SHERRIL'S MYRIAD OF MUSINGS

My Mother & Me, An Update for Mother's Day May 8, 2011

2011-05-08T11:58:00.000-04:00

This was originally posted on June 4, 2006. My mother was born September 25, 1925 and died on November 13, 2003. About three years after she died, I wrote this tribute to her memory and am updating it to post in on facebook for Mother's Day, May 8, 2011.

I feel compelled to write an addendum to last night's post. Regarding my mother, it only told one part of the story and like everyone's story, there are a myriad of sides. When I was a child, though I was the "middle child", I always thought myself to be the favorite, well, at least my mother's favorite. We had what I saw then as a very special and close relationship. That she shared with me at times her sadness and even helplessness and though I saw her cry, probably more than was healthy for a young girl, this was only a small part of what there was between us. My mother had immesurable energy for life. She always had a weight problem (an issue that felt like my own because it made me so sad for her and I worried that others would talk about her)but she seemed to have more energy than most women half her size.

The following would have been a typical day for us when she would take me to New York City. We would wait at the bus stop across the street from our house and get on the De Camp bus number 33 or 88 at either 5 minutes before or 25 minutes after the hour and that hour would have been 10 or 11 AM. We'd get into the City 30 minutes later and walk from the Port Authority to 44th or 45th or one of the streets with those little Ticket Brokers that sold Broadway tickets for the same day. This was before TKTS TKTS on 7th Ave. So, she would buy us tickets to see whatever show or play was hot at the time, say, for instance, The Miracle Worker with Patty Duke and she'd pay top dollar for excellent seats for the Matinee performance, which started at 3 PM, so we would have 3 or 4 hours on our hands. She would take me to lunch and then we might go to Saks Fifth Ave, buy me some clothes which we sent home so we didn't have to carry the bags, nor pay the NYC tax. That would bring us to near curtain time, when we'd hurry off to the theater. I always LOVED the play or musical and more times than not, she would go with me after the performance to wait at the stage door for the star to come out and sign my Playbill. To this day, I have many of those Playbills.

My mother and I saw them all, Funny Girl (Streisand), The Owl and the Pussy Cat (Alan Alda), Golden Boy (Sammy Davis, Jr.), The Impossible Years (Alan King, Bert Convey), Fiddler on the Roof (Herschel Bernardi), On A Clear Day You Can See Forever (Barbara Harris), Superman (Jack Cassidy), Half a Sixpence ((Tony Tanner), Mame (Angela Lansbury), The Star Spangled Girl (Tony Perkins, Connie Stevens, Richard Benjamin), Man of La Mancha (Jose Ferrer), Black Comedy (Geraldine Page, Michael Crawford, Lynn Redgrave, Donald Madden), The Apple Tree (Alan Alda, Larry Blyden, Barbara Harris), Jimmy Shine (Dustin Hoffman in Dec. 1968), Hair (Keith Carradine, Melba Moore, James Rado and many others...I actually saw this one with a good friend, Howard, who came into the city for the day, from Philadelphia ), The Rothschilds(Hal Linden), Two By Two (Danny Kaye, Madeline Kahn). My Mother and I went to the theater in my adult years as well and one play stands out in my mind, Whose Life Is It Anyway? (Mary Tyler Moore). So, back to our day. After we got the autogragh, we might be hungry again, as it was getting dark and we had somme time to kill before we'd go to see an evening movie or even on a few occassions, another show. The day was endless, like my Mother's energy, and the experience was always fun and memorable

Every year we went to Radio City Music Hall and stood on those long lines around the side of the building to get tickets for the Christmas Show. In those days, we got to watch a grand Disney movie like Dumbo or Around the World in Eight Days before the rest of the Christmas extravaganza even began. I loved the costumes and the camels and of course the Rockettes. We'd eat at places like The Brass Rail and it would be a day fit for a queen. I loved those days together. I still love to think about them and look at my Playbill collection. I still love the theater, but I don't kow if I ever enjoy it as much as I did as a child and teenager. The other thing my mother had endless energy and patience for was shopping. She would always know the stores where they helped you, so she and the salesperson would go back and forth from the dressing room to the floor, as I tried on one piece of clothing after another. I would get tired out way before she did. We'd walk out of the store laden with bags of clothing. We'd cap off our shopping with lunch and revsiting our purchases as she drove us home.

Another thing about my Mother was that she almost always supported me in the things I wanted to do. She and my father sent me on teen tours across the United States when I was 14, to Mexico at 15, and the summer when I was 16, they sent me on a two month teen tour to Israel. This turned out to be one of the handful of defining times of my life. When I wanted to go back to Israel the summer after my Junior Semester Abroad (in Florence, Italy...another defining time period of my life) and my parents were against it because there had recently been a terrifying terrorist attack there, they listened to my rationale and that of a dear Syracuse Professor (Professor Mickeljohn) who agreed to write them a letter supporting my desire to go, and in the end they supported me in this too. They allowed me to travel with a friend in Europe in my college years and supported my decision to go to Wichita, Kansas for Grad School. And everywhere I went, my Mother and Father visited me..... Italy, Israel and even in Wichita, Kansas. During my Senior year in college, my Mother took me on a trip to Portugal. I can remember the night when she tripped over me sleeping on the hotel bathroom floor, where I'd gone to escape her snoring. We laughed about that for many years after.

So, I guess what I'm saying is that I am what I am today because of what she could and could not give me. What she lacked, I have been trying to make up for in therapy. What she had to
give, I took in wholeheartedly and encorporated into my being and for that I will always be grateful.

The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey

2011-02-06T20:46:00.000-05:00

Remember the paper chains we made as children? Each link, on it's own, is complete and colorful, but it is in the way they link together, where the antecedent determines or at least influences the following link on the chain, that makes it interesting. Life is a colorful paper chain.

I heard the author Walter Mosley interviewed by Terry Gross on NPR's Fresh Air and I was intrigued. Mosley was not totally unfamiliar to me because I'd seen the movie Devil In a Blue Dress, with Denzel Washington, which was based on Mosley's book by the same name. I'd heard of the Easy Rawlins mystery crime series, but not being a fan of the genre, never payed much attention to the author, that is until that December day, when I happened upon the interview. I wrote down the name of the book, for future reference. This particular piece of destiny was the first link on this particular paper chain.

The book, The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey by Walter Mosley, is currently playing in my car's CD player and it has been a truly satisfying audio read. It is narrated by Dominic Hoffman, who is perfect. In researching Walter Mosley, I revisited the Terry Gross Interview in print and there was an excerpt from the book. I could hear the characters speaking in my head, in the voices of Dominic Hoffman. Not all readers of audio books are equal. This reader gets an A+.

The story is about a 91 year old black man who is well into the beginning stage of dementia, which not only makes it difficult for him to think clearly and to remember things, but it causes the past and the present to mix together in a cluttered mess, making life confusing and frightening for Ptolemy. He encounters a young woman, Robyn, age 17, and the give and take between these two characters, from that point on in the story, represents a kind of "love story" based on connection. It is a joy to read. And Walter Mosley is now for me an author to be reckoned with.

And the links go on.......

Sherril

Politics With Eyes Open

2011-01-29T21:29:00.001-05:00

I am a Liberal, with a capital L, but that doesn't mean I don't like and appreciate a good Conservative when she is both intelligent and well spoken. Tonight, I came upon a 1996 interview on C-Span's Booknotes TV program, where Brian Lamb was interviewing this young woman. At first, I thought she was Ann Coulter, because of the pretty look and the pretty long blond hair, but she sounded so well spoken and likable and I generally find Coulter to be repugnant, so I was pretty sure it wasn't Coulter, but who, then? As I watched the interview, it became apparent that it was Monica Crowley, a name not at all familiar to me, though something about her did look familiar. She wrote a book about Richard M. Nixon, called, Nixon, Off the Record: His Candid commentary on People and Politics.. I was intrigued. Though, Crowley was obviously fond of Nixon, seeing him as a very nice man, particularly nice to her, and respected him for what she saw as his brilliance and perseverance, she also came across to me to have written this book without inserting her personal political bent, whatever that might be. Of course, Crowley was only 21, when she was hired right out of college by Nixon as a Research Assistant. Crowley explained how she had written Nixon a letter and he sent her a hand written letter in response and invited her to visit him in his Bergen County, New Jersey office (Crowley was raised in Warren, NJ) and then offered her a job shortly after the visit. Monica worked for Nixon from 1990 until 1994, when Nixon died. She had obviously become as much a confidante, as a research assistant to Nixon. Besides for helping him write speeches, and eventually assisting him in writing his last two books, she always had a pad with her whenever she was in Nixon's presence and she took notes in short hand, which she'd expand upon later in the day, so as to not forget exactly what he had said and at the end of the day, she'd write a complete transcription in her diary of what Nixon had discussed with her on that day. Needless to say, in the four years she spent with Richard M. Nixon, she compiled quite a long diary, from minutia to monumental of what was on Nixon's mind and came out of his mouth. From these writings, she put together the book about Nixon, revealed mostly from his own words. I found the interview to be fascinating, even thinking that perhaps I would choose this book when my turn came up in Book Club. I still think I might.

The interview was from September, 1996, somewhat more than 14 years ago. At the interview's end, Crowley mentioned she was, at that point, working on her PhD. So, I wondered what Monica Crowley had been up to since then, and I did a little snooping around the Internet. I found to my discomfort, that it was she that I'd seen occasionally on The McLaughlin Group (now I understood why she'd seemed a bit familiar to me), when it used to be on NBC, after Meet The Press. She represented the Conservative viewpoint as opposed to Eleanor Clift's more Liberal one. Worse, she is a regular contributor on Fox. I guess if I dug even deeper, I might find more stuff about her that would turn me against her. Or maybe not. Perhaps, she really is one of the "good" conservatives, who values intelligence and thoughtfulness over overt ideology at all costs. I'm going to stop investigating. I'm going to let myself go on with that belief. I am sure to hear her name come up in various settings, now that I saw that interview and wrote this post. Serendipity or Synchronicity will see to that!

America's Movie Critic is Back!

2011-01-02T23:23:00.001-05:00

America's movie critic is back and I didn't even know he'd been gone. As so frequently is the case, I get a great deal of information and even more inspiration from the CBS TV program, Sunday Morning with Charles Osgood. I tape it each week, just in case I'm not up at 9 AM and watch it sometime later. To my great surprise, shock and horror, I came to find out that Roger Ebert is not the man he once was. That is to say, as a consequence of thyroid and later salivary gland cancer, Rogert Ebert looks nothing like himself and he is non-verbal. Besides for having had a tracheotomy, half of his face has been removed. It is uncomfortable for me to admit this, but I found it difficult to look at him, perhaps because it was such a shock. I absolutely had no idea. Having said that, here is a quote that counters my immediate response. In April 2007, in an interview with WLS-TV in Chicago, he said, "I was told photos of me in this condition would attract the gossip papers — so what?" On April 23, the Sun-Times reported that, when asked about his decision to return to the limelight, Ebert remarked, "We spend too much time hiding illness." Fans at his website have remarked his public appearances have been inspirational to cancer victims and survivors around the country.

Roger Ebert and his wife of 18 years, a trial attorney, Charlie "Chaz" Hammel-Smith. Though he no longer can eat by mouth, he loves to cook. In the "Sunday Morning" interview, it was stated and evident that it is this relationship that has given Ebert the strength to go on.

I have been going to Ebert's website, rogerebert.com for a very long time, to get his review of movies before, and sometimes after, seeing them. In fact, just last Friday (New Years Eve), I was perusing his blog for a review of the movie, Black Swan. As for a review of Black Swan, that's for another entry (or not). I often agree with Ebert's reviews and just as often appreciate how he writes and what he chooses to discuss in them. Truth be told, when I went to this site, I though I was reading the film review column from the Chicago Sun-Times, not a blog. I can, of course remember watching Roger Ebert's TV program, "At the Movies" with Gene Siskel (I just found out that he co-hosted two programs with Siskel for a combined 23 years) and perhaps once or twice after Siskel's death, I may have watched Ebert co-host with Richard Roeper. But, I have known Roger Ebert best from reading his reviews. I was not completely aware that he had not been on television for over four years. He was diagnosed with thyroid cancer in early 2002. He had surgery and then in 2003, more surgery for salivary gland cancer, followed by radiation therapy, and in 2006 more surgery, which removed part of his jaw. He continued to have related health problems. But, he also continued reviewing movies and I continued to read them, knowing nothing about his health status and how this had affected his life.

Live and Learn!

"The Visitor"

2010-12-30T20:13:00.000-05:00

I am still renting movies from Blockbuster.com and my most recent one was The Visitor, a 2008 movie written and directed by Tom McCarthy, with Richard Jenkins playing the lead role and supported by actors that were new to me and to whom I was I was very much attracted. Here is how I reviewed it on the Blockbuster site:
The Visitor is an important (and well done) movie for our times. I highly recommend it. We are quick to dismiss people who are deported as undocumented non-US citizens, on the rare occasion that we even hear about them. This movie makes clear, in a dramatic, yet understated way, that these people often have full "American lives", and may love this country and feel that the United States is their home. But, the government is making deportation decisions, more out of fear and maybe even discrimination, than as a result of reasonable jurisprudence and on a case by case basis. As a side note, I had to yahoo Richard Jenkins, who was so familiar to me, but I didn't know why. Now I do. He played Nathaniel Fisher in the HBO series, Six Feet Under. He was excellent in both (and very different). I was also drawn to the other actors in the movie, Haaz Sleiman, Danai Gurira and especially Hiam Abbass (a Palestinian actress). Rent this movie.

An added bonus to this film was the music. It has a beautiful score, but what I noticed more was the exciting drumming and the inclusion of a song by Fela Kuti called, Je'Nwi Teni (Don't Gag Me). I had meant to see Fela on Broadway, but never got around to it. Somehow, the inclusion of his music in this film, seemed to me serrendipitous and helped ease my disappointment about missing the play. Besides for the political message of the movie, it was heartening to see the personal growth of the Richard Jenkins character, not least of which was in his ability to finally conquer a musical instrument. He had tried unsuccessfully to learn the piano, which his beloved wife, who had died several years before the time of the movie, had mastered and played professionally. He had no passion for the piano, nor for his day to day life. But much to his own surprise, he developed a competence, as well as a passion for playing the African Drum and for life.

OH O Henry!!!

2010-12-28T21:23:00.000-05:00

One of the best things about being in a good book club (and there are many) is that you end up reading books that you may otherwise, never have picked up . We are presently reading 41 Stories by O. Henry. I am a bit ashamed to admit that I do not recall ever reading any of his works. Perhaps he came up in High School English, but considering how much I am enjoying this book, I think I would have remembered.

O. Henry was a pseudonym. I did not know this. His real name was William Sydney Porter and he had a most unconventional and, unfortunately, short, life (died at age 47). He did not go to college, but it is said that he read voraciously as a child. His life, including the wide variety of jobs he held, reads like a novel. He was a pharmacist (or pharmacist assistant, depending on your source), a sheep rancher, a book-keeper, a draftsman, a columnist, reporter and cartoonist for a newspaper, and finally a bank teller. As such, he was indicted (or not, again depending on the source) for the alleged embezzlement of bank funds (it seems more likely that it was mismanagement of funds rather than embezzlement). He was to stand trial, but he fled to New Orleans and then Honduras. Meanwhile he married a woman in spite of her condition, having tuberculosis. They eloped in July 1887 and she died of TB in July 1897, which brought him out of hiding. In the ten years they were married, they had a son in 1888, who died hours after birth, and then a daughter in September 1889. After his wife's death in July, 1897, he was sentenced to five years in jail, It was during his time in prison that he began to write his short stories and had many stories published under pseudonyms (to keep the fact of his imprisonment from publishers and readers).The pseudonym that stuck was "O. Henry". On July 24, 1901, O. Henry was released from jail after only three years, for good behavior. In 1902 he moved to New York City and proceeded to write 381 short stories in the following 8 years. He remarried in 1907. By 1908 his health was deteriorating as he had begun to drink heavily. His wife left him in 1909 and he died broke on June 5 1910 of ccirrhosis of the liver, as well as other ailments. O. Henry's life story reads like the lyrics of an an old time country music song.

What stands out for me is O. Henry's use of language, his turns of phrase and his vocabulary (I found myself looking up many words, Kindle makes that easy, only to find that some of them appeared to be made up; I am still not sure about "propenquitious"!). Of the 41 short stories in the book, I have, to this point, read 16 of them, which, according to my Kindle, is 25% of the total length of the book. Not only is his overall vocabulary noteworthy, but so are the names he gives his characters. I have to wonder where or how he came up with them. Perhaps they were common in his day, the late 1800's and early 1900's, or maybe he just made them up. For example, Ikey Snigglefritz is the protagonist in the story The Social Triangle. Who could not love this name? I looked it up online and the Urban Dictionary defined it this way: " A snigglefritz is a pink sock which is placed over an erect male sexual organ to keep it warm in times of severe cold". I think it quite possible that O. Henry knew what he was doing giving his characters these quaint, whimsical, yes, naughty names. Every article I have read in researching O. Henry, mentions his famous "twist" endings. It seemed to me that he played within his own mind, in much the same way as he played with language itself. Consequently, the endings of many of his stories are not at all what you would expect and often are, in a manner of speaking, "twisted". O. Henry's use of language, writing style and the ways that he tells tales are completely individualistic, uniquely his own.

I loved that so many of the stories take place in New York City, often in the Lower East Side. I was able to "hear" the voices of his characters with their Irish, German or Italian accents. I could "see" these stories taking place on Delancey or Hester Street (The Social Triangle) and I always saw them in Black & White.

Here are some of my favorite words, character names and phrases that I highlighted as I read:

flibbertigibbet (The Last Leaf)
Ikey Snigglefritz (The Social Triangle)
execrable ( Schools and Schools)
Cortlandt Van Duychink (The Social Triangle)
"If you'd take his remarks and set 'em to music, and then take the music away from 'em, they'd sound exactly like one of George Cohan's songs." (Best-Seller)
"I rather like that mulberry-leaf tunic effect, dear; but of course the real fig goods are not to be had over there...I think the caterpillar-holes have made your dress open a little in the back" (Schools and Schools)
"She thrusts hurriedly into your hand an extremely hot buttered roll, flashes out a tiny pair of scissors, snips off the second button of your overcoat, meaningly ejaculated the one word, "parrallelogram!" and swiftly flies down a cross street..." (The Green Door).
(Transients in Arcadia)
Hotel Lotus (Transients in Arcadia)
"and tossed the feathery ball of conversation" (Transients in Arcadia)
"After Murkison left us me and Andy sat a while pre-pondering over our silent meditations and heresies of reason. In our idle hours we always improved our higher selves by ratiocination and mental thought". (Shearing the Wolf)
"You have a kind nucleus at the interior of your exterior after all" (Shearing the Wolf)
"Quite unseldom I have seen fit to impugn your molars when you have been chewing the rag with me about your conscientious way of doing business" (Shearing the Wolf)
Caligula Polk (Hostages to Momus)
"He was waked up in a yellow pine hotel by the noise of flowers and the smell of birds" (Hostages to Momus)
"Caligula sat on the back of his neck on the porch and studied a newspaper, which was unusual to a man who despised print." (Hostages to Momus)
propinquitous (Hostages to Momus)
celeritous (Hostages to Momus)
"supply of the most gratifying and efficient lines of grub that money could buy. I always was an admirer of viands in their most palliative and revised stages. Hog and hominy are not only inartistic to my stomach, but they give indigestion to my moral sentiments." (Hostages to Momus)
cake-walk (Hostages to Momus)

I was interested to know who the other writers were at the turn of the century, when O. Henry wrote.The majority of the writers mentioned were unknown to me.

