Daniel made Misha believe her Holocaust story. Jane Daniel first met Misha in 1994 approximately 5 years after Defonseca was telling her holocaust story.

Misha had also embellished her Holocaust story in recent years to include references to her deformed feet and legs as being a result (and proof) of her childhood experiences - despite the fact that the Daniel/Mt Ivy book contained flattering pictures of her at age 40 with no signs of the leg and foot deformity that this now elderly woman exhibits, previously illiciting cries of anguish from the school

children she showed.

Does the truth matter when a fraud usurps the lives of real Holocaust survivors and exploits everyone around her?

Is Misha's intent and motivation relevant, when her previous claims that she and her life story being victimized, emotionally and financially, now face a longitudinal time line scrutiny of what she was saying versus what she was actually doing.

Do Misha's financial transactions have any relevance when she said she was destitute and yet was actually taking tens of thousands of dollars out of the bank in cash?

Misha's claims of eating dog food, begging from Jewish charities and losing her home can now be contrasted to her actual collection of book sales, royalties, speaking fees versus her home and debt difficulties in a time line with cash withdrawals from her bank accounts. The veracity of fictitious claims and others were previously accepted - simply because she was believed to be who she said she was, a beleaguered Holocaust survivor.

Jane Daniel has noted that an old saw in the legal world says that failing citations of law or fact, some lawyers fall upon hyperbole to provide distracting suspicions without evidence. Hyperbole is always circular. Truth is a straight line.

The question remains in this case as to whether the legal system can find it's way back to the law and the facts.

Melinde Sanborn, a co-editor of the National Genealogical Society Quarterly, and one of the 50 lifetime Fellows of the American Society since 1993, commented after attending yesterday's hearing, that the judge may be faced with determining whether Misha Defonseca is either a liar - or incompetent to provide any credible testimony in the proceedings if Misha is actually unable to distinguish her illusions from reality.

Misha's financials direct attention to the result of her statements over time. No matter whether Misha is a liar or subject to pathological delusion, and incapable of distinguishing truth from fiction, Misha, and whoever in the many possible parties may be deemed complicit, has accomplished a lucrative fraud at the expense of others.

Does the Truth Matter?

2008-08-29T07:29:00.008-05:00

Gail McCarthy has an excellent piece in today's Gloucester Times about the hearing in the Daniel vs. Lee/Defonseca case. You can read it here.

Video from NECN.

Joe Orlando, Misha Defonseca and Vera Lee's lawyer in court yesterday.

Basically what Judge Freeley has to decide is does it matter that Misha lied about her life and passed it off as truth? Does it matter that she perjured her testimony from the very beginning? And does it matter that her contract, the contract that was the basis of her lawsuit against Jane Daniel, was void from the outset because in it she verified that her story was true? In other words, is it okay for a person to concoct an elaborate lie to con someone into backing them into writing a book and then turn around and lie in court in order to sue them for everything they have?

That's all the judge has to decide...

(Now I really am taking some time off --- see you next week.)

Thanks for reading.

Is There Justice for the World of Publishing?

2008-08-19T20:31:00.005-05:00

On Thursday, August 28 In Middlesex Superior Court, Woburn, MA a motion alleging fraud on the court will be presented in the case of Misha Defonseca and Vera Lee vs. Jane Daniel and Mount Ivy Press. For those who have followed this blog over the last year, you know this story all too well. For those who are new here there are plenty of places you can go to read about it --- you can start at BESTSELLER! The story is this:

