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Press Pause By Garth Harold Nadiro We are at a time in our lives where technology is a part of our existence, our identity, our professions, our profiles, our amorous lives even. We use our smartphones to communicate, articulate, procrastinate, calibrate. We use all of our technology to profile ourselves. In fact, we let our technology rules us. Take away someone's smartphone for one day and see what happens. One financial advisor received threat mails because he did not answer his mobile phone quickly enough. That, however, does not mean that technology is a bad thing. No, it has brought us to the moon, it has connected us with the world, given us more information in one day than any given 12th farmer knew in one entire life. Let's look at the facts, though. Life is faster than ever before because of our technology. In our schools, we can access information faster than ever before. Students demand it. We can become that speed train others fear or love. YouTube can make us famous so fast we wonder what happened to progression. One day can be so filled to the brim with activity, due to our fast transportation, that we actually don't stop to thank the Lord for all of this. We are blessed with countless gifts, things that our energies and inspiration and divine creativity has made possible. Generation Heads Down. That phrase was coined by one of my students, who told me that young people today more or less spend their day looking down at their smartphones instead of at the world. That means we have to set an example. If everyone runs in one direction, does that mean you have to, as well? If you do, what does that make you? Occasionally, stop the train, turn off the music and sit down on that parkbench, pluck out your sandwich and listen to the silence. Inspiration, after all, comes from occasionally letting contemplation rule your galaxy, not the rocket rule your destination.

SECOND MEDITATION By René Descartes The nature of the human mind, and how it is better known than the body So serious are the doubts into which I have been thrown as a result of yesterday's meditation that I can neither put them out of my mind nor see any way of resolving them. It feels as if I have fallen unexpectedly into a deep whirlpool which tumbles me around so that I can neither stand on the bottom nor swim up to the top. Nevertheless I will make an effort and once more attempt the same path which I started on yesterday. Anything which admits of the slightest doubt I will set aside just as if I had found it to be wholly false; and I will proceed in this way until I recognize something certain, or, if nothing else, until I at least recognize for certain that there is no certainty. Archimedes used to demand just one firm and immovable point in order to shift the entire earth; so I too can hope for great things if I manage to find just one thing, however slight, that is certain and unshakeable. I will suppose then, that everything I see is spurious. I will believe that my memory tells me lies, and that none of the things that it reports ever happened. I have no senses. Body, shape, extension, movement and place are chimeras. So what remains true? Perhaps just the one fact that nothing is certain. Yet apart from everything I have just listed, how do I know that there is not something else which does not allow even the slightest occasion for doubt? Is there not a God, or whatever I may call him, who puts into mel the thoughts I am now having? But why do I think this, since I myself may perhaps be the author of these thoughts? In that case am not I, at least, something? But I have just said that I have no senses and no body. This is the sticking point: what follows from this? Am I not so bound up with a body and with senses that I cannot exist without them? But I have convinced myself that there is absolutely nothing in the world, no sky, no earth, no minds, no bodies. Does it now follow that I too do not exist? No: if I convinced myself of something! then I certainly existed. But there is a deceiver of supreme power and cunning who is deliberately and constantly deceiving me. In that case I too undoubtedly exist, if he is deceiving me; and let him deceive me as much as he can, he will never bring it about that I am nothing so long as I think that I am something. So after considering everything very thoroughly, I must finally conclude that this proposition, I am, I exist, is necessarily true whenever it is put forward by me or conceived in my mind. But I do not yet have a sufficient understanding of what this 'I' is, that now necessarily exists. So I must be on my guard against carelessly taking something else to be this 'I', and so making a mistake in the very item of knowledge that I maintain is the most certain and evident of all. I will therefore go back and meditate on what I originally believed myself to be, before I embarked on this present train of thought. I will then subtract anything capable of being weakened, even minimally, by the arguments now introduced, so that what is left at the end may be exactly and only what is certain and unshakeable. What then did I formerly think I was? A man. But what is a man? Shall I say 'a rational anima)'? No; for then I should have to inquire what an animal is, what rationality is, and in this way one question would lead me down the slope to other harder ones, and I do not now have the time to waste on subtleties of this kind. Instead I propose to concentrate on what came into my thoughts spontaneously and quite naturally whenever I 26 used to consider what I was. Well, the first thought to come to mind was that I had a face, hands, arms and the whole mechanical structure of limbs which can be seen in a corpse, and which I called the body. The next thought was that I was nourished, that I moved about, and that I engaged in sense-perception and thinking; and these actions I attributed to the soul. But as to the nature of this soul, either I did not think about this or else I imagined it to be something tenuous, like a wind or fire or ether, which permeated my more solid parts. As to the body, however, I had no doubts about it, but thought I knew its nature distinctly. If I had tried to describe the mental conception I had of it, I would have expressed it as follows: by a body I understand whatever has a determinable shape and a definable location and can occupy a space in such a way as to exclude any other body; it can be perceived by touch, sight, hearing, taste or smell, and can be moved in various ways, not by itself but by whatever else comes into contact with it. For, according to my judgement, the power of self-movement, like the power of sensation or of thought, was quite foreign to the nature of a body. But what shall I now say that I am, when I am supposing that there is some supremely powerful and, if it is permissible to say so, malicious deceiver, who is deliberately trying to trick me in every way he can? Can I now assert that I possess even the most insignificant of all the attributes which I have just said belong to the nature of a body? I scrutinize them, think about them, go over them again, but nothing suggests itself; it is tiresome and pointless to go through the list once more. But what about the attributes I assigned to the soul? Nutrition or movement? Since now I do not have a body, these are mere fabrications. Sense-perception? This surely does not occur without a body, and besides, when asleep I have appeared to perceive through the senses many things which I afterwards realized I did not perceive through the senses at all. Thinking? At last I have discovered it - thought; this alone is inseparable from me. I am, I exist - that is certain. But for how long? For as long as I am thinking. For it could be that were I totally to cease from thinking, I should totally cease to exist. At present I am not admitting anything except what is necessarily true. I am, then, in the strict sense only a thing that thinks; 1 that is, I am a mind, or intelligence, or intellect, or reason - words whose meaning I have been ignorant of until now. But for all that I am a thing which is real and which truly exists. But what kind of a thing? As I have just said - a thinking thing. What else am I? I will use my imagination. I am not that structure of limbs which is called a human body. I am not even some thin vapour which permeates the limbs - a wind, fire, air, breath, or whatever I depict in my imagination; for these are things which I have supposed to be nothing. Let this supposition stand;3 for all that I am still something. And yet may it not perhaps be the case that these very things which I am supposing to be nothing, because they are unknown to me, are in reality identical with the ' .. of which I am aware? I do not know, and for the moment I shall not argue the point, since I can make judgements only about things which are known to me. I know that I exist; the question is, what is this 'I' that I know? If the'!, is understood strictly as we have been taking it, then it is quite certain that knowledge of it does notThe word 'only' is most naturally taken as going with 'a thing that thinks', and this interpretation is followed in the French version. It would indeed be a case of fictitious invention if I used my imagination to establish that I was something or other; tor imagining is simply contemplating the shape or image of a corporeal thing. Yet now I know for certain both that I exist and at the same time that all such images and, in general, everything relating to the nature of body, could be mere dreams
My Breakfast Company By Alexandra H. Rodrigues As a flight attendant, I became accustomed to breakfast in bed. We would unlock the hotel room door after I had called in the order to room service. What did I order? It was different for each country – French bread with ham and cheese and plenty of mayo plus a softboiled egg and a hot chocolate. I found it impossible to drink the French coffee, dark and bitter! – Yes that was Paris-In Prestwick, Scotland, I had kippers, toast and coffee. In Germany, schinkenbrot, coffee, two fried eggs and a fresh orange juice. In India, a curry soup, soft-boiled eggs, and in Estoril, Portugal, chorizos or a calderada. The breakfast time of the country did not always correspond with the time of day that my stomach expected it to be. That of course because of the time change. This custom carried over to the times at home and stayed such till only a few days ago. My bedroom is upstairs. To get my breakfast, I would let my husband know that I was awake and day after day he would make the breakfast. Every day it included a soft-boiled egg onto which he drew a funny smiley face with pencil. After the death of my husband, I continued the routine. I would go downstairs, make the coffee and eggs (no more faces on them). While the coffee was brewing, I would feed the birds. Check the weather. Then open the screen doors to sample the temperature and finally take the tray with my breakfast upstairs. Now only a few days ago while waiting for the eggs to boil I sat in one of my white leather chairs which is standing at the screen door. It was a clear, still, brisk spring day. The water in the canal was flowing north to south out to the bay. The first grass peeking. There are remnants from Superstorm Sandy, now three years past, still visible as brown dried out patches on the lawn. A few crocuses try to show their impatience by pushing through the weeds which as usual claim victory by taking over. Then and there I saw several birds as they came to keep me company. During the following days, I noticed different kinds of birds like robins, blue jays, sparrows, swallows and blackbirds. I was fascinated by one little grayish brown bird seemingly looking for the smallest seeds in the bird food. I have a rather varied group of bird visitors from sparrows to ducks to the much less welcome geese. The bird food I am using is a mixture of peanuts and other nuts as well as seeds for small songbirds. The birds come in no noticeable order. A few minutes and all the food is gone. From now on I will have a daily breakfast party in the living room with the screen doors open and my birds singing to me.

Remembering Grandmother and Grandfather Eyre By Herbert Eyre Moulton (1927 - 2005) “Never forget, children,” my grandmother Eyre used to say long after her husband’s death, “your father was an aristocrat, an Eyre of Eyrecourt.” But if deeds and character count for anything, it was this lively, energetic, warmhearted, caring little woman who was the real aristocrat of the family. My grandfather, though aristocratic in name and manner (when sober, that is), seems to have inherited the worst traits of his famous and ever more disimproving race. Very Irish, that. When I first moved to Dublin in 1959, I tried to trace the registry of his birth there. All I was told was that the old records at the Four Courts had been destroyed in “The Troubles” and the Civil War. Thanks to my Grandmother “Scrapbook” (actually an old Architect’s and Builder’s Directory for the USA, published in 1885, into which she wrote and pasted everything she wished to save: a family trait) we have what scant information remains, regarding names, dates and places. This is my only source. This and what I remember hearing about those old days. Things that used to inhabit our old 1930’s Glen Ellyn home are gone. The memories are still there. Damn the depression, anyway. We had a great time. Doldrum days? Not a chance. Anyway, we are not talking depression days yet, although the people that knew the aristocratic life of Ireland told me about it during the depression. Anyway, Henry Lee Eyre was born in Dublin on Febuary 4th, 1853. His father Marmaduke had left Eyrecourt for Dublin and was employed there at the GPO, the General Post Office, scene of the Easter Rebellion of 1916. When he emigrated to America is unknown, but he married Nellie Finneran in Chicago on October 21st, 1884. The only picture we have of him is a small tin type, typical of that period, posed stiffly on a chair and looking rather like an elegant bloodhound with his drooping moustache and pale eyes. He was dressed exactly as if for Ascot Opening Day: cutaway gray “frock”-coat and waistcoat, striped trousers, gray top hat and gold-cane or brolly. Better than jeans and Tshirt, if you ask me. I have no idea what his profession was, other than Downgraded Aristocrat. Nor have we any idea if and when he ever visited the crumbling old mansion in Galway, nor do we know anything about his mother except that she was born Eliza Johnston at Friarstown in Sligo, the rugged northern coastal county where the poet Yeats is buried. “Horseman, pass by ...” The only mention of him in Burke’s Landed Gentry is the terse entry: Henry, d. young. That is a Victorian euphemism for “married a Catholic”. Only titled people get into Burke’s Peerage. There hadn’t been one of those since The Baron “Stale” Eyre died in 1781 and the title died with him. When one of Nell’s famous cousins, Sir Hugh Beaver, then director of Guiness and progenitor of “The Guiness Book of Records”, expressed doubts as to my authentic Eyre ancetry, I told the old gent: “My grandfather did not die young, Sir Hugh. He did worse. He married a Catholic, daughter of a Gaelic-speaking peasant woman from the wilds of Connemara. But in America,” I went on, “Nobility with a Capital N doesn’t always go by titles. With us, a bartender is as good as a Bart. That’s short for Baronet. That is, if he is a decent person. Sir Hugh finally accepted that AND me. After all, how would Nell’s brother get a name like Marmaduke Johnstone Eyre if he hadn’t been named after his grandparents. The “e” was later added to Johnston, by the way. Many’s the bloody fistfight he’d had when his boyhood companions teased him about his “fawncy” name. In those days, marrying a Catholic was tantamount to dying young: picture turned to the wall, totally disinherited. Not that, by that time, there was anything left to inherit except monumental debts. Our Irish relative Charity’s father, Willie Worthington-Eyre, literally worked himself to death paying off the debts his branch of the family had left behind at Eyreville Castle. So, sometime between his birth in Dublin in 1853 and his marriage to my grandmother in Chicago 31 years later, my grandfather emigrated, met and married Nellie Finneran, then processed to sire six children. Three of these died in infancy, which was about average for the mortality rate of that period. My grandfather, himself, drank himself to death. Whatever his profession might have beenm it must’ve brought in a decent income, providing the amenities for what came to be called “Cut-Glass-Irish”. The one photo we have of her and her two children show them well-dressed. She is in her dark sealskin coat, fashionable hat and black kid gloves. Duke is in a Turkish “fez”, a fad of that time. My mother Nellie Brennan Eyre with a fluffy collar and matching muff. It is the bearing of the mother, the position of her head, that marks her as one of nature true aristocrats. It was only after the father’s death in 1896 (pneumonia, aggrevated by alcoholism) that times got really hard: the “Cut-Glass” disappeared along with the Ascot togs and both Nellies had to go out and work. My mother was not yet ten years old at the time. And as for my grandmother, her family never knew her real age. To the end of her days, whenever asked, she’d only reply, sweetly, but firmly: “I am twenty-nine!” Surely, she had a genuine love for music and beauty. One of her family sagas has her, still unmarried, travelling all the way down from Stevens Point to Chicago just to hear Mme. Patti sing. Adelina Patti was the most celebrated soprano of her age. She was the diva who inspired the barber-shop favorite “Sweet Adeline”, she with here countless “FarewellTours”. Her mention in Oscar Wilde’s “The Picture of Dorian Gray” tells it all. Sir Henry Wotton says: “But you must come to Covent Garden tonight, Dorian. Patti is singing.” A side note here is that Patti retired to the splendor of her castle in Wales. June Andersson, whom I met often in New York City during my time there, has a gold-framed letter which Patti wrote in English from there towards the end of her life. Baby June, as we like to call her, considers herself in a direct line of the great Prima Donna and I suppose she is right.

Below: Academic Singing Professor Gun Kronzell-Moulton (1930 - 2011) as Dorabella in Mozart's "Cosi fan tutte"

A Celebrity Named Gun Kronzell By Charles E.J. Moulton The 1960's must've been quite a decade for my mother. She was a working opera star active in a dozen German theatres. She sang oratories in Belgium, France and England. She met my dad in Hannover in 1966, toured with him through Europe, appeared on Irish TV and was still able to travel back to the calm home base in her beloved home town of Kalmar in Sweden. My mom loved Kalmar. It was her centre, her safe haven. As a global citizen touring the world and working with and meeting stars like Luciano Pavarotti, Alan Rickman and the Swedish King, she had been at home most everywhere. But her heart was Swedish. Her soul belonged to Kalmar. As a little boy in Gothenburg, I was exposed to my mother's amazing imagination. She told me these wonderful good night stories about the trolls Uggel-Guggel and Klampe-Lampe. They eventually turned into the high point of my day. The coolest thing, though, is that I am passing on these stories to my daughter. She is starting to invent stuff for the stories just like I did. I see that she loves the inventive and crazy creativity of our stories just as much as I did. Having my mom as a good night story teller and my daddy as a professional author was the best mixture a boy could ask for. I thank them for that. For triggering my imagination. For opening the vaults of endless creativity. For that is what it is about, guys. All of it. Creation. Creating always greater versions of ourselves. New parts of ourselves we thought were gone. New pieces of ourselves we didn't know we had. Pieces that appear once we just trust ourselves to be more than we thought we were or could be. There are so many old documents in my cupboards and closets. Old clippings and reviews that my mom kept as evidence of her glorious career. One paper in particular describes what kind of a career she was having back then. I also know, being the only child, that if I don't transcribe these documents and have them published somehow, nobody will. I could ask my wife or daughter to transcribe these old things, but it is actually my job as a son to spread the word of what kind of folks they were. They worked so hard for what they became and accomplished. They perfected their art so beautifully that a new generation just deserves to hear about them and damn great they were. Singers, actors, authors, directors, teachers, scholars: they were everything and more. So, here we go: back to the beginning of the 1960's. John F. Kennedy was still alive. The Space Race was still on. Armstrong had not yet landed on the moon. And a certain young opera singer named Gun Kronzell travelled the world and inspired people with her voice. This is what Gun herself wrote in a document that was intended for a newspaper that was about to write an article about her. Her schedule looks like a big city phone book. So many operas and oratories to learn. She must've been rehearsing constantly.

Gun Kronzell Remembers "These are some of my concerts and performances that I have been assigned to carry out during this season of 1962-63: On March 11th, I am singing Brahms' Altrapsodie and Mozart's Requiem in Beleke with Matthias Büchel as conductor. Then, I am travelling to Bünde to sing Bach's Matthew Passion on March 31st. The April 1st, I am singing the same piece in Ahlen. I am travelling to Brügge in Belgium on April 4th to sing Beethoven's 9th Symphony. On April 17th I am again singing the Matthew Passion by Bach in Bergisch-Gladbach with Paul Nitsche as conductor. I am back in Sweden on May 31st to sing at the 100 year anniversary of the Kalmar Girl's School. On July 8th, I am singing Bach's Vom Reiche Gottes in the Church of Zion in Bethel. In the German Vocal Festival in Essen, I am singing Haydn's Theresien Mass and Koerpp's The Fire of Prometheus. In November, I am singing Bruckner's Mass in F-Minor in Witten. On November 28th, 29th and 30th I am performing Beethoven's Mass in C Minor in the Mühlheim City Arena and Duisburg City Theatre. On December 2nd and 3rd, 1962, I am singing Bach's Christmas Oratory in the Church of Zion in Bethel. On December16th, I am singing the same piece in Mainz. I am also singing the Christmas Oratory by Bach in Soest with Claus Dieter Pfeiffer as conductor and in Unna with Karl Helmut Herrman as conductor. January 12th, 1963, hears me singing Bach's Christmas Oratory again in Bethel. On March 31st I have been hired to sing Dvorak's Stabat Mater in Lippstadt. Those were the concerts. Now for my operatic performances: I have been hired as Mezzo Soprano at the City Opera in Bielefeld since September of 1961. This season has seen me perform 5 roles. The Innkeeper's Wife in Moussorgsky's Boris Godunov. That production had its premiere in September here. But I also guested with that part twice in Cologne this year. We have performed this opera 13 times so far. The second role was Emilia in Verdi's Othello. We premiered with that on Christmas Day and have played it 10 times so far. The third role for me this year was Dritte Dame (Third Lady) in The Magic Flute by Mozart. Our musical director Bernhard Conz often guest conducts in Italy and in Vienna. 5 shows of this so far. The gypsy fortune teller Ulrica in Verdi's A Masked Ball had its premiere on January 23rd and this show has been playing for sold out houses 8 times so far. Another Gypsy lady role, Czipra, in Johann Strauss' The Gypsy Baron had its premiere on March 6th. My next role, Hippolytte in Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream, is going to be fun. A new colleague of mine arrived this year. He is the Swedish son of an archbishop. His name is Helge Brillioth."