Here's the list of those I recognized:

Stephen Crane
Emily Dickinson
L. Frank Baum
Mary Johnson
Jack London
Frank Norris
Edith Wharton
Upton Sinclair
Winston Churchell
Susan B. Anthony
W.E.B. Du Bois
Samuel Hopkins Adams
Ida Tarbell

What was difficult to read was the free and easy use of the term, "nigger", and other references to the racist attitudes of the day. I had taken note of the same thing in F. Scott Fitzgerald's, The Great Gatsby in terms of both the racist and anti-Semitic language used without second thought. Not that these two authors were "free thinkers" when it came to racism and prejudice, but I wonder if even those who were free thinkers also used this kind of language because it was so much a part of the culture that no one even considered it. But surely there must have been some who saw it for what it was?

I don't want to end this post in negativity, though it deemed inclusion here since it was a subject that occurred to me while reading O. Henry's stories. But, truly what occurred to me most of the time, was how much humor there was in these stories and how much enjoyment I received in reading them and how very captivating it was to be in the presence of an author who knew the art of story-telling. I so look forward to the next 25....

A Day in New York December 15, 2005

2010-11-19T23:00:00.001-05:00

Click here to view this photo book larger

Speech & Language: A Child's Perogative

2010-11-14T19:23:00.000-05:00

Here's what I have to say about this video, as a Speech/Language Pathologist who has worked with toddlers for over 25 years. Though this child is an exceptionally intelligent and language advanced child, he still demonstrates what's possible, even at age 3. The typical pediatrician will too often tell the concerned parent not to be concerned that their 2 1/2 year old is not talking. Give him/her time. Lots of kids don't speak until later. Wrong. Most are speaking, starting with single words around age 1 and full sentences by 3. Moral of the story, consult a Speech Therapist if you are concerned, regardless of what the doctor says.

Rally to Restore Sanity: I Never Want to Say, I Wish I'd Been There

2010-11-14T18:38:00.002-05:00

I was one of the 200,00?, 150,000? 7,000, 500,000? (attendance depends on who you ask or watch or listen to, but having been there and having also been to President Obama's Inauguration, January 20, 2009, where I believe it was said there were over one million people, this one felt almost as crowded and well attended). Attendance aside, it was an event to be reckoned with and to be attended. If there's one thing I hate, it is to have to say, after an event, "Damn, I wish I had gone". So when my intuition says attend, I make every effort to do so and thus attended the Rally to Restore Sanity imagined and executed by Jon Stewart and his producers/ The March to Keep Fear Alive, co-executed by Stephen Colbert on Saturday, October 30, 2010.

Finding a partner in crime was the first obstacle to overcome. As is often my way, I search for these partners through the social networks online, specifically Craig's List. Out of many responses to my ad, I found and chose a lovely person who seemed equally informed, interested and willing to become involved in this endeavor. I'll refrain from naming him here out of respect for his privacy, though he is tagged on my photos on facebook, as well as my google web picture album. So much for privacy

.

Finding a way to get to the event was the second obstacle. Driving was an option, but parking in the city was not and having to make a choice and plan for a one day trip or a stay over, made this option complicated. Thanks to the DC Rally Bus, it took little time to find a bus going from Morristown, NJ to Union Station in Washington, DC for the cost of $60 round trip. As the ad said, This is a good alternative to Greyhound or any other bus line. For one, everyone on these buses will be going to D.C. for the same reason! In addition, many bus lines (and Amtrak trains), will be inundated the weekend of the rally. As it turned out, this advice was true. There were free buses leaving from NYC, but I heard at the rally that they had their share of problems, one being arriving late. Our bus ride to and from the rally was flawless.

The only problem about this bus trip was that we had to be at the bus at 4:30 AM (that's AM, as in the dark, sleepy hours of the morning). So, after about 4 hours of sleep, we arose, got ready and sleepily went out in the dark, found the parking garage and bus without incident and I for one, proceeded to sleep, or at least keep my eyes closed for the 4 1/2 hours of the trip. Other than the inconvenience of taking out and putting in my contact lenses, it wasn't as bad as it seemed it would be.

We were greeted in DC by a glorious Fall morning, at a crisp 50-something degrees, a bit of a breeze, blue skies and the ubiquitous Capitol Building seemingly everywhere we turned. The only problem, as I saw it, was that I had not had any coffee, nor anything to eat. Bob, had, perhaps more wisely than me, chosen to get a cup at Dunkin Donuts, along with a muffin before getting onto the bus. I wanted to sleep, thus refrained from the caffeine. Once out of the bus, the need for caffeine became an issue. So, I thought, let's cross the wide avenue, enter Union Station and get some coffee and something sweet to eat. On second thought, let's not, so as to take advantage of arriving in DC earlier than I'd usually done for past rallies, thus perhaps getting a good viewing spot at the rally. So we walked toward the Mall. Soon we saw some people with nice large cups of steaming coffee, asked them where they were purchased, were told Union Station, and so we turned around toward Union Station. After just a few steps, the idea of a good position took precedence once again and thus, once more we turned around heading for the Mall. My luck was that Bob was quite patient ( a lot more than I would have been, had the situation been reversed). We were told that coffee could be found at the vendors in the Mall, and that thought sustained me, well, at least until the default headache set in. Caffeine addiction has it's consequences.

Long story short, I never did get my coffee, nor did I find anything to eat, as had been promised in the pre-rally information. Yes, there was one vendor on our side of the barrier fences (which could not be passed without the assured risk of not being allowed back in), and the vendor did have a small variety of foods and drinks, including coffee, but they ran out way before the 10 o'clock hour at which we arrived. What was left was potato chips and soda and water (thankfully, I had brought a water bottle, but I had left my lunch bag with fruit, yogurt and peanut butter and chocolate protein bars in the bus, being assured there would be sustenance to purchase at the rally). The line for food was at least a quarter mile long, but I got on it anyway. After about a quarter of an hour, I realized how foolish it was to be standing there for what would likely be over an hour or more in order to get a bag of potato chips as my award for my patience. So, as it turned out, The Rally To Restore Sanity turned out, at least for me, to be another "enforced Yom Kippur". But, I'm not complaining. Really. The hunger passes and then you forget about it. Really.

That was what you might call the downside of the rally. But there were many more upsides to compensate. The weather was perfect

There were a lot of people to meet and chat up.

We waited a long time before the actual events began, leaving me time to sit and read my book on Kindle.

There were lots of like minded people which is always satisfying.

Ans some not so like minded. Way over there to the right.

And even a HAWK!

We got to watch Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert...on a screen.

And there were lots and lots and lots of great SIGNS!!!

And Port-A-Potties galore.

Even Rosie the Riveter has to go sometime!

I got some interesting viewpoints.

Some of it was wacky.

Some of it was serious.

And there were more good signs.

And after it all, we got to rest a bit.

We walked to the train station where later we'd be meeting our bus home.

We bought dinner in the Union Train Station and ate it out in front of the station.

Another tea bagger.

And in the end, a plea for tolerance.

See Me Hear Me Touch Me Feel Me

2010-11-08T00:54:00.000-05:00

My biggest sadness with men is that they tend to talk, talk, talk about themselves and do not ask much about me. Yes, I can just offer information, but I detect a lack of interest, or, at least, that's how I interpret it. I will know I've met the right man, when after I've told him something personal, or something about my work or my political stance or anything that is important to me and he asks for clarification or more information; he shows me he is listening, that he cares. Until then, I guess, I'll continue listening and sometimes feigning interest, when it get to be too much for me. We all want to be seen, heard, and to be understood. I really, really want to be seen, heard and understood.

Another source of sadness and disappointment and sometimes anger for me when it comes to men and relationships, is that sex, sexuality and sensuality, while having the potential to be one of the best parts of two people relating to one another, so often falls far short of that.

I am a baby-boomer, a product of the women's movement and I owned at least one copy of "Our Bodies, Ourselves", and read it cover to cover. Shere Hite's, "The Hite Report", the 1976 mother of all publications on female sexuality was read by me in Israel in 1977 or 78. It was my woman awakening bible.

Sex has always been important to me, but too often a disappointment. Men are tuned in visually. For me, the visual sense is probably the least important when it comes to sexual excitement. By far, touch is the most heightened and the most important. I also think, well, I know for me, that though a sexual encounter can definitely be a one night stand, when it goes on longer, it changes the dynamic of the relationship. And the dynamic is definitely not casual. Sex, when it's good is so personal, so intimate and so close and it adds so much to the relationship; it adds an array of feelings that the sex itself brings forth.

I LOVE good repartee. I love to laugh in response to what the man I am with says and to hear him laugh at what I say. I like innuendos, sexual and otherwise.

A Love Poem:

I love a big, brass bed

With billowing pillows

On a cold winter's night

All snuggled within.

I love a wet red wine

In a large round wine glass

With a long thin stem

Sitting on the bed-side table

Waiting for lovers to sip it dry.

And a tray full of fruit

Maybe figs and some peaches

Juicy and ripe

Waiting to be eaten.

One thing that was for certain in 1975 and continues to be in 2010 is that, when it comes to love, I am always open to persuasion, Love with Affection is Always better than without and it remains true that with a friend I can laugh, but with a lover I can roll my head back and really laugh. So, I guess you could say that I'm not looking for more than an Armatracing aficionado, but just enough.

I want to learn to love better. I want to learn to give and receive more openly and freely.

Every once in a while, I think I am seen by you, truly for who I am, and that keeps me coming back.

All Strings Attached

I like a person who knows what he likes and wants to know what she likes

I am most at ease by myself because I find I do the things that suit me best and for which I am best suited.

I like to listen when it's quiet and the only sound is that of water, be it in the form of waves crashing in at the shore or fresh water babbling along a brook.

I like to read.

I like to hike when the purpose is to stop and find the salamanders

I like museums, art, history, photography and I love discussing what I"m seeing with a partner who is comfortable with personal observations and knows something about which he is talking.

I like to walk along the beach, stop, kiss, stop, look up and be delighted with what we see, feel and do.

I love theater and I want a theater mate who loves straight plays and Broadway musicals both small and large and that money was never a deterrent.

I like large beds and soft sheets and soft downy pillows.

I like music. I mean, I really like music.

It is neither easy nor desirable to get intimate with a man with whom there is no chance of intimacy beyond the bedroom.

Like the Mae West quote says, sex is emotion in motion, the operative word being, emotion.

It has to be "real" (as in the Velveteen Rabbit, "real"),

AND IN THE END...THE LOVE YOU TAKE IS EQUAL TO THE LOVE YOU MAKE.

Sherril

That's Sherril in Webdings

A Letter to my Book Club for Liberal Thinkers

2010-09-28T22:21:00.037-04:00

I so very much believe in and love the idea of serendipity, or is it synchronicity? Both I believe. I woke up with a headache and feeling so tired yesterday, that I decided not to go to work. I kept having dreams of having to pack and unpack way too many clothes for a short trip and couldn't fit anything and didn't have the time or place to put it all. Anyway, the dreams were troubling and I believe were the result of feeling guilty for not having gone to work. I put the radio on now and again, listening briefly to Morning Edition or Brian Lehrer on WNYC, but found the news also troublesome. I was thinking I had made a bad choice.

Then at about 1:15 PM (yes, I can pass the better part of a day in bed, I'm a bit ashamed to say), I again turned on the radio. Well, let me skip forward to when I left a comment on the WNYC website, the Leonard Lopate page... Comment: Sherril from Morris Planis, NJ

How very serendipitous that I stayed home from work today, and while still in bed at 1:15 PM, I turned on the radio to hear Leonard's interview with Barbara Kingsolver about her newest book,

The Lacuna

Last night I hosted our monthly Book Club meeting and you'll never guess what we read and enthusiastically discussed!

As an aside, Kingsolver, as the audio reader, pronounced Lacuna, with a long u, not the yu sound she used in the audio book; something we mentioned in our discussion; I'm thinking she pronounced it so, only in certain contexts, but I digress. The interview was interesting and it almost sounded to me like they were sparring a bit. I think perhaps Kingsolver is a bit feisty, or maybe it was Leonard Lopate. In any case, they definitely hit upon matters and opinions about which we spoke in our Book Club discussion last night. Take a listen to the interview and see for yourselves.

http://beta.wnyc.org/shows/lopate/2010/sep/28/barbara-kingsolvers-em-lacuna-em/

I also listened to another interview on the Leonard Lopate show, which fascinated me and led me to consequently purchase the Kindle edition of the book (my first Kindle purchase)

My Massai Life

by Robin Wizowaty. It's a memoir about a young woman who wanted to escape her boring, mundane suburban Illinois life and did so by going to live with a Massai family in rural Kenya.

I kept WNYC on, even after I got out of bed, and went on to listen to and watch on the computer, the program "Sound Check", which was being broadcast at WNYC's new Green Space. The first segment was David Byrne who has recently released an audio book version, of his book,

The Bicycle Diaries

It sounded fascinating and I intend to reserve it from the library. The next segment was Angelique Kidjo, which I enjoyed so much, I proceeded to buy tickets for her upcoming concert at Carnegie Hall. I will attend the concert with my son for his birthday. The final segment , Phil Collins, was also enjoyable and I bookmarked the new album, "Going Back" to consider purchasing at some later date (I also took notice of his abundance of gray stubble, though he does have children under five years of age (yikes!).

So, all of this to say that I think I was most definitely MEANT to stay home today, lest I would have missed all of the above, and would not have been any the better for it.

Don't you agree?

Sherril

From your parents you learn love and laughter and how to put one foot before the other. But when books are opened you discover that you have wings. ~Helen Hayes

http://www.sherrilsmyriadofmusings.blogspot.com/

5771 - For a Sweet New Year

2010-09-10T13:33:00.063-04:00

I am Jewish, but not at all religious, in the way that most Americans seem to define religion. For example, I am an agnostic. I do not capitalize agnostic, because I don't see agnosticism as a religion, nor a confirmed ideology, but rather a belief based on a myriad of feelings and thoughts on the subject. I also find that religion in general divides us rather than unites us as an American people, not to mention how divisive it is in the world at large.

However, in my case, and I believe in that of many Jewish Americans, I do see my Judaism as a part of what makes me, Sherril, me. Judaism is a cultural thing. an educational thing. a language thing. a minority thing. And Judaism is, on some level, a "national" thing. I believe the last "thing" is a direct result of the "thing" before it, which is to say that Jews, having been historically despised and discriminated against as a minority in most every community in which they lived , have needed a refuge from the bigotry, i.e. a homeland in which they could live with the promise of safety and acceptance.

Part of my family's tradition has been observance of what is considered the "High Holy Days" on the Jewish calendar. Rosh Hashanah, rosh=head, hashannah=the year, thus the name means Head of the Year or New Year. The greeting at this time of year is "L'shanah tovah", which means "for a good year", often shortened to simply "Shanah Tovah". This traditional Rosh Hashanah greeting is actually a truncated or shortened version of a longer Rosh Hashanah greeting which is: "L'shanah tovah tikatevu", meaning "May you be inscribed and sealed for a good year". Yet another way would be to say

"Shana Tova Umetukah", which means, for "A Good and Sweet Year".

My contribution to the R.H. culinary feast, a "kugel" or sweet noodle pudding.

There was a time that all members of my extended family attended Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur services at the synagogue, back when my parents were alive, but alas, only members of my immediate family (me, Haim, Rachel and Jeremy) continue to go today, and I must admit, that our attendance is limited, given the many hours of services at our synagogue (Congregation Ahavas Sholom in Newark, NJ).. Still, we make the effort and I give us credit for this.

The Rosh Hashanah service consists of many prayers that are chanted only on this holiday and a small number of them are what gives the service meaning, for me. Most of the service is chanted by the Cantor or other single congregants, mainly because they are numerous, long and complicated. I would be lying if I didn't say it is, for the most part, boring. I spend much of my time either with my mind wandering to more profane matters and/or reading different parts of the prayer book in English, to find my own meaning, where I can. However, there are a handful of prayers that are representative of the holiday service and many of us learned them as children in Hebrew School, and chanted them year after year, so that they became familiar, enabling us to sing them in unison to this day.

One of these prayers brought me to tears this particular Rosh Hashanah. It begins, in Hebrew (transliteration) with "B'rosh ha-shanah yika-teyvun. U-v-yom tzom kippur yey -ha-teymun".

The English translation is: On Rosh Hashanah it is written. And on Yom Kippur it is sealed.

It goes on, and here I will write only the English translation of the prayer....How many shall leave this world, and how many shall be born; who shall live and who shall die, who in the fullness of years and who before; (At this point, the leader and congregation again chant the first line in Hebrew, B'rosh ha-shanah yika-tey'un...etc.,) after which the leader goes on...Who shall perish by fire and who by water, who by sword and who by a wild beast; (the refrain is again chanted and again after every semi-colon) Who by by famine and who by thirst, who by earthquake and who by plague; who by strangling and who by stoning, who shall rest and who shall wander; who shall be serene and who disturbed, who shall be at ease and who afflicted; who shall be impoverished and who enriched, who shall be humbled and who exalted.

Then the congregation chant...BUT REPENTANCE, PRAYER, AND DEEDS OF KINDNESS CAN REMOVE THE SEVERITY OF THE DECREE.

It is enough to say that my tears appeared due in large part by a sadness I have been experiencing for the last few months, perhaps more, making the words, who shall live and who shall die, who in the fullness of years and who before, and who shall be serene and who disturbed, who shall be at ease and who afflicted, felt a little too close for comfort this year. Also, most of the other descriptions like who shall perish by earthquake, plague, fire, water, sword and who shall perish by stoning? Well, if those means of death were not taken out of today's headlines, I don't know what were? Perhaps for the first time, it felt so personal, so present and so powerful and so I cried.

Another aspect of the R.H. service that maintains significance for me is the blowing of the shofar. The shofar is actually a rams horn. It is difficult to blow in order to make a squeak of a sound and all but impossible to blow in order to make the sounds that respond to the commands given in the Shofar service, which is dispersed many times throughout the RH service" TIKEYAH...SHEH-VARIM...TIKEYAH...TRUE-AH...TIKEYAH GIDOLAH!!! Give heed to the sound of the shofar. It is a moving experience, partially because it is only heard on this holiday (and at the end of Yom Kippur, if you happen to still be around and not already at home "breaking the fast" with yet another feast) and partially because it is considered a mitzvah to hear the shofar blown, a mitzvah, meaning a commandment. I'm not sure why that makes it more significant for me, being an agnostic and all, but it does. Go figure!