Jane Daniel met Misha Defonseca, a Millis woman who claimed to be a Holocaust survivor. Defonseca told a remarkable tale of losing her parents to Hitler's death camps and surviving by spending four years walking across Europe. Daniel was so impressed with the story that she offered to help Defonseca write the book and Daniel would publish it through her small publishing company, Mt Ivy Press. Defonseca agreed and signed a contract verifying that the story was true and had happened to her.
Daniel financed the writing of the book which included hiring a French-speaking ghost writer, Vera Lee, because Defonseca's English was not good.
Lee and Defonseca signed a contract with Daniel and collaborated on the writing of the book. The contract stipulated that: a.) the story was true, and b.) the content of the final draft would be in a form and of content acceptable to the publisher.
While Defonseca worked with Lee to write the book, Daniel began marketing the book which included a.) hiring a prestigious literary agency (Palmer & Dodge), b.) getting a contract with a prestigious speakers bureau for Defonseca, c.) arranging for many appearances including one on the Oprah Winfrey Show, d.) marketing the dramatic rights to the Disney Corporation
Quarrels arose between the two writers. Daniel was not satisfied with the form and content of the manuscript and stepped in to expedite finishing the script in order to meet contractual deadlines.
Lee, unhappy with Daniel's rejection of her writing, withdrew from the project and filed suit against Daniel. Subsequently lawsuits broke out all over the place and in 2001 a court awarded Lee and Defonseca a $33 million judgment against Daniel.
The court also awarded the copyright of the book, which Daniel financed the writing of, to Defonseca.
After the lawsuit Defonseca took the book that Daniel had financed to Europe and sold it to 18 other publishers and sold the movie rights to filmmaker Vera Belmont whose movie, based on the book, premiered in December 2007
In February 2008 Defonseca confessed that the story was a hoax, that she was not Jewish, that she had never traveled across Europe, and that the entire story was a lie.
Subsequently Daniel filed a complaint alleging fraud on the court on Defonseca's part because the entire lawsuit Defonseca had brought against her was based on lies and that, because she had signed a contract verifying that the story was true, the contract was void from the beginning, thus, in absence of a contract, Daniel had no obligations to Defonseca. Furthermore, Defonseca's testimony in the trial was perjured from the beginning.

Now, it doesn't take John Houseman to see that this is a simple case of contract law. Given the above facts, what will the court do? Will it refuse to overturn the case thus legitimizing Defonseca's hoax and the subsequent fraud, contract violation, and perjury? Or will it overturn the judgment after all these years and vacate the $33 million dollar judgment against Daniel?

These are questions no one in the publishing/literary world can ignore. If you read the Findings and Facts and Rulings of Law handed down at the end of the trial it is utterly and completely terrifying to those of us who are independent publishers or, in fact, publishers of any sort. The Findings of Fact, etc. is filled with so-called findings that should scare us all. Mt Ivy Press, it finds, was a “sham” company. Why? Good question. How many small presses are there in this country that would fit that description according to their definition? Daniel “misrepresented” her company's ability to promote Defonseca's book. How well would any of us be able to compare our abilities as publishers to what Daniel did?

The question is this, if an author signs a contract swearing that the story they are telling is true and then, after winning hundreds of thousands of dollars, plus the rights to the book which they also sell for hundreds of thousands, possibly millions, of dollars, then admits she lied, can she get away with it?

We'll find out on August 28^th.

Thanks for reading.

The Best of ____ Well, Not Quite

2008-08-12T20:10:00.003-05:00

I've been writing this blog for over three years now and there are over 600 blog entries here. I have several stat counters and other gizmos to tell me what people are reading when they come here and it is sort of amazing to me which blogs from the past three years get the most attention. You never know what people will go looking for on the internet. So, as I was reading through my stats recently I decided to post a list, in no particular order, of the most popular:

1. The New Neighbor: Back in December 2006 I wrote a blog when Jay Severin bought a house in Manchester by the Sea. In all honesty I've considered deleting this blog just because it gets so much traffic. WHO CARES about this guy??? Obviously a lot of people!

2. Mending the Nets: I originally posted this in 2005 and then repeated it in April of this year. It still gets lots of hits. I'm happy --- I think it was a good one.

3. Gone Hollywood Ga-Ga: I posted this in January of this year because I was getting phone calls from someone talking about The Old Mermaid's Tale being optioned for a movie. That never went very far but this post gets a lot of hits mostly, I suspect, because of the photo of Anthony Delon. Okay, ladies, here are two more. Drool away:

4. Sense of Place: I wrote this in October 2007 about Boston College and the images I was relying on to help me write about it. It still gets hits every day.

5. The Allure of the Beast: This is from August 2007. It is about the allure of sexy but dangerous men. It also gets hits on a daily basis. Seems I have some naughty readers out there!

6. Puttanesca and My Invented Heritage: I suspect this just gets hit because of the recipe for puttanesca but it is popular!

