Monday, June 22, 2015

BOO...as in Boo! Hiss!

By all accounts, today is June 22.  My calendar says so and my computer agrees.  Flipping through channels this morning I found that the good people at the Today Show and Good Morning America are also under the impression that this is June 22.  The weather doesn't support that, but we're getting used to crazy weather in June in these parts.  

But on June 22nd (and perhaps even before that) school supplies are showing up on store shelves!  That's insane.  I bet even the most dedicated teachers are crying  "Foul.  This isn't funny.  STOP".  Being one season ahead of real time is something I have never gotten a good grip on. Last year I cringed when employees started displaying Christmas books on the 4th of July and Easter books on January 1st. OK - perhaps their efforts weren't that premature, but it still seemed awkward to me.  

Last week ARCs (advance reader copy) of new books started rolling in, and it looks like creepy is in. Yup, publishers are already promoting what they hope will be big, scary books for Halloween. There are too many to share with you, and far too many to have read over the weekend.  Besides that, "Three coins in a Fountain" was on Sunday afternoon right in the middle of my planned reading time.  No contest.  Dorothy Maguire and Louis Jordan won.  But, from the pile, I picked out a couple and will share the back of the book blurbs with you.

Second Souls by Christopher Moore - lovable...oddball....classic bender....I'm a fan and will read this book soon.
In San Francisco the souls of the dead are mysteriously disappearing - and you know that can't be good -...buckle in for a weird and wild ride 

Little Pretty Things by Lori Rader-Day...first chapter got me hooked and I might read the entire novel at some point.
Juliet Townsend is used to losing.  Back in high school she lost every track team race to her best friend.  Then one night, Maddy checks in (to the motel where Juliet works).  By the next morning, Juliet is no longer jealous of Maddy - she's the chief suspect in her murder.

The Book of Speculation by Erica Swyler...I've started this twice and walked away twice.  The reviews are mixed, no middle of the road, either glowing or down right nasty.  I'll give it one more try but the whole mermaid business doesn't work for me. (Lizzer, let me know what you think of this book)
Books matter to Simon Watson, a young librarian who finds himself increasingly drawn to the one that has arrived on his doorstep.  It seems to be some kind of journal from the owner of a traveling carnival in the 1700's who reports many strange and magical things - including the drowning death of a circus mermaid.

Conversion by Katherine Howe....one of my favorite plays to teach my high school kids was Arthur Miller's The Crucible an allegory about the McCarthy era veiled as the Salem witch trials.  Might be fun to read this fresh twist.
First the Queen Bee starts having loud, uncontrollable tics in the middle of class.  More students and stranger symptoms follow...the media descends on Danvers, Massachusetts as school officials, angry partents and the board of health scramble to find something, or someone to blame. But Colleen Rowley, who has been reading The Crucible for extra credit comes to realize what nobody else has: Danvers was once Salem Village where another group of girls suffered from a similarly bizarre epidemic three centuriess ago...

There you have it, a jump start to your October reading.  In between books, you can work on your Halloween costume and stock up on trick or treat candy.  After all, it's already June 22nd.

Me?  I'm getting out the shovel, salt, and having the oil changed in the snow blower.

Thanks for stopping by.

Saturday, June 13, 2015

Let the Spirit Move You


This is the Maplewood Hotel, a popular gathering spot for tourists in Lily Dale.  A caption beneath the same picture in the book reads in part  "A sign in the lobby warns against conducting seances and circles in public rooms, but the side parlor is sometimes used for such.  Tales of roaming spirits, bumps in the night, and furniture inexplicably moved are common as tourists testify each morning about their night's adventures."

As promised here's more about Lily Dale, the tiny, New York settlement  whose inhabitants are known for communing with spirits. Christine Wicker's book is sometimes silly but never boring. Wicker, seventeen year religions editor for the Dallas Morning News is among the first reporters granted access to one of the world's oldest spiritualist community. She approached this investigative assignment with professional open-mindedness and lots of personal skepticism.  Previous assignments covering what she dubbed the "God beat" found her talking with a voodoo priestess in Cuba who communed with the Virgin Mary. She interviewed a man walking across America dragging a wooden cross behind him because Jesus told him to. She even pulled an all-nighter in Garland, Texas with a Taiwanese cult waiting for God to come on the television and announce the end of the word.  Eventually, her penchant for chasing the weird led her to Lily Dale.

Wicker set some goals for her visit, one of them being to discover if the mediums that gather each summer and attract thousands of seekers are just skilled performers or humans with some sort of super power to connect and perhaps to heal. She pulls back the curtain and unlike those visitors to Oz, finds a complex, intriguing and life changing cast of characters.  

One of the first people Wicker meets is Dr. Pat Naulty, an English professor at a community college. Years earlier, Pat had left - some would say abandoned - her husband and two sons to go to college. She was dying a slow, emotional death in Indiana and needed to enrich her life. Her connection to those she left remained fragile and distant, but when her phone rang early one morning and she heard her ex-husband's voice her mind automatically  flashed to her sixteen-year-old son." "John's dead isn't he?" she asked.  He was.  He had taken his own life.  Nautly went to Lily Dale at the invitation of a friend, and only for a rest and not to seek answers.  

