Happy Birthday, Little Book.

Today's banner is a painting by John Constable, courtesy of our own National Gallery of Art.  It is better than the view from the Last House, although that's pretty good too.

It reminded me of some of the things that inspired me to write the book that I have been going on about over here, and on the book-specific blog, for a year now.  Specifically, the beauty of the England of our imaginations.  And I never saw a picture of spring that I liked better.  I hope it gives you the same happy jolt it gave me.

I'm reflecting on this snow day at home about this last year and my experience with the book.  I just posted this over on my other blog, and I hope that any stoppers-in here who haven't already gotten a copy for themselves will do so now.  Here's that post, which is also up on my Quartersessions blog.

It's been just about a year since I approved the proofs for the book, or, as it loomed in my life for so long, THE BOOK.  While it wasn't actually available for sale until April 15 last year, I figured I would give tax  deadline day a pass and start a little early.   Also, I'm thinking of this as a celebration season rather than a single day.  I plan to have a collection of essays and stories available later this month as part of the festivities. I'll tell you more about that soon.  In the meantime, the e-book version of Up, Back, and Away will be free to download on your Kindle or Kindle app for five whole days starting tonight, midnight west coast time. (That is, March 14 to midnight March 18).

Somehow, despite the nearly solid year of the book being available to you, gentle reader, I remain obscure, not rich, not famous.  Still. I have so enjoyed this year of having a book to share with the world.  It has added a new and fascinating dimension to my existence and I have been gratified that so many people have been kind enough to tell me that they liked it.  (Or to forebear from telling me that they didn't like it).  I was able to travel to England last fall in what I thought of as my Up, Back, and Away pilgrimage that gave me the chance to see in person so many of the places I had researched for the book.  I will look back with fondness on this period to the end of my days.

I hope you'll join in my little celebration by going to the Amazon.com site in your own country (the download should be available worldwide) to  get your copy. If you've downloaded one previously, or bought the paperback, get busy reading and tell me what you think - at least if you liked it.
I'm also going to be giving away some paperbacks over on Goodreads.  Look to your right and click away if you want to come in for a chance on those.

Thanks again to those who have reached out to me or commented kindly online.  What I had hoped for most was readers and when I am finding those, I'm happy.

Seen and Overheard in New York

Seen in Chelsea: Photo by Sarah Velk

I was reading David Sedaris's Let's Explore Diabetes With Owls in an insomniac hour this morning.  He is a diarist, among other things, and his piece on his diary was the bit I read at 4:30 AM.  It reminded me that I wanted to get down a few bits about last weekend in NYC before I forget.  I don't have a diary, this is as close as I come, so here ya go.

Sarah and I had a rushed little dinner at the Red Flame Diner on West 44th Street on Saturday, just before we headed back to Rockefeller Center to see about those standby tickets to SNL (see the previous post).  It was early, just after six.  We got a booth by the far wall and Sarah got the seat with the view of the street.  I noticed a big family group sitting by the window, six people or so, including three little kids as I took my seat with my back to them.

My hearing, as you know if you've been following along, is more than half shot. My right ear can now pick up a jet engine firing and not much more. The left one is only so-so.  I  have had bad luck with hearing aids so I persist in au naturel quasi deafness.  Anyway, just after we'd put in our orders (cheeseburger for me, chicken wings for her), the waitress started ferrying plates passed us to the family by the window.  I heard, or thought I heard, one of the kids, about four years old, call out: "My food is here! I'm so excited! I'm so thankful that this food exists!"

"Did that kid just say, "I'm so thankful that this food exists?" I asked Sarah, quietly.  She confirmed.  I'm telling you, the enthusiasm in that voice...  Words fail. Another minute or two went by and the same voice, cutting through the background noise and my bad ears said, "Will you take a picture of these wonderful chicken nuggets?"

I couldn't hear the answer. I hope it was "yes."  

Earlier in the day Sarah and I had gone down to Chelsea where a high school friend of mine, who is now a bona fide New York painter, had a reception for a gallery show.  We people of northern Vermont do not have a lot of opportunities to ride freight elevators to gallery openings and I wasn't about to miss this one. Plus my friend is really super nice and not intimidating at all like "New York painter" might suggest.  Chelsea also obliged us in providing some echt New York downtown scenery.  Sarah has been interested in photography (read, we bought her a good camera and sent her to photo camp last summer) and she took the pictures in this post.  I love them.  Budding New York artist anyone?  I'm so thankful!