7. Hancock's Angel: I'm really pleased that as many people keep reading this one about Walker Hancock and his gorgeous angel!

8. Mermaid Tales: This was a little treatise from 2005 on the lure of the mermaid in literature.

9. Jean Lafitte: My Invented Grandfather: I'm happy that people still visit this one because I loved writing it. It still makes me think of my father and laugh.

10. Lobstermen Are Hot: An article in The New Yorker Magazine inspired this one.

So that's it for now. I hope I can write another 10 memorable blogs in the course of the next 600!

Thanks for reading.

BESTSELLER! Available August 15th

2008-08-10T13:34:00.004-05:00

As most readers of this blog know I have been writing a lot about the Misha Defonseca Hoax over the past year. Now Jane Daniel, the original publisher of Misha: A Memoir of the Holocaust Years, has written BESTSELLER! her account of the $33 million dollar judgment, the 20 year hoax, and the story behind it.

I've read the book and it is gripping, the courtroom scenes are astonishing. If you are interested in seeing an entire judicial catastrophe run amok, I recommend this book. Also, well, I'm in it! The documenting of the uncovering of the hoax on this blog was called the "blogosphere scoop of the year" on a number of literary and legal blogs. In fact the last part of the book is an outstanding story of how blogs --- here and in Belgium and France --- were responsible for uncovering the longest running and most lucrative literary hoax in an era of multiple literary hoaxes.

If you are a writer, an independent publisher, a fan of legal true-crime, or just looking for an amazing story, give it a read. The release of the book is particularly interesting because the hearing to overturn the judgment against Daniel resulting from the hoax is scheduled for August 28. Will the court overturn the massive judgment against her in light of the hoax or will the case stand? We'll find out on August 28th.

The book is available from Laughing Gull Press as of August 15th and will be listed on Barnes & Noble and Amazon soon.

Thanks for reading.

Good-bye to My Friend

2008-08-04T20:48:00.005-05:00

In 1980 I had just moved into a new apartment complex in Houston and I didn't know anyone. There was a courtyard with a pool and 8 beautiful weeping willow trees and residents used to gather there in the cool evenings. There was a man who was always there --- a very handsome man --- who sometimes had a little girl with him. It wasn't long before we got to know each other. His name was Michael, his daughter's name was Ashleigh. It didn't take long to learn to love them both.

For several years we were the best of friends. On the weekends when Michael had his daughter we would take her to the beach or the zoo or somewhere fun. I made her a costume for the annual rodeo in Houston. On the weekends when Ashleigh was with her mother, Michael and I spent most of our time getting into various forms of mischief. No one could find more fun to have than Michael.

In 1984 Michael developed a chest cold that wouldn't go away. I was worried about him but he was always in such good spirits that I couldn't stay worried for long. One Saturday morning I went to his apartment because I thought he looked terrible the day before. I found Ashleigh sitting at the table with a bowl of cereal. The house was a disaster --- most unusual --- and I found Michael trying to sleep sitting up in bed. His skin was the color of putty --- old putty. “Come on,” I said, “I'm taking you to the emergency room.”

No, he told me, you take care of Ashleigh and I'll get to the emergency room on my own. I didn't feel good about that but I didn't know what else to do.

When Michael didn't return by 2:00pm I took Ashleigh to her mother's house and got our friend Scott to go with me to the hospital. What we found shocked both of us. Michael was in intensive care, his heart was severely enlarged, and they didn't expect him to make it through the night. I knew his family was in Maine but that was all I knew. I called his ex-wife and, with her help, we made the necessary phone calls.

Michael survived that night. He survived that night and a year's worth of others until he was finally admitted to Texas Heart where he would live until a heart became available for him. His family and loved ones and I waited with fear and faith and love and prayers. Finally on the 4^th of July 1985 a heart became available. The transplant was performed. A few weeks later Michael was taken to Maine and we kept in touch through phone calls and letters.

By 1987 Michael was well enough to be living on his own in Camden, Maine. I was still in Houston living with a man who was making me miserable. I complained to Michael about it endlessly. “Look,” he said one night while I was in tears, “just get the hell out of there. Come up here. You can live with me until you decide what you want to do.” And that is how I wound up in New England.