It's A Small Small World, Internetically Speaking

2010-09-03T05:51:00.023-04:00

Talk about synchronicity and what goes around comes around and what with the combination of insomnia and the wonders of the Internet, you are bound to make connections that could not otherwise be made. Here's how it happened.

I layed in bed until 5 AM and finally said to myself, OK, this is it, I'm getting up. With water bottle in hand, and glasses pasted on my face, I sat myself down at my computer and opened up my email. Ann, my friend who owns a literary travel company, Classical Pursuits, is presently on an adventure of a lifetime. She is walking a 500 mile walk - the ancient pilgrimage, the Camino de Santiagode Compostela. The thing is, though I'd talked to Ann on the phone the night before she left home in Toronto, she never mentioned that she'd be blogging or posting on facebook, so having received two emails, I was just waiting for more. Then today, in the wee hours of the morning, I found the email that informed me of her facebook posts.

Upon reading the posts, starting at the beginning (a very good place to start...but I diverge), I found a response from Kathleen, who is another good friend. So, I replied to Kathy's reply, asking her how she knew about Ann's facebook foray and I did not (I was feeling a bit left out)? I clicked on Kathy's fb profile page to find my reply, so I could basically cut and paste it onto Ann's Classical Pursuits page on facebook. At the top of Kathy's page, I read her comment:"Great evening last night at Starlight. The Producers was wonderful."and was about to respond that I'd seen The Producers. on Broadway and blah, blah, blah. But, before I could submit my post, I noticed something else on her page. Turns out her son, Mitch, is quite a talented photographer, and had been in NYC, and took some amazing pictures, which were posted on his web page, which Kathy had posted on her fb profile page. I looked at the pictures and proceeded to send them to my daughter, who lives in NYC and I was curious to know if she would recognize all of the places, and to my brother who is taking a digital photography class for the fist time in his life, and himself shooting pictures in the city, and I thought he'd appreciate these.

So, now an hour has gone by and I still hadn't read any but one of Ann's posts about the first several days of her 500 mile walk. But, there were more connections to make and people to see. I never did find my reply to Kathy's reply about Ann's "Walk", but I noticed the next post on Kathy's fb page, Best blog on New York Citywww.getnycd.wordpress.com., which I couldn't resist, so away I clicked. It took me to a blog about all things NYC, written by a young woman who lives there. Before I could start reading the most recent post about wanting home cooked BBQ, despite the myriad of culinary choices in the city, I happened to notice the Blogroll on the sidebar which included, among some other 30 or so blogs, one called, Musings from French Life, and this got my attention because I happened to know that Kathy's other child is studying in France for the year. It was, in fact, Kathy's daughter's blog. Of course I had to leave a comment, asking if it was Katie, Kathy's daughter, etc. etc. At this point, I had to return to the "getnyc" blog, to remark about my BBQ experiences in Kansas City, and imply my connections with her connections. I was beginning to feel like the whole world was connected. Hey, maybe it is!

I returned to Kathy's fb page, commented on her son's talent, as well as let her know how her inclusion of Mitch's webpage and the best blog in NYC had taken me on an early morning ride of connections and inter-connections, which is how I got here, to my own blog, Sherril's Myriad of Musings.

The Help by Kathryn Stockett

2010-06-27T14:47:00.019-04:00

Having finished listening to the audio book edition of "The Help" by Kathryn Stockett, I would have to add it to the short list of my all time favorite books. I loved it and I especially loved listening to it. This is the first novel by this author and I do not know how she will ever top herself. The book is about the relationship between White women living in the deep South in the early 1960's and their Negro domestic help. It shows a time, not all that long ago, when there was no such thing as political correctness, when Whites, especially in the South, had no problems showing their Negro help who was boss. At that time in Jackson, Mississippi, a Black woman was allowed in a White grocery store only if she was wearing her white maid's uniform. The grocery stores in the Negro section of town were not well lit, not too clean and not very well stocked. For a maid to speak out of turn was reason enough for immediate firing, if not putting herself and her family in physical danger. To characterize the racial condition of the American South in 1963 as American Apartheid, would not be an exaggeration. But, this is only the backdrop of the story. The real story is about the relationship that develops between one White woman, Skeeter and the Black maids she eventually writes a book about. Skeeter recently graduated from college with a degree in Journalism, which was all well and good, except all anyone, especially, in this case, Skeeter's mother, really expected from women who attended college in that time was to get their Mrs.degree; anything less was all but useless. Skeeter, was an exception to the rule. She was determined to be a writer and unlike her close friends, with whom she played bridge on a weekly basis and was a member of the local women's organizations, Skeeter had a sense that all was not well regarding race relations in the South. In her attempts to find something worthwhile to write about, she decides on exploring what it is like for the "colored maids" to work for the white women of Jackson, Mississippi, from the maid's point of view. And so begins the relationship that develops between her, Skeeter and two of the maids, Abilene and Minny, who work for her friends. The author, who is White, takes on the task of giving voices to the Negro maids who are interviewed for her book and those voices are believable and pitch perfect. This was the first book I have read in many years, perhaps decades, in which I felt a kinship with these main characters to the extent that I already miss them, as if they had been guests staying at my home and have now left, leaving me with a sad void. I hope that Kathryn Stockett sees fit to write a sequel to"The Help", so that her readers can know what happens to her characters in the years to come. If you are an avid reader or if you only read a few books a year, you will want to read "The Help".

JMK

2010-05-12T22:42:00.025-04:00

I have a story to tell that makes me sad to my core and I don't know what to do with the feelings. It starts in September,1973 when I was in graduate school at Wichita State University, where I had the unusually named major, Logopedics. I was a Jewish girl from the Metropolitan New York City area and interestingly enough, I wound up doing my graduate work smack in the middle of the middle of the country. I liked it. I liked being different, feeling unique. I liked having a different accent than most of the other people around me and that people noticed my accent. I liked having done my undergraduate work at an Eastern School, where most of the other students had done theirs in the Mid-West. I even liked being Jewish in an environment where Catholicism was out of the ordinary; so being Jewish was akin to being a Martian. Who would not be interested in a Martian in their midst. This meant I would be noticed, maybe even really seen for who I am.

As an undergraduate, at Syracuse University, I had a few major unrequited crushes. By crushes, I mean that I obsessed over these guys, but never spoke to them. They had no idea who I was. I guess I had my share of dates and perhaps a few so called boy friends, but I had not had a truly significant relationship. At WSU, there were actually a few guys in my department, which was and continues to be quite unusual in the field of Speech Pathology. One of them was Michael. I remember our phone conversations. I was living in an on campus apartment in which I had my own bedroom and shared a kitchen. My apartment-mate (from the other side of the kitchen) was nice enough, but during one of our very first conversations, she described to me a shopping excursion she'd recently had, where she'd done her best to "jew down" the proprietor. She had no sense that she said something that might offend me, but I guess my expression suggested otherwise. I did my best to educate her, but at the same time, realized that we were not apt to be close friends.

I mention this because my telephone conversations were in the shared kitchen, being that this is where the telephone was and in 1974 not only did we not have cell phones, I did not even have my own private phone. Fortunately, the apartment-mate and I gave one another space and privacy.

I remember those phone conversations with Michael feeling very private, very sassy and very, very satisfying. Michael had a way with words and our conversations often felt more like repartee from a well written play than ordinary chatting. It was verbal banter, not verbal babbling. It was exactly what most turned me on in relating to a man and this man had it. He was witty and intelligent and warm and I really liked him. It was a mutual feeling, but unfortunately it was an unbalanced mutual feeling. He had another woman in his life (why do I still remember her name...Wanda?). That, at least was part of it. What the rest of it was, I can't really say. It was just one of those things. I left Wichita, Kansas in December of 1974 and started my first job in Providence, RI in January of 1975. I'd love to say I never looked back, but the truth is that I never really stopped.

I think I remember receiving a few phone calls from Michael while I lived in Providence, but I do not remember anything specific about them. I left my job in Providence after two and a half years and went to Israel to study at an ulpan, work and, as it turned out, to meet my future husband. He and I returned to NJ to get married and for a few months I was still receiving mail at my family home. I remember going to the mailbox one day and finding a letter from Oklahoma. I knew immediately who it must be from and I was right. It was a funny card from Michael and all I remember of what he'd written was something about my shiteating grin (not exactly a love letter, which was probably for the best since I was married). Still, I would be telling a lie if I didn't say it was a thrill receiving the card.

Fast forward about 16 years. I had now and again done searches on the Internet for Michael, but always came up short of finding him. Then in 1995, on April 19, came the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. It was horrifying and profoundly disturbing news, and though I grieved for all of the Oklahomans, my thoughts and concern were never far from Michael. Then four years later, on May 3,1999, after the tornadoes hit Oklahoma City and the surrounding area, I was besides myself wondering how these disasters may have affected him and his family. I had his parent's address in Oklahoma City and I wrote them a letter of concern, explaining who I was and asking for news. Shortly afterwards, I received a letter from his mother with explanations of both tragedies and how it all affected them, their neighbors and family She also sent several pictures of the destruction after the tornadoes. She gave me Michael's address in Edmond, Oklahoma and of course, I wrote him, but received no reply.

In the past ten years I have thought of Michael now and again and looked for him here and there, on yahoo, google, facebook and most recently on Twitter, always to no avail. Last Sunday, Mother's Day, when I returned home from our family festivities, it occurred to me to do a search for several long lost friends, including Michael. So I googled Oklahoma and Michael Knol (remembering to type one, not two l's, as he had made a point to inform me that the spelling of his name was Knol not Knoll), and to my surprise, no, shock, several hits came up. including the following...

Putnam City teacher still missing: Police report says door to home was wide open. John Michael Knol, 59, was first reported missing Monday when he didn't show up to work at Putnam City High School, police Master Sgt. Gary Knight said. He was last seen at a school gathering Friday morning.

I knew Michael as just Michael, but I also remembered his father's name was John, so it was apparent to me that this might be him. His age, 59, was another give away since that is my age (in October) Then when I looked at the picture that accompanied the article, I was certain beyond any reasonable doubt that the Michael I had known so many years ago and for whom I had carried a torch all this time, was the same Michael in the article. I soon found another article declaring that the missing Putnam city man was found dead in the woods near his home. The likely explanation was that Michael had gone out to search for one of his dogs that had gotten free. He apparently died of a heart attack.

What does one do with this knowledge? With the exception of a few friends who I knew from my WSU days, who know about my friendship with Michael, there is no one currently in my life who shares this grief. Having read as much as I could find online, it seems apparent that Michael's parents are no longer alive and that he left behind two sisters. I guess in my hear of heart, it is with the sisters that I wish I could communicate. I am not looking for comfort (though that would be appreciated), but more so the opportunity to share the grief and to connect with someone who was connected with Michael. I understand that my carrying the torch for him all those years served no useful purpose and I know that though I'm sure Michael had some fond memories of me, I was not a part of his life and that was the way he wanted it. But knowing this does not help me to hurt less My memory of him was real and alive and I really did think that somehow, somewhere our paths would once again cross and intersect. Like Michael, that hope is now also dead.

Israel Trip 2010: Roy's Bar Mitzvah, Pesach, And More...

2010-05-01T00:47:00.000-04:00

Sherril's Myriad of Musings: Jill Biden: Second Lady of the Land

2009-12-13T18:58:00.000-05:00

Sherril's Myriad of Musings: Jill Biden: Second Lady of the Land

Jill Biden: Second Lady of the Land

2009-12-13T15:58:00.032-05:00

Sometimes I think, were it not for the CBS TV program, Sunday Morning, I would never get around to contributing to my blog. Alas, this morning's headline story once again inspired me to do so. Here's the opening remarks of the interview between Rita Braver and Dr. Biden: "When you watch Jill Biden shaking every hand in sight . . . stuffing gift bags for soldiers . . . inviting veterans and their families to the vice president's house, you may be tempted to say, "Isn't she nice!" That would be a mistake! "'Energetic,' interesting,' 'vivacious,' ' but 'nice' is blah. It's just too bland. So I never want to be 'nice.'" I thoroughly agree. There are many adjectives I'd like to be known as and "nice" is not one of them.

I say "Dr." Biden, because she has her Ph.D in Education. Jill Biden is one of the, if not the, first "Second Lady" to have continued to work in her profession while living in the Vice President's residence. I would go so far as to say, that I have never so closely identified with or admired any of the"Second" or for that matter, "First" Ladies in recent times, as I do Jill Biden. I was impressed with Hillary Clinton, of course, as well as Teresa Heinz, who might have been our First Lady, but I can really identify with Jill Jacobs Biden. Not only was she born in my birth year, 1951, her daughter, Ashley, was born in 1981, a year after my daughter, she has a Bachelor's and Master's Degree, as do I (though she went on for her Doctorate, which I have only dreamed of doing, but have not, at least as yet, made a reality), and she has worked ever since, teaching English at the High School level, as well as emotionally disturbed adolescents in a psychiatric hospital. Presently she teaches as an adjunct professor of English at Northern Virginia Community College. Though I am not a teacher, I am a close ally as a Speech/ Language Pathologist. I've harbored another little fantasy of getting certified in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages and perhaps working as an adjunct professor at a Community College. So, I'd say we have a lot in common professionally.

It is not only as a professional woman that I relate to Jill Biden, but as an American woman who clearly has always seen her roles as varied, complex and full. In being a mother and wife, I have never lost my identity as a person in my own right. I went to college and earned two degrees so I could contribute and give back. Though nothing in life is more important to me than my children, my children are not who I am. I am a mother and I am an Early Intervention Speech Therapist and I am an advocate for Social Justice and I am a believer in equal rights and I am a Jewish woman with a love for education and learning and sharing the concept of "tikun olam", and I am a lifetime reader of books and a lover of theater and music and a blogger and...and...and. Being all of these things and not ever having put any of them on the back burner in order to raise children, which I believe I have done fairly well, I strongly relate to other women who I can see by what they do, what they say and how they say it, that they see life and live their lives similarly to me.

OK, so here's another thing I like about Jill Biden. She has a profile on facebook. Naturally, I became a fan today. I paused my DVR taped edition of Sunday Morning, went to my computer, searched her name, found the facebook link, clicked on it and wrote on her wall subsequent to becoming a fan. Here is what I posted:

I am currently watching you being interviewed on Sunday Morning and upon hearing about your background, being Jill Jacobs, growing up outside of Phila., PA, I immediately wondered if you were Jewish (if you are reading this and you are Jewish, you will understand this). So, I went to check this out on my computer and the Wikipedia article said that you are not. OK, you're not Jewish, but you are a remarkable woman and a wonderful role model. I love that on your personal info here on fb, you are an educator first and the "Second Lady" second, which is just how it should be. I also love that you are known as Dr. Jill Biden at the White House and beyond. And, maybe what I love most is that you are exactly the same age as me, both born in 1951! Kudos to you, Jill Biden (even if you're not Jewish) (:

So, now I have accomplished two things. I've written a post on my blog, which I think about doing all the time, but actually do all too infrequently. And I have discovered that I have much in common with The Second Lady of the Land and that ain't too shabby.

NEXT TO NORMAL

2009-09-06T12:36:00.066-04:00

I believe there is nothing more extraordinary or moving, than a great theater experience. I am not sure what to call Next to Normal, since in my mind, it is more a play than a musical, but it is done mostly through songs. Perhaps in another time, it would be billed as an operetta, but that doesn't really do it justice, either. It is a dramatic play, expressed in song, which comes across as natural as the spoken word. Wickepedia calls it "a Tony Award winning rock musical with book and lyrics by Brian Yorkey and music by Tom Kitt". Rock musical doesn't sit right with me because though much of the music could be classified as rock and the play is done mostly in song, calling it a rock musical misses the point. Next to Normal is a play addressing dysfunction in a family caused or influenced by the mental disability of the mother (Diana) who suffers with manic depression, also known as Bipolar Disorder. In Diana's case, she has extreme manic episodes which lead to psychotic symptoms, delusions and hallucinations, about which I will not elaborate, to avoid a spoiler for anyone who might go to to see the play, which, if you haven't guessed by now, I highly recommend you do. I would call Next to Normal a play expressed in song and music. That may be a long way of saying a Rock Musical, but I'd prefer to find a new name for this kind of theater. If you have any suggestions, let me know.

If you click on the link above (i.e. the title), you will find a New York Times review of the play from February, 2008, when Next to Normal opened originally off Broadway at the Second Stage Theater with a slightly different cast. The current cast is highlighted by Alice Ripley, an actress previously unknown to me, but may be familiar to some from Broadway's production of The Who's Tommy in 1993. Alice Ripley is wondrous in this part. I can not speak her praises highly enough. Not only is her voice beautiful, expressive and displays a broad range, but her emotional range as an actor is what made this piece totally capture my imagination and my emotional world. The other actors, especially J. Robert Spencer, who plays Dan, the father, Jennifer Damiano, Natalie, the daughter and Kyle Dean Massey, Gabe the son are also wonderfully expressive, with beautiful and strong voices and in the case of Kyle Dean Massey, physically gorgeous. When I say expressive, I refer especially to their facial expressions. Because of my less than perfect vision, I am forced to watch the play as much through my opera glasses as directly, which not only allows me, but forces me to see the details of everything from their faces to the shoes they wear and the creases in their clothing. What captivated me was watching the subtle changes in Alice Ripley's facial expressions, which reveal, without words, a plethora of emotions including, but hardly limited to pain, fear, confusion, irony, distrust and love. The confusion and despair on her husband Dan, J. Robert Spencer's face also brings the audience to tears. Speaking of tears, the play is not a tear-jerker. What it is, is a display of life in it's multitude of emotions and how what happens to one family member can so broadly and profoundly affect all of the others. For those who do not like to cry, fear not, because there is a lot in this play that is funny and the characters laugh, as well as cry, as does the audience. Having said that, to watch this play without tears is either to not "get it" or to be the kind of person who does not allow themselves to experience the myriad of emotions available to the human species. From my perspective, that would be a shame. I read an interview that was done with the plays writer and lyricist, Brian Yorkey and he said the following: "We wanted this show to be an emotional experience, as honest as it could be, and we wanted people to experience emotions with Diana and her family -- to empathize, to share the experience, rather than just witness it." They succeeded.

Before watching the Tony Award Ceremony in June of this year, I was not aware of the play Next to Normal or Alice Ripley. A compelling scene from the play was performed on the Tonys and this is what initially sparked my interest. After hearing an interview of Alice Ripley on NPR, I knew that this was a play I had to see. By the way, Next to Normal was nominated for Best Musical (i.e. play expressed in music and song (:), Best Book of a Musical, Best Original Score (Winner), Best Actor in a Musical, Best Actress in a Musical (Alice Ripley - Winner), Best Featured Actress, Best Director of a Musical, Best Orchestrations (Winner), Best Sound Design, Scenic Design and Lighting Design of a Musical. It appears I was not the only one who loved this play.

After the play, my sister and I walked over to TKTS and to our surprise found Next To Normal on it's board. I'd bought it for a discounted price online, so I didn't feel cheated. Truth be told, at any price, this play would be more than worth the price of admission.