Below: Gun Kronzell with the Swedish King, Gustaf VI Adolf, in 1971. He heard her sing. The slightly deaf king (to the right) is seen here joking: "I heard you!"

The Rigoletto Caper By the late, great Herbert Eyre Moulton (1927 - 2005) Posthumous note by his son Charles E.J. Moulton When I was 11 years old, my father and I spent our first of three vacations in Copenhagen, Denmark. These trips became gastronomical and cultural highlights for us both. In fact, they were one of the many reasons why I became an artist in the first place. Rossini's "Il Barbiere di Siviglia", Tchaikovsky's "Nutcracker" and an uncut version of William Shakespeare's "Hamlet" in the Danish language: all of these extraordinary pieces became my own experiences, figuratively speaking, by my father's artistic side, because of his happy-go-lucky, natural way of approaching highly artistic pieces. The production of "Hamlet" at the Royal Danish Theatre, though, received its humorous announcement through one of the charming ladies in the box office. When we picked up the tickets for the evening, she told us that "Hamlet" was "a very good Danish play". I grew up, listening and watching Shakespeare plays and the like, at the time. Thus: I, too, laughed. My father reacted in his charming Mid-Atlantic idiom, responding with a charming smile: "Well, Madam, it is also a very good English play." In retrospect, I see that my father was the best of both worlds. His fine combination of high intellectualism and self depricating wit: that was his trademark. The story that you are about to read, written by his own hand sometime in the 1990’s, took place when he was a young boy, newly adolescent, his courage and schutzpah driving the nuns at the Catholic school of St. Cuthbert's crazy. The mixture of high culture and wit, well developed when I was child, was very present already when my father was a boy. His artistic and educated upbringing, nonetheless, came from a genuine parental interest in knowledge persay, not in the arrogant showing off of the same. His mother Nell Brennan Eyre was a eccentric, wonderfully enthusiastic lady, who loved chatting with people over a glass of beloved Irish whiskey. His father Herbert Lewis Moulton's tranquil manner probably gave my father his gentlemanly charm. It made it possible for him to experience becoming the witty storyteller persay, becoming the intellectual bon-vivant that he remained for the rest of his life. He convinced people with self-irony and love, a creative urge and an excellent idiomatic articulation, that art and high culture can be the most fun you've ever had. Art, in fact, is in eye of the beholder. That is why, during our vacations in Denmark, we went to the movie house and saw films like "War Games" (in English, with the computer’s voice in baffling Danish) and "For Your Eyes Only" on the days following our operatic visits. We liked fast food and haute cuisine, high drama and decorative entertainment. Our excursion to see "For Your Eyes Only" was especially witty. We were sitting in our favorite Italian restaurant close to the opera house, when I saw an announcement in the daily paper that Roger Moore's new Bond film was out. I had to do a little bit of convincing to persuade my wonderful father in going to a certain cinema called "Colloseum", but in the end he gave in. So we asked the Italian waiter where the Colloseum was. The waiter answered, surprised: "The Colloseum is in Rome." We assured him that we knew that, but that we meant the cinema. He answered with a sneer: "Oh, you don't want to go there!" Anyway, we got there in the end in spite of Italian arrogance. Even though we accidentally ended up in a wrong part of the complex, watching the beginning of a Terry Thomas flick dubbed into French, we did see Roger Moore as James Bond in "For Your Eyes Only" and we loved it. So, there you have it. My father's legacy: intellectual wit on a global level with Italians in Denmark, Americans watching British movies dubbed into French. He lived culturally and intellectually, telling people to keep their eyes on what character traits are most important when it comes to any form of artistic endeavor. Creativity and inspiration, threefold, fourfold, a dozen times and eternally. I have my mother, the operatic mezzo-soprano Gun Kronzell, and my father Herbert Eyre Moulton, actor and author, singer and teacher, to thank for the fact that I love being creative. Just like they were. Now, sit back and enjoy the ride. We're in Glen Ellyn, Illinois, and the year is 1940. Herbie? Take us back in time. *** Opera freaks are best when taken young. In my case, I was all of eight when this peculiar virus struck, and, for good or ill, it has been raging on and off ever since. Even at that tender age, you learn to cope. Just as your nearest and dearest have to learn, as well. For instance, from that time on, all Saturday activities had to be planned strictly around the Metropolitan Opera Saturday matinee broadcasts, which began, for us in the Midwest, at 1 p.m. That affected eveything everything from my regular household chores (50 cents a week, nothing to be sneezed at back in the 30's) and helping my parents with their marketing (our local term for shopping) for the week, to excursions, to places like museums in town, the zoo, friends you drop in on, and attendance at mega-events like birthday parties, hayrides, and PET & HOBBY Shows. But the real crunch came with the cheery mayhem of Saturday afternoons at our local fleapit, the Glen Theatre. (By some miracle it's still standing!) When forced to choose, let's say, between Lily Pons in "Lakme" from the Met, and --- at the Glen --- something like Laurel & Hardy in "Way Out West" or W.C. Fields in "The Bank Dick", with the added inducement of a Lone Ranger or Flash Gordon serial episode, the choice was too bitterly heartbreaking to be borne. To tell the truth and shame the Devil, as my mother Nell used to say, my precocious operatic know-how wasn't much use to me in those days. On the contrary, it was almost a hindrance, if not a handicap. To most "normal" folks, it set me apart, not "Queer" exactly, but, ya know, "different", even "Snobbish". This, I guess, is why I compensated for it by my constant clowning around around and showing-off. But there was this one occasion --- a day in late Autumn 1940 --- when my Opera Virus led directly to my most shining hour in that crowded, bustling, rather smelly double-classroom in St. Cuthbert's Parochial School in our Chicago Suburb, when I actually won respect from (a.) my peers (Surprise and Enthusiasm) and (b.) my chief adversary and esteemed sparring partner, Sister Gaudeamus (grudging, but genuine). This was a Big Day for me --- serendipity, I guess would be the word, and I've been wanting to use it for a long time --- one of the few tussels, intellectual or otherwise I ever engaged in with "S'ster" and actually emerged the undisputed winner. And all thanks to my Opera-Mania. Now, in order to present as full a view as possible of this more-than-memorable happening, we'll rewind a bit to fill in the background of what I like to call "The Rigoletto Caper"... For all their inexperience in worldly affairs, the good nuns at St. Cuthbert's held very definite opinions about what did or did not constitute suitable entertainment. Almost anything later than Ethelbert Nevin's "The Rosary" or more substantial than "The Lady or the Tiger" was automatically suspect --- either elite, seditious, or high-hat, or a combination of all three. Even Nell's beloved narrative poem "Evangeline" by Longfellow had a prominent position on Sister's Index of Forbidden Books (unofficial, of course), being labelled by her as "purest bouzwah" and "preposterous", insulting if not downright heretical. Poor Mr. Longfellow, just because his heroine loses her lover Gabriel, and after years of unsuccessful searching, takes the veil, only to find him again, dying in a hospice in plagueracked New Orleans. He then expires in her arms, in a scene guaranteed to make the wrestler Bruno Sammartino burst into tears ... Preposterous, maybe. But heretical? No way! Sure it's sentimental, enough to make a totempole weep --- but what's wrong about that, S'ster? Closer to home, our own pre-teen affection for the verve and teasing humor of entertainers like "Fats" Waller and the Andrews Sisters was also shot down in flames: "smut" being the epithet used to describe the boundless joy that "Fats" radiated, and "silly sensuality" for the sprightly melodies and close harmonies of Maxine, Laverne and Patti. "Your feet's too big!" Smutty? "Roll Out the Barrel!" Sensual? Were we occupying the same planet or what? As a last-ditch attempt to stem the rising tide of "Smut" and "Sensuality", a weekly series of "Music Appreciation Lectures" was launched, in spite of the fact that most of us --- our folks, anyway, already appreciated music very much. Never mind! S'ster was a fully qualified missionary to the Philistines, and once her hand was on the plow, there was never any turning back. Armed with a dozen or so scratchy old 78's and the big wind-up Victrola dominating one corner of the classroom, she intended to instill into us Yahoos a knowledge and respect, maybe even an appreciation of the Classics, or know the reason why. We were thus treated to endless snatches of symphonies, and odd scraps of semi-classics, preferably of an edifying nature: the Intermezzo from "Cavalleria Rusticana" or "In a Monastary Garden", each plentifully garnished with S'ster's none-too-accurate program notes. On this particular afternoon, on a day when I hadn't yet been ordered to leave the room, Sister had elected to give us gems from Verdi's "Rigoletto", suitably laundered, naturally, when it came to the Duke of Mantua's more libidinious exploits. Despite occasional wisecracks from the rowdier elements of the class, it was going fairly well --- that is, until S'ster mispronounced the name of the hired assassin Sparafucile, which rolled out of her as "Spa-ra-FOO-chee-lay." Hooray! At last a chance to put my opera-freakdom to positive use, and, by the same token, maybe even the score with S'ster a few much-needed points. My pudgy hand shot up: "S'ster! S'ster!" A weighty pause ... "Yes, Herbert." The tone was weary, resigned. "What is it THIS time?" You got the first part of it right, S'ster ..." (Noblesse oblige:) "Well, thank you very much indeed." "But I'm afraid you made a mistake with the assassin's name. It's not 'Spa-ra-FOO-cheelay', as you said. It's 'Spa-ra-foo-CHEE-lay." "Well, of course," and her sneer was marked with a regal toss of her hood, "you WOULD know." A faint smell of blood in the atmosphere, and the boredom that had drugged the class till then started to disperse. "Yes, S'ster, as a matter of fact, I would." I was in the driver's seat for once and could afford to put my foot down on the throttle: "Strangely enough, I went with my Mom and Dad to an operatic performance last night at the Civic Opera House ---" "Yes, yes, yes. I know where it is and what it's called." The spectators were now on the edge of their desk-seats (not too comfortable), all eager attention. I went on with my advantage: "And the opera happened to be that same 'Rigoletto' you've been talking about --- starring that famous American baritone Laurence Tibbett in the title role ..." All of a sudden, I was a 12-year old Milton J. Cross --- amiable, knowing, professional --- charming millions of fans on a Saturday matinee broadcast. "... with Lily Pons, the lovely French coloratura soprano as his daughter Gilda. The tenor was ..." I was cut off in mid-sentence. "All right, then, perhaps ..." Her tone was both gracious and dangerous, one I knew only too well. "Perhaps you'd like to come up here in front of the class and take over?" "Oh, S'ster, could I?" There was a murmur of interest from the spectactors, now totally wide awake. I waddled up to the front of the room where Sister and I got caught up in a grotesque little pas de deux, changing places. At last, she lowered herself with great dignity into a nearby chair. I perched on the edge of her desk, of her DESK!, while the others in the class, friend and foe alike, all leaned forward to catch every exquisite detail of the slaughter. I looked into the sea of expectant faces --- well, not a sea, exactly, more like a puddle, and I began. "So, as S'ster has been trying to tell you ---" (Loud throat-clearing from Sister's direction) "The court-jester Rigoletto meets this hired assassin one dark night on his way home from work at the palace, a really creepy type named Spa-ra-foo-CHEE-lay ..." Again, sound-effects from the sidelines where the dear lady was now breathing noisily through her nostrils. I ignored these and went on lining out Victor Hugo's dramatic story. My tale grabbed my listeners as nothing Sister ever said could. As I went on, really in the spirit of the thing, I noticed how she was sitting there with her eyeballs rolled back in her sockets, like that famous marble statue of Saint Teresa of Avila in ecstacy. Her face in its stiff linen frame-work resembled a baked tomato about to burst. When I finally arrived at the final tragic moment, when Rigoletto discovers the body of his dying daughter in the sack --- all his fault, I belted out his tearful cry of "Ah! La Maladizione! --- The Curse!" And I gave it my all ... Wild applause from the audience, a few of them, my best pals, naturally, even giving a cheer and a whistle or two. (At this, Sister looked as though mentally taking down names.) Drunk with triumph, I was about to repeat the howl, but was cut off this time quite sharply: "That will DO, Herbert. Thank you." Just then, the recess bell rang setting off the usual stampede out to the playground. Sister waited till it had subsided, then said in a cool, steady tone: ""Humpf, interesting, Herbert. Perhaps you really DID go to the opera last night." I feigned being shocked and hurt. "S'ster! When did I ever lie to you?" She started to answer, thought better of it, then brushed me aside as she started out. "Recess," she said, going forth, majestic even in defeat. From then on, the Music Appreciation Hours grew less and less frequent, and were confined to safe composers like Stephen Foster and Percy Grainger. I myself was never asked to take over a class again, and the subject of opera was avoided altogether. A temporary victory for our side, but only a minor bleep in a long but, on the whole, merry little war --- not to be mentioned with the real one brewing overseas. Ours brought a few, as well.

Best Times By Alexandra Rodrigues In our society today, we constantly strive for success and prestige. We want to get to the top, belong to the elite and be able to afford what we desire. Why then are the rich and famous so often miserable? There is a deep satisfaction in little pleasures which are available to you without big expense. Even if you are at the top, you will be amazed how rewarding it is to be able to recognize and pay attention to little pleasures. My big treasure is a small dinghy, the one we carry on deck of our big boat. It holds two people, is made of hard rubber, and has two plastic paddles and a throw rope. This little gadget has become my biggest pleasure. You step inside, fight for balance and hope not to get splashed or fall into the water. One cannot go far with it and I have no desire to do so; the wind usually decides the direction. Sometimes I bump into one of the big party boats that are anchored along our 40-foot wide and three-city-blocks long canal. No problem, I bounce off and use my paddles to return to the middle of the canal. I look at the sky and kind of meditate while the little nutshell bounces along. Little wonders of nature exist all around, but we hardly ever take the time to watch and enjoy them. We are too busy to strive for fame and prominence. I use my imagination while meditating. This little boat is my gondola and I am skimming along the waterways of Venice. I ignore that my neighbor’s black dogs bark at me furiously when I pass them. Maybe I interrupted their meditation. What do dogs think about? I pay no attention to the seaweed floating on the surface of the water; I am happy and only see and feel what I want. When I get back to the bulkhead, I admire the mimosa trees in their pink bloom and am made aware of the gardenias. It is a faint aroma coming from those flowers that catches my attention. I watch a squirrel climbing up a pine tree and I call a friendly, “Hello.” Mother duck is taking her children for her first outing, and I ponder what they will do come winter. I hear the happy noises of the seagulls from the distant bay where they catch remnants of dead fish that fishermen have thrown overboard. I look at a weather-beaten red bench on the lawn of a house nearby and wonder who used to sit on there in the past and who will sit on it in the future. All is peaceful. No noise or vibration like on a big boat. I just float, look and relax. I put my hand into the water and let the water drops slowly dissipate in the sun. I rest my chin on the rubber edge of my little gondola and watch how the sun reflects by injecting colorful rays just below the water’s surface. I do not want to change with anybody!

Photo above: Herbert Eyre Moulton (in the middle) in the 1991 The Fundus Theatre production of William Shakespeare's Hamlet, here seen with Kaki Lucius as Ophelia and Tim Licata as Laertes.