Men of Chelsea: by Sarah Velk

My Dinner with Leonardo

Plans for my dinner with Leonardo, and yes, I mean Leonardo DiCaprio (I couldn't very well mean the only other "Leonardo" we all know since has been dead for about 500 years) started a couple of months ago.  My birthday was this last weekend and I decided that my daughter and I would celebrate our January birthdays together in New York City.  (She just turned 16 and I am a little more than twice that old...)  Leo's people in the meantime were seeing what they could  do to get him into town at the same time.

As you can imagine, arrangements for this kind of thing  involving an international superstar and all (I don't mean me, silly!) are a tricky business.  It's amazing when you stop to think about it that we managed to pull it off at all, but we did!  Leo, my daughter, and I got together at 8 PM on 49th Street and had a fabulous time.

Of course, we did have to make a few compromises.   One little impediment was the crowd.  (He is Leonardo Di Caprio so that was to be expected).  We also had to forego the table, food, drinks, conversation, and eye contact.  Another little issue was that Leo had no pre-knowledge that my daughter and I were going to be meeting him that night,  or even of our existence.  Actually, we didn't know before he walked out on stage at Studio 8H at NBC that he was going to show up either.  Of course, he knows us now!  At least he might recognize us again if he could see to the back row where we were sitting, yelling for him when he made that cameo appearance during Jonah Hill's monologue on Saturday Night Live.  Still, it was so great meeting to be in the same building with him!  Of course, since I'm married and have kids and everything we had to leave it there.  What a great memory we forged, though.  We'll always have Studio 8H, won't we Leo?

Here's a YouTube video of our special moment.  (Leo looks pretty into Jonah Hill here but if you follow his eyes, he's looking up at the back to near where we were sitting):




The Way We Were

I was one of those tragic 8th-graders who could sing the words to all of the songs from Gilda Radner's one-woman show (I can still do "Let's Talk Dirty to the Animals" and "Goodbye Saccharine").  I didn't maintain that same level of devotion/interest in SNL from Gilda's era to this weekend, but I've always kept on eye on the show.  When it dawned on me (after I had made hotel reservations in midtown for a Saturday night) that they might be doing a show while we were there, I started investigating the possibilities.

Please Stand By

In case you are wondering, there are three ways you can get in to see SNL:  be a VIP who knows someone (I didn't know Leo yet), win a ticket lottery that you can enter via email once a year, or  wait in line on the morning of a show for a standby number.  This number might allow you to go in if enough regular ticket holders or VIPS fail to show (you have to choose the dress rehearsal or live taping - we went with the DR because I knew I would be exhausted by 11:30).

The standby numbers (NOT tickets, mind you) are handed out beginning at 7 AM on the day of the show.  Lines sometimes form days ahead of time(I Googled "SNL Standby" before we made up our minds - there are several good blog posts about it if you're interested).  I consulted my daughter (she's a big fan of the show with designs on a job there someday) and she was game, so I decided we would add Friday night to the trip and hope for the best.

I wonder if you heard about that polar vortex thing in New York?  I had, and I was prepared with multiple layers of performance ski gear, a pair of hikers' chairs (they weigh less than two pounds and cost $89 a piece.  I had to buy them because I knew I couldn't stand for hours and I also couldn't shlep the usual beach gear down on the train and through Manhattan).

As I sat in the freezing pre-dawn cold under my tarp and sleeping bag on my $89 chair, I tried to calculate what someone would have to pay me to do any such thing.  I couldn't come up with a figure.  I had shelled out almost $400 for the extra night in the hotel room and chairs and then there was the sheer suffering of rising at 4 AM to sit with the garbage on a freezing sidewalk for three and half hours.  Our investment was, I reckoned, somewhere between $400 and beyond price.  And then, I kept reminding myself and my daughter, when we got our numbers (49 and 50) at 7:30 that morning, all we got was a chance to come back and wait that night to see if we had lined up early enough to get into the show.

Well, that and we had made friends and bonded a little in the arctic dark with our line-mates.

We had a fun little reunion with them all, inside this time, under the NBC Studios Marquee on 39th Street at 7 PM that night.  We were put in a velvet-roped chute, well separated from the privileged actual ticket holders.  We were lined up by standby number, politely but firmly, by charismatic grey-suited NBC pages.