I regard the theatre as the greatest of all art forms, the most immediate way in which a human being can share with another the sense of what it is to be a human being. Oscar Wilde

MOLESKINE -The Legendary NOTEBOOK of Hemingway and Other Delectable Delights

2009-06-06T11:54:00.058-04:00

I am a big fan of keeping a journal, not just a diary type, but also and more frequently, the small notebook inside my pocketbook type. That is to say, I always have a small notebook with me to jot down whatever I think is important and would otherwise forget. I also often buy small notebooks, wherever I happen to be, if they catch my attention and fancy. So, for example, once, when I was perusing my local B&N, I took a quick look at the various journals. I found the MOLESKINE Ruled Notebook, one similar to the one that I had purchased 3 or 4 years ago and had used up. Even though I did not need a new notebook (I'd purchased two very pretty Mini journals on a trip to Canada in late 2007), I still bought the MOLESKINE one, knowing that eventually I would need it and it was just what I wanted, but hadn't found since first purchased.

I have no idea what Hemingway wrote in his note book journal, but I suspect it was quite different from mine. The kinds of things I most often jot down are names of books I have read and books I want to read, audio books, CDs, places and addresses, names of people I want to remember, short directions to places I want to go, current blood pressure from doctor's visits, subjects I want to bring up in therapy, names of cocktails I may want to order in a bar or restaurant, TO DO Lists, online websites, words that strike my fancy, thoughts on anything from Menopause to things that make me happy (or sad), actual journalling about the paintings in museums I visit, trips I'm taking, names of Restaurants, especially in New York City, but not exclusively, etc..

It is the restaurants or other types of eateries in The City I want to expound upon here. What gave me the idea was a TV program I happened upon this morning while surfing channels as I ate my breakfast. I could probably say that one of my all time favorite foods is DOUGHNUTS. I am kind of embarrassed to admit that, but I'm afraid it's true. And, I often associate doughnuts, as well as other sweets, with places I have travelled. So, when I think of New Orleans, the Beignets at the Cafe Du Monde immediately come to mind.

This could be me. It's not me, If it were me, I'd be drinking Cafe Le Monde's coffee au lait with its mixture of chicory and dark roasted coffee, not Brown's something in a carton. It does kind of look like me when I had that hairstyle., which I just may have had on one of my trips to New Orleans...But Anyway.....

Back to channel surfing. I came upon a program on the Travel Channel called, Doughnut Paradise. Specifically, it was featuring a Doughnut Shop located at 379 Grand Street in New York City, called, THE DOUGHNUT PLANT. Here's what it says on the travelchannel.com's web-site..."The Doughnut Plant takes donuts to a different level with fillings like pomegranate and meyer lemon. Made from all-natural ingredients, each square-shaped donut is custom-filled to perfection. Next time you are in the Big Apple, take a detour to the Doughnut Plant and sample some of the freshest ingredients ever stuffed into a square of fried dough." To watch the video, click on the Doughnut Plant's Website, then click PRESS. Then on the right side, under Television, click on 3/20/2008 - Doughnut Plant. This will take you to the video, which is worth watching if you like doughnuts and live in the NYC area or plan to visit. I most definitely plan to.

Sometimes I write down a person, place or thing I want to remember, and I transcribe it from one journal to the next, but then I can't remember why I wrote it in the first place. Such is the case with the entry I wrote many moons ago, in a note book journal I can't seem to find, but I can picture the entry and it was Russ & Daughters Appetizers store. I think I may have heard something about it on NPR and quickly wrote it down in my little black book (which may or may not have been black at the time). The thing is, more often than not, I write it down and proceed to completely forget about it until something happens somewhere and some place in time to return it to my memory. This is what happened this morning, bringing back memories of notes in my pocket journals, past and present and reminding me of the places I've intended to visit to enjoy some sweet delectable treat.

The last example of NYC's edible delicacies that I once wrote in my pocketbook book is Magnolia a place well known for it's cupcakes of all kinds. Their site says..."
At Magnolia our cupcakes are baked fresh all day every day, without the use or aid of preservatives or stabilizers. They are meant to be enjoyed right away!"

They say people line up around the block to get one of these delights at Magnolia and at The Doughnut Plant and maybe even at Russ & Daughters and I've yet to be one of them. But, my time will come and Jenny Craig be damned!

Julie & Julia

2009-06-03T13:37:00.083-04:00

I just watched the trailer for the movie, Julie & Julia, opening this August and it looks like it's going to be the kind of movie that is a delight to watch. It stars my all time favorite actress, Meryl Streep.

From the trailer, what becomes immediately apparent is Meryl Streep's uncanny talent to be right on the mark in reproducing accents and styles of speech. The trailer shows a black and white video of Streep as Julia in the kitchen and I thought it was an old video of Julia Child, herself. This looks like it's going to be the kind of movie in which Streep will shine. I hope so.

The movie is Nora Ephron's adaptation of two bestselling memoirs: Julie Powell's Julie and Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen

and My Life in France, by Julia Child with Alex Prud'homme.

The movie intertwines the story of Julia Child's climb to fame as the world-renown master chef with another true story about Julie Powell,

played by Amy Adams, who was a secretary in New York City and wrote a blog, called What Could Happen, chronicling her attempt to cook all the recipes in Julia Child's cookbook, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, all 564 recipes in one year, 365 days.

The blog was/is right here on bloggerspot.com. It got a wide following and it got noticed by Little Brown and Company Publishing, which picked it up and out of that came the memoir, Julie and Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen, which was published in 2005. It was a mere hop, skip and jump from blog to memoir to movie.

Now that is cool. It should only happen to me. OK OK, I know...my blog is all over the place with no apparent cohesiveness, BUT STILL!!

In any case, I look forward to seeing Julie & Julia.

WEST SIDE STORY & "JIMMY SHINE"

2008-12-21T15:27:00.047-05:00

I was talking on the phone with my brother about the upcoming revival of the landmark musical West Side Story, which, by the way will be directed by librettist Arthur Laurents and will begin previews Feb. 23, 2009, at a Nederlander theatre to be announced. It will officially open on Broadway March 19, 2009, according to an Aug. 8 press announcement. I thought I had seen the play before, but my brother convinced me that I had probably not seen West Side Story, the original Broadway show, but rather I was remembering the movie version and confusing it with the the play. A few days later, my sep-hub said that he remembered seeing the play on Broadway. Some research was in order. It turns out I had, in fact, seen the play, as well as the movie. I did not, of course, see the original production, for if I had, I would have only been one month shy of 6 years old on the 26th of September, 1957, when it was first produced at the Winter Garden Theater, with Carol Lawrence as "Maria", Larry Kert as "Tony" and Chita Rivera as "Anita."

The movie came out in 1961, when I was either 8 or 9 years old, depending on the month. I was sitting up in the balcony of the movie theater and when the movie ended, I was sobbing my little eyes out. A woman, with what I guess were good intentions, approached me to tell me not to cry because it was only "make believe"! I don't know what world she lived in, but it wasn't mine. Even at the tender age of 8 or 9, I recognized the truth in the plays meaning and real life depictions.

I keep several binders of my old Playbills (see blog dated 6/4/06) and was, thus, able to find the Playbill: West Side Story, dated, May 1980, with Jossie De Guzman as "Maria", Debbie Allen as "Anita" and Ken Marshall as "Tony" (I must admit to knowing the 1957 cast better than the 1980 cast, with the exception of Debbie Allen). So, I did in fact see the play, if not the original, on Broadway, as well as the movie. I mustn't let others so easily dissuade me of what I know to be true.

From one classic old Broadway show to another older completely unknown and forgotten Broadway play ( December 1968) called "Jimmy Shine", with Dustin Hoffman as "Jimmy Shine". On this morning's edition of my favorite TV program, Sunday Morning with Charles Osgood, one of the featured segments was about Dustin Hoffman, who happens to have a new movie coming out. They talked a lot about his early history as a struggling actor and that despite a decade of working as an actor, he remained unknown. It was his part in The Graduate that began his career and future success. I was surprised and disappointed that they did not mention his role in "Jimmy Shine" and it was not until after I yahoo'ed the play that I understood why. Though I saw it, I have no recollection of it. I found this article, Urban Picaresque from Friday, Dec. 13, 1968. It starts out saying, "A play is a journey. It can be an outward journey through time, place and action. Or it can be an inner journey through mood, psyche and character. Murray Schisgal's Jimmy Shine attempts an inner journey. The trouble is that it doesn't go anywhere". I have to assume that the play had a very short run. Interestingly, it was a musical of sorts and you'll never guess who wrote some of the songs; none other than John Sebastian of The Lovin Spoonful.

By the way, you might notice that the head of Dustin Hoffman on the Playbill is not the original one. I must have had a pretty bad crush on old Dusty, so I cut out his picture and put it up on my bedroom wall. Posterity and the e-bay value of old Playbills was not on my 17 year old radar.

The Playbill went headless for many years until I decided I would try to patch it up.

Responding to Your Comments from the "I Voted" Post

2008-11-15T19:29:00.057-05:00

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU 11 timeTHANK YOU~. I chose to wait until all the comments were in before responding to each of your comments. Seeing that my comments in response to your comments will be lengthy, I'll post them here as a new blog, rather than trying to fit it all in the comments section.

I am such a sop; I cried as I read each comment out loud. A large part of what has been so incredibly exciting for me in this election is the feeling of camaraderie I've had with all of you and the other millions out there who cared so much and took the election so seriously and the many who worked so hard to make it happen. I really believe that we did make a difference this time. Of course, Obama being the quintessential "Community Organizer" that he is, knew how to effectively lead the proverbial "grassroots" effort and make it work and work it did. He did it. We did it. It has been done. HALLELUIA!

Now for a few specific responses:

Farm Girl....what a happy surprise. You never told me that you had a blog here. Will wonders never cease? I'll drop by your blog now and again to see what my book toting, farm working, politically correct religionist is up to. My polling places, both in Lake Hiawatha and Morris Plains are also "hopping" when there are five voters there at the same time. You were not the only one who commented on the question of reliability of our senior citizen poll workers. I wonder if this should become an issue. It seems that it would come across as being ageist, but it is an important problem.

Ken B....thanks for responding to my call for commenters. Yes, I guess most of us who live in the suburbs and rural parts of NJ have similarly "easy voting" experiences, even at this time when city voters stood in lines for hours and hours. What impressed me about that fact was that people who might have otherwise "just left" seeing long lines, didn't leave, but waited to do their civic duty because they knew this time it really, really mattered. Shalom back at you.

Alicia....I appreciate that you took the time to comment. Like Ken and many of the others in NJ, our voting experiences are similar. Of course, what you represent is the "Youth Vote", albeit, the upper end of it. (: and as such, you and the others like you who are committed to progressive politics at a young age, are the hope of us more seasoned voters, for the future of progress in our country. Do you remember we worked together that one day for the Kerry campaign?

Becky...You and my other good friend, Diane S. from the now defunct blog The Unfound Door, are the sole representatives here from the very red states of Oklahoma and Texas, respectively. I love love love your exuberance. I remember we shared that child within us enthusiasm when we were students together at Wichita State University all those many years ago. I could see you standing there on your voting line as your mind was in a gliding pattern. You express yourself in a "gliding pattern' and it never ceases to refresh me. I am so glad that though we haven't seen each other since 1974, we remain "soul-sisters" in our politics and in our lives in general. Thanks god for the Internet. I wonder if Obama could feel your pride in him? I bet he could. So glad that your students could share in your enthusiasm for "our man" Obama.

LG...I am lucky to have a few people in my life who act as cheer-leaders for me and you lead that pack. Thanks for that. And thanks also for your "proxy" vote for Obama. I know you were a strong Clinton supporter and I appreciate that you believed in your friends dedication enough to vote for Obama. I hope and pray you will be forever glad you did.

Audrey...What a great tradition you have of voting with your family members. There are so many people in our country who don't generally vote (though not this time) and I think parents who have influenced their children to be voters have something to be proud of. Who'd have thought back when you were designing the decorative part of my daughter's and then my son's Bat and Bar Mitzvahs, that we were in the same political boat and that we would have this shared experience of anxiety ridden anticipation and then exultation around the election of 2008?

Len....I don't know anyone who votes at City Hall, but come to think of it, that seems like the most obvious place to vote. I'm used to fire stations, schools and VFW halls. Actually, Ken's library was a first for me too. I think the being mobbed by dozens of people and waiting longer on line adds to the excitement of it. Of course I share in that feeling of joy and pride. I know how you appreciate your relatively cheap ride from Boston to Chinatown in NYC, as do I since it gives me the chance to see you every once in a while, so I'm glad this momentous event also allowed you to share your "secret".

Penny....You didn't sign your comment, but we established that it was you. Paid off it did!! Having you as my comrade in progressive arms, has been a god-send for me.

Diane S.....I know just what you mean about making Election Day special and significant. I don't necessarily don any rhinestones, but I do make sure that I am given that "I Voted" sticker, which I then wear with pride and a hint of sentimentality for the rest of the day. I actually still have one from a past election on my computer and this years on the stick shrift in my car. I guess maybe your town isn't as "oh so white" as you thought, but perhaps instead, the minorities hadn't felt the urge to get out to vote before. What were the new machines like? We have touch screens and then a lever that you click at the end. Did you notice that there was much less discussion about the voting machines? I would like to see consistency of machines used throughout the country. Diane, thank you for being my closest friend who I've never met and with whom I share so much in common in sensibilities and outlooks on life. Oh, and one more thing. Do you know Farm Girl or were you just being "neighborly"?

Dave...Oh, Dave! It took me a while to realize whose comment I was reading. If it hadn't been for the "eh" and the very sad news about your mother, I may not have known at all. Politics aside, my heart ached when I read that your mother had died. You know I met her a few times and I thought we "connected", as it were. As for Politics, how happy I am that you did in fact vote and that you voted for the BEST CANDIDATE, OBAMA! He'd have done the same for you! (: I guess after the onslaught of Sarah Palin you decided it would make more sense to move to Canad than to Alaska. Not a bad idea. I know what you mean about missing the metal levers and hefty handles; they made you actually, physically feel the importance of what you were doing. As for legalizing marijuana, I suspect Obama has a few weightier matters to deal with first; but you never know! Will you ever legally partake with me if he does?

Sherril

Book Club for Liberal Thinkers

2008-11-15T13:47:00.154-05:00

IF YOU ARE ONLY INTERESTED IN FINDING THE BOOKS READ BY Book Club for Liberal Thinkers, SCROLL DOWN....

I don't think I have ever blogged about the book club I started in May 2005, so here it goes. In 2004 I took a "sabbatical" from work and devoted much of my time to the politics of the day, that is to say to the failed election of John Kerry. In so doing, I became involved with MoveOn.org (com, pac, take your pick). Though all of my adult life I had been left leaning in my politics, I had never really become "involved" in any meaningful way short of signing a few petitions and writing my representatives a few letters. Bush changed all that for me (and for millions of other Americans) and MoveOn played a major role in helping us to have a voice and find a way to express it meaningfully. Through MoveOn, I hosted several "Political Parties". Each of the 6 or 7 parties drew from 10 to 20 people. A few became forever online friends and three became actual friends.

Kerry lost the election in 2004, but the fight was just starting and continued on for four years leading to the wondrous and hopeful conclusion of electing Barack Obama as our next President, but I digress. The second most important result of MoveOn and its many influences was the creation of Book Club for Liberal Thinkers, whose members included myself, my three MoveOn Party friends and about four other friends or friends of friends. There have been a few who have left us, one who left and came back and the political party friends have remained throughout. This is why and how the club got it's name. We don't necessarily read political books, though we have read a few, but a meeting doesn't go by when besides for discussing the book, we don't also
"talk turkey".

OK, enough with history and explanation. Here is a list of the books we have read. I have added an asterisk or 2 or 3 for the books that I really liked and would recommend.

......................................................

LIST OF BOOKS READ BY BOOK CLUB for LIBERAL THINKERS SINCE MAY 2005

1 The Mermaid Chair by Sue Monk Kidd

2 My Year of Meats by Ruth L. Ozeki *

3 The Good Wife by Stewart O'Nan

4 Spending : A Utopian Divertimento by Mary Gordon *

5 My Dream of You by Nuala O'Faolain

6 1984 by George Orwell **

7 One Thousand White Women : The Journals of May Dodd by Jim Fergus, ***

8 Atonement by Ian McEwan *

9 The Falls by Joyce Carol Oates *

10In Cold Blood by Truman Capote ***

11Power by Linda Hogan

12Specimen Days by Michael Cunningham *

13Pearl by Mary Gordon *

14The Professor of Desire by Philip Roth

15Moral Disorder and Other Stories by Margaret Atwood

16What Was She Thinking? Notes on a Scandal by Zoe Heller *

17One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez

18Winner of the National Book Award by Jincy Willett

19The People's Act of Love by James Meek

20The Places in Between by Rory Stewart (very interesting)

21The Septembers of Shiraz by Dalia Sofer **

22The Wholeness of a Broken Heart by Katie Singer *

23 A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini ***

24The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini ***

25Pope Joan by Donna Woolfolk Cross (interesting)

26Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz (interesting AND won Pulitzer)

27Any Place I Hang My Hat by Susan Isaacs

28Audacity of Hope : Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream by Barack Obama *

29History of Love by Nicole Krauss *

30Persepolis : The Story of a Childhood by Marjane Satrapi ***

Persepolis 2 : The Story of a Return by Marjane Satrapi ***

31American Pastoral by Philip Roth *

32Sputnik Sweetheart by Haruki Murakami, Philip Gabriel (Translator)

33The Echo Maker by Richard Powers *

34Plan B 3.0 : Mobilizing to Save Civilization by Lester R. Brown

35The Sportswriter by Richard Ford

36. Running With Scissors by Augusten Burroughs

37. Loving Frank by Nancy Horan*

38. We Were the Mulvaneys by Joyce Carol Oates*

39. Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Laheri*

40. Suite Francais by Irene Nemirovsky*

41. Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortens

42. March by Geraldine Brooks***

43. Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout*

44. The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski

45. Kindred by Octavia E. Butler*

46.The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows**

47. Dune by Frank Herbert

48. Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger

49. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald*

50. Little Bee: A Novel by Chris Cleave**

51. The Gilead by Marilynn Robinson

52. The Hamlet by William Faulkner

53. The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver

54. Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder

55. A Mercy by Toni Morrison

56. Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Laheri*

57. Stone Diaries by Carol Shields

58. The Help by Kathryn Stockett

59. 41 Stories by O. Henry

60. Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

61. Cry The Beloved Country by Alan Paton

62. Another Roadside Attraction by Tom Robbins

63. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

64. The Tiger's Wife by Tea Obrecht

65. Summer by Edith Wharton

66. The Feast of the Goat by Mario Vargas Llosa

67. Netherlands by Joseph O'Neill

68. Room by Emma Donaghue

69. The Dovekeepers by Alice Hoffman

70. The Lover by Marguerite Duras

So, my friends, go forth and READ.....................................