Three Guesses Who the Butler Is The Making of a Hollywood Princess By Herbert Eyre Moulton (1927 – 2005)

In the script of the Italian-produced movie “Princess”, we find this direction: “The door opens and an elderly, impeccably dressed BUTLER appears, with a silver tray piled high with magazines. BUTLER Excuse me, Your Highness, but you said you wanted these urgently. Three guesses who the butler is, and the first two don’t count. That’s right: always the butler and never the boss, a somewhat wearying sentence I seem to be serving for a lifetime. The setting for this Graustarkian love story is the mythical principality of Lichtenhaus, with its royal family modelled on the Grimaldi clan of Monaco. For the part of the princesses, meant to be Caroline and Stephanie, two of Vienna’s most important dramatic regal landmarks were chosen to offer their cinematic bailiwicks. Even the minor players were handpicked by the director, Carlo Vanzina, a one-time protegé of Fellini, no less. So, it was a noble line I was about to tangle with when I turned up at Vienna’s equally noble Hotel Imperial for the casting interview. All right, yet another butler, but this one was special, for he was part of the household of His Royal Highness, Prince Maximilian, played by a favorite of ours, David Warner, not too long ago considered the quintessential Hamlet-for-our-time. His screenbreak-through came in 1966 with the crazy title role in “Morgan, A Suitable Case For Treatment”. That made him a star and my wife and me fans of his for life. Some time later, our son Charlie joined the club with “Omen”, and when he told Warner that himself, Warner snorted: “Oh, God, that!” Our film-freak son was likewise excited by the casting of Paul Freeman as Otto, the villain of the piece, remembering his evil turn as Beloque, the Nazi heavy in “Raiders of the Lost Ark”: “500 000 watts of Nasty!” My workaday duties for the prince were dispatched in two different palatial settings: the Hofburg, the Emperor Franz Josef’s old pad in the heart of Vienna, and, a few streets, and, a few streets and a couple centuries removed, the Theresianum, a superbly preserved baroque complex that once served as an officer’s training school and was named after its patroness, the Empress Maria Theresia, whose name it still bears as a college for budding diplomats. Its 18th century splendor has been has been kept lovingly intact, and we were to play our scene in the fabled library, a treasure house of precious inlaid wood and priceless antique leather volumes all the way up to the frescoed ceiling. It’s open to visitors only with a special pass and suitable pedigreed blue blood. Our first scene however was set in Maximilian’s princely bedchamber in the Hofburg, and I had the honor of waking up the royal slugabed with this exquisitely cadenced speech: BUTLER Good morning, Your Highness. Today is May twelfth, the feast of Saint Ladislas Martyr, also your cousin of Romania. The temperature is falling slightly: a high of fifty-three degrees, and a low of forty-five. The scenes with Mr. Warner were all of them fun, with his easy gift of friendly argle-bargle, both relaxed and refreshing. He even did me the kindness of autographing a portrait of himself which I’d removed from a calendar I’d bought at Stratford, a full-size head-and-shoulders done in pastels and dubbed “The Actor”. This was the first time he’d ever seen it! “To Herbert, Many Thanks, David Warner, ‘The Actor’, Vienna 1993.” Between takes we retreated to the cellar and the museum staff canteen. The scene there could well be entitled “Costumed Chaos in the Canteen”, for there happened to be another film, a real costume extravaganza, being shot in these hallowed precincts at the same time as ours, the latest Hollywood version of “The Three Musketeers”, the jokey one done with American accents and all, with Charlie Sheen and Kiefer Sutherland. The latter nearly brought down destruction on their entire operation by his tosspot antics in the allnight-fleshpots of Babylon-on-the-Danube. So, as things heated up, the Gods were already making rumbling noises. Of course both companies had to break for meals simultaneously, turning the canteen into the scene of the most variegated costume orgies, Louis XIII and Monaco Gold-Braid, since the climactic reels of Lon Chaney’s “Phantom of the Opera”. It might have been better if they’d released those goings-on as newsreel stuff and jettisoned the two doomed feature films. But of that, more anon ... The venue for my second scene was less crowded and yet more elegant: the Theresianum library doubling as the Lichtenhaus Council chamber, presided over by the sinister Otto, whose machinations were suddenly broken up by Maximilian’s no-nonsense and imperious entrance sweeping in, with me, padding breathlessly, in his wake. I was bearing the obligatory silver tray, onto which H.R.H. was lofting over his shoulder, without looking all manner of official-looking documents and letters. It was a dizzying journey across what seemed to me recently restored to its former glory. I am pleased to report that while scampering behind the Prince, molto allegro, I was somehow nimble enough enough to catch everyy single one of the documents he was tossing over the royal epulet. Limping and tottering at his heels, dodging and feinting, but always maintaining my dignity, so I went, and a memorable sight it should be, too, if the movie ever gets released. That’s precisely where the fate-keeps-on-happening routine comes in: a delicious light comedy script, first rate directing, handsome authentic settings, and stars like David Warner, Paul Freeman, and Susannah York as the Queen Mother, plus what Signor Vanzina promises in the press releases to be a sensational new Dutch actress, Barbara Snellenburg as Princess Sophia: “ This girl will be a star!” And the best of Viennese-Italian-Dutch luck to them all, what with Moulton here as Major-Domo (Major Disaster would be more like it). For as far as my sources can discover, “Princess”, running true to form, hasn’t yet seen the light of day anywhere, or if it has it hasn’t reached Central Europe yet or any of the international publications we subscribe to. It might have been shown in Vanzina’s native Italy, but it was filmed in English for the English-speaking market. As far as that all-too-jokey “Three Musketeers”-movie goes, well, of course it was a movie for the MTV-generation and a kind of a youthful introduction to Alexandre Dumas. Literary history for the Brat Pack with a huge Top 40 Hit as a PR-gag, Roddy, Sting and Bryan, the three musketeers of Rock ‘n Roll, singing it away, all for one and all for love. Me, Herbert Eyre Moulton, having shared tables with Kiefer and Charlie in the Hofburg canteen in Vienna, chatting away with good old David and hearing the Hollywood hotshots repeating their lines while drooling over their Wiener Schnitzels. Seriously now, Gang, could it be that this butler-playing character-actor is the subject not to a a pernicious, contagious curse, but a small blessing? Could it have rubbed off during those united lunchroom melées in the Hofburg cafeteria? After all, I wined and dined with the best. Maybe “Princess” will have its day in the sun after all. A sobering thought. And a good one. Just like the movie I was in. Posthumous footnote by his son Charles E.J. Moulton: The film that my father Herbert Eyre Moulton speaks of here turned out to be renamed “Piccolo Grande Amore” and can be purchased, researched or studied under the following links: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107823/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_110 (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107823/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_110) http://www.mymovies.it/dizionario/recensione.asp?id=18371 (http://www.mymovies.it/dizionario/recensione.asp?id=18371) http://www.amazon.de/Piccolo-grande-amore-IT-Import/dp/B00BM9T1RQ (http://www.amazon.de/Piccolo-grande-amore-IT-Import/dp/B00BM9T1RQ)

Photo below: Herbert Eyre Moulton's wife, opera mezzo Gun Kronzell, with her colleague, the renowned operatic tenor Luciano Pavarotti.

A Celebrity Named Gun Kronzell By Charles E.J. Moulton The 1960's must've been quite a decade for my mother. She was a working opera star active in a dozen German theatres. She sang oratories in Belgium, France and England. She met my dad in Hannover in 1966, toured with him through Europe, appeared on Irish TV and was still able to travel back to the calm home base in her beloved home town of Kalmar in Sweden. My mom loved Kalmar. It was her centre, her safe haven. As a global citizen touring the world and working with and meeting stars like Luciano Pavarotti, Alan Rickman and the Swedish King, she had been at home most everywhere. But her heart was Swedish. Her soul belonged to Kalmar. As a little boy in Gothenburg, I was exposed to my mother's amazing imagination. She told me these wonderful good night stories about the trolls Uggel-Guggel and Klampe-Lampe. They eventually turned into the high point of my day. The coolest thing, though, is that I am passing on these stories to my daughter. She is starting to invent stuff for the stories just like I did. I see that she loves the inventive and crazy creativity of our stories just as much as I did. Having my mom as a good night story teller and my daddy as a professional author was the best mixture a boy could ask for. I thank them for that. For triggering my imagination. For opening the vaults of endless creativity. For that is what it is about, guys. All of it. Creation. Creating always greater versions of ourselves. New parts of ourselves we thought were gone. New pieces of ourselves we didn't know we had. Pieces that appear once we just trust ourselves to be more than we thought we were or could be. There are so many old documents in my cupboards and closets. Old clippings and reviews that my mom kept as evidence of her glorious career. One paper in particular describes what kind of a career she was having back then. I also know, being the only child, that if I don't transcribe these documents and have them published somehow, nobody will. I could ask my wife or daughter to transcribe these old things, but it is actually my job as a son to spread the word of what kind of folks they were. They worked so hard for what they became and accomplished. They perfected their art so beautifully that a new generation just deserves to hear about them and damn great they were. Singers, actors, authors, directors, teachers, scholars: they were everything and more. So, here we go: back to the beginning of the 1960's. John F. Kennedy was still alive. The Space Race was still on. Armstrong had not yet landed on the moon. And a certain young opera singer named Gun Kronzell travelled the world and inspired people with her voice. This is what Gun herself wrote in a document that was intended for a newspaper that was about to write an article about her. Her schedule looks like a big city phone book. So many operas and oratories to learn. She must've been rehearsing constantly. "These are some of my concerts and performances that I have been assigned to carry out during this season of 1962-63: On March 11th, I am singing Brahms' Altrapsodie and Mozart's Requiem in Beleke with Matthias Büchel as conductor. Then, I am travelling to Bünde to sing Bach's Matthew Passion on March 31st. The April 1st, I am singing the same piece in Ahlen. I am travelling to Brügge in Belgium on April 4th to sing Beethoven's 9th Symphony. On April 17th I am again singing the Matthew Passion by Bach in Bergisch-Gladbach with Paul Nitsche as conductor. I am back in Sweden on May 31st to sing at the 100 year anniversary of the Kalmar Girl's School. On July 8th, I am singing Bach's Vom Reiche Gottes in the Church of Zion in Bethel. In the German Vocal Festival in Essen, I am singing Haydn's Theresien Mass and Koerpp's The Fire of Prometheus. In November, I am singing Bruckner's Mass in F-Minor in Witten. On November 28th, 29th and 30th I am performing Beethoven's Mass in C Minor in the Mühlheim City Arena and Duisburg City Theatre. On December 2nd and 3rd, 1962, I am singing Bach's Christmas Oratory in the Church of Zion in Bethel. On December16th, I am singing the same piece in Mainz. I am also singing the Christmas Oratory by Bach in Soest with Claus Dieter Pfeiffer as conductor and in Unna with Karl Helmut Herrman as conductor. January 12th, 1963, hears me singing Bach's Christmas Oratory again in Bethel. On March 31st I have been hired to sing Dvorak's Stabat Mater in Lippstadt. Those were the concerts. Now for my operatic performances: I have been hired as Mezzo Soprano at the City Opera in Bielefeld since September of 1961. This season has seen me perform 5 roles. The Innkeeper's Wife in Moussorgsky's Boris Godunov. That production had its premiere in September here. But I also guested with that part twice in Cologne this year. We have performed this opera 13 times so far. The second role was Emilia in Verdi's Othello. We premiered with that on Christmas Day and have played it 10 times so far. The third role for me this year was Dritte Dame (Third Lady) in The Magic Flute by Mozart. Our musical director Bernhard Conz often guest conducts in Italy and in Vienna. 5 shows of this so far. The gypsy fortune teller Ulrica in Verdi's A Masked Ball had its premiere on January 23rd and this show has been playing for sold out houses 8 times so far. Another Gypsy lady role, Czipra, in Johann Strauss' The Gypsy Baron had its premiere on March 6th. My next role, Hippolytte in Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream, is going to be fun. A new colleague of mine arrived this year. He is the Swedish son of an archbishop. His name is Helge Brillioth." Not only did her schedule look like a phone book, the reviews were as impressive as her CV. My mom had just returned from a tour through Ireland with my dad and appeared on Irish TV. She was pregnant with me while singing Ortrud in Wagner's Lohengrin. The daily newspaper wrote, on December 28th, 1968: "The best thing that the Opera House of Graz in Austria offered its ensemble was Gun Kronzell with her astounding portrayal of Ortrud. She already made a lasting impression as Mrs. Quickly and confirmed her skills here as well. This voice is a real winning triumph for our city: its intensity and wide range impresses. Gun Kronzell's Ortrud, if directed by a top notch world director, could become really interesting and a global phenomenon." One critic spoke of a voice that was illuminate in glory. The journal "Die Wahrheit" wrote that she sang a magnifiscent Ortrud with dramatic expression filled with movement and vocal prowess. Kleine Zeitung remarked on December 28th, 1968, that she was the only one that truly could shine in that production. Her clear and bright mezzo produced a brilliant fully controlled performance worthy of extraordinary theatrical mention. Ewald Cwienk from the Wiener Kurier wrote on January 3rd about the high level of her excellent vocal work. But even across the country in Augsburg they wrote about the masterful vocal presence and powerful expression of the Hannover's leading mezzo Gun Kronzell. They even went so far as to say that the audience in the olden days would have interrupted the scene after the operatic Plea of the Gods just to give the singer a standing ovation. Opern Welt, one of Germany's leading operatic journals, described her thusly: "Gun Kronzell (Hannover), vocally and dramatically convincing devotee of sensual passion." But her operatic skill alone did not gather rave reviews. Her collaboration with her baritone husband Herbert Eyre Moulton (1927-2005) had the European critics throwing proverbial roses at their feet. The Reutlinger General Anzeiger, on February 5th, 1968, published the following rave review after a triumphant show in Regensburg, Germany: "BIG VOICES IN A SMALL CONCERT HALL A successful concert performed at the America House They do not only sing duets. The married artistic couple Gun Kronzell (a mezzosoprano from Sweden) and Herbert Eyre Moulton (a baritone from the U.S.) are a living duet. When they appear on stage, they grab each other's hands before singing and try successfully not to compete with each other, but they try to achieve symbiosis. During the solo songs it becomes evident that the wife's lyric expression, vocal volume, skill and artistic temperament is a perfect mirror image of the husband's beautifully placed Irish baritone with its lyric joie de vivre. Both voices are obviously too big for this concert hall. It would have been great to hear them in the Carnegie Hall or at the London Festival Hall, where Miss Kronzell has sung recently, in order to hear the voices reverberate and swing in locations fit for their level of brilliance. And still: compliments to the America House for hiring them in the first place. This concert distinguished itself through a sophisticated programme and excellent interpretation. But even sophisticated programmes don't lift off the ground if the pieces in question don't have the longing of a lover's kiss. This programme did. The singers communicate. They love what they do. The concert started out with three duets by Henry Purcell, vitalized by constant sounds of musical joy. This was Baroque Art at its most lucious, where voices mingled and climaxed in full, soft alto tones and a natural high baritone that never seemed forced or uncomfortable. The three American Songs by Aaron Copland that followed, sung by Gun Kronzell, were functional straight forward pieces with a little bit of romantic flight hidden within the framework. The last song, Going to Heaven, explosively vocalized by the soloists with an accentuated pronounciation on the word HEA-VÉN, was effective to say the least. The baritone spoke a few words between songs in his self-proclaimed Chicago-German idiom, claiming that composer Charles Ives was the primitive composer of musical history. The singer disproved this. Ives is THE genius of American Music. The folkloristic song 'Charlie Rutlage' is a musical Western in itself: exciting, juicy, full of artistic trivialities. It was sung excellently and served by the singer as a juicy artistic peppersteak of sorts. It was a dramatic number that became a fast speech rotating kind of song, not unlike the Pitter-Patter vocabulary present in Gilbert & Sullivan's operetta chants. The third song, 'The Election', is a political elective song, but no direct campaign hit. National Pathos came as expected and the audience was thrilled to hear it. The first half of the show ended with duets: the pure enjoyment of the magic songs by Dvorak were the topics of conversations at the intermission bar. The Swedish mezzosoprano sang Swedish songs with clean artistic expression after the break. The succeeding Hölderlin-songs by the Irish composer Seán O'Riada - a cycle in four parts in which the simplistic harmonies of the beginning returned at the end - could not have been sung better by the baritone Herbert Eyre Moulton. These compositions from 1965 are actually ancient in style and format. These stilistically mysterious thought-songs were triumphs of passionate interpretation. The finale provided us with the necessary crowning glory: five songs from Gustav Mahler's 'Des Knaben Wunderhorn'. These were not duets. Instead, the songs were divided into dialogues. We found the sadness, we experienced the parody of superiority, scenes were acted out and still nobody feared losing the essence of the tones. The accompanist Karl Bergemann proved himself to be an accomplished expert in all mentioned musical areas. No harmony was left unsung, no heart was left untouched, the singers were never overpowered by the sound of his piano playing and still he knew how to present himself well. His instrumentation entailed a magnetic expressive force. His support was a counterpoint that even more famous colleagues would have envied taking them by their musical hands. The audience were eternally thankful, providing the three artists with standing ovations."

Critiques such as these give even music lovers who didn't have the joy of hearing "The Singing Couple" live the hint of how wonderfully entertaining artists they were. The amazing thing was that my parents were full fledged and extremely experienced artists already when I was born. They accomplished being successful artists and still being there for me at all times. I spent a week in London with my mom in 1979. We met my Godfather, the composer James Wilson, and went to musicals like "Jesus Christ Superstar" and "Oliver!" (with a real dog running around the musical London stage, we weaved that, too, into the good night stories). This trip provided me with good memories. It was a dear part of my childhood whose many events were included in our good night stories: my stuffed dog Ludde fell in love with our hotel chamber maid Maria. That's what we said, anyway. With my dad, I went to Copenhagen during early 80's three winters in a row. Two guys going to the opera, eating Spaghetti, going to theatre to see an uncut version of Hamlet (the box office lady called Hamlet "a very good Danish play"), going to see a Bond movie in a Copenhagen cinema called the Colloseum (an Italian waiter told us: "The Colloseum is in Rome!") and running through Copenhagen after the royal guards to Queen Margarete's palace only to see them vanish into the courtyard and away beyond the entrance. We had hoped to see the Changing of the Guards, but only saw them march. It didn't matter. It was all good. All three of us (the holy family) took trips to Sweden and America together, played board games on Friday nights, went to art museums, laughed until we cried on the living room couch we called Clothilde, took long trips in the Volkswagen we called Snoopy and invited my best friends for pancake breakfasts on Sunday mornings. My parents were witty, generous, experienced people with lots of spirit. They were able to take responsibility for their lives as adults and still have some crazy spontaneous fun along the way. I will always be eternally thankful for their fantastic influence. What they gave me I can pass on to my daughter. And they are our Guardian Angels. What a fantastic job they are doing. As always. Now, a newspaper article about my mother Gun Margareta Kronzell published during her heyday from the local newspaper Barometern in 1971: KALMAR’S OPERASINGER IS A EUROPEAN STAR! HER FATHER KNUT GAVE HER HIS UNENDING SUPPORT Think about this for a moment: Gun Kronzell can sing! This discovery was made during Gun Kronzell’s last year at the Girl’s School in Kalmar. Nobody at the school had heard her before, neither the teachers nor the school friends knew it. Now everybody in Europe knows it. She is a star. Gun Kronzell, born on Nygatan 16 in Kalmar, lives in Vienna and works as a Dramatic Mezzo-Soprano all across the continent. She has been working at the Volks-Opera in Vienna during the Springtime and has sung on many European Stages , including London’s Festival Hall. Her appearances in Sweden have been few, but now the Kalmar audience has the possibility to hear her fantastic voice in the Kalmar Cathedral on Monday. There will be two other concerts in the local area. She lives all summer in her mother Anna’s and her father Knut’s apartment on Odengatan and is taking with her son Charlie. Her husband Herbert Eyre Moulton is still in Vienna, working at the English speaking theatres as an actor, teaching English, creating school radio programs for the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation (ORF) and writing plays. “My husband and I met in Hannover in Germany. We were both working singers and shared the same singing teacher. I asked him if he would speak English with me. Since then, we have only spoken English with each other. That is, when we are on speaking terms,” Gun laughs with a twinkle in her eye. “We love performing with each other and promoting ourselves as The Singing Couple.” MULTILINGUAL Two year old Charlie is raised to speak many languages, among them English and German. His grandparents are right now teaching him Swedish. Some day he will be able to compete with his mother, who fluently speaks at least three languages, if not more. Sea Captain and Swedish Church Chief Accountant Knut Kronzell wanted to become an opera singer, but his parents had other plans. He had to be satisfied with singing for his family at festive gatherings. In the beginning, Gun wasn’t impressed. But as time went on, she was. When she applied to study at the Royal Musical Academy in Stockholm, her father Knut gave her all his support. A FAMOUS FAMILY Success came flying from high and wide and from all the right places. Her education was superb, her vocal range was phenomenal, her interpretation became renowned: a perfect mixture. Stockholm’s Opera House was too limited a forum and Gun moved to Germany, where Bielefeld, Hannover, Köln, Recklinghausen, Wiesbaden, Paris, Brügge and Graz has become her own “home turf.” Her husband Herbert Eyre Moulton is from Chicago. He is a singer, author and works for Austrian Radio. Last year he joined his wife in order to sing at the festival Kalmar 70. This year he has not had any time to come to Sweden. VITALLY ITALIAN “I like acting on stage,” Gun Kronzell says. “It’s better than singing concerts. I feel lonelier on the concert stage. The opera stage is always lively and full of action.” The Italian composers are among her favorites. Verdi is number one. Of course. A LIFE FULL OF SONG Gun Kronzell: “I’m actually quite tired of Wagner. He was an amazing composer, but in his operas there is a whole lot of endless singing and that gets strenuous for the audience. Brünhilde, Erda, Kundry, Ariadne, I’ve sung them all, and I was always happy to have a good vocal technique to help me get through those roles and a happy to wear a good pair of shoes.” The new kind of pop music world wide radio keeps playing is not something Gun dislikes. The Beatles have many good successors, she says. Charlie just loves pop music. The hotter, the better. SWEDEN’S TOP 40 Gun Kronzell doesn’t mind hot music. However, schmaltzy Schlager Muzak is not her thing and she admits that she also doesn’t really know what’s hot in Swedish popular music today. “I have no idea what vinyl EPs are being handed over the counters and what songs are making the top record charts in Sweden right now,” she laughs. RADIO Gun Kronzell will record a radio program for Swedish Radio this year. Her concert from last year, recorded at the festival Kalmar 70, will appear in a rerun. This autumn there will be a whole range of continental concerts. “I have to return to Kalmar at least once a year,” she says. “That family contact is important, the sea air rejuvenates me, the food, the sun, the laughter, the flowers and the friends. And my mom and dad are very happy when I come. Especially when I bring Charlie along.”