I loved Michael's family --- they were a family much like my own --- big and loud and wonderful and warm. We often spent weekends with them in Sangerville or at Sebec Lake. Ashleigh came up for the summer. It was a delightful time. By autumn I knew I needed to get a job and, for a variety of reasons, I decided to move to Salem, Massachusetts.

Over the next several years we kept in touch through long phone calls and letters and email. I moved to Gloucester. He move to Hawaii. But he always came back to spend summers in Maine and I would find time for a visit. He knew his time was limited --- a man with someone else's heart in his chest knows such things. But he lived to see his daughter become a woman --- I was in Sangerville for her wedding. And he lived to see his granddaughter Sydney born (above left). The last time I saw him was two summers ago when I picked up Ashleigh and her daughter Sydney at Logan Airport and drove them to Portland to meet Michael and his dear friend Paleka who traveled with him now. In 2006 Michael was diagnosed with cancer and he survived that too. He was a walking miracle --- the second longest heart transplant in the country.

This morning his sister Jackie called me to give me the news. Michael had arrived as he always did in the summer. He was thin as a rail and very frail but that smile, that wonderful gorgeous smile, and that wicked sense of humor was as vibrant as always. He attended his sister's fortieth birthday party and even danced. The next day, yesterday, he said he needed to lie down. When he didn't get up this morning they went upstairs and found out that, after 23 years of fighting the good fight, Michael had left this world. He left in the midst of the people he loved most in all the world having danced away the previous evening. And he died in bed --- his favorite place. He died a good death. But he will be missed. He will be very, very, very much missed.

Thank you, Michael, for all you did for me --- for getting me away from a bad situation and into the arms of your wonderful family. Thank you for teaching me about loons and taking me sailing and taking me to my first (and only) drag show. Thank you for the light that radiated from you like a choir of naughty angels. And thank you for being a precious part of my life. Sleep well. You've earned it.

Thanks for reading.

Why Blog?

2008-08-04T08:13:00.002-05:00

It seems in recent months there has been a flowering of blogs among my friends and acquaintances. All of a sudden everyone is blogging. Since I am in the Old War Horse category of bloggers having blogged regularly for over 3 years now with over 600 blog entries to my --- well, I'm not sure if “credit” is the right word --- I'm kind of fascinated by this sudden boom in blogging.

During a discussion about blogs on a message board I am known to participate in, a comment was made that I appreciated. In the discussion some people were of the opinion that blogs would never replace message boards because they were just one person's opinion whereas message boards were more discussion oriented. People had varying perspectives on this but inevitably it came to the point that the problem with the open discussion character of discussion boards means that a lot of people, tucked securely behind the veil of anonymity, use the discussion boards to attack others, flame, insult, ridicule and otherwise act like idiots thus ruining the experience for those seeking serious discussion. One person said that he used to like message boards but was now considering a blog because he would not have to deal with the idiots. Someone responded calling him an elitist and he came back with the personally reasonable point that when you have a blog of your own, in your own name, there is a “pride of ownership” that compels you to maintain a standard not available on message boards. I liked that.

This is the way I see it --- a message board is the neighborhood tavern, a blog is a cocktail party in your home. In the neighborhood tavern you have no control over who is there and what they do there. It can be fun and a great time but you have to surrender any expectations of standards. At a home party you do have control over who participates and what level of experience can be maintained. Both have their place.

Of course blogs exist on many levels. I personally have three of them --- one for recipes, one (brand new and still struggling) for business purposes, and this one for essays, thoughts and ramblings. There is a great popularity for photo blogs these days which are great fun. Family blogs are another trend. But for my purposes here it is cultivating --- for myself but in a public forum --- the art of the personal essay. I borrow that phrase from Philip Lopate, who edited and wrote the introduction to The Art of The Personal Essay: An Anthology from the Classical Era to the Present. It is an admirable book. Lopate was teaching at the University of Houston when I lived in that city and one of my friends was taking classes with him. She talked about him a lot --- I suspect she had a bit of a crush on him --- and she gave me a couple of his books as presents. I purchased the Personal Essay book some years later.