I VOTED

2008-11-04T12:32:00.027-05:00

November 4, 2008. I just got home from voting. I live in Parsippany, NJ. At 10:40 AM. my polling place was more crowded than I've experienced in my voting history in Morris County NJ, but not so crowded as to necessitate lines. However, the poll workers said there had been lines earlier this morning. The parking lot outside of the firehouse location is small and it was filled. Many of the cars in the small lot were of the larger, non-foreign variety, not your average Democrat's cars. In fact, I live in a mostly Republican part of New Jersey and have often felt a little out of place in my local voting places. I was hoping that the Obama decals on the back of my car were an appropriate distance from the door.

Still, I felt the historic quality of the moment and despite being the agnostic that I am, actually said a prayer as I gazed down at Obama and Biden's names with the little red check next to them. I wasn't leaving anything to chance. A few tears accumulated in my eyes as I got back into the car (no big surprise there). I drove home thinking about how profound this election has felt to me and thousands, maybe millions of others over the last year, in our country. I have felt to be in the best of company as I canvassed in Philadelphia,made phone calls here at home and sent and received hundreds and hundreds of emails with petitions, requests for donations, keeping us up to date and informed and some of THE BEST YouTube videos ever. One more piece of personal information regarding the significance of today's date. My son's birthday is November 4th. This is the second time in his now 23 years that his birthday coincided with an extremely significant event. The first was November 4, 1995. the day that Israeli Prime Minister, Yitzhak Rabin, was fatally shot. That was a tragic day. Today will signify the election of either the first Black President of the United States or the first Woman to become Vice President. On this momentous day, I will cast no dispersions, but I will say that if Barack Obama wins the Presidency, the significance will be even beyond breaking racial barriers (and that is of HUGE significance). It will mean that we will have a president with so much promise and even more capability to bring our country back up to the high standards that we desire and hopefully deserve.

I would love to hear about your experience as you voted today for the 44th President of the United States.

I invite you to comment here, even if you have never participated in blogging before. It's easy to do; you don't have to have a blog address. Simply sign in as anonymous, but then sign your comment at the bottom, so I will know who wrote it.

Thanks....Peace....oh and for one LAST time.....GO OBAMA!!!!!

SHERRIL

Sarah Palin vs Bridgitte Bardot

2008-10-14T22:46:00.015-04:00

Did you catch the debate with VP Candidate Sarah Palin and film legend turned activist, Bridgitte Bardot? In case you missed it........

BRIDGITTE: I hope you lose these elections because that would be a victory for the world.

SARAH: (1) Say it ain't so, Bridge, there you go again pointing backwards. You preferenced [sic] your whole comment with reference to the Bush administration. Now doggone it, let's look ahead and tell Americans what we have to plan to for them in the future.

BRIDGITTE: By denying the responsibility of man in global warming, by advocating gun rights and making statements that are disconcertingly stupid, you are a disgrace to women and you alone represent a terrible threat, a true environmental catastrophe.

SARAH: (2) I’m not an Al Gore, doom-and-gloom environmentalist blaming the changes in our climate on human activity. (3) We believe that the Service's (i.e. Dept. of Interior's) decision to list the polar bear was not based on the best scientific and commercial data available. (3) There is no "aerial hunting" of wolves in Alaska.Our science-driven and abundance-based predator management program involves volunteers who are permitted to use aircraft to kill some predators where we are trying to increase opportunities for Alaskans to put healthy food on their families' dinner tables. It is not hunting.

BRIDGITTE: This shows your total lack of responsibility, your inability to protect or simply respect animal life.

SARAH: (1) Senator McCain chose me because of my connection to the heartland of America. Being a mom, one very concerned about a son in the war, about a special needs child, about kids heading off to college, how are we going to pay those tuition bills? (4) And, besides I'm a Hockey Mom. Do you know the difference between Hockey Moms and Pit Bulls…. Lipstick.

BRIDGETTE: Ms. Palin I implore you not to compare yourself to dogs. I know them well and I can assure you that no pit-bull, no dog, nor any other animal for that matter is as dangerous as you are.

If I may rephrase Bardot's words, without changing her meaning, but relating it to another famous quote from another VP election some years ago.....

"Sarah, I know pit bulls. I have a pit bull. I love pit bulls. And YOU Sarah Palin are NO Pit Bull!"

In deference to full disclosure, this debate, per se, never took place, but it could have. I have taken actual quotes from both of the principal characters and though they are out of their specific context, they are in the context of the subject matter about which they are speaking. In other words, the essence is true, even if some of the words have been transposed or changed to fit the context of the debate.

Brigitte Bardot Quotes are borrowed from The Huttington Post, October 14, 2008.

Sarah Palin's Quotes are taken from (1) VP Debate October 2, 2008 and (2) Interview with Charlie Gibson and (3) On The Issues
and (4) The Republican Convention on September 3, 2008 and other times and places too numerous to mention
Created by: Sherril

Too much sanity may be madness. And maddest of all, to see life as it is and not as it should be!MIGUEL DE CERVANTES, Don Quixote

VOTE OBAMA FOR PRESIDENT

I AM Rosie the Riveter

2008-09-14T20:19:00.006-04:00

I must say for a 57 year old woman who has been living on her own for two years now, "I've come a long way baby". An hour ago, as I was putting in my contact lenses, necessitating pulling up the sink pop-up, in order to keep the water from running down the drain, should a contact lens accidentally fall into the water, a problem arose. The pop up got stuck in the down position and would not pop up. I was hungry and cranky, so I just left the water sitting in the sink, finished inserting my lenses and went on with the business of emptying grocery bags (cloth bags, may I add) and cooking something to eat for dinner. Having finished eating, cleaning up and turning on the dishwasher, I went into the bathroom and was immediately reminded of my Faulty Sink Pop-up Stopper problem. Feeling fed and less cranky, I decided to try to fix the problem. My first thought was to call some man in my life, or my daughter, to ask what to do. My second thought was to try to fix it myself. I Yahooed the problem and the site entitled, Faulty Sink Pop-up Stopper, fit the bill. It provided a picture of the parts of a sink under the counter, with several possible scenarios for causing the problem and probable fixes.

Long story short, the spring clip, which connects the pivot rod to the clevis, had become disengaged. I found it on the floor of the compartment under the sink. After examining the picture, I made several attempts to reconnect the spring clip, placing it in one hole in the clevis after another until I found the right hole that allowed the mechanism to work.

YES!!!

Sherril

"If you can't vote my way, vote anyway, but VOTE!" Pogo... Walt Kelly.

An Opera Aficionada Newbie

2008-03-23T15:31:00.045-04:00

I belong to several social groups that fall under the umbrella of Meetup.com.

They are groups of people who meet to pursue a common interest, anywhere from book clubs to Santeria. There are literally hundreds of types of groups, with new ones forming all the time. The latest one that I joined is called, New York Opera Meetup. But, I must take one step back. It was not the opera group that brought me to the opera, but another one called Culture for the Non-Cultured, which is organized, extremely well, by another Sheryl. I had taken a fascinating tour of the NYC Library with this group, followed by lunch (many of these groups include eating and drinking of one kind or another) and most recently I joined them at a joint meetup event (with the NYC Opera group) at the Metropolitan Opera in Lincoln Center to see the La Traviata.

My motivation for signing up for this event was tri-fold. First, a little background. I must admit to previously not being a fan of the Opera, not at all. I specifically had a distaste for the Soprano voice and never had the patience to listen to an entire opera on the radio or watch it on PBS. The only opera I had ever attended was about 25 years ago, when I had gotten tickets to bring my parents to William Tell , a performance which happened to be in Florence, Italy, at the same time I was spending my semester abroad in my college years. I knew they would be impressed by my effort (they were) and I knew, though I was not a fan, my parents loved the opera, so I would be educating myself, while giving them a gift they would love. All I remember about it was that it was VERY long.

Fast forward 26 years when I get an e-mail from Cultured for the Non-Cultured meetup group to attend La Traviata at the low cost of $26 (seats in the nose-bleed section, more politely called the Family Circle, but affordable seats, all-the-same). So, call it circumstance, fate or chance, but call it the first fold of said motivation.

For the past few years, I have been re-evaluating my dislike of opera and considering trying to gain an appreciation of it. One reason was that I used to have a friend who loved opera, so much, that he could sing many of the arias and tell most of the stories (or should I say melodramas; huh, so, that is where the term soap opera comes from!). Also, ever since I saw the movie, Moonstruck, one of my many fantasies has been to "be" Cher, attending Puccini's "La Boheme", at the Met, with Nicholas Cage. Oh that I could be swept off my feet by an overwhelming passionate love, defying all expectations - a passionate love!!! Anyway, back to reality, the opera loving friend and a far-fetched fantasy were the other two folds of my motivation.

So, I went to Wikipedia and printed out an explanation of La Traviata, background on the composer, Giuseppe Verdi and some information on this particular production, which had as its Production and Set Designer, Franco Zeffirelli. I read it on the bus ride into the city. It was a rainy day, which may have been why there were no cabs at Port Authority Bus Terminal, so I hoofed it from 40th and 8th to 65th and Broadway (that was the address I had, but I actually had to walk back to Columbus Ave. where Lincoln Center is "quietly" nestled, away from the noise of the traffic of any of the streets or avenues). Because this event was meant for people, like myself, new to the world of opera, the organizer of the Opera Meetup group, spent about 30 minutes giving us an interesting talk on the Met and it's history (that's how I learned about its "nesteled location"), as well as the opera we'd be seeing and it's composer. And then it was onward and UPWARD to our seats, which were not together since each person buys their ticket separately. Between each of the three acts, we met as a group in front of the Red Marc Chagall Mural, which famously and beautifully adorns the wall above one of the many bars in the building.

The opera experience that I had was more than I expected. Just being in the Met was truly magical...it's size and grandeur, the gorgeous chandeliers that resemble indiviualized snowflakes, looking down on the grand staircases and being among people of all ages, dressed from informal to elegant and simply "knowing" where I was all added to an amazing experience. Before the first act began, the chandeliers in the theater slowly rose upwards, I would assume to keep them from upstructing vision of the stage. Despite sitting so far from the stage, my handy opera glasses served their function well and allowed me to feel connected to the performers and the action on stage. In front of every seat, even non-seats, which is to say, in front of standing room only, there is a window in which you can read translations of the opera. I didn't think I would read them, as I thought it would interfere with the flow of the opera, but in fact, I read them throughout and found that they enhanced my experience.What most impressed me and totally surprised me, was that I loved the singing of the "diva", who in this case was Ruth Ann Swenson, who sang the part of Violetta. I loved everything about her voice...the range, and what they call florid runs and trills. I even loved the over the top drama of the arias. I had read about a technique Verdi uses in writing one part for Violetta where she reads a farewell letter she has written to her lover, Alfredo, and she "speaks" the words with a musical background, which serves to echo her feelings, rather than accompany her voice. This technique is called "melodrama", that is, a dramatic reading with a melodic background. Live and learn!

I can not fully analyze what it was that I so enjoyed while watching and listening to this opera; it is easier to say what I did not experience, that I thought I might have. I was not bored. I was not bothered by the fact that it was sung in a language I could not understand. I was not even thinking about what I was experiencing. I was mostly in the moment. I suppose that's the best that can be said of any experience. And so it was.

The Question Is, Is America Ready for Obama?

2008-03-18T23:54:00.005-04:00

I listened to Barack Obama's speech tonight that he gave today in Philadelphia. I have been saying for years that the biggest problem we face as a nation is the problem of Race in America. I have long thought that the Racial Divide and the Divide between the Haves and the Have-Nots is the biggest problem that we are not facing and thus will be the one that will eventually overcome us. Instead of "we shall overcome", the results of racism in America will overcome us.

Barack Obama so eloquently and so succinctly spoke of how we must make the attempts to bridge these gaps; that we must do so by realizing that by raising those who have fallen, we raise ourselves. We must do so by realizing that "those children" are "our" children, that we are ONE NATION.

But, I'll tell you what really scares me. I watched Barack Obama give his speech and I cried. I cried because I think that we, the United States of America, may not be good enough for him. I cried because I am afraid that we may not be ready for him and maybe never will be. I cried becasue we may lose the opportunity of a lifetime to choose a leader who has that great quality of seeing clearly, from many angles and through many eyes and can use that clarity towards changing the direction of our country.

I think that Obama is offering himself as a means to an end, as a way to reach across the many divides we have in this country between Black and White, Blacks and Jews, Black and Brown People, Black Christians and White Christians, Muslims and Jews, Muslims and Christians, Muslim nations and Western Nations, including the United States, Rich and Poor, Educated and Non-Educated and finally Red and Blue. He is offering himself as a bridge that may help to not only cross these divides, but perhaps bring the sides closer together and thus better able to understand how the "other" feels and why each side acts the way they do and through this understanding maybe each side can learn to, if not love, at least hate less "those people" on the other side of the divide.

The challenge is ours and the opportunity is ours to embrace or lose, maybe forever.

Congressman Tom Lantos: A Farewell

2008-02-13T19:42:00.031-05:00

I would bet that not many Americans, not to mention Jewish Americans, know that there was a member of the United States Congress who was a Holocaust survivor. He was the only one to hold that dubious, yet honorable distinction. I only learned of this fact in May of 2003, when I attended the annual Conference in Washington, DC of the American Jewish Committee. I attended an evening ceremony honoring Mr. Lantos with AJC’s Congressional Leadership Award. He spoke only briefly, but hearing his European accent made me tearfully aware that I was seeing a man who despite having suffered so much loss during the Holocaust, managed to get to the United States in 1947, as a result of an essay he wrote about President Franklin D. Roosevelt, which won him an academic scholarship to study in the United States. Thirty-three years later he was elected to Congress, the only Democrat to defeat an un-indicted incumbent Republican in the year of the Reagan landslide. He held his Congressional seat in the Office of the Twelfth Congressional District of California for the next twenty-seven years, until February 11, 2008, when, at the age of 80, he died of esophageal cancer.

I learned that Mr. Lantos was a champion of human rights from his involvement with the Dalai Lama, to getting willingly arrested for protesting outside the Sudanese Embassy in Washington to denounce that government's role in the killings in Darfur, to his pivotal role in the House's passage of a resolution pressing the Japanese government to officially apologize for the thousands of women used as sex slaves during World War II, to advocating for Taiwan in its tensions with China.

During the Nazi occupation of his homeland in Hungary, Lantos was sent to a forced labor camp, from which he escaped and ultimately ended up in one of the Budapest apartments rented by Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg. His story is one of the individual accounts which forms the basis of Steven Spielberg's Academy Award winning documentary about the Holocaust in Hungary, The Last Days.

Tom Lantos' biography is fascinating. He was married for over fifty-seven years to his childhood sweetheart, Annette Tillemann. They had two daughters. Annette (the daughter, not to be confused with her mother) had ten children and Katrina, had seven, giving Tom and Annette seventeen grandchildren. Also, interestingly, his daughter Katrina was the wife of Richard N. Swett, former New Hampshire Congressman (1991-1995) and former U.S. Ambassador to Denmark (1998-2001). Katrina ran for a U.S. House seat in New Hampshire in 2002, but she lost to incumbent Charles Bass (R), who had defeated her husband in 1994.

I was saddened when I heard of Lantos' death on Monday night, but extremely gratified to know that my life's experiences briefly intersected with his on that May evening in 2003. I am grateful because not only had I not previously heard of Tom Lantos, but I don't remember being aware of the organization, the American Jewish Committee (I would have thought that it was the same as the American Jewish Congress, which it is not). So it was another case of synchronicity (something I believe in whole-heartedly) that brought me to the AJC conference, at which, in their wisdom, they chose to honor this very important and memorable man.

My Life Without Me

2007-11-24T23:07:00.000-05:00

Would you live your life differently if you knew you only had two months to live? Such is the question posed in the movie, My Life Without Me. I had been considring cancelling my Blockbuster Online subscription as a way to cut expenses. But, my enjoyment of this movie reminded me that maybe I could find another way, or not. I am constantly surprised how many moview there are out there truly worth watching, yet not at all well known. And for me, it seems, the best way to discover them is through online rentals. Isabel Coixet wrote and directed the movie (it was based on a short story by Nancy Kincaid) and the actors include Sarah Polley, Scott Speedman, Amanda Plummer, Deborah Harry ( yes, of Blondie fame), and Mark Ruffalo. Alfred Molino (who, for me, will always be best known for his work in Enchanted April), plays a small part. The movie's sensibilities are more like those of a Spanish or Italian film, which may just be because it was a Spanish/Canadian co-production with help from Pedro Almodóvar's El Deseo production company. It is a sad story told in a straight-forward way with emotion, but little sentimentality. It is subtle, yet touched me deeply (not that I'm not often touched deeply by films, but I like to think that the depth of feeling is consistent with the quality of the film). Sometimes I think if it weren't for good movies, theater and art, I would never find a way to temporarily get away from my own life drama. For this alone I am grateful .

Just Think of It-World War II Revived

2007-09-16T10:38:00.000-04:00

I am not a big fan of the media in recent years. It tends to overexpose and sensationalize much of what it reports , on the one hand, and not follow through on news that was once overexposed, on the other. Clearly, the media can shape our thoughts and force our attentions. But, the media can also bring a subject to our attention that would not otherwise be there and help us to understand something that we might not otherwise understand. Such has been the case for me, regarding the subject of World War II, specifically those who fought the war, the Veterans. My media sources were television and a book. Now that I think about it I am not sure that literature can be considered as"the media". If not, excuse my mistake in so considering it.

I happened to recently pick up the book (audio book, in this case), Dream When You're Feeling Blue by Elizabeth Berg. It is not high literature, but it kept my attention and seriously increased my interest in the "story" of the WW II Vets, as well as what life was like on the home front. This has not been something I've been interested in the course of my life. My focus regarding WW II has been almost exclusively on the Holocaust. I have never liked reading novels or non-fiction about the war and have mostly stayed away from war movies, with the major exception of Saving Private Ryan. For my own edification, I did a search of the Top 50 World War Two Movies in order to see what I had missed. The following is just a handful of them, those movies whose names I recognized, but have not seen:
Stalag 17, The Bridge on the River Kwai, The Battle of the Bulge , Twelve O'clock High, Guns of Navarone, Mister Roberts, Where Eagles Dare, The Devil's Brigade , Mrs Miniver , Sands of Iwo Jima , The Dirty Dozen , A Walk in the Sun,

One can not have watched TV during these past summer months and not heard about the upcoming seven part series, The War, a Ken Burns’s Film about World War II , scheduled to start on Sunday, September 23, 2007 . I have seen some of the Sneak Preview on my local PBS station, Channel 13, and found Ken Burn's explanations about how and why he wanted to do the series alluring, but I remained unsure of wanting to watch it. I remembered that, though beautifully done, I found watching Burn's documentary, The Civil Wars, a bit boring (of course, I was extremely sick in bed at the time, which may have had something to do with it). In any case, I put it on the back burner of my mind.