It was surprising how our line mates looked different (I mean "better") without their hats, coats, and misery.  We lit up at the sight on one another. The woman behind us, who had morphed from a Christmas-tree shaped being into something like a ballerina, said she would never forget her standby number,  We laughed.  "It's like your SAT score, right?"  Her date showed up, also transformed from human yurt (pointed hat with ear flaps) to popinjay (bow tie, slicked down hair).  His number was one higher than the ballerina's.  When the pages started moving us out of our chute, he was cut off at one point.  It looked like maybe the ballerina might be the last standby to get a seat.  There was this terrible Sophie's Choice moment as we looked back at him, stranded, as we were moved through security. I was really happy to see that, in the end, he made it too.

About the Show

You know, it actually was amazing.  You can see it on Youtube of NBC.com or wherever if you missed it. I didn't really know who Jonah Hill was, though I recognized his face (someone at work asked me who was hosting that night and all I could come up with was "Joshua Bell").  I won't forget him now, though.

The show was really funny from start to finish and watching the cameras and the floor people do their thing was a revelation.  The WORK, I thought.  What a lot of WORK.  Of course it also featured that Leonardo moment, which will probably go down in SNL history.  (Remember when Barbra Streisand jumped out of the wings to surprise Linda Richman?  I do.  I also heard Paul McCartney interviewed once about that offer Lorne Michaels made in 1976 to give the Beatles $3,000 to reunite on the show - he and John almost went down... Wouldn't that have been great?)  

The rest of the trip was filled with fabulous New York moments - several excellent meals, all that.  We didn't get to see Leo again, but who knows.  Probably he'll be in touch after he reads this blog post to invite me to dinner.  Maybe I'll enter that lottery next year.  Ta for now.

Just after the magic - my 16-year-old and others, still in the glow...

Fun at the Gynecologic Oncologist's

First of all, I don't have a gynecological cancer, at least not as far as I know.  I'm trying to avoid having one which is why I spent my morning hanging out in an examining room for my local five-star gynecological oncologist.  Really, she was great - she started by pointing out that she owned the same pair of Danskos that I was wearing.  I then noticed that the resident and medical student who were tagging along with Five-Star were also wearing Danskos. (This happens a lot in Vermont, wherever professional women are gathered, but I digress).

I had to wait for quite awhile in that examining room and, as always when left alone in an examining room, I see what there is to see.  This one featured the first SPECULUM WARMER that I have ever seen.  I write SPECULUM WARMER like that because the typeface was huge - like 50 point.  I wondered about this.  Perhaps it was meant to calm patients who want to know why the doctor is reaching into that little microwave.  No, it's not to get a muffin  Lean Cuisine, just a nice, warm speculum.  (If there had been post-it notes in there, I would have left one saying NO MORE COFFEE IN THE SPECULUM WARMER PEOPLE!  THIS MEANS YOU!  There weren't any though).

The other thing that caught my attention was the panel that had been placed over the fluorescent lights in the ceiling above the examination table.  It was a vibrant scene of a coral reef.  Instead of "close your eyes and think of England" you can keep your eyes open and find Nemo.  There were three clown fish.  I counted. I sort of knew I would have to make fun of this, but I was also a little touched that someone, architect, nurse, doctor, whoever, took the trouble to hang a marvel of nature over those who are subject to examination.  Honestly, coral reefs always make me reflective about our creator.

I also spent a few minutes contemplating the screen saver on the laptop the nurse had left behind.  It showed the facade of the new part of the hospital in Burlington.  Like all venerable east-coast hospitals, ours has Dickensian bits linked to slightly newer bits, linked to parts of the set of Logan's Run.  The new part of our hospital, Fletcher Allen Health Care in Burlington, reminded me very much of the Hilton at Terminal Three at Heathrow.

New Entrance at Fletcher Allen Health Care minus door person

Honestly, I was happy to have this shiny new building in which to wait for my doctors. It made me think that America really still has a lot to recommend it.  Better not to have to be the patient, of course, but when it happens you want a warm speculum, clean windows, and a tropical fish panel.  At least I do.

Why Would Anyone Care? Morrissey Autobiography Review

I am asking myself that question about my view of Morrissey's book.  (Not about the book itself, of course.  Millions want to know!) It seems an appropriately Morrissey-esque question as I serve up my opinion.  I kept thinking as I read this book how likely Morrissey would be to despise me if he knew me (he despises so many) and how I would actually be a little afraid of him if we ever met.  Not much risk of that, thankfully.  So here's the review.