I happen to much admire personal essays and the people who write them. My bookshelves are crowded with volumes by John Updike, Andrei Codrescu, Noah Adams, Norman Mailer and other essayists whose work I admire. I'm particularly fond of essayists who write about writing. I've frequently lamented the regrettable memoir genre so popular these days but, of course, memoirs exist on all levels and Augusten Burroughs, no matter how many books he writes about his dreadful childhood, will never hold a candle to Marcel Proust. But I suspect that the hunger for an experience of another's inner machinations, as revealed in the well-crafted essay, is somewhat satisfied by the current crop of horrid memoirs in the way that a hunger for a good meal can be staved off by a Happy Meal.

A fellow blogger told me recently that he was amazed by the way I could blog in such a forthright manner about my feelings and emotions. This is something I have mixed feelings about. I am a firm believer that, if you want to write, you have to be willing to do that --- but do it without becoming solipsistic. This was one of Mark's favorite topics of discussion. He was a firm believer in putting one's self out there and of being emotionally honest on the page but he had little tolerance for self-analysis. We used to talk about that a lot. His theory was “just put it out there”, I'm not quite as brave.

Blogging is a fascinating phenomenon. I cruise blogs on a regular basis and am happy when I find one that is consistently interesting. Perhaps the day will come when everyone blogs. We can only hope that The Art of the Personal Essay will continue to flourish and provide grist for the mills of our fellow bloggers.

Thanks for reading.

Some Thoughts on Mourning

2008-07-31T19:57:00.007-05:00

It is a little over two months now since Mark left this world and I have learned a lot about human nature in that time --- some good, some not so good. Some I wish I hadn't learned. But one thing I know for sure is that there are an awful lot of people in this world who are scared witless of uncomfortable feelings. Mourning and all that goes with it --- tears, regrets, longing, memories, dreams and the loss of them --- is not fun. And people who are going through those emotions and experiences may not be fun to be around. But if I have learned anything in these weeks it is, please God, that I will be more aware and sensitive in the future to those who mourn.

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised by much of this but, naive as I tend to be, I am. Among the unfathomable things I have been told are:
• "Just don't think about it." Okay. How?
• "What can we do to cheer you up?" Are you serious?
• "You can't go on like this! You have to get over it." First of all, it is barely two months. Secondly, there is no getting over the loss of someone dear. Gradually, you learn to live with it but you never get over it.
• "Have you seen your doctor? Maybe you need some medication." There is a medication for grieving? Look, if I medicate the feelings away they'll just lie in wait and show up in another form. The only way out is through.
• "Maybe you'd feel better if we change the subject." I won't feel better --- but it sounds like you will.
• "Well, you didn't really know him that long, did you?" No, only four years --- so what is the alloted span of mourning for a four year relationship?
• "Geez, I didn't think you even cared for him that much." --- .
• "Seems like you need space. I'll leave you alone." Well, seems like one of us needs space anyway...

One of the things that I've decided is that those ancient cultures where people keened and covered themselves in ashes and threw themselves on funeral pyres made a lot of sense. There is this longing for a release that is so intense, so violent that it frightens me sometimes. It's not that I haven't lost loved ones before. My mother died a long time ago. I lost my brother a few years back and that was really hard. My Dad just died last year. But this is different. Gloucester was so full of Mark. It seems every time I left the house I'd see him. Now every time I get in my car it is with the aching awareness that it will not happen. My stomach clenches every time I see a silver Toyota truck. My head hurts every time I drive by our "meeting" places... I wish we hadn't fought, I wish I had been more patient, I wish...

Creativity helps. The playwrite/therapist Otto Rank once said, "I must give birth every day or perish." Boy, has that come to be meaningful! I have been writing a lot. I don't know what I will do with it but thank God I have it to do. I made a little video for his tribute page.

But more than anything there is this sweet, aching, heartbreaking awareness that I would not feel this broken had I not known someone so special. When my brother died I wrote, Accepting Jack’s death - the death of someone so incredible - has been a gut-wrenching process. It’s not fair. It’s not right. It is an outrage against the passion by which we humans are made so beautiful. I don’t know if it is possible to accept such a thing. But in my heart I also understand that if there is anything to grasp through all this pain, the meaning of Jack’s life and death is NOT the tragedy of his loss - but the indescribable miracle that such a glorious man ever lived at all.