Winter Wonderland By Alexandra Rodrigues Despite extensive travels as flight attendant and visits to magnificent mountain areas in Switzerland and Austria, the mention of a Winter Wonderland takes me back to the Grunewald. As a teenager, I biked often on the great trails that wind through the 7,400-acre woods on the western edge of Berlin. Stables located in this great forest house about 50 horses allowing fun-filled hours for equestrians. An acquaintance of mine, George, was the owner of sleigh drawn by two elegant horses. On a deep wintry day, he invited me for a ride. I was young and had no ties. I was pretty and had no lack of young and also older men who wanted to get closer to me, George being one of them. He was not really my type. To make it worse, he was married. I had turned him down before but the offer for the ride in his carriage, I could not resist. It was an experience I would never forget. The Grunewald was not as dense as it once was. Many trees had been felled during the War to provide fire for warmth and survival. George had equipped his carriage with cozy blankets, a couple of shawls and a bottle of Sherry. Short and small boned, George had fine hands and an immaculate skin. His appearance reminded of a fairy tale prince. Not a prince for me however. The winter ride we took would have fit perfectly into a book of Russian literature from the times of Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy. Flurries were falling through the crowns of the trees, glistening like miniature stars when adding to the already substantial snow cover on the ground. On the branches of fir trees hung icicles sparkling like Waterford crystal. The stillness of the snow intensified the isolation of the woods. All one could hear was the laboring of the horses. Their breath made it appear as if they were exhaling smoke like powerful steam engines. It was so romantic. The scenery could only be compared to Andersen’s imaginary Ice Crystal Palace in the Snow Queen. The romantic atmosphere was not lost on me. I allowed George to hold my hand. He was in seventh heaven – He was in love with me! I was enchanted with what nature and the ride gifted me. Any romantic interest for George did not enter my senses. I was grateful for the winter scenery I was experiencing. We passed the Jagdschloss Grunewald – this castle is a historic landmark dating back to the 16th century holding artifacts pertaining to hunting. This old castle has since been refurbished as a restaurant. We saw the Teufelsberg (Devil’s Mountain), a man-made mountain of substantial height. Then we passed Grunewald Tower which was built in 1897 and signs pointing to the Pfaueninsel (Peacock Island). This place with wild roaming peacocks is a perfect spot for romance. Its white castle can be reached by boat from the River Havel. At the end of this nearly unreal trip, George was looking for a reward to relieve of his stowed up want for me. This did not match what I had in mind. Originally my plan had been to invite George up to my apartment. I would have made us a glass of Glühwein. This Austrian specialty consists of mulled red wine heated nearly to a boil, spiced with a stick of cinnamon and decorated with a slice of lemon on the rim of the glass. In the end I decided against it. George had been too forward and I did not want him as a date again, let alone as a lover. All I managed was a cool kiss on his cheek and a cheerful “Goodbye and thank you.” Phone calls from him during the following days and weeks I ignored. I hoped he would understand that I was not interested in him. Shortly afterwards, I heard that George had committed suicide. I do not want to know if my attitude toward him had contributed to his demise. Is it the combination of happenings that left me with the impression of that amazing winter day?

The Art of Opera - and how it changed my life by Colenton Freeman My very first encounter with the world of Opera was at age 16 during my junior year in high school. I had heard of opera and had been introduced to certain musical examples like the „Habanera“ from CARMEN through a music appreciation class. However, it was the meeting of a high school music teacher who happened to be a tenor that I was fully introduced to the opera through recordings of legendary singers like Joan Sutherland, Richard Tucker, Eileen Farrell and Leontyne Price. I was mesmerized by the sounds coming from their throats. The drama, intensity, emotions and total impact of this music overwhelmed me and I became fascinated with it and started on a path to learn all that I could about it. When one thinks that I was a young black boy growing up in the South where segregation was a way of life, it is amazing that I became so infatuated with this European art form. Because I had a very good natural tenor voice, my music teacher began giving me private voice lessons and introduced me to the great tenor arias such as „Che gelida manina“ from Puccinis' LA BOHEME, E lucevan le stelle from TOSCA and the very well known La donna é mobile from Verdis' RIGOLETTO. I sang them all with young passion and abandon. Luckily, singing these arias at a very young age did not hurt my tenor voice. I had a naturally good top voice. The art of opera is a very interesting subject in itself. This combination of music, theater, drama with voices, orchestra, scenery and costumes is the ultimate form of musical theater at its' best. The immense training of voices that it requires is very involved. One has not only to sing, but sing in different languages, musical styles, learning entire roles by memory and developing enough physical and mental stamina to sing different roles on different nights of the week, not to mention perhaps rehearsing a new role during the day and performing another that same evening. However, what an exciting and fortunate priviledge it is to be able to do this art form as a profession. Opera changed my life immensely. It brought me from a very simple background to some of the best music schools and professors of singing in all of America. It brought me in contact with such world class singers like Luciano Pavarotti, Placido Domingo, Leontyne Price, Birgit Nilsson, Leonie Rysanek, James King, Fiorenza Cossotto, Anja Silja, Ghena Dimitrova, Grace Bumbry, Shirley Verrett and one of my favorite people, Gun Kronzell. Also, conductors like Simon Rattle, Eve Queler and Bruno Bartoletti. Stage directors such as Jean-Paul Ponnelle and Trevor Nunn. I sang in some of the worlds' leading opera houses in San Francisco, Mexico City, Chicago, New York, Geneva, London, Berlin, Hamburg and Lyon. What a worldwind of a life for a poor little black fellow from Atlanta, Georgia. This wonderful art form brought me to Europe where I have lived and contributed for the last 30 years. Sometimes I have to pinch myself in order to really believe where my work as an opera singer has brought me. It helped to make me a world citizen, not just an American. It taught to me to embrace all peoples, cultures, backgrounds, mentalities, religions, etc. To be open and tolerant on all levels. This is an art form that has a reputation of being associated with high brow society and the wealthy. It is not that. The common man and woman also have an appreciation of this art form, particularly here in Europe. The grocer, the jeweler, the baker, the cleaning lady and so many more will save their money to be able to go into the theater and hear their favorite singer. I have experienced this first hand. The gifts that one receives from appreciative fans are many and very much appreciated. A great art form, indeed.