The clincher came this morning while watching, Sunday Morning with Charles Osgood. Bill Geist's did a segment that he called, In Their Honor. It was about a group of "World War II vets from North Carolina, aged 79 to 102, who journeyed to see the World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C. They were there because Jeff Miller, a local businessman in Hendersonville, N.C., started a campaign in March to send every World War II veteran in the country who wanted to see it". "Sixteen million served in World War II. Now there's probably just a little more than 3 million alive," he said. "They're dying at a rate of anywhere from 1,200 to 1,500 a day". The project grew quickly, as did the number of vets wanting to go and the amount of money it was going to take to see it through. The entire community got involved and money was raised, to the tune of $133,000. Two-hundred and twenty Hendersonville vets signed up for the first of what have come to be called honorflights. They arrived in Washington to a hero's welcome and were escorted to the memorial. There was one story of a vet who died just days before the event was to take place. The family still attended. It was a moving piece of journalism. Bill Geist ended the segment saying, "But the veterans who attended were feeling the appreciation so long overdue in this, a final tribute to the men-boys then, really, in their teens and twenties-who answered the call and saved the world. Think of it.

And think of it I did, so much so that I posted a comment on the CBS website. Apparently this segment was a repeat, originally broadcast in September of 2006. Perhaps they will show it yearly in September. They should. I was moved by the tens of comments I read from today and from those written after last year's broadcast. So many people of my generation talking about how their fathers never really spoke to them about the war they fought and about how proud they were of their fathers and how, in so many cases, they wished that their fathers had lived to be able to participate in this honor. I am moved by all of this, but I can't really relate to it personally. My father served in some medical capacity at an army base stateside. He was in Medical School at the time. I don't think he was considered a vet. I have never really known any vets, at least not of American wars. My parents did not talk much about those years.

All of the comments I read were about the men, but there was one that said this:

I am a WW11 vet still alive. I served as a member of the Womens Army Corps assigned to the Army Air Corps. I want to continue my efforts to fill the gap in history about women in the military. 400,000 women served in all branches of the service during WW11. Though we were not allowed to serve in combat positions, those combat positions would not have been possible were it not for the women,and some men,who supported those in combat. I enabled the training of bombardiers who flew in both war theatres. Women served as aircraft mechanics, spys, drivers, interpreters, nurses, transcribers, etc. both here and abroad. Five women were on a troop ship which was bombed and all five survived, 80 some nurses were taken captive the South Pacific and survived. Members of the Womens Army Corps served in Algeria, North Africa, England, Southeast Asia, Italy, Egypt, the,Pacific, and Australia . Therefore, I was distressed not to see/hear mention of women serving in the military in the "greatest war with the greatest generation". Lynn Ashley, EdD

These comments, that moved me as much as Bill Geist's segment, can be found at the bottom of the article about In Their Honor. I highly recommend taking a look.

I am not a flag waving American until there is something that reminds me of the importance of that flag. I am not an admirer of wars and so often believe that there must be alternatives to fighting them. I am patriotic. My view of patriotism is not of the flag-waving, rah rah for our country, right or wrong variety. I have always thought of patriotism as honoring and appreciating one's country, while at the same time speaking out and protesting the things that one sees as wrong in order to make the country more like it is supposed to be regarding freedom, equality and justice for all. War is certainly not always the answer to conflicts; in fact is should rarely be the answer. Perhaps I have avoided learning more about WW II because in my life time, I have not seen a war that I thought was justified to fight. I am pretty certain that I would have thought otherwise had I been alive in the 1940's.

I have no doubt anymore that I will watch Ken Burn's documentary, The War.
The congruity of these recent events, reading Elizabeth Berg's new novel, Dream When You're Feeling Blue, the anticipation of seeing Ken Burn's upcoming PBS documentary, The War and experiencing Bill Geist's segment on CBS' Sunday Morning, In Their Honor, has truly set in motion for me an enthusiastic desire to learn more about World War II, it's veterans and the home front at the time. If not now, when?

To Hell & Back With Dante: My Trip to Italy May 2007

2007-09-09T23:19:00.000-04:00

Life is Language. Language is Life.

These were just a few of the words that made up my days in Italy from May 13th through the 23rd, 2007.

GUELPHS...GIBBLINES..ITALIAN CONSCIOUSNESS...DANTE......IDEAL CITY STATES...TUSCANY...THE DIVINE COMEDY...FIRENZE......VIRGIL...FEUDAL WORLD...THE MEDICI FAMILY... SIN...JOHN THE BAPTIST ...HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE...BEATRICE...CICERO...GLUTTONY...ARISTOTLE...INFERNO...PRAGMATICS...MIDDLE AGES...ETHICS...ENVY...SIENNA...ANALYTICS...SOUL....VIRGIL...AUGUSTAN...
ROME....JERUSALEM....ITALIAN COMMUNES...REASON...REVALATION...SORTAE VIRGILIANAE (BIBLE DIPPING)...SEVEN LEVELS OF HELL...FREE WILL...SLOTH...THE DEEP DESIGN of God ...RED=LOVE...GREEN=HOPE...WHITE=FAITH...DANTE ALIGHIERI...ALLEN MANDELBAUM...AVARICE...CANTO ...ANGER...EXILE...PRIDE...HEAVEN...PURGATORIO

St. Francis of Assisi....Middle Ages...The Castles...Tuscany...the Feudal world...Plato
......GIOTTO...ROME...PARADISO...LUST... DETERMINISM...LIMBO...THE HOUSE OF ANJOU......THE APENNINES ...Exile

DISCOURSE ON DANTE'S THE DIVINE COMEDY

We travelled through the Inferno passed along Purgatorio and ended in Paradiso. Virgil helped us along the way and Beatrice was also our guide. We highlighted and underlined our texts and compared and contrasted the many translations from the original Italian into English. We even shared some pastry and champagne as we sang Happy Birthday to Dante on the 21st of May.

Our First Discourse...Under the Tuscan Sun

And we studied here, there and everywhere.

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In 1972 I was a Junior at Syracuse University and I had the good fortune to spend my second semester abroad in Florence. I lived with two different Italian families and learned the language well enough to impress my parents when they came to visit. It was definitely one of those defining times of my life. The Duomo, from the start was my anchor in Florence. No matter where I was, I would eventually find my way by sighting the great Duomo of the Florence Cathedral. I viewed it from afar and up close and explored it inside and out. I stood upon it's steps.......

Standing on the Duomo steps with my father and my mother............

1972

1972

And then, there's the one the day I was leaving Florence for Greece and a stint on a Kibbutz in Israel.....

1972

Little did I know that it would be 35 years before I would return to Florence, but return I did.....

2007

THE UBIQUITOUS DUOMO

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We not only studied about Dante, The Divine Comedy and Medieval Italy, but we walked it's streets and saw much of what Dante wrote about and the places that made up his life in Florence. As we walked his streets we saw where the petty family battles took place, petty battles that ended with death and bloodshed and we read Dante's poetic words in Italian and English.

In 1215 in Florence Buondelmonte dei Buondelmonti is betrothed to Miss Amidei but breaks his commitment in order to marry the daughter of another family, Donati.

Breaking the commitment so enraged the Amidie Family and those alligned with them, they concluded the only vengence equal to the betrayal was to murder Buondelmonti and thus it was done. This murder divided the whole city and essentially became the cause and beginning of the Guelf (Buondelmonte) and the Ghibellines (Uberti and Amidei and others) and the warring between the two factions.
“But Florence in her final peace was fated to offer up - unto that mutilated stone guardian upon her bridge -- a victim.” Paradisio Canto 26 Lines 143-147.

“I answered: Where the lovely Arno flows, there I was born and raised, in the great city.” Inferno Canto 23, lines 94-95.

“The house of Amidei, with which your sorrows began--by reason of its just resentment, which ruined you and ended years of gladness--was honored then, as were its close companions.” Paradioio Canto 16, Lines 136-139

DANTE'S FLORENCE

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Of course one can't be in Italy for a day, no less ten days, without eating and drinking and drinking and eating and did I mention eating and drinking??

Eating and drinking in Italy is an art form and must be taken very seriously.

MANGIA ! CIN CIN !

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On our way to San Miniato al Monte we passed through beautiful gardens and climbed up to the magnificent cathedral where we heard the Gregorian Chanting of the Benedictine Monks. There were views of the Duomo and other sections of the city that were all picture perfect

San Miniato

The green dome is the Florence Synagogue

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We spent a day in Sienna

Our American guide, getting her PH.D. in Italian in Italy, was Kristin, bright, perky, pretty and the perfect person to explain to us all about the Siennese custom around the event called Il Palio.

"Piazza del Campo" is still used today for the well known Palio horse race which is one of the most famous popular Italian manifestations. It takes place every year on July 2 and August 16. The Palio is run to celebrate the miraculous apparition of the Virgin Mary near the old houses that belonged to Provenzano Salvani. The holy apparition was therefore called "Madonna di Provenzano" in whose honour the very first Palio was run on August 16, 1656. The Palio was run for the first time in 1701 in honour of the "Madonna dell'Assunta" the patroness and Advocate of Sienna through all the tragic events since she protected the Sienese militia at the famous battle of Monteaperti on September 4, 1260, against the Florentines.

The Palio is a historical secular tradition strictly connected with the origin of the Contradas of Siena (districts into which the town is divided). The Contradas are spectacular agonistic institutions each having their own government, oratory, coat of arms, appellations, sometimes titles of nobility, emblems and colours, official representatives, festivities, patron Saints, with protectors, delimited territories and population which consist of all those people who were born or live within the topographic limits of the district, according to the proclamation issued by Violante Beatrice of Bavaria on January 7, 1730, at that time, Governess of the town.Originally, there were about fifty-nine "Contrade"; now only seventeen remain, ten of which take part in the historical pageant and in the race at each Palio (seven by right and three drawn by lots).Here is a list of their names, emblems and colours grouped into "Terzi" or "Terzieri" (in olden times the town was divided into three sections called: "Terziere di Città", "Terziere di San Martino" and "Terziere di Camollia"

Kristin, our guide, though American, is actually a full fledged member of one of the 17 remaining Contradas and hers is called ONDA (Wave) a swimming dolphin wearing a crown. White and blue. Kristin is totally serious about this. She is in Sienna when Il Palio takes place and she is as fully consumed by it as any full blooded Italian. It happened that the day we were there in Sienna, a baby was born to one of the families in the ONDA Contrada. This is not a small event in Sienna. Everything stopped. Kristin and the "keeper of the ONDA church" hung a banner, rang the bells and produced a lovely certificate in the baby and family's honor. Take a look. It was crazy!

And Another Day in Assisi

"A Simple Prayer"

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.

Where there is hatred...let me sow love.

Where there is injury...pardon.

Where there is discord...unity.

Where there is doubt...faith.

Where there is error...truth.

Where there is despair...hope.

Where there is sadness...joy.

Where there is darkness...light!

Oh Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek:

To be consoled...as to console.

To be understood...as to understand.

To be loved...as to love.

For:

It is in giving...that we receive.

It is in pardoning...that we are pardoned.

It is in dying...that we are born to eternal life.

st. francis of assisi

WHEN ALL IS SAID AND DONE, IT'S ALL ABOUT THE PEOPLE

Ann, Sherril, Suzanne, Mary Jane, Ruth, Paul, Lois, Jan, Steve, Tom, Sean....Kristin, Lucca, Fabrizio...Chula...Donato, Gianni, Sister Agnese Hatchison

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There's just one more thing I must mention. If you are familiar with my blog, you may remember my particular affinity for the movie, The Enchanted April and that in fact it is also a fantasy of mine. Well, this adventure, though not exactly the manifestation of Enchanted April, it came very close.

After our 7 days in Florence, with our stints to Assisi and Sienna, we spent the last four nights in Fiesole, which is in the hills above Florence. We stayed at Pensione Bencista. The pensione and its environs were for me, what I believe was the closest I will ever get to my Enchanted April fantasy. As I sat on the terrace and looked out, I saw the gradually sloping Tuscan hills with Cedars of Lebanon and olive trees lining the valley from Fiesole to Florence. I heard bells chiming in the distance that were in concert with the birdsong, not to be outdone by the distant barking of a dog. Dotted in amongst the trees and myriad of greens, from deep forest to a pale yellow-green, were the villas with their Tuscan yellow and red tile roofs. And best of all was the occasional wind which brought with it the scent of jasmine from the terrace below. White jasminde clinging to the walls and purple Wysteria hanging from the vines, both perfuming the sun drenched air, what more could I ask for?

Did I mention we had our very own Geiko?

If this was not Enchanted April, it was, at the very least, the Paradiso of May.

If you are interested in seeing all the pictures from my Paradiso of May, I invite you to click on this link to view the slideshow.

http://picasaweb.google.com/sherril98713/ITALYMay2007WithTitles/photo#s5101660464913569074

What Makes You Laugh? Remembering DENNIS WOLFBERG

2007-09-07T21:57:00.000-04:00

Have you ever thought about what it is that tickles your funny bone? I think about it quite often. The reason I think about it is that for me, it is a lot easier to make me cry than it is too make me laugh. Would that it weren't so, but it is. I am empathetic, to a fault, and overly sensitive to my own and other's woes and hardships. But it is not about crying that I wish to speak. It is about laughing. What and who make me laugh?

Does anyone remember the comedian, Dennis Wolfberg? This man could make me laugh so hard, I'd cry (Damn, there's that word again). I saw Wolfberg for the first time at a comedy club, I think in Bergen County, NJ. He was a story teller, generally, "slice of life" stories. He would emphasize a word by pausing ever so slightly before it began and then overly emphasizing either a syllable or the entire word, as his eyes bulged out of his head and his voice blew out from his chest like a fog-horn. The entire effect was hilarious and his observations were so on target that it was all I could do, not to pee in my pants from laughing so hard. I saw him once more at Rascals Comedy Club, which at that time was in West Orange, NJ. My friend, Lynne and I were hysterical, especially when he expounded on his wife's birthing experience. I swear, every person in that audience, well at least every woman, was, along with him, in third stage labor, pushing like hell and laughing mercilessly . It rated as one of the top entertainment experiences of my life.

It must have been in the early 1990's when I saw Dennis Wolfberg for the first and second time, which turned out to be the last time . Dennis Wolfberg died on October 4, 1994 at the age of 48. His obituary said that he was in the middle of making a deal for his own TV show. Talk about Tragic Comedy.

Seinfeld makes me laugh, not like Wolfberg did, but the humor on the Seinfeld Show did and does appeal to my sense of what's funny. David Sedaris makes me laugh. I found him especially funny many years ago when he used to perform his life essays on NPR. Working as a "French Maid" in NYC apartments is just one that comes to mind. His book, Me Talk Pretty Some Day, was the funniest piece of work ever to be put down in words on paper. I remember that my father could not hear the word fart said in a joke, or any other context for that matter, without cracking up. To this day, my sister, brother and I can not hear the word fart used in a joke or story, without giggling, in respect for our father, of course. David Sedaris has a piece in his book about turds and how one time at a friend's house, at a party, he went to use the john and to his disbelief there floating, well not floating, but engorged within the confines of the bowl was a turd so big and so long and so rotund that he was sure there was no way it would flush and it didn't. Reading back these words now pretty much gags me, but back then when I was sitting on a beach chair in my backyard on a hot summer afternoon, I thought they were about the funniest words I'd ever read and I howled with laughter. Me, who is not given to easy laughter.

So, tell me what tickles your funny bone. What makes you really, really laugh.

Streams of Consciousness or Why We Should Live Another Day

2007-06-10T11:10:00.000-04:00

I have so much on my mind and so often I have the desire to set it down in writing (old fashioned term for typing on keyboard), but the moments are fleeting and the desire gets thwarted by time restraints and daily diversions. Yet, I am here. This is something.

My thoughts range from relationship issues to self esteem to my recent trip to Italy to Dante Alighieri to work to summer activities to books and reading to current and future status of marriage to plays to The Sopranos to friendships to aging to hair color, style and comfort to body image to heat and pervasive sweating to sex to music and on it goes.......yes, the mind is a swaggering, swelling swirl of mush and potential brilliance. But with all these thoughts racing daily through my head, it was this morning's CBS program on TV, Sunday Morning, that made my heart race enough to motivate me to sit down and write (I'm 55, so I will continue to call this "writing").

Almost every segment interested me (which is not always the case), but the segment that most excited me was the one entitled, ART: Edward Hopper. I feel obliged to add that BILL GEIST's: That’s Amore, Steubenville’s Native Son – Dean Martin was a close second and warrants a blog post of it's own, what with the reminders it provided me of my childhood, my brother, Michael, Dr. Silverstein and a prominent dream I had just last night, involving all of the above, with the exception of Dean Martin). I also really enjoyed the segment called, OUR MAN IN PARIS: David Turecamo on the endangered cafes of Paris and the artist, who sits in one Cafe drawing the myriad of French faces he sees there (despite my best efforts, I was unable to find his name on the Sunday Morning website or that of Mad Magazine, for whom he also works). Ben Stein's take on the recent media craze with Paris Hilton was interesting as was the cover story on Lieing and how often we do it and the segment called, Brian Dennehy Keeps Looking For The Truth. Like I said, the entire program stirred my thought juices and engaged my emotions.

Anyway, I previously posted about Edward Hopper in September, 2006. The significance for me here is the reminder that every once in a while, sometimes even when you least expect it, but most need it, something new (or at least new for me) comes into one's life, whether from reading about it in a book, magazine or in this case an email, hearing about it on the news, seeing it on TV or in a movie or from a discussion with a friend or acquaintance. When this happens to me, just thinking about it makes me feel excited and alive and the things that normally trouble me, seem less important. So it was this morning, that a segment on a valued weekly TV program initiated for me this phenomenon. Thinking again about Edward Hopper and his paintings and how they make me consider light and space and that a painting can elicit what makes us human and realizing how I'd never even heard of the artist before a little more than a year ago, when, poof, today he reappears in my little sphere and I am reminded of how much I would like to see his work in person and then find out there is an exhibition of his work this summer in Boston, a mere hop, skip and (well, maybe long) jump from my residence in New Jersey, well, what can I say, "LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL" and there's a reason to live it another day. It is just that simple and that profound!

The Hurdy Gurdy Man

2007-04-09T17:47:00.000-04:00

You know how once you become familiar with something, you start seeing and/or hearing about it all over the place? Well, that's what happened with me and the Hurdy Gurdy. Before last year, my only reference to the Hurdy Gurdy was from Donovan's 1967 song , The Hurdy Gurdy Man. I frankly had no idea what it meant, but I thought the song was cool.

Thrown like a star in my vast sleep,
I'm opening my eyes to take a peep
To find that I was by the sea, gazing with tranquility'
Twas then when the hurdy gurdy man came singing songs of love
Then when the hurdy gurdy man came singing songs of love
Hurdy gurdy, hurdy gurdy, hurdy gurdy gurdy he sang (3X)

Histories of ages past, unenlightened shadows cast
Down through all eternity, the crying of humanity'
Tis then when the hurdy gurdy man comes singing songs of love
Then when the hurdy gurdy man comes singing songs of love
Here comes the roly-poly man, he's singing songs of love
Roly poly, roly poly, roly poly poly he sangRoly poly, roly poly, roly poly poly he sang
-->

In April, 2006, I went to Union Square in NYC to meet my daughter who works at Washington Irving High School, more or less across the street from Union Square. As I departed from the subway station to the Square, I was confronted by a young girl sitting there, playing the strangest looking and even stranger sounding insturment. I asked her what it was and she informed me that it was a Hurdy Gurdy. She played it by turning a crank on one end as she pressed some notes that seemed to pluck strings. I can't say that I liked the sound, but I was more than pleased to have something to identify that oldie but goody Donovan song.