Shortly after I met Mark I shared that essay with him and he told me he got tears in his eyes when he read that line. He said he thought that was the most awesome thing he had ever read about a man's life. It takes an extraordinary person to inspire words like that and, through all the pain and all the longing and all the sadness, there is one thing that sustains me --- that in my life I have been blessed by knowing not one, but two, such glorious men.

Thanks for reading.

Precious Gifts

2008-07-26T20:10:00.004-05:00

I have been spending some time with Mark's mother --- we have a little project in the works and I'll talk more about that later. But, for the time being, I wanted to share a couple of precious gifts that people who appreciate Mark might enjoy. I've been scanning and touching up some old photos from his mother's collection and some of them are just plain wonderful. So, for the moment, there are two I want to post:

This was taken on Good Harbor Beach in July 1954. As you can see, the man Mark
is very evident in the boy. Look what he has in his hand. Yup! That's our boy!!!

This was taken at Christmas time in 1985.
That is Mark with his father, the football player Ted Williams.

The photo was in bad shape but through the wonders of Photoshop we now have this.

More to come some day but, in the meantime, enjoy.

Thanks for reading.

Andy Warhol and A Local Mystery

2008-07-25T08:38:00.003-05:00

When I was in high school I was kind of fascinated by Andy Warhol. Not because of his art specifically and certainly not because of the mystique of depravity that was so much a part of his persona and the people he surrounded himself with. No, my fascination with Warhol had to do with the fact that he was from Pittsburgh --- a place I knew well, had spent a lot of time in over the years of growing up and loved. The very notion that a guy from Pittsburgh, where there were skeletons of dinosaurs and a stuffed dodo bird and a weirdly beautiful aviary, could become a famous artist of all things just astonished me.

I didn't really know a lot about him but whenever there would be an article in any of the magazines my parents got --- Life and Look in particular because they had huge pictures --- I would read every word, save the pictures and hang them on the back of my bedroom door and spend a lot of time studying the art that he was so famous for. I didn't really understand it but I liked it.

Recently I watched a documentary called A Walk Into the Sea; Danny Williams and the Warhol Factory. I watched it because it was about Warhol --- sort of. Over the years I've gained a somewhat different perspective on him. I know more about his manipulative and self-aggrandizing behaviors but, maybe not too much to my credit, those things never bother me in artists. I've always figured that real geniuses have so much to cope with that they can't always be judged by more mundane standards but that's a discussion for another day.

What surprised me about the film is that the titular event, the walk that Danny Williams took into the sea happened right here in a place I know well. In a place where I have walked into the sea --- only I remembered to walk back out. Pigeon Cove is a beautiful place with a stone breakwater that shelters a small cove where lots of lobstermen moor their boats. I have spent a lot of hours there and both drawn and painted the fishing shacks that line the wall below the breakwater. There was one memorable fishing shack that was absolutely covered with climbing roses. Whichever lobsterman owned that shack had planted roses around it and it was a wonderful sight, this little fish shack drenched in roses with lobster buoys hanging from it. Peter Prybot writes about Pigeon Cove in his book, Lobstering Off Cape Ann.

So anyway in 1966 Danny Williams, a Rockport boy who had dropped out of Harvard to go to New York where he had fallen in with the Warhol crowd, came home to visit his mother in Rockport. One evening after supper he borrowed her car, drove to Pigeon Cove and parked it and was never seen again. Did he indeed walk into the sea? Or did he turn in another direction and hitchhike off into America. Nobody knows for sure but the first scenario seems the most likely.

The documentary, made by his niece, is an interesting piece of work. She interviews members of their family as well as some of the surviving Warhol luminaries --- luminous for little more than having hung around with Andy Warhol, with the exception of John Cale. Naturally none of them have an answer to what happened but there is a certain weird fascination in watching these aged hipsters sitting around reminiscing and, in some cases, venting their bitterness about lives that became relatively pointless once Warhol up and died. Cale is probably the most insightful when he refers to the Warhol crowd as a “bunch of nobodies” who leeched off of Warhol That's not entirely accurate.

The way I have it figured is that the Warhol Factory was a symbiotic relationship. Warhol supported a bunch of people who may have had creative potential but who lacked he ability to take that potential very far. He gave them importance and community and took a lot of ideas in return. Is this right? Who can say. It's gone on forever in creative circles from the studios of the great artists of the Renaissance through Gertrude Stein's salons into the present time. Wherever there is a lot of creative energy being generated there will be those who are drawn to that. Some will flourish and come out of it energized.