MEMOIR OF AN AMATEUR WRITER By June Ti In seventh grade, 1969, Mr. Roper asked the class what we hoped to do for a living. Having a choice hadn’t occurred to me. Mom said I had to be a teacher. “A writer,” I said when my turn came. “Oh, you want to be a rider. That’s wonderful,” Mr. Roper touted. I was horrified. Not only had it taken courage to cross eleven years of brainwashing, but now everyone was shouting “A writer! She wants to be a writer!” “Yes,” the teacher said, “a rider.” This was confusing. How did Mr. Roper know I owned a horse? Yet, maybe he was right. Maybe I should be a rider. The next Saturday morning I rode the bus downtown and bought The Five Circles, a slim yellow hardcover about an Olympic equestrian jumping team. I read it over and over and tried to like jumping my horse. But he was not long off the race track and fidgety. My instructor made me take falling-off lessons. Besides Raymond Bam (dumb name for a horse), I owned a typewriter, a surprise gift from my dad, as I’d decided to write a book about hummingbirds for my science project. Never mind that I had no knowledge about hummingbirds. That’s what libraries and piracy are for. This was no ordinary typewriter. It was a monster of a thing. Probably the first. After dinner I’d lock the bedroom door and try lifting it over my head, exercising to gain strength enough to drop a heavy saddle onto a tall back. Mom heard the crash when it dropped. She said, “Your father will have a fit when he sees the floor,” then put a rug down. Bamboozled Dad, on examining the typewriter, said, “You’ll ruin your insides.” “Insides, who cares about insides,” I thought. The behemoth could have been busted, and that would have broken my heart. In grade ten I quit halfway through. I’d had throat surgery, missed two semesters, and couldn’t catch up. Worse, the odds were against my voice returning. The decision to quit school did not come easily. My sights were on a career as a museum curator, a vision that in my young mind was now unlikely. No one knew I quit, although my extra attention to hair and makeup was questioned. The plan was to find full-time employment in a book store and move into an apartment. Mr. Gleadow, the book store owner who hired me, was undaunted by my voicelessness. He’d spent twenty years as a volunteer for folks with disabilities and was okay with notepad communication. He was shocked, though, when he read I was fifteen on the Social Insurance forms, proof of what a bouffant hairstyle and eyeliner can do. “How can so young a girl have read such books?” he asked, for it was my knowledge of authors and titles that got me the job. In fairness, burning through the Penguin Classics and the bestsellers lists was not a display of snobbiness. A person likes what she likes. Granny liked Harlequin Romance. Mom liked Pearl Buck. Dad liked war stories. Brother Allan’s preferences were under his mattress. Something about boobs. Working in a 1970s main-street book store was the most exciting job I’ve ever had. The pay was $1.65 an hour. The exposure to superb literature was priceless. Authors came in for signing celebrations, each impressive in his or her distinct character. Don Harron (Charlie Farquharson) was quick-witted. Chief Dan George was soft-spoken. Pierre Berton was assertive. When Grey Owl’s wife, Anahareo, befriended me, I was thrilled out of my socks. Along with being graced by inspirational authors, grateful customers gave me gifts: juicy cherries, Rogers’ Chocolates, flowers, books, art, and trinkets from around the globe. I got asked out a lot and met fascinating people. When Burt Reynolds swaggered through the Canadiana section, big-headed and disinterested, he hit a nerve. Regretting my folly in ignoring him, I kicked my teenage butt when he left. We might have gotten married. My voice recovered to whisper mode when I was seventeen. By then, I’d long returned to school but also retained a thirty-six-hour week at Beaver Books. My scheme was to conceal a foldup cot in the storage room and live there. In twelfth grade, a friend unconsciously betrayed my privacy and in bold lettering announced in the yearbook, “June wants to be a writer living on the sea.” Indeed, that is exactly what I’m doing, forty-three years later. The house isn’t mine. It’s a rental. And I’m not really a writer. Not by my standards. An accomplished writer, in my opinion, has seriously studied composition and can put a story together without incessantly referring to The Simon & Schuster Handbook for Writers. All the same, I did get published, by providence. I knew zilch about the craft and yearned to learn. Writing classes say that an aspiring author won’t let anything get in her way. What a load of baloney. Chad, my first son, cried incessantly. Then came the handspinning and weaving business. By the time Hubby and I opened a horse boarding stables, I wanted to write so badly I could barely stand it but had to make do with hand-scrawled letters: “Dear Mom,” the page began, “you wouldn’t believe what goes on here. Willygoat got loose and his tether wrapped around the outboard motor. When I was untangling him, he panicked and dragged me and the motor down the driveway. Willy’s fine. My ankle needs stitches. Yesterday, a horse boarder flipped her mare overtop of herself. The paramedics were super. It was the same horse boarder who asked how our cow got milk and tried to have a campfire singsong in the barn. What an idiot. Who lights a fire in a barn? Tell Dad to bring a two-by-four on his next visit. The Toulouse geese are attacking, and it’s hard to get past them without a weapon. Mom stockpiled my letters. She wanted me to compile them into a book. With so much fresh material, collecting bygone tantrums seemed redundant. I truly wish I had those anecdotes now. Hubby enjoyed my farm-stories reports, even though he thought some of the adventures were made up. He had a business and wasn’t home much. “Mindy Moo wouldn’t chase you like that,” he argued. “She was horny,” I said. “You’re not around. You don’t know what a devil she is. The horse people say she’s racing them to the loo. Jenny’s peeing outside.” It was startling how Hubby snuck up on me in the turkey shed, smiling like a lunatic. Holding out an Olympia typewriter, he said, “My bookkeeper doesn’t want it anymore. The e’s mangled and the space bar sticks, so she only charged me ten bucks. Now you can write properly.” Two more kids later, we bought a bigger house with its own forest. The closest neighbour, Lenore, had to cross a bear trail so we could have tea. “I’m writing a book,” she said. “Could you read it and tell me what you think?” Lenore is a saint. She’d do anything for anybody. That’s why I lied. She didn’t finish the book, but she did write an impressive missive to the local newspaper. Lenore could write just fine. My publishing career began at that house in the woods, when my four-year-old daughter and I walked to the mailbox. The bigleaf maples had turned orange and yellow, and the air smelled of their decay. “I’m gonna mail it,” my daughter determined, pointing to the envelope I was carrying. “Of course you can,” I said, passing it over. And so it was, hand in hand, we sauntered down the gravel road, counting the wooly bear caterpillars. She dropped it a couple of times. The envelope. In fact, she dropped it a whole bunch of times. “Oh well,” I thought, “it’s a subscription for a gardening magazine. A bit of dirt shouldn’t bother them.” Many wooly bears and a few woodpeckers later, we stood in front of our destination. Realizing Violet couldn’t reach the mail slot, I bent down to take the envelope from her. I think she yelled “No,” although I’m not really sure. It happened so fast; however, my recall of the rest is linear. Violet dropped the letter. It was already scruffed up so it shouldn’t have mattered. But the fall from her hand this time was spectacular, right into a gooey, mostly congealed, pudding of a puddle, where she stepped on it, scraped it off her boot bottom, jumped up, and, quite by luck, shoved the wretched mess perfectly through the mail slot. I tried to grab it. I know I have quick reflexes. Violet and I saw this event differently. She saw a job well done. I saw a brown boot print obliterating an address that was already dotted with road grit and dirt smears. We both saw it disappear into the big green box. She was ecstatic. I was awed and not quite annoyed, but close. Then I laughed. I laughed so loud walking home that I ducked into the bushes near Lenore’s cabin, afraid she’d have me committed. “Dear Editor,” I wrote. “You may or may not have got my subscription for The Island Grower in the mail. If you did, this is why it looked like that. If you didn’t, then this is the reason.” “Dear Mrs. Ti,” the editor replied. “We got the subscription. Thank you. We passed the envelope around the office, even showed some customers, then tacked it to the wall so we could keep looking at it. It made our day. The next morning we got your follow-up letter explaining the boot print and the mud and tacked it beside the envelope. You made our second day. We are in the beginning stage of launching a children’s wildlife magazine and are looking for writers and an editor. Would you like to send us a sample of your writing? You seem to have a knack. “ Whatever I sent, the editor fell for it and called soon after: “My husband and I would like to drive up and meet you. We’ll bring pastries. What do your kids like?” My mind retreated to grade twelve, tongue-tied at having a personal ambition spotlighted. Seated on a worn purple sofa (it looked red when we bought it), the couple spoke about money and business and my writing history of which there was none. The kids busied themselves by luring Poor Bob the cat into a baby buggy and walking him in the driveway. The couple were tense, this editor and her publisher husband. Maybe it was the kids. Maybe I wasn’t what they had envisioned. I was tense too, but mostly baffled. Who were these imposters talking about tying themselves to a certain beach rock during a winter storm and betting who could stick it out the longest? My expectation was they’d be scholarly, not crazy. And what kind of impression did I make talking about giving peanut butter crackers to raccoons so we could watch them lick their fingers? How could a wildlife meanie, like me, be hired to write for a children’s wildlife magazine? I thought I’d blown it, but then they admitted to tying thread around hard-boiled eggs and seeing who could keep his egg the longest when the raccoons visited the patio. Gosh, they were weirder than we were, and they didn’t even have kids as an excuse. “Can you have an issue ready for summer?” “Absolutely,” I said, having no clue how. And that, my friends, is how a non-writer gets published. You might not want to use a boot print to get a publisher’s attention. The story got around. Perhaps you have a six-toed cat who would oblige. Charge onwards, I say, regardless of ignorance. And keep on writing as if you know what you’re doing. Your mistakes will be in the thousands. Or, possibly, I’m a moron. My biggest faux pas was an opinionated piece that would have made enemies on page one of Get Wild’s introductory issue. “We can’t print that,” the publisher said, saving me from an early writing death and rocks thrown at the house. The topic of teaching children to respect wildlife stayed the same, but it no longer insulted parents who buy their boys slingshots. “Can you hire a photographer?” my new boss and her husband asked. “Isn’t that expensive?” I contended. “I’ll take the pictures myself.” It was a reasonable answer. After all, I was a magazine editor who didn’t know how to write, so why not tackle some witless photography. Photography, it turns out, is hard. Really, really hard. We’re talking about on-the-move wildlife here. Not just pine cones and the road-killed beaver I tried to make look alive. “Jack,” I said to my second son. “Take one more step and I’ll kill you.” It was enough to have me jailed, yet the damn kid was creeping up on the great blue heron my lens was focused on. “Stop! It’s starting to look nervous.” I think he wanted it as a pet. Jack is the biggest animal lover in the family. Naturally, he took the step. The bird sprang up, and I got the only decent photo of my magazine career. It made the cover. Yep, the obstacles were infinite. Capitalization and commas were complicated. The editor needed an editor. What’s more, the editor needed a desk instead of a placemat at a kitchen table. But the words got written, and that was the objective. In the beginning, it was difficult to get contributors. I imagined there was a heap of eager writers, somewhere. The pickle was reaching them, an unimaginable delay in the Internet age. “Get creative,” I thought. “Write to wildlife experts and ask if I can print their replies.” But write them about what? It felt mortifying to implore, “You there, expert. Write an article for free, pretty please, because I’m too stupid to do it myself, too unestablished to pay you, and too uninformed to find contributors.” Apparently, begging has its place. An SPCA man who was an authority on spiders wrote a grand piece. A marine biologist wrote about killer whales. My favourite essay was from an ethnobotanist who wrote about the uses of cedar, for which my cedar tree photos were scrap. That’s right, a moron. By fate, it was coming together. And so it was that my typewriter and I tap tapped our way through four years of Get Wild. It was not long enough to learn how to write yet long enough to know where I belonged. The writing was fun; the wildlife part was funner. There’s a lesson to be learned here: be passionate about your subject. Love it so much that any relevant morsel sets a fire under your ass. Keep a notepad and a pen with you. I mean it. Ideas, stories, lines, images, quotes, and connections seldom occur on demand. Jot down your dreams upon awakening. I dreamed that a lime-green bird flew out of a children’s nature book, and the ageing book store lady demolished the interior of the place trying to catch it: an illustrated tale of fantasy. Another idea came from seeing a crow fly past a building, its shadow enormous. If you want to be a published writer, you’d better be an ardent reader. If you like mysteries, read a biography. Broaden your scope. A diligent writer will tell you that books are as part of his life as his toilet is. That’s not the best comparison. It makes the point. I’m telling you, finish a lousy book halfway. Brutally swear at the author for wasting hours of your life, and vow to appreciate your own audience. Note that even gold-medallion titles can be taxing or boring. Write what you know or what you genuinely want to know. Write honestly. If you fluff a true story with tidbits of fabrication, or contrive a whopper and call it true, you’re asking for trouble. I know because I made a sizeable boo-boo embellishing an already great storyline. If the discrepancy had not been noticed in a final edit, the entire piece would have lost credibility. Like I said, I’m not a real writer. By the same token, do not state theories and guesses as facts. Never plagiarize. It makes the author of the original piece psycho. My article on the invasion of Vancouver Island’s eastern cottontail took two years to research. I hunted down local World War II countrymen who raised meat rabbits. I rummaged around a wild island looking for evidence of an illicit rabbitry. I upped my phone bill speaking to biologists in Eastern Canada. My plagiarized cottontail article appeared in a renowned museum’s newspaper. It was word for word with the exception of the last two lines. The museum credited itself. I wanted a lawyer. I wanted revenge. Psycho. Readers of Get Wild rightly detected a novice white-knuckling her editorials. I see more than that. I see a woman with a dusty behind, just in from riding bareback, writing her heart out. Get Wild‘s publishers dissolved their company and took up cranberry farming. They came to the house with a resume and recommendation for future endeavors. My family exhaled. I rode my old horse into the woods and cried, then resumed studies in crisis counselling. Surrounded by smart people at university, my writer’s ego went awry. My criminal psychology essays, in particular, were unduly complicated. Overuse of big and rare words made the papers sound pompous. The professors were peeved at having to slog through them. Upon graduation, I got a job in Mental Health Services. This led to being targeted in a crime called organized (gang) stalking. The only typing I did for years was petitioning for help. When I did begin narrative writing again, it was a typed 500-page examination of my history of being an organized stalking victim, with an additional thousand pages of what the stalkers’ goals were and how they operated. It was no easy feat to hang on to my typewriter while running and hiding. It didn’t fit in a purse. Moreover, it could not produce professional-looking documents. Buying a laptop was essential, no easy task as gangstalked people are perpetually broke. I ate at soup kitchens, stood in bread lines, went without, and two years later placed an order at Safe Computers. Now connected to other victims, local and international, I moved to the sea and opened a stalking support centre from my house. This is what accidentally led to writing a book. The data gathered from the centre, combined with my research and journaling, provided plenty of material. You cannot write a nonfiction book without a massive amount of information. Please, writers, heed my suggestion of jotting down your traumatic, tragic, or comedic experiences as soon as possible. Grammar, spelling, and punctuation aren’t important. Yet your scribble must be clear enough to jog your memory, complete with the consequences, locations, and people and place names. None of the details are too insignificant as it’s the smells, colours, weather, and emotions that create an authentic nonfiction narrative and bring the story alive. July 11 stalking and harassment increased, chose to ignore same blond man in library handsome - wears fake mustache sometimes. Probably wants me to think it’s 2 different men. He took each book I looked at and followed me around with them. Followed me to truck so went back and called Ollie at pay phone for help. Followed me inside so waited at librarian desk. Picked up truck at night, did not want man following me home. Brentwood B Library. July 23 California airport cop shot own head at rifle range Pam age 53 committed suicide. Stalked 11 years PTSD. I tried to get her here but she said country life was boring. As anxious as I was to begin writing No Ordinary Stalking, a comprehensive look at organized stalking and harassment, I refused to set down a single sentence until the formulation, or creation, was complete. This involved weeks of arranging chapter outlines in a series of numbered exercise books. Shaping was gratifying. Fact-finding, though, was tedious, as I was overly meticulous. For instance, in a cardboard box, in the back of a closet, are maps that delineate where I was stalked and harassed, where I hid, and the routes I drove. A corresponding exercise book names the locations on the maps, complete with addresses, phone numbers, and the approximate date I was there. This plotting and data collection took a month or so and was not necessary to write the book. Regardless, never in a million years will I discard this box of maps and data, as a turning point may come when I’m brave enough to spill the secrets I’ve sworn to take to my grave, of the moral degradation that infests a running homeless woman. A silly waste of energy, when it came to writing my book, was compiling synonyms for the words bound to be used often. The lists are in a blue binder that has traces of wiped-off bird poop and remains wedged in a wicker basket beside my desk. It’s only use is Little Bird’s perch in the winter, level with the heater. Cultivating the craft of book-writing meant buying used grammar and punctuation how-tos that could be marked up. The more I collected, the more frustrated I got, as they contradicted each other. One recent university edition from my own country would have been sufficient. My favourite self-helps are delightful reads: The Joy of Writing: A Writing Guide for Writers Disguised as a Literary Memoir by Pierre Berton; On Writing: a Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King; and Eats, Shoots and Leaves by Lynn Truss. It was disconcerting that after I saturated myself with English fundamentals, I felt more inept than ever. Reading about Berton’s and King’s struggle to write well was encouraging. To get back on track, I reread my 500-page stalking history. The long-awaited crack at my book did not go well. Microsoft Word was foreign to me; and with no higher education in composition, every paragraph was arduous. I’d write on my laptop until there were a scary number of Cs, for correct, then print the material and read it over tea on my couch. Many pages were so marked up they were challenging to decipher. Deleting long passages was unbearable, especially when I’d spent ages on them. But delete, and reposition, I did. A clever passage in the wrong place mucks up the reader’s sense of continuity. And continuity counts. This time round I could buy photos online, which made me a bit nuts, like being given keys to a bakery. You’ve surely heard that content, instead of the author, can steer the story. No captain equals no order. Photos can steer a story too. Losing control of your subject is a sinkhole. No Ordinary Stalking changed my life, not afterwards, but during the writing. Sadness enveloped me, hour after hour. A lot of it was self-inflicted; a book of despair had better have a despairing tone. I regularly spoke to suicidal victims and played dark music. The living room walls dripped with death and dread. There was a second pitfall. Housework took on an antagonist role, and an arrangement had to be established. Neatness was imperative, dusting and some vacuuming were not. And while relinquishing housework doesn’t sound sacrificial, it was torture for someone who prizes a spotless home. In spurts, I’d begrudgingly tear the house apart and clean like a madwoman possessed, never once attempting to write. It was an all or none deal: write or clean. Cutting up bargain pizzas and freezing wedges on foil pie pans was the extent of food preparation. Containers of frozen fruit smoothies eliminated peeling and stickiness. Mealtimes and bedtimes were dedicated to watching relevant, and often tragic, documentaries. Book-reading was at its lowest in my life. Granted, I did sneak in a few that could add to teachings about stalking, capture, and survival. Anything that stopped me from writing was an opponent, including peaceful walks on the beach in front of my home, my sanctuary after being oppressed. The book was making me ill. My soul, intentionally immersed in crime, was cracking. The remedy, it seemed, was publication. In a letter to book publishers, I guaranteed my manuscript was polished. A lauded editor said he liked the work, the cadence was smooth, and he would look at it when it was ready. I spent a further fifteen months tidying it up, all 481 pages, to find the company went bankrupt. It didn’t matter. The fellow’s comment was exactly what I needed to hear. Listen well, my allies, to professional criticism; and, if you can afford to, hire a copy editor. It was insanity that forced me to abandon the final reworking of tricky sentences. I’d developed secondhand PTSD from listening to an unceasing lineup of victims and was constantly crying. Self-publishing was the quickest route to distancing myself from the book, but it worried me that self-publishing is generally thought of as a last resort for losers. Today, if Random House offered to take on No Ordinary Stalking, I’d say no. I don’t want my book to have a short life. It was written to cut down on the misery, suicides, and murders that victims of organized stalking suffer. I want it to stay in print as long as it’s doing its job. In conjunction, I want the ability to update the book’s resource section. Overall, self-publishing was the right choice. An interesting part of the process is decision making. For my cover, I chose a photo of a dead tree from my Get Wild era. The fonts, I played with for a while. The print size I wanted was larger than usual, based on victims’ eyesight suffering from physical attacks. When a parcel of my just-released book arrived at the post office, I was happy as a wet butterfly and put them in an upstairs cupboard without turning a single page. My reaction puzzles me. Other first-time authors talk of stroking their book like a newborn baby. It was at least a month before I summoned the pluck to check that No Ordinary Stalking was printed without error. It turns out there are two. The publishing consultant said not to bother having them corrected until I update the resource section. If I hadn’t been overwhelmed by the writing and publishing process, and the being-stalked process, my response would not have expressed compliance. The printer’s mistakes, particularly on the cover, are an embarrassment. I feel cheated. Nonetheless, there are my own slip-ups. In the resource section, I rashly listed a book written by a doctor who is also a victim of organized stalking. It didn’t seem imperative to read his book after being swayed by dozens of five-star Amazon reviews, which it turns out were bogus, as were the grandiose introductions by radio hosts. The good doctor’s book, now that I’ve read it, is terrible. Only a third of it is about the topic. The rest is a disorderly rant with no attention paid to the duped soul who didn’t get what he paid for. Now don’t get me wrong. I like the doctor. We teamed up to free a woman trapped and raped by gang stalkers. He’s a caring man and a great speaker. But he cannot write. Deleting his title from my book’s resource section is a priority. Another slip-up in my book is a fact that is wrong. I’d written that a whistleblower was killed then tossed out a window. An investigative journalist proved the man was alive when he’d been tossed. This gaffe bothers me tremendously. Lesson: don’t be sucked in to hype. Contact credible witnesses and investigators. After No Ordinary Stalking came out, my sadness lingered on. Plus, cooking, cleaning, eating, and tending errands on a whim felt unnatural. It took ten months to become normal after sixty-seven months of regimented distress over words. My book will never be a bestseller. It will never make much money. I realized from the getgo that mostly victims of organized stalking would read it and presumably some of their loved ones. Still, I’m glad I wrote it. So is a retired Harvard professor who bought seven copies and sent me an idea for a screenplay. I don’t know how to write a screenplay. Therefore, he asked a Hollywood actor to write it, and this led to the actor and I becoming close friends. I like being an amateur writer. Editing Get Wild enabled my entry into restricted wildlife areas in the company of world-class scientists. No Ordinary Stalking enabled my entry into activism, and Hollywood. My only regret is not having studied English when I was young. Writing’s a lot easier if you know what you’re doing. My advice to other amateur writers is to always put your best pen forward. An email to Sister Sue or a sticky note to Manager Mike is exactly the practice you need to become proficient. Bit by bit, study your language. Accept that you will have bad writing days, and have faith that your words will take you somewhere wonderful. Anyone who loves to write can learn to write well. The key is passion.