Then last Saturday I went to the last of three plays that were presented by a Theater Company in NYC called Theater For A New Audience that is basically a classical company, Shakespeare and the like, but takes a new look and in this case had a theme to the triumverate. The plays were The Jew of Malta, The Merchant of Venice, and Oliver Twist. The theme, as you may have already guessed, was Jews and how they are portrayed in classical literature and plays and what it meant then and what it means for today. The first two plays starred F. Murray Abraham (of the movie, Amadeus fame). It was, however in the last play, Oliver Twist, which contained some incredible accapella singing as well as some instruments of the day (that being the early 1800's)

which included, yes, the Hurdy Gurdy!

Hurdy gurdy, hurdy gurdy, hurdy gurdy gurdy he sang

ITALIAN FOR BEGINNERS

2007-03-25T12:28:00.000-04:00

In May I am going to Italy for ten days. The last time I was there was in 1972. I spent the second semester of my Junior year in college with Syracuse University's Program Abroad in Firenze. It was a defining period of my life and left me pretty much loving all things Italian. But it's about movies that I wish to talk. So, che cosa e il collegamento? The connection is that since I commenced planning this upcoming viaggio, I have been searching for movies connected with Italy and the Italian language at my Blockbuster.com site.

Years ago, 2001, to be exact, a movie called Italian for Beginners opened in the US. I wanted to see it as soon as I learned about it, but it must have had a limited release and I did not get the chance to see it in the theaters, so I put it on my video/DVD to see list. My friend, Kathy, who is often my Mentor for new life experiences ( she is the one who originally sent me an email from the organization with whom I am travelling to Italy), informed me that the movie wasn't what it would appear to be and perhaps not what I was hoping to see. It thus became less than a priority on my to see list. However, when it once again showed up on a search for Italy and Italian, I pushed it up to the top of my Blockbuster.com cue.

Italian for Beginners is not a movie for the conventional movie watcher. In fact, after just a few minutes of it, I was fairly certain it was not a movie for me. In my attempts to fast foward, I somehow lost the Subtitles function and found myself watching a movie in Danish, which I obviously could not understand and which to me looked like a poorly filmed Soap Opera or maybe a home movie. I actually thought that I was watching something other than the movie and tried to restart it. In so doing, I rediscovered the subtitles function and began the movie, yet again, only to mistakenly push a button on the remote that made the screen go gray. Utterly frustrated, my technical skills leaving much to be desired, my body and eyes rapidly fatiguing, I thought it best to turn in for the night. I decided that for me, this film was not meant to be.

The next day, taking a break from apartment cleaning, I sat down and absentmindedly began playing with the confounding television remotes and, to my surprise, the movie miraculously started up, exactly at the point where it had ended the night before. OK, so I was meant to watch it!

Here's how one site, About.com, described the filming technique used to get the effect that I previiously described as Soap Opera-ish or Home Movie-ish:

"Italian for beginners...and love for losers." That's another tagline for the film known as Italiensk for Begyndere in its original language. The movie adheres to the rigorous aesthetic principles of the Dogme '95 Manifesto , which insist on a hand–held camera, natural light, and shooting on location to create "a fresh method of filmmaking and allows the script and improvisations to provide the spontaneity while celebrating the characters and the actor."
I guess I wasn't so far off describing it as a HomeMovie, but as it turns out that is a good thing.

Why do we enjoy watching movies so much? I think one reason is that it gives us the opportunity to stare at people, especially their faces. It allows us to notice the slight and subtle things people do with their eyes and their facial muscles. We get to watch their mouths as they go from neutral to a downward frown, where, with the eyes, you can see honest emotion. In movies we can study their faces without any self-consciousness and I think this is what elicits within us our own depth of emotion. What we recognize on their faces is the universality of human emotions, how we all feel them and what they look like on our human faces. This movie, Italian for Beginners, went from being a confusing, unwatchable home movie, to a reminder of how much I love watching movies, especially when they are made so well.

As a sidenote, I will mention hear a bit more about the trip on which I will embark in May.
The organization planning the trip is called Classical Pursuits :Learning Vacations With a Difference. The name of the trip itself is To Hell and Back with Dante: The Flowering of the Late Middle Ages in Italy
The group will consist of about 12 people and there will be a literary focus on Dante's, The Divine Comedy. Two of Dante's contemporaries in the late 1200's, Giotto, the painter and St. Francis of Assisi, will also be discussed and will help inform our adventures as we discover Florence, Assisi, Siena and Fiesole. As well as reading the assigned chapters in The Divine Comedy, I am trying to do a bit of research on my own. I came across a fascinating article, Dante between Hope and Despair: The Tradition of Lamentations in the Divine Comedy by
Ronald L. Martinez. It not only connects Dante with St. Francis, and Thomas Aquinas and Dante with the Book of Lamentations, but also relates Dante and the late Middle Ages with the Jewish people and Israel. What more could I ask for?

BELLA CIAO!

WHAT'S LOVE GOT TO DO WITH IT?

2007-02-18T23:30:00.000-05:00

My last post, well, actually, the one before the last post, was on September 26, 2006. The subject matter and the time was the Jewish New Year. Much has happened in my life since that time and the present, and as time passed, it became increasingly more difficult to think about returning to the blog. With each passing day, it felt more and more overwhelming to try to catch up. It is almost 5 months later and this is my attempt to do just that.

I got married in 1979. I met my husband in Israel and brought him back with me to the US to get married. Since that time, I've had two children, a beagle, a career as a
Speech Pathologist working mostly in Early Intervention with children, birth to three, a great deal of travel, often to Israel, frequently to Paris, sometimes to Montreal, on occasion to New Orleans, San Francisco, LA, Cancun, and some Islands, including Aruba, and we have had a multitude of holiday observances, American and Jewish, birthday and milestone celebrations and most of the family events were centered around our house. Dinners, and family celebrations were common occurrences, mostly due to the abundant hospitality and excellent cooking of my husband. This is all to say that I can not complain about my life for the last 27 years. It has been rich and full and in many ways fulfilling..

Having said all that, during the days between the Jewish holidays of Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur, 5767/2006, I prepared for and on September 30th carried out a momentous decision, one that was the result of years of thoughts, feelings, tears, therapy, journaling and contemplation. I packed my bags and moved out of my house into my own apartment, thus officially separating from my husband. It was a most scary, hectic, exciting, bittersweet day. It took courage that up until that point, perhaps that very day, I had been unable to summon.

From October 1, until the present, I have spent many an hour and even more dollars, purchasing items for this new apartment, that would bring me not only a sense of accomplishment, but of well-being. My first big purchase (perhaps the first really "big" purchase I'd ever made with my own money), was an Italian leather loveseat, in a pretty sage-green color.

My next big purchase was the rug for the living room. As luck would have it, upon driving to my house one day, I passed a Persian rug store, Rugs of Eden, that was going out of business. Having some experience with the age old tradition of haggling for the best price (having been a frequent shopper in the Arab Market of the Old City of Jerusalem), Ramin Aziz, the proprietor, and I arrived at a price for a beautiful, modern designed, hand made in India, rug. It was smaller than I wanted, at 5'x8', but that, at least, made it possible for me to carry it home and shlep it up the stairs to my apartment by myself.

Meanwhile, I had been making frequent stops at a store, in our area, called, Homegoods, (perhaps this is a chain in other parts of the country, I'm not sure) to see what new things they'd gotten in. This is one of those stores that if you strike it right, you can find things for your home that are sometimes unique and often at very inexpensive prices. Well this one day I found something that was perhaps not all that unique and definitely not inexpensive, AND something that I didn't really need, but that I loved at first sight. After returning to it a number of times, I decided to buy it and buy it I did, as well as an iron and rattan table to put it on and a matching table to complement the first. The silk flowers were purchased at another time in another store.

The living room was shaping up beautifully and all I needed was a coffee table to put on my new rug, home office furniture and to bring my book cases here from the house to the apartment. With the help of Pier 1 (the coffee table and a wine holder ), my son and his girlfriends' father and truck (one of the book shelves and a few boxes of books) and a special friend and his truck (the second book shelf and some more books) I managed to put it all together.

Oh, wait, that is not the whole living room story. There is the office furniture, purchased at Staples and after a long wait, finally delivered. This furniture comes in huge boxes in which there are a myriad of pieces which have to be put together by no one less than an engineer, and I just happen to know one; that would be my husband. I've mentioned that he is unbelievably hospitable and a great cook, but didI mention that he was also a wiz at putting things together and as it turned out quite gracious and for lack of a better phrase, a good sport? So, with the promise of bringing in Chinese for dinner, he came over one evening after work and meticulously put together my new desk and on a separate occasion, the hutch, which I bought at a later date. And now, my living room was complete!!

My only problem was that during this mad and crazy buying frenzy, I was sleeping on a borrowed Aero-Bed (thank you, Lynne). Granted, it was a queen size aero-bed, raised well up off the floor and very nearly like a real bed, but it still was not the real thing and besides, it needed to be returned. So, out I went on my bedroom furniture search. Luckily I found it at the second store I went to and that was a good thing because as much fun as I was having furnishing my new abode, I was, at the same time, growing a little weary of it and my hours at work could not keep pace with the number of dollars it was costing. I decided to go with a whole different look than I'd had for the many years of my marriage and got a chest instead of a bureau and black instead of wood color. I was very happy with the results.

Fortunately I'd brought over a few snack tables and folding chairs from the house because I still didn't have a dining table and chairs. Craig's List took care of that (oh, the wonders of Craig's List!). I managed to find someone selling a nice wood table and 2 dining chairs for a hundred bucks and he also delivered it to my house....What more could I ask? I brought over some of the art work that I had at home and had a few other works framed and began the hanging process, at first with the help of my brother and his partner and later on my own.

I will post a short blog following this one that will give an example of one of my success stories. Here is a "teaser".

In any case, the apartment as a whole was comping together quite nicely and to my satisfaction. All I really needed now were more rugs, not only to warm the floors, but also because there is a condo associationrule that says that 80% of the floors are to be covered with rugs or carpets. I don't know that I have quite covered that much, but put down rugs, I have done.

As for the kitchen, I bought a microwave, toaster, red teapot, a kitchen cart and assundry smaller necessities of a kitchen. The fact is that I don't do much cooking that doesn't involve one of the pre-mentioned items, so the kitchen is pretty well set.
The only thing missing from it and all of the other rooms is what we "home decorators" call, window treatments, but they will either have to wait or more probably be missing in this otherwise most comfortable, self-styled abode, one which feels to be most authentically "me".

So, what does "What's Love Got To Do With It" got to do with it? I separated myself from life as I knew it for over 2 1/2 decades to a new life that I've wanted to try on for many, many years, a life on my own, as myself, one that would fit me as authentically as a life could fit. My new apartment has become a conceptualization, a representation, an embodiment of that new life. This, as I see it, was/is an act of SELF-LOVE. My husband, who was not at all in agreement with what I did, has so far, managed to rise above his first reaction and personal dissatisfaction, and help me in concrete ways with the move as well as helping me to continue our family traditions in terms of our children, our extended family on both sides and our "concept" of family. I believe this is his own brand of LOVE. And finally, moving out, living on my own in my own personalized apartment is giving me the opportunity to know what it is to live alone and to succeed on my own. It has given me the time to reflect on myself in regards to relationships with others and with myself. So, if this helps me to love myself better, I know I will be prepared to love another better.

And that's what LOVE has to do with it.

IT'S A SMALL WORLD AFTER ALL

2007-02-09T21:19:00.000-05:00

It has been a very long time since last I appeared in this world of blogging. I can not say why with certainty. I simply have not felt motivated. Time and again my good online blogger friend, Diane S of A Stone, A Leaf, An Unfound Door would lovingly try to cajole me back to the blog world, especially when she would receive an email from me that she thought particularly blog-worthy. And I considered it, I really did. Another of my blog friends, Ricardo of
FREE SPEECH 101, has been in contact frequently and asked me where I've been, as he missed reading my blog. Joe Vogel of FREE SPEECH 101 also contacted me in those many months in whcih I was silent and he like the others told me I was missed. I can't say how much I appreciated that these friends let me know I was recognized for my small contribution in blogging, but I still didn't feel the pull to come back.

It wasn't until another of my blogger friends, Robert of,
It's Lonely Outside the Box did something that truly rocked my world, my "reality" world, and that ultimately got me to return to this cyber-world in order to tell this story. I sent him an email from which I will be "borrowing" and I hope he doesn't mind.

A Letter to Robert:
Dear Robert,
You not only made my day, yesterday, but my week, my month, maybe even my year. Let me tell you how the day went.
Yesterday, Wednesday, happens to be my day off from work. So, I slept in a few extra hours and left my apartment at about 2:45 PM to go to my therapy appointment. No sooner had I opened the outside door, than the Letter Carrier (known as the mailman in earlier non-politically correct days; I'm one of the few that likes most of the PC terms) was just about to ring my upstairs bell. My appearance at the opened door startled him and he broke out into a huge smile, saying , "oh, are you the person who lives upstairs?", to which I answered yes, and he said, "I didn't think anyone would be home, what a surprise. Well, I have something for you that has to be signed" and he proceeded to climb back up into his mail truck. It seemed to take him quite a long time , each second made longer by the freezing cold temperature and I was going to be late for my appointment, but he had been so friendly and I couldn't even imagine what he had for me that required a signature, so I waited patiently.

He brought out a good sized box and said with obvious excitement in his voice, "it's from China!; well no, not China, Taiwan. It has Chinese written on the box!" I guess this was a rare occurrence in the Morris County, NJ postal route. His mention of Taiwan jogged my memory and I said to him, "OH! It must be the DVDs from Robert", and I went on to tell him about this online friend of mine who is also a blogger and we visit and respond to each other's blogs and yada yada yada so, he offered to send me some political movies, if I didn't mind sharing my address with him. Obviously I didn't. The postman laughed and said, well, I hope he's cute (this comment somehow suggests postman rather than letter carrier) and I responded, "Oh, he is, but he's married and has two kids" and we both laughed. I smiled as he drove away and brought the package with me to the car, set in on the passenger's seat and didn't think much about it until I got to the therapist's office. It didn't occur to me that the box was rather large to contain only DVDs, regardless of how many there may be.

I went to my appointment and spent the first several minutes explaining with excitement and enthusiasm about what had just transpired; I did this by way of explaining why I was late (I always feel guilty when I arrive late to my therapy appointment). I went on to other things and left an hour later. Rather than go directly home, I stopped at Bed, Bath and Beyond for no other reason than that I had a 20% discount card and I figured there must be things I needed in the store. Well, about 3 hours later and with a rolling basket filled with many things I must have needed from the store, I gave the clerk my coupon and left the store, a few hundred dollars poorer Now I had not only the box to bring up the 14 or so stairs to my apartment, but several bags of stuff.

When I got into the apartment, though I hadn't worked, I felt exhausted (shopping can do that!) With all the bags from the store, I almost forgot about the package. Before slicing the box open. I carefully removed the label with my name and address, your name and address (Robert's) and Chinese characters which I am certain said something postal in nature. Having gotten the box opened, it seemed that it was stuffed with lots of paper, newspaper and such, and as I began digging into it, I felt something inside the paper; so I began to carefully unwrap. No sooner had I unwrapped the first one, that I began to feel like a child in a candy store, literally. Now, Robert, I have to stop and tell you that there are two things I really love in life. One is to be surprised - NO ONE is ever able to surprise me - and two is CANDY. So, to my UTTER SURPRISE and delight what I found were treasures, each wrapped separately, to be discovered, one by one.

I stood there in my little kitchen hardly able to contain the mile wide smile on my face. There was a gold Hindu Goddess, which I believe has chocolate inside and several small golden containers, marked with Chinese characters on the top, each looking like some kind of little treasure which when opened, contained pieces of chocolate. I felt like I'd won the Taiwanese lottery. The next few goodies turned out to be those decorative hanging red thingies, one with what looks like
peppers on it, another with a fish and the third and largest with pictures of Chinese masked men, Ninja types...kind of scary looking. They are all hanging in different locations around my apartment.

Inside another wrapping was a beautiful little container, like an ancient pot on three legs with dainty handles.

It is on my living room cocktail table.

And then there was more CANDY. Sucking candies, and these white nougat looking candies that has both Chinese characters and English which says Super Milk Candy. I haven't quite figured out how to get the thin layer of rice like paper off of it. I tried washing it, but it became kind of soggy. I tried picking off pieces, but this took forever and still it had the paper on it, so I decided you are supposed to eat the paper and I did. It felt funny, but the candy was tasty. There are also these rod shaped, red containers, with little Chinese figures on them and gold and on top a gold string. I am not entirely sure that these are not firecrackers, so I have NOT tried to open and eat what's inside, even t hough I did shake it and hear something is inside. I've never seen a firecracker up close though, so I am leaving them as decoration next to the candies in a bowl on my cocktail table, until you, Robert, tell me otherwise. Oh , I forgot to mention the Wrigley's Airwave Sugarfree, Soothing Action Honey & Lemon Chewing Gum....I love it. I took a few other pictures I'll send you at a later date.

And then, finally, at the very bottom of the box, after all the paper-wrapped goodies were removed and opened, I found the envelope with ten or eleven thin DVDs. They are nice. I'm sure I will enjoy watching them and I very much appreciate your sending them to me, but mostly because they were the guise for sending all those other Taiwanese Treats. Nothing will EVER compare to the PRIZES and SURPRISE of receiving all these little gifts from Taiwan, which taken in total amounted to you, Robert, reaching out your hand in Taiwan and me, Sherril grasping it in gratitude and friendship here in New Jersey. I guess it's what those Disney folks mean when they say....It's A Small World After All.

Thank you for making it so.
With Love & Gratitude,
Sherril

High Holidays 5767

2006-09-26T18:35:00.000-04:00

L'Shana Tova Tikatevu"May you be written down for a good year" (Rosh Hashanah greeting)

As I sat, on Saturday, September 23, the Jewish New Year of 5767 . within this very humble synagogue (Ahavas Sholom), the last operating synagogue in Newark, New Jersey, I sat wondering how I might meaningfully blog on the experience I was having that day. As the Cantor, (the professional singer who leads prayer services) orHazzan, as it is called in Hebrew was singing the prayers, I explored the Prayer Book ( the one used just for the holidays of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur) searching for something that would elicit a feeling of special meaning for the day. I was seeking inspiration. It was not an easy task.