Autobiography by Morrissey
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

If you have ever wanted to visit Morrissey's inner life (and I guess I have) it's in here. Quel surprise! It is a difficult, uncomfortable place to spend time. He is so vulnerable and so judgmental all at once, I kept thinking as I read (or skimmed the dull Morrissey's revenge bits) that it must be exhausting to be him (or be around him). I was, however, interested to hear about his family background and to see the few photographs of family that are reproduced here. There is an incredible charisma on view there, so it is not really true that he is the son and heir of nothing in particular. Also, among the screeds and puffed out calendar entries there are passages of pure poetry. The one near the end, where he is alone on a Mexican beach and feeling tired, is a passage I intend to go back to. This is not a careful or crafted book but it's his book and he is really something special.


View all my reviews

Morrissey's Best Song

Here's a picture that I took in a London market in Islington (near Camden).  It's here because I don't like blog posts with no pictures and because I liked these stamps.  (I bought three, then left them on a London bus. But that's another story).

Camden is a borough of London.  It has a famous market and a famous canal.  It's interesting, like all London neighborhoods.  Morrissey sings about it in "Come back to Camden," a somewhat obscure number in the Morrissey canon that first appeared on his 2004 album You Are The Quarry.  It was co-written by Boz Boorer.  (I looked Boorer up and he's famous, at least inside the music industry.)

I am a longtime Morrissey and Smiths fan but not an obsessive one.  I heard the song for the first time only about six months ago when it spun up on my Pandora playlist.  I  stopped what I was doing to listen. I  heard it again, made note of the title, and bought it on iTunes.  Then I bought it again when  iTunes told me that my computer wasn't authorized to play the track.  (I wondered if prickly Morrissey was requiring hyper-vigilance by Apple to make sure no one's cheating with his music).

I have since decided that "Come back to Camden" is Morrissey's greatest song. (Hold on, there's a link below to a fan-made video so you can listen after I've shut up). I admire the song for the way Morrissey and Boorer invoke the real Camden, with poetry that stands inside the circle of W.H. Auden - e.g.:

Drinking tea with the taste of the Thames, 
sullenly on a chair on the pavement; 
here you'll find my thoughts and I,
 and here is the very last plea from my heart. 
My heart.  
For evermore. 

Where taxi drivers never stop talking, under slate grey Victorian sky, 
Here you'll find despair and I, and here I am 
every last inch of me is yours...YOURS...For evermore. 

That physical Camden is thus summoned economically and powerfully, as is the damaged survivor of a broken love affair:

Your leg came to rest against mine, then you lounged with knees up 
and apart, and me and my heart - we knew... We just knew...

What makes the song truly great, however, is that "Camden" is also a metaphor: a garden of Eden where love bloomed until the shocking eviction.  The hopeless plea at the end of the song,

Come back to Camden and I'll be good, I'll be good!

is delivered with elemental desperation, as heart rending as the screams of a confused child in a hospital.  It is made more searing by our certain knowledge that there is no getting back to that Garden.

In his autobiography (which I am reading now and which is surprising and not surprising all at once - more on that in another post), Morrissey said: "The magical properties of recorded noise had trapped me from 1965 onwards [note, that Morrissey was six in 1965]. Song made a difference to everything, and permitted expressions that otherwise had no way through."(emphasis added).  When I read that, my thoughts flew to "Come back to Camden:" which conveys this world of meaning in its tidy, listenable four minutes and fourteen seconds, thanks to the singing.

All songs are more than the sum of their parts but this song: words, music, and that voice, carry a payload all out or proportion to the apparently modest package.  I hope you will like it as much as I do.

Last Night I Dreamt of New York City...

I dreamt that my fifteen-year-old daughter had rented a nice one-bedroom apartment in a high-rise somewhere in mid-town.  I was impressed. How had she managed this at fifteen? I wondered in my dream.  I have been underestimating her, I thought, as I noted that the three rooms were all decent-sized.  I was also worried, however, because there was something menacing about the crepuscular streets below.  Also, though her roommates had not yet arrived, a lot of people had left skis and snowboards in her living room. I was worried these ski owners were taking advantage of her and apartment in Manhattan - and then I woke up.

I know dreams are among the dullest topics of conversation but indulge me. I'm struggling here.  I am trying to stay awake until a grown-up's bedtime.  I am blaming my dream-filled morning for my fatigue.  That and work.  My daughter recently got her first job and she's showing a certain terrifying initiative.  Manhattan is down there waiting. Apparently, I have things on my mind.

OK.  So it is now just past 9 PM and I think I can retire without being  positively geriatric.  Actually, one bit of excitement remains in this short evening. I just downloaded Morrissey's autobiography to my iPad and I'm going to read it as soon as I get my teeth brushed.  I'll report back here.  Here's what they're saying about it over on Goodreads.  What kind of dreams might Morrissey's life story trigger?

Good night.  Thanks for bearing with me.