So Danny Williams, who may or may not have become a great filmmaker, became part of Warhol's crowd. There is also speculation that he and Warhol were lovers. And for whatever reason he left New York, came back to Cape Ann and disappeared. Now 42 years later all that remains of him, a few pieces of film and an interesting documentary made by his niece, just fuel another local mystery among the lobster buoys and the roses and the hulls of lost ships.

Thanks for reading.

You Just Get Lost....

2008-07-22T22:01:00.004-05:00

It's that time of the year --- the days get hot and still and the humidity is higher than you want it to be but every now and then a breeze lifts the curtains and rattles the wind chimes and you just get lost. This happens to me ever summer. It is this sensory pastiche of heat and the glare of the sun off the water and gulls floating by silently on a current and heat and more heat. You start remembering things like nights on the beach in Galveston listening to a samba beat drifting across the water from the Balinese Room or an afternoon in a courtyard in New Orleans listening to a a guy in a bar across Decatur Street playing the piano like Doctor John... You just get lost.

I remember the last spring that I spent in Houston. I knew I was going to be leaving and I knew it was time to go. I'd left my job, a romance had ended, and I was restless and ready to go... but still... but still... It wasn't going to be easy. I had developed the habit of driving around the downtown streets late at night listening to music and just sucking up everything. Memorizing every flower box and every shop window and every Urban Animal whizzing by on roller skates laughing, longneck in hand. I'd drive past those gorgeous sculptures in the Lyric Plaza and the Joan Miro sculpture by the Chase building. Then through old town, which I loved --- the old Kennedy Bakery and the old Rice Hotel with its gargoyles and dragons. I'd stop at Treebeard's on Prairie Street to get a dish of their jambalaya and a piece of the best buttercake in existence. Past Sam Houston Park... Sometimes I would drive until the sky was getting light. I loved Houston at night. It was the sort of city that was really at its best at night.

So my friends decided to give me a treat and they got tickets to a concert at AstroWorld. I'd been to a lot of concerts in Houston. I lived right across the highway from the Summit where concerts were held all the time and we used to go over there all the time. Tickets were cheap back then. My friends and I had seen the Rolling Stones and U2 and The Cars and Neil Young and The Boss and Santana (3 times) and Stevie Ray Vaughn and, of course, ZZ Top with the Fabulous Thunderbirds --- I can't remember them all. So they got tickets to an outdoor concert and they wouldn't tell me who was playing.

It was a gorgeous, hot, sultry spring night. The cicadeas were screaming and we packed a picnic and plenty of wine and ate on the lawn and just lay there talking about what we were going to be doing in the next few years. I was heading out for Maine. I needed to get back up north but I didn't know exactly where so Michael had invited me to stay with him in Camden until I could get a feel for what I wanted to do next. I was excited and sad at the same time. And it was a beautiful night in Houston and I loved my friends. And then the concert started and Bob Dylan was first.

I had actually seen him way back in college a million years ago. Him and Joan Baez and the Jefferson Airplane. And here it was almost 20 years later and he still hadn't learned to play that damn harmonica. But it was the best. The moon came up and the cicadeas got louder and then the second band started. It was Dire Straits and I was so happy. I loved them and had never seen them before and it was about as perfect as anything could be. We danced on the grass and did the walk of life and swung with the sultans and... well, you know... And then it was time for their very last number and they came out on the stage and played this beautiful, beautiful, beautiful instrumental solo. And I cried because I knew what it was --- it's a song called “Wild Theme - Going Home” and it was the song that they played at the end of the movie Local Hero which I had watched about ten times. It was one of those Perfect Moments that Spaulding Gray talks about. A moment when everything, EVERYTHING --- from the moon, to the smell of honeysuckle in the night air, to the screams of the kids on the roller coaster beyond the stage --- just came together in a moment of perfection.

What made me think about it was the last few days of heat and quiet and my own strange emotional state these days. I'm a mess and yet, and yet, I have someone precious to hold in my heart and cherish forever. And I came across this:

Thank you, Mark. And thanks for reading.