Granted, the task was ever the more difficult because not only am I not a truly religious person, but I am an agnostic, which makes the exploration itself, well, maybe a little hyrpocritical. After all, the book in which I am looking is one of Prayer and the prayers are all directed to God. If I don't believe in God, or even just question her existence, then how do I expect to find inspiration or something meaningful? I don't know how to answer this question, except to say that I do (expect to find meaning and inspiration). There is something to be said about the significance of prayer beyond it's relation to God. For example, the fact that most prayers are said, at least in the Jewish tradition, in unison with the community that is present is significant. I can remember when I was a young teenager, being at USY (United Synagogue Youth) conventions, with hundreds of other kids and singing some simple Hebrew song, like Henay Ma Tov U'manayim, Shevet Achim B'yachad (translation...Oh, how good and how nice it is to be sitting together with my brothers and sisters) in rounds. The spirit in that room and that pervaded that little 14 or 15 year old Jewish girl, was tangible and tremendous. Also, the fact that the words of the prayers and more significantly, the tunes in which they are sung, are consistent, also adds a sense of familiarity and spirit (though truth be told, they always change the tunes of the more familiar prayers for the High Holidays and though I know this, it disappoints me every time).

So, I searched and came up with three entries that I think help to consolidate the meaning of the High Holidays, at least for me. TheMehila is not really a prayer, but rather a supplication that in the Jewish tradition is required of every Jew before Yom Kippur. The idea is that before you can ask God for forgiveness on the Day of Atonement, you must first have asked your fellow human beings. I will begin with it and I will also mention that should it apply to any of my friends here in cyber-space, all the better.

Mehila: Asking for forgiveness
To be said to one's relatives, friends and acquaintances:

I am sorry if I have hurt you by what I have done or have failed to do, by what I have said or have not said to you since last Yom Kippur.
I will strive to improve my ways, and I ask for your understanding and forgiveness.

To look Forward

Eternal God!
Grant us on this Rosh Hashanah
Gratitude enough to look backward and be thankful;
Courage enough to look forward and be hopeful'
Faith enough to look upward and be humble;
Kindness enough to look outward and be helpful.

Author unknown

"Little" resolutions

A little less impatient with those we deem too slow;
A little less arrogant because of all we know;
A little less conceited since our worth is slight;
A little less intolerant even when we are right.

A little more forgiving and swifter to be kind;
A little more desirous the word of praise to find;
A little more eager to help others to rejoice;
A little more careful to speak with gentle voice.

A little more effort to see another's view;
A little more determined to live faithfully as a Jew;
A little more willingness to extend a helping hand;
A little more commitment to our people's and our land.

A little more eagerness to listen and understand;
A little more readiness to respond to God's command;
A little more resolve to do what must be done;
And a greater understanding that, truly, "we are one!"

Into Each Life Some ENCHANTMENT Must Fall

2006-09-16T13:16:00.000-04:00

One thing I know for sure, one can never get enough enchantment into one's life. I believe it was fate or maybe just good fortune that in the summer of 1992, I took myself to the movies because the rain that day made it unworthwhile to stay at the swim club where we happened to belong that summer. The movie was Enchanted April and it quickly became one of a handful of my all time favorite movies. It did enchant me from beginning to end. I do not buy movies, as a rule, because I don't like watching them more than once and feel no attachment to owning them, as I do to, say books. But this movie I thought about buying for years after I saw it and finally did buy the video. I watch it whenever I want to escape into my fantasy world of Italian castles and flower laden landscapes; when I want to sit on a mountain side, looking over olive groves, permeated by the perfumed air from the lilacs and wysteria hanging from vines, when I want to feel the kinship of other women who can "feel" the place like I do. Like the character, Lottie is always saying, "I can see myself there". As the newspaper advertisement reads, "To those who appreciate Wisteria and Sunshine...Small Medieval Italian Castle on the shores of the Mediterranean...to be Let.. Furnished for the month of April, servants remain." As my profile on this blog attests, this is where I want to be and who I want to be.

The movie was based on the book, The Enchanted April by Elizabeth Von Arnim(1866-1942), written in 1922, which I am presently"reading" in my car, aurally, that is. I can not put in words what an absolute delight it is listening to this recording. The "performer" ( reader) is Nadia May and listening to her puts me in mind of days gone by, when my children were very young and one of our (well my) favorite characters was a British Bear, named, Paddington . Somehow, when a story is Bitish and told in that very proper, and ever so charming British English, it holds for me an irisistable attraction that puts me in a state of enchantment and a smiile on my face. That is what reading and listening to Paddington did for me all those years ago and what listening to the book The Enchanted April is doing for me now. It is truly a great pleasure.
I read an advertisement for the book (The Enchanted April, not Paddington Bear) that said, The Enchanted April is for adults what The Secret Garden is for chiildren.

The story has been filmed three times (a silent version in 1925 and two “talkies” in 1935 and 1992) and adapted for the stage twice, in 1925 by Kane Campbell, and in 2002 byMatthew Barber. The play in 2003 was nowhere as good as the book or the movie, nevertheless, I do remember enjoying it. How could I not?

Post 9/11/06

2006-09-13T21:29:00.000-04:00

I would like to thank my Blogosphriends who heeded my call to share their experiences here regarding where they were and how they felt and what they did on the morning of September 11, 2001. I am not sure that the circular aspect I was trying to create happened, but no matter. The main thing was that we got to think about it together as the five year anniversary approached, arrived and left us. I am going to try to coalesce the comments I received and respond to them here in a new post, rather than in the comment section of the original. I hope that is OK with my fellow bloggers. I will respond as I go along and my responses will be in blue (oh, surprise! surprise! ).

Diane S. said... I sort of collect 9/11 stories...in part I ask, because people almost always want to tell you what that day was like for them. It's like we're all waiting for someone to ask us.

I thought a lot about that statement and I so much agree. I realized that in fact. I had been waiting for someone to ask me.

I've never been as frightened as I was that day. I've never wanted someone to hug me as badly as I did that day. I never wanted my mother as badly as I did that day.

Dave said... I also thought of my dad, who had died at the age of 88 four months earlier. He had been so confused and appalled near the end of his life at so many aspects of the current era; I was grateful he hadn't seen this one. And I thought of my mother, so far gone in her elderly dementia that this day would be just like any other.

mark said...I watched the news all day and called all of my family members. My cousin was actually stuck on 95 when it happened. He was stuck in traffic for hours as they had closed 95 down where the pentagon is.

Behind Blue Eyes said... I remember looking at my daughter and feeling so sad because I knew that the world had irrevocably changed....or maybe not changed but intruded, my son was in contact with people from England and they all e-mailed him expressing their sorrow over what had happened.

Sherril said... I didn't know what I was supposed to do. Do I call my husband? Do I call my kids? My hub's niece from Israel and her boyfiend had been staying with us. They were to take the bus in from NJ and then subways to the WTC. I freaked. I had absolutely no clarity of mind and all I could think was that I had to get home to warn them, hoping and praying that they hadn't left already.

Penny said... We got off on Rt. 46 and called my Mom to pick us up.

Ricardo said... I recalled my grandparents telling me about how a plane hit the Empire State Building in their day.

When tragedy hits, often the first thing many people think of is family, whether because we need them to comfort or rescue us or that we are glad that they are no longer here to have to witness what is happening. Whatever the specifics, family is a common thread.

Maritza said... with a panoramic view of NYC , we saw it all happen. It was surreal, we saw it and experienced the horror but the windows framed it and the glass kept out the sounds and smells. It was as if we were watching it on TV. I had to watch it on the news later that night to get a real sense of what happened.

Penny said... When we got home and watched the first tower collapse on TV, it was surreal. But it was real, and we all have shed so many tears over this tragedy.

I had said in my post that when I heard the "World Trade Center Was No More", I simply could not get my mind around it, that my imagination was not big enough to take it in; Why? Because it was absolutely surreal.

KA said....The truth is, I'd never even heard of the WTC until Black Tuesday It was mostly numbness. Shock. Tears. Rage. Some religious fervor.

Clay said... I watched it on tv over and over just feeling numb, angry, and sad.......seemingly all at once. It was one of the worst days of my life.

mark said... 9/11 was definitely a defining moment in the lives of all Americans

Behind Blue Eyes said...I turned on the TV and saw the people jumping out of the windows and saw the people running down the street as the buildings collapsed behind them. Those were the scenes that chilled me the most. I couldn't believe that this was happening here...

Ricardo said... Then the replay of the second plane hitting came on, then a big explosion, a sick feeling in my stomach and wobbling of the knees

We all talked about how it made us feel watching over and over those horrific scenes of the planes crashing into the towers and the billowing clouds of smoke and thrashing flames and then those people jumping from above the flames...nauseated, disbelief, horror, numb...the adjectives are endless. But as deeply as we all feeled, it gave me a moment of pause when I read what
Clay said... It was hard to comprehend what must have been going on inside the minds of the doomed.

The odd things that come to mind:

Diane S. said... I remember thinking the oddest things that day. I remember thinking that I was glad Ronald Reagan was too far gone to know what had happened. Me! A liberal democrat! Worried about Reagan! But it would have killed him to know. Say what you like about Reagan (and I could say plenty), he loved this country.

Dave said... My politics are the opposite of Diane (first post above) and of Sherril, but I thought of Reagan, too, although in the sense of (in my opinion) how smoothly and definitively I thought he would be handling the problem, with thoughts of the fired air traffic controllers and the reciprocal bombing over Libya.

Penny said... I was dressed up in a suit. I still think of it as my 9/11 outfit.

Behind Blue Eyes said... I stayed close to the Radio and remember a reporter saying Fuck on the air

So, I asked the question where were you on the morning of 9/11/01......

Maritza said...
I was at work which is only a 1/2 mile across the Hudson River.
Ricardo said...
I was at work at ESPN and it was like any other day
KA said...
I went to work, was told there was a terrorist attack
Clay said...
9/11 I was actually off work and getting my car serviced
Dave said...
I retired last April, but on 9/11/01 I was still working in my local broadcasting career. I was in the newsroom of a local TV station in Billings, MT,
mark said...
I was at home when it happened because I work the night shift
Behind Blue Eyes said...
I used to work at the Red Cross...National Testing lab ... I worked midnight shift and at 8am..
Diane S. said...
Some time after first hearing the news, I found myself wandering like a lost child in a supermarket
Penny said...
I was on my way into Manhattan on the morning of 9/11/01. I was meeting a sales rep at a client's office
Sherril said...On that Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2001, I left my house for work at about 8:35 AM. on the way to the day care center...

And when all was said and done on this particular post of this particular blog, Maritza kindly said...
Sherrill, Thanks for dedicating your blog to this event these past couple of days. You did so respectfully and with sensitivity

Where Were you September 11, 2001?

2006-09-08T16:37:00.000-04:00

A certain kind of relationship develops among fellow bloggers, those who make it their business to visit your blog, read what you have to say and comment accordingly and whose blogs you visit on a regular basis. There's a warmth that develops, even though you've never met, and often times do not even know what they look like.

I want to try an experiment with my blogger-mates, a kind of pass-it-along, tag kind of thing. I will answer the question I have posed, ["Where were you on September 11, 2001 when the planes hit the towers of the World Trade Center?] and ask them to do the same in the comment section of my blog. Then, when they return to their own blog, they rewrite their 9/11 experiences and ask their readers to do the same and so it goes. I hope it works.

On that Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2001, I left my house for work at about 8:35 AM. I am a Speech Pathologist and I work in the homes and Day Care Centers of very young children with, or at risk for, developmental delays. At about 8:58 AM, just before arriving at the Day Care Center in South Orange, NJ, I heard the DJ on a Rock radio station announce, in an exclamatory, but quite skeptical, almost joking way, that he'd just got word that a plane hit the World Trade Center or that there was a fire near the top of the WTC, he wasn't really sure (the station itself was broadcasting from NYC) and he followed it by saying something like, "yeah, right!" At that point I was parking my car and I didn't think all that much about it due to the flippancy in the announcer's voice. I entered the Center and for the next hour worked with my regularly scheduled 9 AM child. As I was leaving, an hour later, I passed a woman who worked there, with whom I'd become chatty-friendly, as one does in the work-a-day world. I asked how she was doing and she responded with a deep frown, "not very well". When I asked her what was the matter, she looked at me as if to say, where in the hell have you been girl? Her actual words were, "don't you know what's been happening?" and before I could mention something about what I'd casually heard on the radio, she blurted forth more of the details and the fact that many of the parents of these children in this Day Care work at the World Trade Center.

Rushing back to my car and the radio, every station, was broadcasting the same news and it took only a minute or two to get up to speed. But, like so many, I just could not get past those words that I kept hearing, that the two towers of the WTC had fallen. The World Trade Center was no more. For some reason it was that information, those words, that I could not get my mind around, that literally froze me in place. My imagination was not equipped for what they were saying. The World Trace Center was no more. I could not think of the people, the consequences, anything, other than those seven words. When I started crying, I became confused and disoriented. I didn't know what I was supposed to do. Do I go to the next child's home on my schedule? Do I go home? Do I call the office and ask them what to do? Do I call my husband (working in NJ) or my kids (one in High School, the other in College). It really didn't matter because when I tried to use my cell phone, not one of the calls got through. I began to drive to the house of my next child, but I literally could not find it, despite the fact that I'd been there tens of times. I was completely disoriented, was having trouble seeing through my tears and kept making circles. When I finally got to the door, with tears in my eyes and voice, the only thing I could think to say to the mother of the child, was to ask if I could use their phone because my cell phone was useless. She, of course, was on the phone, but soon hung up and handed it to me. The office said to call the other families and cancel therapy sessions if I wanted. I had no idea what I wanted, but I knew I needed to be with someone with whom I felt close. I drove to a friend's house in the neighborhood, only to find no one home. As I drove to my home, some 14 miles away, and my mind still in a fog, it suddenly occured to me that there was someone I'd not thought about calling, but ought to have. My hub's niece from Israel and her boyfiend had been staying with us for the Jewish holidays (Rosh Hashannah and Yom Kippur). Their plan for the day was to go into The City to visit the World Trade Center (they'd already been to other parts of the city and that day was for downtown). They were to take the bus in from NJ and then subways to the WTC. I freaked. I had absolutely no clarity of mind and all I could think was that I had to get home to warn them, hoping and praying that they hadn't left already (it was then close to 11 AM). I sped home and felt like I was driving blind through my tears. Once home, I left the keys in the car, door open and rushed into the house calling their names, only to find that thankfully they were there and my mother had called them an hour or so earlier with the news.

The next hours and days were spent glued to the television and radio, seeing over and over what the rest of the country and the world was seeing and trying, without success, to understand, to believe what had happened. In those raw moments, hours, days and weeks, you couldn't think about what it all meant, what the repercussions would be; all you could do was grieve and try to believe it, try to understand.

SOJOURNER TRUTH: "Ain't I a Woman?"

2006-09-06T14:36:00.000-04:00

It is neither Black History Month nor Women's Rights Month (is there such a month?), but I have come across a speech that has provoked my passions and if I don't blog about it at the moment, the "moment" will pass. While drinking my second cup of coffee on my precious day off, I put on the TV and my computer simultaneously. As I sailed through the mindless mess of daytime programs on TV, I came across something, for which I can not find a name or source, only that it is my cable company's "educational access" channel and was identified as: EDAC022 Sep 06 10:00am.
I call this kind of thing Synchronicity of My World and Blog World

The message I mean to relate here, by quoting part of a Speech given by Sojourner Truth in May 1851, at the Women's Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio, is that there is a thread that moves along carefully among all quests for freedom and equality; such is the connection between Abolition of Slavery and Women's Suffrage (and overall Women's Rights). When I heard Sojourner Truth's words today, this fact rang out clear and strong, perhaps in a way that had never before occurred to me. The speech was published by Frances Dana Gage, who had organized the Convention, as her version of Truth's speech, "complete with crude Southern dialect in the April 23, 1863, issue of the New York Independent." I was about to "clarify" the speech in order to help the reader read it more easily. But, on second thought, I realized that Sojourner's speech says it so elolquently, it speaks for itself and can not possibly be made any clearer.

"Wall, chilern, whar dar is so much racket dar must be somethin' out o' kilter. I tink dat 'twixt de nigger of de Souf and de womin at de Norf, all talkin' 'bout rights, de white men will be in a fix pretty soon. But what's all dis here talkin' 'bout?

"Dat man ober dar say dat womin needs to be helped into carriages, and lifted ober ditches, and to hab de best place everywhar. Nobody eber halps me into carriages, or ober mudpuddles, or gibs me any best place!"

And raising herself to her full height, and her voice to a pitch like rolling thunder, she asked, "And ar'n't I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! [And here she bared her right arm to the shoulder, showing her tremendous muscular power] " I have ploughed, and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ar'n't I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man -- when I could get it -- and bear de lash as well! And ar'n't' I a woman? I have borne thirteen chilern *, and seen 'em mos' all sold off the slavery, and when I cried out with my mother's grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ar'n't I a woman?

"Den dey talks 'bout dis ting in de head; what dis dey call it?" "Intellect," whispered someone near. "Dat's it, honey. What's dat got to do wid womin's rights or nigger's rights? If my cup won't hold but a pint, and yourn holds a quart, wouldn't ye be mean not to let me have my little half-measure full?" And she pointed her significant finger, and sent a keen glance at the minister who had made the argument. The cheering was long and loud.

"Den dat little man in black dar, he say women can't have as much rights as men, 'cause Christ wan't a woman! Whar did your Christ come from?" Rolling thunder couldn't have stilled that crowd, as did those deep, wonderful tones, as she stood there with outstretched arms and eyes of fire. Raising her voice still louder, she repeated, "Whar did your Christ come from? From God and a woman! Man had nothin' to do wid Him." Oh, what a rebuke that was to the little man.

Turning again to another objector, she took up the defense of Mother Eve, I cannot follow her through it all. It was pointed and witty, and solemn; eliciting at almost every sentence deafening applause; and she ended by asserting, "If de fust woman God ever made was strong enough to turn de world upside down all alone, dese women togedder [and she glanced her eye over the platform] ought to be able to turn it back, and get it right side up again! And now dey is asking to do it, de men better let 'em." Long continued cheering greeted this. "Bleeged to ye for hearin' on me, and now ole Sojourner han't got nothin' more to say."

For those who may have had difficulty reading the speech as it was interpreted by Dana Gage, here is another version:

I want to say a few words about this matter. I am a woman's rights. I have as much muscle as any man, and can do as much work as any man. I have plowed and reaped and husked and chopped and mowed, and can any man do more than that? I have heard much about the sexes being equal. I can carry as much as any man, and can eat as much too, if I can get it. I am as strong as any man that is now. As for intellect, all I can say is, if a woman have a pint, and a man a quart -- why can't she have her little pint full? You need not be afraid to give us our rights for fear we will take too much, -- for we can't take more than our pint'll hold. The poor men seems to be all in confusion, and don't know what to do. Why children, if you have woman's rights, give it to her and you will feel better. You will have your own rights, and they won't be so much trouble. I can't read, but I can hear. I have heard the bible and have learned that Eve caused man to sin. Well, if woman upset the world, do give her a chance to set it right side up again. The Lady has spoken about Jesus, how he never spurned woman from him, and she was right. When Lazarus died, Mary and Martha came to him with faith and love and besought him to raise their brother. And Jesus wept and Lazarus came forth. And how came Jesus into the world? Through God who created him and the woman who bore him. Man, where was your part? But the women are coming up blessed be God and a few of the men are coming up with them. But man is in a tight place, the poor slave is on him, woman is coming on him, he is surely between a hawk and a buzzard.

Speech borrowed from an article from The Sojourner Truth Institute of Battle Creek site.