DEFENDER OF THE FAITH By Herbert Eyre Moulton (1927 – 2005) Written for the Information Magazine in June of 1958 Foreword by Charles E.J. Moulton My father Herbert Eyre Moulton (1927 - 2005) lost both his parents during that year of 1958. His father and my paternal grandfather Herbert Lewis Moulton, a World War I veteran whom everyone called Big Herb, died of a heart attack. After that, my father's mother must have been distraught. She got run over by a train on her way to work. This was a very poignant and very fitting for this feisty and strong Irish lady: she died standing up. It is then amazing to see how intellectual and calm my father seemed to be when he wrote the following piece for the Information Magazine in June of 1958. When his girlfriend died of cancer, my father, desperate and emotionally drained, left America on a two week vacation in his ancestrial home of Ireland. This stay lasted for seven years and brought him at least as much success as he the success he had experienced in the.United States. This stay eventually led him to Germany, where he met my mother, operatic mezzo-soprano Gun Kronzell. The rest, as they say, is history. This is my father's article from June 1958. My mother Nell was an ardent Catholic all her life and something of a Revivalist at heart. She believed in standing up and being counted, and she never sat down again. That is why, whenever I read about the new look along the sawdust trail, I wonder what she'd have to say about it all. It's a cinch Nell wouldn't recognize the old Gospel Train in its Madison Avenue streamlining. She liked her religion straight, thank you, liked it as well as she liked a good fight. Come to think of it, her one encounter with militant unorthodoxy may have helped bring on the present era of soft voices and cushioned condemnation. Nell approached belief with wide open emotion and when said she'd gladly die for the faith, she meant it. To her as to many an Irishman the saints were cronies, especially the Blessed Virgin. Our Lady didn't live next door to us - she had moved right in to help with the housework. This Catholicism, however intense, was no impediment to respecting those outside the fold, providing they were sincere. Nell never condemned anybody - she loved them and felt sorry they were missing so much. As for prejudice, it was the Devil's work and anybody who practiced it was, in her own words, "a hypocritch of the first water." My father Big Herb had no official religous status, but he was better Catholic Dad than many in our parish, and his family was of vigorous if diverse Protestant stock. There were Presbyterians and Episcopalians and Transcendentalists and Free Thinkers and Swedenborgians and even a Quaker or two in the middle distance. Nell wanted me to know all about all these demoninations, what made them "other" and how they got that way. We must have toured every church and temple in the vicinity, guided by astonished beadles, custodians and janitors. Nell always called these personages "dear", and made sure they locked up afterwards. Religious toleration didn't stop at the vestibule door. Everybody was welcome in our house. If they were atheists, if they didn't revere the Blessed Mother as Scripture says we should, if they were agnostic or fallen away or just indifferent, they were wrong and Nell never tired of belaboring the point. But as long as they were people and in our house, they got the full treatment, and even in the rockiest depression that meant anything from hot toddies and sherry-soaked fruitcake to a seven-course meal. It was during those hard days of the 30's that our bungalow began taking on the aspects of a soup kitchen. Impoverished spinsters with cats and cataracts, an artist on relief, a retired handyman named Peter the Indian, an unemployed barber (two bits for a kitchen haircut and I can still feel the pull of those handclippers) - any number of down-and-outers crowded our table. None of them ever left without a shopping bag crammed with jars of jelly and fresh soup. No matter how bad things got, we were never of relief and they were, and that made all the difference. As long as there was a WPA, a PWA or any practical nursing to be done, Nell worked to help Big Herb while that gentle soul plugged away trying to sell insurance, appliances, anything to help supplement Big Herb's modest income. We always had more than enough, somehow. We had parties and battles and pets and a second-hand car born 1928, a Studebaker named Henrietta. We packed lunches and went off to the opera, the World's Fair, zoos, ballparks and museums. One weekend we started out for a short ride (we lived in a suburb of Chicago named Glen Ellyn) and ended up at Niagara Falls. Everybody cut corners and everybody had fun. Friday night we went to the movies, lured by Bank Nite, free dishes and good shows. Because prices changed from fifteen cents to a quarter at 6:15, people hurried through dinner and read the evening paper in their seats before the feature. Our milkman delivered his own vino with the dairy products. Big Herb continued to make homebrew beer in the basement long after Repeal, and his men friends rolled their own cigarettes. The women knitted and crocheted, while the more ambitious hooked rugs or entered contests, did each other's hair or tried their hand at short story writing. We kids gave puppet shows and pageants, fell out of tree-houses and fought. Saturday night there were crowds of poker players, not a one of them with a dime to his name, and during one slump when ours was the only house with the light and the gas still turned on, they carted home bushel baskets of coal to heat drafty old mansions left over from Palmier Days. We were the happiest people we knew. It was into this kingdom of raffish good will towards everybody that two woebegone missionaries wandered one rainy Saturday. Nowadays, as I said, gospel harvesters plow the fields and scatter with such gentility that you hardly know they're around. But a couple of decades ago you couldn't miss them. This particular brood barnstormed for the Lord in an antique limosine painted white and plastered with signs proclaiming the imminence of Kingdom Come. As if this weren't enough to scare the daylights out of anybody, a nest of loudspeakers topsides saturated the target area with glad tidings of approaching Armageddon, hellfire and judgment. "I'd like to know what these people think they're doing," Nell mused from the front window. "The man and woman in that goofy car. I've never laid eyes on them before, have you guys?" As usual I was presiding at a levée for urchins, all of us dressing up to play King, The Prince and the Pauper, or whatever we had seen at the Glen Theatre the week before. The evangelists didn't seem to be doing too well, according to Nell, who was never nosy unless something really special were afoot. They had tried every door on the street, finding nobody home (and everybody was) or getting a reception chilly enough to freeze Gehenna. "Well, I think it's just awful about those poor slobs," Nell worried. "The least somebody could do would be to ask them in, no matter what they're peddling." It never occurred to her that these might be religious rivals. She wouldn't have admitted the existance of any to begin with. At last the discouraged Lost Sheep (which is what we called them ever after) approached our porch. Nell was ready for them. She flung open the door with a bountiful, "Come in, come in, and get dried off!" The Lost Sheep looked at her and then at each other. "Oh, come on. You look like the Grapes of Wrath." Nell was an inspired improviser. With one of her "non sequiturs" dropped casually into the conversational works, she could jangle all talk to a standstill, and her enthusiastic misquotations were worth their weight in double takes. Now was no exception. The Lost Sheep turned their unbelieving gaze back at her and beyond to the warmth of the house. Then they bolted inside where we could get a look at them. The man was gaunt and shaggy and he scowled all the time. The woman was whispy and chinless and very much ill-at-ease. There was something pathetic about them as they flapped their magazines our way. “Never mind about that now,” Nell blocked the tactic. “What you need is a good hot cup of tea.” The Lost Sheep damply agreed. “How about a little something in it?” “Perhaps a spoonful of sugar,” the woman hesitated. “I mean, a little something to take the chill off.” “Lemon?” came the nervous suggestion. “Oh, skip it,” said Nell and she pottered out to the kitchen, abandoning us all to an eternity of embarrassment. Finally she returned with a loaded tray (and I choose the term “loaded” purposely). It was just like her to spike her teacup with a little something to take the chill off. Only with Nell you could never be quite sure. “Now then,” she beamed, ever the hostess. “What is it you’re selling?” The female Sheep gasped like someone reviving after a near-drowning. “Have you found Christ?” she asked. “I never lost Him,” was Nell’s reply. We wanted to cheer, but the woman pressed on. “I mean, do you have him in your life?” “Of course I do, dear. Don’t you?” There was a murmur of approval from the gallery and Nell continued briskly: “I go to mass and communion every Sunday of my life. And Herbert here is an altar boy.” The couple exchanged another look. The interview wasn’t going according to the book. “You see that picture over there?” My mother indicated a Raphael reproduction. “The ... that woman?” the female Sheep looked as though she were gnawing a quince instead of one of Nell’s delicious cookies. “She’s the mother of God!” Nell saluted. “Now what can I do for you?” The Sheep set down their teacups and began a faltering pitch, but their hearts were not in it. “If it’s money you’re after,” Nell interrupted, “I don’t think there’s a nickle in this house.” She cast about for her pocket book and proceeded to empty it onto the coffee table. Rosary, Novena book, keys, family photographs, compact, comb and curlers, a jar of hand cream, a can of tooth powder and a denture brush, newspaper clippings, her lower plate, the dog’s collar and a bottle-opener all clattered forth. At each item the eyes of the Lost Sheep widened and their mouths contracted almost in disappearance. Now they both looked like they were sucking quinces, or possibly alum. “Well, I’ll be jiggered!” Nell reported triumphantly. “I do have some change!” She counted out eleven cents (a nickle and six pennies). “It isn’t much, but God knows you’re welcome to it.” She pressed the coins into the woman’s palm. “Oh, don’t bother with any of that stuff,” again she waved away the proferred literature. “I haven’t even finished ‘Gone With The Wind’ yet.” But the Lost Sheep prevailed and presently were effecting an escape, their benedictions all but lost in the alleluias of “God love you!” from my mother. She closed the door and heaved one of her great sighs. “I want you brats to get out of those crazy duds now,” she suggested at length, “and I’ll go see about the potatoes.” No matter how many guests I rounded up, lunch was always hearty, generally consisting of baked potatoes, peanut butter sandwiches, junket or tapioca, baked apples and pitchers of milk or cocoa. Today it was further spiced with the novelty of the little morality play just acted out. “Irene dear,” Nell prodded my moppet of the moment. “I’m sure your mother never lets you and Brubs read at the table.” “I can’t help it, Aunt Nell. It’s this silly magazine.” Irene was turning over the pages of one of the murky periodicals left by one of the Lost Sheep. We were all as entranced as kids today are with television. “Look at this one,” her brother demanded. “Aunt Nell, what’s a Scarlet Woman?” “Look, the Pope has three heads,” Irene put in. It was true. On the front page was a crude cartoon representing the Vatican with a hydra-headed monster oozing out, each head crowned with the Triple Tiara. “Let me see that!” Nell ordered. She took one look, then snatched up the remaining copies. As I recall it, they swam with lurid slanders against the church, the Papacy and Priesthood, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass – against all things Catholic, in fact. Such exotic phrases as Whore of Babylon, and Pomps of the Devil, linger to this day. “Well, I’ll be –“ Nell’s smouldering exclamation was lost in the rustle of cheap paper. “Come on, children,” she announced suddenly. “Get your wraps and duds.” “But, Aunt Nell,” came the whines. “What about our baked apples?” “Never mind them – come on!” By the time she reached her boiling point – which was notoriously low – we had cast off for uptown in Hernrietta. I doubt if any journey has ever been achieved in more portentous silence or with greater clugging or and motor sputter. We lurched, we skidded, we bounced over the tracks. Gears grated, people honked, and my mother’s knuckles grew white with clutching the steering wheel. We all knew exactly what was happening. We had seen it before and we knew. Nellie was on the warpath. Nobody said a word. It didn’t take long to find them. The limousine was a dead giveaway and you could hear the scratchy gospel hymns amplified all over town. They had set up shop right next to the bank and the female sheep was handing out literature while partner ranted from the runningboard. Gus Niemetz the policeman stood by uneasily, not knowing what to do. “Everybody stay right in this car,” was Nell’s car as we ground to a halt. “Don’t a one of you dare get out.” The next instant a nuclear ball of Irish Catholic fury burst through the crowd, scattering umbrellas and shopping baskets like tenpins. The female Sheep spotted her but before she could sound the alarm, Nell was upon them, tugging the oracle down from his perch and shaking her fists in his face. I closed my eyes and put my head down on the back of the front seat. God help him, I thought. Heresy isn’t worth it. The scene was brief enough – more fistshaking and Gaelic oaths, propaganda dashed underfoot and appeals to the bewildered congregation, a convulsive digging into her own pockets by the chinless Sheep, then the bowling ball routine again, propelling Nell into the Studebaker and us on our way home. From the rear window we could see the limousine moving off in the opposite direction. Not until we were well into our baked apples did things return to normal, or rather, from normal. “At least I got the eleven cents back,” Nell said, dabbing at our dishes with whipped cream. “And not a word of this to Big Herb, understand? Go on, kids, eat yourselves. You must be ravished by now.” It was gratifying to hear old malapropisms again. “Everything’s going to be all right.” Everything was. The Lost Sheep never came back, not in the limousine anyway. The eleven cents went into the Sunday collection and the Raphael Madonna was moved into a more prominent position over the fireplace. From then on Nell read every publication that came into the house. Religious toleration is a grand thing, she used to say, but it’s got to work both ways.

Turkey Turkey

By Alexandra H. Rodrigues What about Turkey? Are we talking about Turkey the country in the Middle East? Its capital is Istanbul, in old times called Constantinople. Istanbul’s main attractions are its mosques and of course for me its bazaars. A stroll along the tent-like boutiques could keep me entertained for hours. The vendors would invite me into their cubicles trying to get me interested in their wares. They would ask to sit on a three legged-stool and I would be served a demitasse of espresso. The rich bitter coffee nearly stood up in the little cup. How could I not buy anything after such a cordial treatment? I floated along the Bosphorus, toward the Black Sea, on a boat crowded with tourists. At the stately Hilton Hotel, where I stayed, I would take a shower and then go to the swimming pool. As skin cancer was hardly talked about at that time, bikini beauties were soaking up the sun in comfortable deck chairs. Many of them were drinking a Pina Colada. I joined them. Turkey? Oh yes, I meant to talk about poultry not the city. Thanksgiving is standing at the doorsteps already again. I do have an excuse for having gotten sidetracked. I was in my twenties when I heard about Turkey, the bird, for the first time. In Germany we did not have Turkeys and no Thanksgiving either. After the harvest we had a celebration called Ernte-Dank-Fest, giving thanks for the harvest; a Turkey was never part of it. Only during my first Thanksgiving in the States did a Turkey and I meet. As a Flight Attendant I had to serve Turkey to passengers in First Class, carving it from a serving board on a food cart, in view of the guests. Luckily we had had extensive galley training before flaunting our culinary arts inflight. Why the name Turkey for the bird. During global trade in old times a bird called Guinea fowl shipped from Africa, became known as “Turkey cock.” The fowl had come via Constantinople, an important hub of international trade, into England. Later British settlers brought it into the States, and it was simply called “Turkey.” I remember a Turkey fiasco that happened when I introduced my parents in Germany to their first Turkey. My husband and I had bought a huge frozen Turkey to take to Berlin. To keep it frozen we let it rest on the lid of the icebox on the plane, which held the ice-cubes for the cocktail service. Our enthusiasm had gone overboard. My mother’s oven was much, much too small. We had to let it defrost and the next day my husband butchered into pieces. We ate Turkey for many days. It all defeated the purpose of having a crisp, enticing bird on a big platter, inviting us to a meal. Ironically, the name of Turkeys in the Turkish language, is Hindi, short for bird from India. It seems the Turks may have originally thought that those birds came from India – thanks to a little miscalculation by Columbus. I will end here, not to confuse the issue any further and not to spoil all our appetite for the coming Thanksgiving feast.

Autumn Night By Alexandra H. Rodrigues Soft, humidity drunk air, is brought in by the ocean to the shores of Long Island. A greenish dew hangs in the crowns of the trees. It has been the hottest September in years. The canal shows moldering, fermenting seaweed and algae from the Great South Bay along to its end. The trees stand erect like the motionless guards in front of the Queen’s Palace, not allowing their twigs to bend. As I put my head out the window, the humidity soaked air nearly took my breath away. My car brooded heat the way I picture heat to rise in a chicken coop. All this is experienced today, on Long Island, near the water. I pity the commuters who travel on the railroad or subway! Picture them, as they stagger along the steaming streets while the manholes spit hot air. Those brave people earn every penny that Manhattan salaries pay as bonus. It is a well-known fact that city wages could reach double what is paid on the outskirts. Came lunchtime, pictures on the TV began to show warnings about severe thunder, lightning and storms. It even mentioned the possibility of tornados and street flooding. A nasty reminder of the storm that hit Long Island several years back. This could bring with it power outages; some areas already were experiencing such. Then the rain came! Relief of sorts but not enough for the grass as it had thirsted for days. As if to apologize for the recent turmoil the sky obliged with a light show. Not a rainbow but a broad opening between dissipating clouds. Colors of a rainbow mashed up into a shaken palette. The canal now clear, even sparkling. All seaweed gone! Relieved and delighted, I opened my sliding doors. I took a deep breath, once, twice. Yes, it had cooled down. I felt my airways open. It was invigorating. A light breeze was rocking the trees to sleep. It was the end of September. The days were getting shorter. Night had set in. No stars, no moon but a pleasant night with the anticipation of the sky kids to appear shortly. Peace after the storm. Nature’s spectaculars like today’s can be experienced frequently. It is one of the reasons reason why long ago I made the South Shore of Long Island my residence.

Bilingual Anecdote By Daniel de Culla Spanish: Sol en Neblina

Un romero traía un gran zurrón y, parado en las plazas y paseos, anunciaba que le haría cantar por sacar mucho con la invención y poder costearse su estancia y viaje, y era que llevaba dentro un muchacho que cantaba diciéndole esto: -Canta zurrón, canta, si no te daré un coscorrón. Él se ponía a tararear: “Country Sunshine” de Dottie West. Estando en esto, se le acercó una señora con una botella en la que, según ella, había cogido la niebla del día, rogándole que, por favor, la examinara pues ella quería saber si esta niebla era como la de antes, cuando vivían sus padres; con lo que rieron mucho todos los presentes, al abrir el romero botella y disiparse la niebla neciamente.

English: Sunshine in the Fog A pilgrim, carrying a large pouch, stopping in squares and promenades, announced that he would sing for drawing much with the invention of being able to pay for his stay and travel, and that was that he had a boy singing, saying: "Sing, if I will not give you a bump on the head!" He was humming: "Country Sunshine" by Dottie West. A lady approached him with a bottle in which, according to her, she had caught the fog of the day, begging him to please examine her, since she wanted to know if this mist was like the one before. Her parents; with whom everyone present laughed a great deal, had opened the first bottle and dissipated the fog foolishly, just a foot away.

Would the world have seen a difference without me? By Alexandra Rodrigues This question can only be answered in connections with our beliefs. In the vastness of time it seems presumptuous to single oneself out as an influence on mankind. However, just like a stone thrown into water, makes rings, small ones, then bigger and bigger, maybe small happenings in my life caused changes and sent ripples into the universe. Following situations come to mind. Karen, a friend of mine since grammar school went thru the agony of a broken heart at the age of 22. Her boyfriend left her after a four-month engagement, her mother died the same year, and she had lost her job. She spoke of suicide and I was afraid she truly contemplated it. I succeeded in getting her into therapy and listened hours at end to her woes. She found herself again and today is the matriarch of a happy family. She never forgets to call me her Fairy Godmother. After World War II, I got acquainted with a very romantic man by the name of Albert. He courted me and one day invited me to a sleigh ride in the woods at the outskirts of our hometown Berlin. I had just finished some Russian novels, where sleigh rides were mentioned and the idea intrigued me. Albert was older than me and not my type. He was petite with fine bones and carried the aura of an emancipated prince. However he was the only person I knew who owned a sled pulled by two horses. The sled won and I accepted his invitation. It was a scenic day with light snow falling. The trees were wearing their wintery outfits, and cozy blankets kept us warm. Albert called me “Princessa” and confessed his great love for me stating that life without me would be unbearable. I let him hold my hand, flirted a little, but I was glad when we got back to town and parted with a lip kiss. This was more than he had ever gotten from me and I did not like it. All the before and after is a story in itself. Anyhow I made myself inaccessible to him after this ride. Left his approaches by phone and his sentimental letters unanswered. Then it all stopped. He had committed suicide. Had something else in his life happened or was it because of me? I do not wish to know. Another time I attended a dance at a local pub. Alcohol was flowing plentiful which was common practice in those days. I had danced and flirted a lot with a good looking guy named Walter, about my age, and all was well. But he drank too much and wanted me to take off with him on his motorcycle. I declined and he left insulted and tipsy. Shortly afterward I got a lift home from somebody else. Only a few blocks down the road we spotted the motorcycle on its side, a body next to it. It was Walter. We put him into the car and sped to the nearest hospital. Walter was badly hurt and I remember sitting next to him in the back of the car holding his head in a way so he could breathe and praying that he may survive. He did. Often I think what could have happened, had I been on the back of the motor cycle. Would all have been fine? Or would I have been thrown onto the hard pavement? Maybe gotten killed? Also, what would have happened had I not opted to refuse his offer? Would Walter have bled to death on the road? What a difference a day, an hour, a minute can make! We are like flowers. At times, we are ignored by some, bringing joy to others. Once I rescued 50 velvety, dark red roses from the overhead rack of a Pan Am plane. They had been given to opera star Maria Callas by shipowner Aristotle Onassis in Rome. As Flight Attendant, I had been assigned to serve First Class and Maria Callas. So when she got ready to leave the plane in Teheran I took the roses down and intended to hand them to her. She motioned with her bejeweled hand that she did not want them. We had a layover in Teheran too, so I took the roses and while the sun was setting on the mountains near my hotel, I looked at the flowers, wondered about the idiosyncrasies of celebrities and enjoyed the mellow fragrance of the flowers. As to what makes the world turn, I found no answer then and I have no answer now. Comment by author and poet

Thaddeus Hutyra:

“We are like flowers. Ignored by some, bringing joy to others.” Life is exactly like that, in the Sun’s rays and during the storm, all situations possible. The story is written with intense artistic flavor, very interesting and with a fast track. Re choices done in one’s life should never apologize to himself/herself, assuming that we all are responsible for ourselves. Another rule applies to stable and long term relationships, such as mother and father – child, wife -- husband, and so on. There are many people asking themselves questions such as: “Would the World have seen a difference without me?” The answer is one never knows. Albert Einstein, for example had a superb influence on the humanity with his Theory of Relativity but who was his mother? Perhaps she was a simple woman who never ever dared even to think about her importance to the fates of many people. If she were not around there wouldn’t also be that kid called Albert who later in his life would turn into a world renowned scientist. Many parents of famous people were simple villagers who know nothing about the world but their offspring fought upon change. So…anything is possible. Enigmatic story, indeed, with philosophical inclination…

Thinking of Food By Alexandra H. Rodrigues An excerpt from Emotion in Motion: Tales of a Stewardess (2016) Going through my Pan Am memorabilia, I came across several menus from our Lunch and Dinner Services in First Class. It was then that I realized how blasé I had become through the years. From nearly starving through the War years and being thrilled with dandelion salad and greasy, grimy leftovers from Russian soldiers’ canteen food (when a slice of toasted cornbread with fatty bacon was a delicacy exclusively for holidays), I have risen to become part of the top of culinary consumers. Orange blossoms (Champagne and freshly squeezed orange juice) for breakfast or a Bloody Mary (vodka and tomato juice spiced with horseradish and decorated with a slice of fresh lemon) after a night of walking up and down the aisles of a transatlantic jet serving passengers was commonplace when arriving at a crew hotel for a 24-hour layover. Lunch was often taken at airport restaurants anywhere from New York to Zurich to Rome, Beirut, Tehran, Karachi, Hong Kong, Dakar, Johannesburg to Dar es Salaam, Tanzania (where the blue Tanzanite gem comes from).The tanzanite has become quite a gemstone of choice demanding a high price now. I could have picked it up cheap, but I did not do so. Another opportunity missed. Memories of bratwurst in Germany, curry dishes in New Delhi, and Calderada, a soup made with at least six different kinds of fish, in Portugal still today make my taste buds tingle. While we were indulging on those local tidbits, the aircraft was provisioned by the station’s commissary with superb specialties of the respective country and the everstandard juicy prime rib of beef which we cooked and served rare, medium or well done to those passengers unwilling to indulge in unfamiliar fare. Menu cover celebrating the anniversary of the Statue of Liberty A Dinner menu consisted of cocktails, hors d'oeuvres, fish, a main entrée of choice, cheeses from all over the world and dessert of irresistible quality, like Cherries Jubilee or vanilla ice cream with a thick chocolate sauce. All this was followed by cordials. French wine, Brut Champagne and beer were available without limitations – in First Class that is! I became an expert in popping Champagne corks and am still admired for my dexterity in it. Here are a few dishes I will never forget. Russian caviar, served with chopped egg and lemon slices, accompanied by Stolichnaya Vodka. Lobster Thermidor. Quail with grapes. Cornish Hen. Veal chops with Calvados sauce. Pâté foie gras and truffles. Not to forget the Cherries Jubilee: Sour cherries slightly heated, and, served over heart-melting vanilla ice cream. Well, I am getting carried away and hungry. A good espresso for digestion to end the feast in style. On international layovers of several days in the 1960s and 1970s, I made it a habit to sample the native delicacies: Kippers for breakfast in Scotland, avocado and eel in Mexico, chorizo and eggs in Portugal, venison with lingonberries in Sweden, sushi in Japan. Different roasts from the carving board in England, Kobe beef in Guam, turtle soup, goulash and a multitude more. Today I would settle for oysters and Eggs Benedict. I guess you can understand that my taste has been spoiled, confused and quite unconventional during the years. I am thinking about world-renowned chefs! My husband could have joined their ranks. He loved to cook. He had worked as a butler for several mega-rich families where the old ladies loved him as he was very handsome. Only the best chefs worked for those families. My husband had plenty of opportunity to mingle and taste the Pheasant Under Glass, the Beef Wellington and more. From there Pan Am got hold of him, and they sent him to become acquainted with the services of superb dining at Maxim’s in Paris. He was not to learn to cook, but to excel in the elegant ways of serving food. All through my marriage I profited from those experiences.