In addition to Naulty's story (the ending of which I will not reveal) Wicker follows two other visitors to the Dale: a newly bereaved widow, and a happily married wife whose first visit to Lily Dale brings an ominous warning. 

This spiritualist movement dates back to the 1800's and the little Victorian village has attracted the likes of Sinclare Lewis, Harry Houdini and Susan B. Anthony. Yup, I'd love to take a road trip and nose around. Am I a believer? Nope. Not one bit, but neither was Christine Wicker.

Lily Dale has a detailed website www.lilydaleassembly.com.  Seriously, I didn't fully understand the magnitude of this movement until I went to their website.  My goodness.  This is an organized group with a serious schedule of events along with all you need to stay busy for a lengthy visit.  There are cafes, gift shops, hiking trails and even a bookstore all focusing on the beliefs of these spiritualists.  Check it out.  You decide if this is just a merry amusement park for those who enjoy dwelling on the edge of creepiness, a concerted effort to prey on those in emotional turmoil, or a place where spirits co-exist with those who know how to harness their energy.

Wishing you stable furniture, friendly spirits, and gentle bumps in the  night.....

Monday, June 8, 2015

Odds and Ends

No long, chatty post today.  It's moving fixtures around the store because I want to day.  Gives me great appreciated for physical laborers.

I did read a bit this weekend - a lot, actually.  fFirst-  a short play called Trapped which is a take off of Death Trap- a play within a play.  Adding this new, third layer makes it a play within a play within a play, I guess.  I want to direct this short piece someday soon.

The title UnCatholic Conduct calledmy name.  Rating: Awful.  Make that Awful -.  Luckily it came in a box of books that had been damaged by the carrier so I will be getting a credit for this book which I will finish despite the awfulness.  Gotta find out who's killing those Catholic School kids in a private school in England.

I just got started on Lily Dale, a big departure from my normal reading.  I remember seeing a segment on TV about this secretive community in New York where psychics gather and  are sought out  by those hoping to contact dead loved ones.  Although this sounds like a new age commune, it's not.  Lilly Dale has been around for decades, and until recently, the inhabitants resisted publicity.  Not sure why that has changed.  .

That's that. Gotta get my tool belt on. Time to start spittin' and cussin' as I shove shelves around.  (No, that's not a comment on tough, physical workers.  It's what I do when I exert myself which makes most people in my life happy I have chosen an  exertion free occupation).

Thanks for stopping by.


Monday, June 1, 2015

Hold Still

Funny how things fall into place every once in while.  Hold Still has been featured on bookseller publications and websites for months, touted as "visionary", "visceral", "pitch-perfect - the list of accolades runs long.  Still other critics have described it as "gothic", "disturbing", "stark", "hell on wheels".  Those polarized comments alone would ordinarily have drawn me to read this book, but for some reason, I kept passing it by.  

Then an abrupt announcement moved this book to the top of my list. You see, I learned that my friend Julie's cancer has progressed to a critical stage.  Julie, along with her life long companion and artist collaborator, Johnie, have brought much attention to the reality of Wisconsin life through their nationally recognized photography.  You might remember the big splash over a whimsical little pink book about Manitowoc's own aluminum Christmas trees, Season's Gleamings.  That was their book but it certainly isn't the only contribution they have made to the arts community.

Like Julie, Sally Mann is a photographer and this book is all that the critics say it is.  Mann grew up in the south and her well connected parents played host to any number of famous writers, artists and philosophers. Her world was filled with unconventional thinkers. Abstraction, ambiguity, impulsiveness and experimentation were the norm for her.  Somehow she managed to marry into a family that brought untold drama to her adult life.

In this book, which is accompanied by photographs, she tell her stories, unfrosted and unashamed.  She put into words many things I never could.  Julie frequently sends me a postcard from one of her collections, and although I connected to them, I could not identify why.  Mann's book helped me do that.  

The big story about Sally Mann was caused by the pictures she took of her kids.  Nude pictures.  To Mann, they were a natural expression of the tenderness of childhood.  Not everyone felt that way and great debates and legal discussion arose when the pictures were publicly exhibited.  I will admit I found many of them uncomfortable, but it's mainly because her son and daughter look angry in the photos she chose to include in this book.  Angry little kids - that is uncomfortable and I can't help but wonder why they seem so sullen.

This book is a memoir and as such, I accept what the author says as truth.  If this were fiction, I'd be shaking my head page after page wondering why a novelist with obvious control over structure and style would choose melodrama as her genre.  Thick book - fascinating page turner.

Julies little postcards are all tacked to a b-board in a corner of my basement where, from time to time, I commit art.  It's my own private installation of her work.  I will spend some time there tonight, in my corner, sending her strength and and wishes for bravery. Glitter on, my friend.