Above: Studio press photo of baritone, actor and author Herbert Eyre Moulton and his wife Gun Kronzell, editor-in-chief Charles E.J. Moulton's parents, during their successful years as "The Singing Couple". Here seen with their dog Fred, whom Herb rescued from loneliness in Ireland back in 1963.

RIGHT! WE'LL HAVE A PARTY! from the autobiography "DAMN THE DEPRESSION, ANYWAY!" Written by my father the late great Herbert Eyre Moulton (1927 - 2005) Herb worked as MCA-Record’s Show-Star Herbert Moore. He also conducted the Camp Gordon Chapel Choir during the Korean War, toured with his wife, the operatic mezzosoprano Gun Kronzell, around the world as “The Singing Couple”. This true story takes place in the posh, spiritually rich but financially poor 1930’s. The picture here to the right is of my father many years later, during a party in the 1960’s (how fitting), drinking wine, chatting with his good friend, the famous Swedish opera tenor Nicolai Gedda. Now, fasten your seatbelts. Step into the time machine. Get ready to visit the culturally endowed relatives living the posh life back in the Illinois that was, sometime in the 1930’s. As long as anyone can remember, our home had always been THE HOUSE OF HOSPITALITY. Through thick or thin, palmy days or the Depths of the Depression between the extremes of my father Big Herb's practicality and Nell's "To Hell with Poverty we'll sell the pig!" liberality, we always managed to make every visitor feel happily at home. Most of the regulars at this snug little oasis of ours were survivors of a picturesque world that, since the Stockmarket Crash of 1929, had evaporated fast. Their families had once held sway in a score or more of vast old turreted wooden-frame mansions which still ornamented the town, left over from the Gilded 1880's, a few of which still stand to this day, plaqued (as they say) as Historical Landmarks. One of these - Eastbourne - had from the mid 1890's been my Dad's family home, last occupied by my Uncle Harper and his peripetitic family - three sons and his great billowing Southern Belle of a spouse, Clara by name, but known to all and sundry (all except us, that is) as 'Honey". They blowsily occupied the old manse until late in the 1930's, when it was unfortunately demolished. To this day it forms a marvelously gloomy, House-of-Usher background for a lot of my earliest memories - fifteen huge, high-ceiling rooms, many with fireplaces. Of these, the room I remember best was the library, a museum really, cluttered as it was with bayonets, shell-casings, dress-swords with sashes, handguns, even spiked officer's helmets from the old German Imperial Army, just the thing for our boyhood extravaganzas inspired by the historical movies we saw on Saturday afternoons. These were souveniers of the time in France in 1917-18 by my Dad Herbert Lewis Moulton and his two younger brothers, Wes and Harp. The rest of this spacious old mansion contained family and servants' quarters, hotel-sized kitchen and laundry facilities - Eastbourne had been a popular cross-country inn until my Grandfather bought it to house his lady-wife and brood of six children, plus servants that included at least one live-in nanny. One of them was a wonderful black Mammy, Maisie pardon the lapse! - with her daughter Rachel, my first experience with folk of other colors, and a delightful one or was, too. (Rachel, grown to young womanhood, was my baby-sitter when I was a nipper.) Further amenities included a billiard room, a glazed-in conservatory (south side, of course), and a large lofty attic filled with memorabilia of untold splendor, a porte cochere, and two pillared porches, which Honey in that booming Texan foghorn used to call Galleries, much to Nell’s unconcealed disgust: “Haw-puh! Frank! Leeeeeeeeeeee! What yawl doin’ on that gall’reh?” On the sloping, wooded lawns were the remains of a croquet- and a tennis-court, outbuildings where the cows and the horses were billeted (named Chummy and Princess, and Duke and Lightning, respectively) and by the time we began playing in it, a slightly ramschackle summer house. People can talk all the like about the delight about the ante-bellum Southland, but its postbellum northern counterpart, based, not on slavery, but on industry and commerce, had a no-nonsense charm of its own. It was in settings such as these that was played out on that long, in retrospect lovely American twilight up to the start of the first World War, which is celebrated in plays such as O’Neill’s “Ah, Wilderness!” – tea-dances, ice-cream socials, masquerades, and amateur family theatricals, with house-music provided by all five of the Moulton boys, with sister Minnie at the piano. After the war, the twilight lingered on spasmodically until the grand old memory-drenched house was sold off and demolished. Even then, in the late 1930’s, we’d gather a carload of friends and drive over on a summer evening to pick basketfuls of the fragrant lillies-of-thze-valley which still flourished in a corner of the original garden. It was the dispossessed heirs of these once proud dynasties, the greying sheiks of yesteryear with nicknames like “Babe” and “Bunny” and “Wop”, with their ex-flapper Shebas, all raucous voices, middle-age spread, and clouds of perfume with names like Mitsouki or Emeraud, who used to crowd our little dining room on Saturday evenings (the table top decked in an old army blanket) for intense penny-ante poker sessions, sometimes using matchsticks for chips, laughing at off-color jokes way above my head and puffing their Old Golds and home-rolled “coffin nails”, while the Budweiser flowed and soda crackers got crumbled into bowls of Big Herb’s special chili-con-carne, to the accompaniament of Paul Whiteman records or Your Hit Parade on the radio-phonograph hard by in the living-room. I loved these gatherings in my parents’ cronies – Big Herb’s out-of-work business colleagues or American Legion (Forty-and-Eight) buddies and their wives or lady-friends. Many of them had been the blithe and breezy Charleston-dancing, hipflask toting young marrieds, who (I was told); used to switch partners on weekend treasure-hunts, and in that still infamous Crash had lost everything but their social stature (whatever that amounted to) and their sense of humor. Thus had John Held, Jr. given wa to the late Scott Fitzgerald. To me these people were as fascinating as visitors from another galaxy, caught in what today would called a time-warp. Authemntic “Twenties-Types” (if one thinks about them now) and I couldn’t get my fill looking at them – everything they did shone with enough of the glamour of lost wealth which set them apart from everyone else we knew (God, was I that much of a snob at the age of nine or ten?). Special fun were those evenings which suddenly turned musical, like the time when a lady with hennaed hair unloosed one of Delilah’s arias from “Samson” in a rich boozy contralto, then huddled at the keyboard with a lady friend to harmonize “Sing to Me, My Little Gypsy Sweetheart”. (Nell later reported that they were both sharing the same “beau”, who happened to be our family dentist. (What a sensation that was!) So the poker sessions rolled merrily along, spiced now and then with one of the men getting sobbing drunk and passing out on the livingroom couch, or one of the married couples indulging in a strident battle which mesmerized me even while being hustled out to my bedroom by one or the other of my parents. Boy, it was as good as having a movieshow right in our own living room. Besides which, they were all exceedingly nice to me, slipping me a shiny new dime now and then or taking time out to show me card tricks or draw pictures, or sometimes work with me on my pappet theater or Erector Set. One of our occasional guests was the cartoonist Dick Calkins – Lt. Dick Calkins, as he signed his Buck Rogers in the 25th century newspaper strip. One Saturday eveing, though half-sozzled, he spent a good hour painstakingly drawing cartoons of Buck and his girlfriend Wilma Deering on facing pages of my autograph book and dedicated to me alone. (Naturally, treasures such as these eventually disappeared – gone, alas, like our youth too soon.) Thee smoky, sometimes emotion-charged pow-wows weren’t quite the proper fodder for the local newspapers, but there were plenty of other tidbits lovingly provided by Nell at the drop of a phone-call.

Kate In Heat By Katherine Brittain “Is this your novia, me ijo?” asks Pancho’s Padrino while gazing at me. “Are you sure you are wise to marry a blond-haired, blue-eyed Anglo woman? Have you not already fought off other suitors? How much training will you need to keep the life lessons?” Pancho answers his Godfather with a solemn air. “As much training as the Master gives me.” A pause of silence, and both break their solemn gaze and break out in raucous laughter. “Accompany me to the trono in the consultorio. Orita!” “What’s consultorio?” I whisper, putting my lips up against Pancho’s ear. “Spiritual consultation room.” “What’s trono?” “Throne.” Pancho shimmies at the kiss of my breath. “What’s orita?” “NOW!” Pancho laughs from his belly. When El Padrino walks inside to advise his wife of our departure from the house to the consultorio, I anxiously try to drag Pancho to the car. “We’re leaving! Next thing you know, we’ll be playing with a Ouija Board!” Pancho places both hands on my shoulders and kisses my forehead. “Don’t back out on me now, Kate,” he warns. “You promised you would do this.” Sure I promised—after he slipped the ring on my finger last night, and kissed me. I was in the throes of Deseo, for God’s sake. But I’m an Episcopalian. And an anthropologist. I am not sure at all that Pancho’s proposal warrants this conditional step into what Dr. Quintanilla in his lectures calls Mexican Folk Culture. Still, I realize it is obviously Pancho’s Mexican folk culture as well, though I would have never known it. Pancho’s parents take us to the country club for Sunday brunch. He’s been reading The Web Developer’s Life Manual in our bed before sleep. And he looks like Antonio Banderas. »»» The consultorio is a lean-to situated in the middle of a forest of low-slung, spring-green mesquites. The dirt under the trees looks swept. A shepherd-mix dog lies in the dappled shade outside a door that is hand-labeled above the jamb, “EL TRONO.” Once we’re inside, Pancho unwraps a foil covered log of self-igniting charcoal, sets two of the poker chip-sized discs in a sooty brazier poorly welded to a long handle, and lights them with a long-barreled lighter. He grabs a pinch of something out of a filmy plastic bag from what I presume is an altar. When the flame settles into a steady burn, Pancho drops a pinch of tiny opaque rocks on top of the glowing coal. An unfamiliar smell is wafted on the smoke tendrils, filling the small room with the smell of copal. El Padrino is . . . . . . oh my god, slipping on a leather vest. He puts on a sombrero retrieved from what is, apparently, El Trono, and nods at Pancho who steps into the veil of smoke, and carefully moves the hot brazier close to the right side of El Trono so that the smoke is mysteriously interacting with El Padrino. El Padrino slumps and rests his hands on his knees, palms turned upward. He takes a profoundly deep breath with his eyes closed. Pancho, who is like somebody I no longer recognize, extends his upturned palms gently towards his Godfather in a beckoning-toreceive fashion, and begins to chant in Spanish. The chair back by the wall looks safer than standing so close to this seemingly cultish ritual, so I back up to sit. I cross my arms, and sling my right leg over my left thigh, holding on tight as the waves of unintelligible words crescendo. El Padrino’s arms slowly rise, reaching towards the heavens. His head then lolls between his shoulders, Richard Nixonstyle. When his whole body begins to shimmy and shudder, my own body responds in a similar manner as a wave of horror rushes through me. Then his arms come down from the heavens, and his torso straightens. Pancho tapers off his prayers and takes a step back. El Padrino turns his head toward me. I dig my nails into my skin and hold myself rigid when he opens his eyes and they’re rolled back in his head so that only the whites are showing. I feel I am about to pass out when he leans forward and speaks to me in a rough, commanding voice, “Bienvenidos, Catarina. Venga aqu!” I feel he has possessed me, just like that. I swoon. He reaches down beside his throne and brings up to his lips a tequila bottle for a healthy swig. Saying nothing, but grinning over his beer belly, he leans to bring to burning life the moist tip of a stubby, gnawed cigar. How can he see through the whites of his eyes? My own eyes are threatened by pulsing blackout. He’s a medium! And I desire him! “Pancho! My love, save me!” Pancho grabs my hand and drags me into the cloak of smoke. Godfather takes another swig of tequila. Studying me, he nods, “Muy bonita, Pancho.” He smiles a lewd smile and yanks me down onto his lap and squeezes both my breasts. He then puts a restraining arm around my waist. “All women love this General,” he switches to English. “And you, Kate?” “I love all Generals,” I say deliriously. “Ha hah! Good!” Grabbing my chin, he plows my lips through his black bushy mustache. He pushes me off his lap. “Who do you think you are!” I yell from the hard-packed dirt. “He takes another swig of tequila before returning the cigar to his mouth. He walks over to Pancho upon whose head he places the sombrero. “Someday my namesake will take my place in this consultorio!” I allow a comprehending smile, then whoop, “Thank God! I love this General!” I rush into Pancho’s arms and kiss him passionately. “Good, Catarina..” El Padrino takes the sombrero from off Pancho’s head and places it on mine. He takes another swig of tequila. “Receive my blessing,” speaks the spirit of the lusty General Pancho Villa.

The WASP’s First Bus Trip Adapted from The WASP AND EL CURANDERO ~Katherine Brittain~ Although he is senior professor of Anthropology at Pan American University, I’m coming to imagine Dr. Yusuf Benici as a 16th century Royal Ottoman Turk, charging at me from atop his black Arabian horse, brandishing his yataghan sword. (I think I saw that in Lawrence of Arabia.) Damn him! He uses his students to stack his internationally recognized MexicanAmerican Folklore Archives in order to promote his professional reputation. As part of our grade, Benici requires us to produce ten interviews for each and every one of his classes we sign up for, and I’ve now had him for three classes straight. Thank god, this Mexican American Folklore class is my last class with him. I’m sure if Benici believed in God, he would thank him, too, for Benici doesn’t like me. I don’t fit the Hispanic college student profile. I’m 43 years old. I’m wealthy. And he hates my jokes. My offerings to the Archives are some of the few in English. Surely, one can imagine I might have a hard time with this assignment. I do not speak Spanish, not even Tex-Mex. I took Latin in high school. I’m a WASP. WASP is a social distinction I have learned, namely that W.A.S.P. equals White Anglo Saxon Protestant equals the WASP women who have Sunday brunch at the country club, who shop for clothes at Sylvia’s, who have elegant manners, whose children attend private school, and who drive white Suburbans. That’s just my perspective. In my particular case you can add blond hair and blue eyes. Ma’lena is my neighbor and the only English speaking Mexican folklore story-teller I know. Today, I have been plying Ma’lena for more of her stories as she sits regally in her lawn chair with her green garden hose, squirting the surrounding plants, and sometimes accidentally on purpose, me and my folklore collection forms. “Please tell me. Who is Reynaldo?” I ask for the third time after Ma’lena obliquely mentions the titillating name and then plays out the line on which she has me hooked. Finally, she leans towards me, searching my eyes long and hard before saying, “I’m taking you to meet Reynaldo on Monday. You must not say no. It’s not for me to say here, but he has more stories than you will ever be able to write down. And he’s a Healer.” I gather up my damp collection forms, all of them alarmingly blank. Ma’lena appears to be fresh out of stories. I have scooped the bottom of the well of my finest and final Englishspeaking ethnographic source. But Monday a miracle happens when Ma’lena introduces me to her cousin, Reynaldo. I mean, its hell being a bored middle-aged wife and homeroom mother. So what better salvation than to research a curandero like Reynaldo? (WASPs would call him a witchdoctor.) And now, surely, Benici will respect my academic effort towards a thesis. Thursday, 19 October 2000 I’m skipping Benici’s class, and leaving today on my First Trip into the Field. I am no longer an armchair anthropologist, I reassure myself, since I am about to become an international traveller to Espinazo, N.L., Mexico. There we will join Reynaldo for the Mexican folk saint, El Niño Fidencio’s October Fiesta. There Reynaldo will channel the spirit of El Niño. There I will officially begin my ethnographic field research up close and personal. I get up at 4:00 a.m. to wash and roll my hair. If I don’t roll my hair right after washing and drying, it falls flat. And I would not be caught dead outside the house with flat hair; so washing, then drying, then rolling is daily protocol. Hairspray is antithetical to the desired natural look so, even following protocol, it is only a matter of time before my hair falls flat. But not as flat as if I hadn’t rolled it at all. I gather together on the bathroom counter top the hot rollers, curling iron, blow dryer, makeup bag, the two-gallon Ziploc with all the toiletries, and pinch-hit wipees I bought last night at Walmart. These I place in the lightweight (some might say flimsy) leopard skin tote I bought yesterday at my hair dresser’s. I feel this to be a practical purchase because this elegant tote also has functional wheels and a slide-out handle. I’ve never ridden a bus before, but I’m sure rolling luggage is a must for all forms of travel. The tote is the final piece of luggage I pack with my personal grooming items. Last night I packed the two suitcases with clothes—one for the warm days and one for the cold nights—as Reynaldo described the Espinazo high desert climate. (I’ll tell you here I fall in love with Reynaldo, but that’s another story that doesn’t figure into this one.) I filled a large lawn bag with bedding, including my pink puffy pillow I can’t sleep without. Thank God, Rosie, my housekeeper, was here yesterday to wash and iron everything. Four days in Espinazo is a long enough stay I thought it warranted packing three pairs of shoes, besides the sandals-with-just-a-little-heel I’m wearing today on the bus. Each pair of shoes Reynaldo matches at least two outfits. The sandals-with-just-a-little-heel match the denim-colored, silk-blend skirt and blouse I bought last Tuesday at Sylvia’s: casual, yet cosmopolitan, with a delicate Indio motif braid all over, and a swingy fringe around the hems of the blouse and the skirt. I am satisfied with my choice of travel-wear. First impressions are so important. This outfit is a cultural affirmation of the Indios, the poorest class in Mexico, who will be attending the October Fiesta commemorating the death of El Niño Fidencio. I roll the leopard skin tote to the back door with the other luggage that I will soon carry across the street to Ma’lena’s driveway. Mike, Ma’lena’s husband, is driving us to the bus station at 6:00 a.m. While waiting, I check the box of groceries, which, out of habit, pretty much contains the same stuff I take to the beach to keep the kids snack happy: Ruffles and ranch dip, Fritos and bean dip, Doritos, Hot Cheetos, Oreos, beef jerky, chewing gum, and coffee necessaries. At Reynaldo’s request I bring water, I fill Ben’s ice chest, the one he uses for his Lone Star beer when he’s barbequing, with one twelve pack of Dr. Pepper, one of Sprite, and one of Diet Coke. Then I also put in the 32-count pack of bottled water. I hold off putting in ice because I figure I can buy it in Espinazo. Finally, since it is still dark, I pour my third cup of coffee in my favorite Mackenzie Child mug, and sit down at the kitchen table to make sure I have my most important act together: my flowered book bag. It’s such a pretty book bag—I bought it at the McAllen Butterfly Festival. In it I stick research journal, box of pens, academic reading (Mircea Iliad, Shamans), leisure reading (a psychoanalytic treatment of Dante’s Inferno), needlepoint project (boredom is unbearable), six rolls of film, camera, three VHS tapes, video camera, charger, six micro cassettes, lecture recorder, and a pack of AA batteries. The bag is overstuffed and heavy, but the things I can’t live without are all together in my direct possession. I hear Ben, The Protector, getting into the shower. He believes the stories about tourists being kidnapped right off the highway to Monterrey, the route we will be taking to Espinazo. He’s being very accepting about all this. Why? Because I made such a strong case for the importance of my thesis? Because Ma’lena’s going and she’ll tell him everything that happens? (Ma’lena is the master whisperer in our neighborhood, and Reynaldo’s her cousin.) Dissing Ben’s fear, I rally round the consummate delight of going on My First Trip into the Field, which is certainly a milestone in my sheltered White Anglo Saxon Protestant (WASP) life. The furthest into Mexico I’ve ever gone, is just across the border to Reynosa where the night-life is cheap, and Ben protects me from lewd looks. Reynaldo left for Espinazo yesterday to prepare for the Fiesta. His departure left his wife, Lucy, alone, so Ma’lena and her sister, Linda, and I went to check on Lucy before we three left, too. I ended up taking the four of us to Luby’s for dinner. Talk turned to Espinazo. “I wish you were going, Lucy,” I had said. “I wish I could go, too. I used to go all the time when we went in a car. I tried taking the bus three years ago, and it was so hard on me, the rough ride, the bus fumes. Aye yai yai! It took me a week to recover. But you shoulda seen me, Katherine. I could run up and down Bell Hill because the healing energy is ’specially strong there.” “Will I see Bell Hill?” I asked thinking of the so-called vortexes in Sedona where Ben had run up and down a mountain with the kids without getting out of breath. Perhaps the philosophy of placebos is universal, including those related to New Age whimsies. I like to read about it, but I don’t believe. “You betcha. Bring me back a fresh rock from there. I’ll sleep with it under my pillow. Maybe my headaches will go away.” “You are going to be blown away by Espinazo, Katherine!” Ma’lena startled me with her exuberance. “We won’t tell you too much now because we want to see the expression on your face when you experience it firsthand. But you’ll be Blown. A. Way.” Ma’lena, who knows me well, looked devilish. “You can ask me one question, now,” Linda offered kindly, “and I’ll answer to the best of my ability.” I chewed thoughtfully on a bite of liver dipped in Heinz 57. “There is one thing that has been bothering me a lot. In the first place, I’m going to be far from home in a foreign country. In the second place, I don’t know the customs of Mexico, much less Espinazo. So in the third place I am very afraid of making a fool of myself. Please tell me what I need to know so I don’t embarrass myself.” “That’s about fifty questions you’re asking right there!” Ma’lena said indignantly. “No!” Lucy squealed. “There is one thing she must do to avoid embarrassment: You must wach yur cheechee, Katherine!” The three who are familiar with Espinazo customs whooped and hollered in recognition of a good joke and slapped their knees until they got themselves worked up. I just sat there because I didn’t know what a cheechee is. The three laughed even harder, but now because I don’t know what a cheechee is. Customers at other tables turned to disapprovingly look at us. “She doesn’t know what a cheechee is!” Ma’lena choked out. I felt irritated. “So what is it?” “You know! You know! Yur curlies!” Lucy screamed. “Do what? Your curlies? What are curlies?” Lucy screamed again with her mouth wide open and eyes bugged when I said ‘curlies.’ “You know. Down there. You gotta take baby wipes to wach yur cheechee.” (A fresh wave of hilarity, napkins pressed against streaming eyes) “Everyone in Espinazo knows when you haven’t wached yur cheechee!” I had never been so embarrassed in my life. “Can’t I take a shower?” I whispered, leaning forward into the center of the table, hoping they’d take a hint and tone down. “Chur you can take a chower. Aa-h-h-h-hah-hah-hah.” “Ya’ll are embarrassing me. Is there a shower or not!” The three now held their sides to keep them from splitting. I left the table to pay the bill and went to wait for them in the car. Thank God I bought wipes. There’d better be a shower. What if there’s not a shower? Four days of flat hair… the horror. »»» The familiar sound of the Castillo’s garage door rising on its motorized chain announces it’s time to go. I go into each of my two children’s rooms to kiss them good-bye in their sleep, feeling that soft sweetness I feel when the responsibility of getting them up and to school lies not with me. In each room, I stroke the side of a face, brushing hair back away from the eyes, and bend to whisper in an ear: “Mommy loves you.” I say this even to the sixteen year-old, my oldest son. In the den, Ben takes a bag from me and pulls me to him. “I want you to have a good trip. Don’t worry about anything here. And, Katherine? I love you. So be careful in Mexico.” I want to push him away and start some sort of fight. How can I leave for Espinazo as the Field Research Ethnographer with Ben’s affectionate words competing for space in my heart, the same heart I must admit has also been captivated by Anthropology for six months? With lowered eyes, I just say, “Thank-you” before grabbing a luggage handle and heading out the door. Together, we cross the two pieces of luggage, ice chest, grocery box, leopard tote, and bedding sack to the Lopez’s driveway where Ben makes jokes about Mike having to drive three women with all this luggage. Mike looks at my luggage piled beside his truck. “To tell you the truth, Ben, Ma’lena only has one bag.” Ma’lena walks out of the garage in shorts and t-shirt, easily carrying a large sports bag, and with a fanny pack riding in the crevice between her stomach and pelvis. She stops short when she sees my pile. “Are you planning on staying a month? Good God, Katherine, what all did you bring?” Well, now, everybody knows WASPS are nothing if not prepared for any circumstance, but I don’t expect Ma’lena to understand this. “Must be the wipees taking up all the room. I’m prepared!” I feel triumphant when Ma’lena shoots a glance in the men’s direction. “That’s fine, but remember: On the trip, it’s every woman for herself,” She throws her bag into the bed of Mike’s crew cab with an easy arch that belies an overtaxed body. Ma’lena may be large, but she doesn’t jiggle that much. “In other words, don’t expect me to help you carry all that.” “Oh, come on, surely there are luggage carts,” I say with disdain for the ignorant untraveled Ma’lena represents. Ben and Mike, grunt together as they lift the ice chest up into the bed of the truck. “Yeah, right,” Ma’lena snorts with disdain for the spoiled brats I represent. Linda drives up in her maroon Rodeo. When she gets out, I notice she, too, has on shorts and a t-shirt. She has two bags, a fanny pack around her waist (I would not be caught dead with a fanny pack), and some sort of book bag in the form of a large Kirkland’s shopping sack. When she’s done throwing her own stuff in the back, she throws in the last of my pile —the flimsy leopard skin tote—as if it’s the most natural thing to help. The bed of the truck is now full. Mike and Ma’lena sit in the front, and Linda and I crowd into the back of the cab. I free a hand to wave ‘bye to Ben. A jolt of guilt and foreboding hits me in the chest. Ah, well, if I die they’ll remember me as a great adventurer. They’ll tell tales to my grandchildren of their Grandmother, the Anthropologist, who was like one of the Wild Thornberries, nine-year-old Julieanne’s favorite cartoon show. Mother and daughter don’t miss an episode. I lay my head on the lofty book bag in my lap to compress my pounding heart as we move toward the exit of the good ol’ neighborhood. Linda strokes my hair for a moment. “Are you okay, sweetie?” “Yes. I’m really excited, but I got up so early this morning,” I say into my book bag. Then I spring upright. “How does my hair look? Is it flat? Is there a shower in Espinazo? Don’t they have luggage carts at the bus terminal?” “Honey, I don’t know. I’ve never brought more than I can carry myself. But don’t worry, I’ll help you. And your hair looks fine.” Ma’lena humphs without turning around. »»» Mike drops us off in front of the doors of the McAllen bus terminal, its perimeter described by tall palm trees. I am mesmerized by this international element of McAllen which has been happening without my knowledge. I have no problem finding a bell cap to help me with my luggage. Ma’lena had purchased our tickets earlier in the week, so today, Thursday, we move quickly through check-in and then head straight to our bus; thank goodness, for the early morning terminal is a frantic milling of semi-conscious Spanishspeaking people, with very little regard for the personal space of others. When I see the Noreste bus, I breathe more easily. The open cargo doors reveal ample room. The bell cap, who can almost stand upright inside the cargo hull transfers my luggage from the cart to the bus while Ma’lena and Linda watch with mistrust, counting the bags. I tip him five dollars, turning to be sure Ma’lena sees how well this all worked out. Ma’lena stares straight past me. The bus itself is new and luxurious, with plush seats, lots of legroom, and a TV to every three seats. “Better than an airplane!” I exclaim in wonder as I sit in a seat next to the window. Ma’lena takes the aisle seat beside me. Linda has the two seats in front of us to herself. The bus is only half full when the driver checks his list of passengers. I carefully hold on to my ticket stub until I can stick it in my journal and write: Thursday, 19 October 2000. My Frst Trip into the Field. I look over at Ma’lena as the bus drives out of the terminal onto Sixteenth Street, and with a big grin, nod my head with exuberance. Ma’lena laughs. “We still have to go through customs. You’re not home free yet, dear. If we hit a red light at Mexican customs, we have to get off and get our luggage checked. I’d hate to be you if that happens. We could be there all day, and I’d have to kill ya!” Linda hoists herself around on her knees to face us. She scrounges around in her Kirkland bag beside her and pulls out a homemade necklace—a black stretchy cord with a pendant of two miniature santos, saint pictures, glued back-to-back, no more than an inch tall, of Niño de Praga on one side and Niño Fidencio on the other. “This is a protection pendent,” she says, and hands it to me. I smile. “Oh, thank you, so much.” I stick it in my purse. I wouldn’t be caught dead wearing it. As we approach the light at Mexican customs, I “think” it green. The bus driver drives right on through to the Mexican side. When the bus stops, an official comes on board, walks to the rear, peering at each passenger as he U.S. Border Patrol Inspection for Buses goes, then walks back to the front and exits the bus. Linda again positions herself to speak over the top of the seats, and says to me, “Niño Fidencio is taking care of you today. They didn’t even ask for our visas.” I notice the “you” instead of the “us” being protected, and am reminded I am the outsider. I pull the pendent out of my purse, put it around my neck, and immediately feel more like a peregrino, a pilgrim to a strange land. Linda smiles approvingly and sits back down for the two and one-half hour ride to Monterrey where we will change buses. In the meantime, Ma’lena is praying her Malena and Linda, sisters rosary, sotto voce to Scooby Doo saying “Rooby Roo!” on the TV in front of us. I skooch down into my seat, my pink puffy pillow propped between the window and my shoulder. I take out my journal and pen to write about the pendent Linda has given me, reflecting on superstition and faith, and how these two similar attitudes affect the way one moves through the world, especially if one is a peregrino. While I am in this absorbed frame of mind, Ma’lena pulls from her fanny pack, a white cardboard jewelry box of a larger than normal size. “Look at these, Katherine. These are King Solomon’s Seals.” Ma’lena shakes the box to get a heavy clinking sound and my attention. I look at the strange metal disks, about ten in all. Some have different geometric shapes and dots decorating them; some have what look like alchemical codes linked together by rays of lines. Mysterious Arabic writing rims the circumferences. But it is the pentagram on a few of them which catches my eye. “What do they do?” I ask, picturing Ma’lena in the middle of a dark forest, stirring a steaming cauldron with eyeballs and tongues floating in it “They’re talismans.” Ma’lena waits for the next question I always put out there. “Where did you get them?” “I ordered them off the Internet.” “Well, I mean, what is their history?” “I just order one at a time, according to my needs. There are forty-four of them. See? This one is the Third Pentacle of the Moon. It protects against dangers of travel. I just got it last week for this trip. This is the Third Pentacle of Jupiter. It defends against enemies. But this is the one I’ve had the longest: The First Pentacle of Mars—grants me courage, ambition and enthusiasm. It has great power against poverty. And this one, the ‘El Shaddai’, brings me all things I may desire.” Ma’lena laughs. “Deseo muchas cosas.” I look at her questioningly. “I desire many things. I think you need the one for dominance, Katherine.” “Why?” I cross my arms warily over my chest and push my back into my pillow. I always try very hard not to be dominant. I view dominance as a mean thing. “Because you have a weak nature. You tend to let people take advantage of you.” I consider this while Ma’lena distributes her gaze between my face and her fingers fiddling with her discs. “I don’t think I’m weak. I think I’m overly-socialized. What’s the Seal called for overlysocialized people?” At least I have manners. “What I was meaning to ask is, what is the history of King Solomon’s Seals? Is that the Star of David, or a Pentagram, or what, on these here?” I diddle my fingers in Ma’lena’s box, searching for a pentacled disc. “Don’t touch them! You’ll weaken their magic!” Ma’lena slaps my hand. “I had to perform certain rituals to transfer my will into these.” Ma’lena is cackling while stirring a steaming cauldron filled with eyeballs and tongues. “King Solomon’s Seals go back to ancient Jewish mysticism. The Kabbala. See this writing around the edges?” I study the Arabic writing. “That represents the name of a demon or an angel. That’s what makes them work. The possessor plugs into the special power of a particular demon. Or angel. I only buy the angel seals, myself.” “Really? Who would know?” Ma’lena does not register my words. Or rather, I think she doesn’t. “There are 72 demons and 44 of angels to choose from.” Linda’s head pops up over the seat. “Ma’lena! Sweet Mother of God, put those things away. We’re on our way to the El Niño’s Holy Land and you’re filling Katherine’s head with stories of demons. Rey would not approve. You should be praying, not playing with those things. Put them away!” As Ma’lena puts them away, she leans close to my ear to whisper: “I gave one of these to Rey, already! Teeheehee.” “Which one?” I whisper back. “The Fifth Pentacle of Mars.” “What does it do?” “Causes all demons to obey the will of the possessor.” Just like Ma’lena to take some credit for Reynaldo’s curandero power. “Who is the angel with that power?” “St. Michael the Archangel.” “Who taught you to work with these?” “I’ll tell you some other time.” Ma’lena thrusts out her pelvis to put the box back in her fanny pack. I have enough to write about now to fill up the time it takes to get to Monterrey. »»» The Monterrey bus terminal is twice as big as the one in McAllen, and probably fifty years older. And definitely dirtier. And smellier. There are no bell caps. No luggage carts. “Okay, you stay here by the bus with our luggage while I drag the ice chest to the checkin,” Linda says. Inside the bus station in Monterrey “I can’t let you do that, Linda. You stand here and let me drag the ice chest.” “You don’t know where the check-in is,” Linda says as we watch Ma’lena jauntily making the corner, swinging her one sports bag. I feel mortified. Linda takes off with my bedding bag in one hand and one handle of the ice chest on which rests the grocery box, and one of her own bags in the other. She gets a good slide going on the tiled floor as she takes quick little Chinese steps in a hunched over position. Standing outside in the fumes of a million buses, I stuff my pink puffy pillow in the slot of one of the slide-out handles. I then drape the book bag over the leopard skin tote handle and sling my purse over my shoulder. I wouldn’t be caught dead with a fanny pack. Linda’s Kirkland bag gets draped over the slide-out handle of her other luggage. The people who are lining up to board the next bus are looking at me, fortressed by luggage. Or maybe they are staring at the only blonde haired, blue eyed peregrino in the bus station. An eight-year-old child makes his way through the barricade and begs for money. I take out my wallet and give him a dollar. As he scampers off on some mysterious errand, three more scamper in. I shrug and turn away from them, but they tug at my fringed skirt and poke with their fingers, saying “Meece, Meece” until I open up my wallet again, fearing how many will approach next. I’m trying to ask them in Spanish to help me with my luggage when Linda reappears. Between the two of us, we are able to make our way slowly with the rest of our belongings to check-in where Ma’lena has already been through the line. “You were right, Ma’lena. I’ve learned my lesson, but please help me with my luggage onto the next bus. Please? It may be what I deserve, but it’s not fair to your sister.” “I’ll tell you what’s not fair, Katherine. It’s not fair for you to make us miss the bus. The bus leaves in thirty minutes. You still have to go through check-in and get your butt to the other side of the terminal. With all this crap. That’s the only reason I’m going to help. Rey would kill me if I showed up without you two.” Ma’lena grabs the handle of one of the bags and takes off through the crowded terminal. Linda and I stand in line for an interminable length of time. When we finally receive our bus transfers, we move as fast as we can (which isn’t very) toward the terminal from which we will depart. That terminal is in a completely different building. By now my sandals-with-justa-little-heel are killing me, and Linda has to stop more and more often to get the kink out of her back from pulling the ice chest. Just when we get in sight of the waiting area for our bus, where we can see Ma’lena studying our suffering, the axle of the elegant leopard skin tote breaks in half. “Goddammit, Ma’lena!” I yell, and crumple down to the floor wanting to take off my sandals; wanting to throw one at her. “Goddammit, how come you didn’t tell me to pack light in the first place?” When we finally reach the bus, I see that not even a dwarf could stand in its cargo hull. And only one bag per person is allowed underneath. I watch in disbelief as Linda, with the help of a gentleman’s hand, Mina bus hoists herself into the bus through the emergency door at the back and yells for me to throw up our stuff. Ma’lena stands guard over the ice chest going into the hull. Somehow, Linda manages to define a space for the three of us to sit on the very back seat stretching across the width of the bus, fencing us in with our luggage. There are no overhead bins; in fact, this bus reminds me of the movies depicting the decrepit Mexican bus stirring up dust clouds as it travels a dangerous mountain road, with crates of chickens tied on the roof. I notice on the side, it says Mina. I feel the excitement borne of contact with The Other (many Others who are clearly not WASPs) build and finally crescendo with the appearance of a band of musicians crowding into the seats in front of us. There’s an accordion, a trumpet, a guitar, and a bajo sexto sharing the seats with their four owners. As we bump along, I can feel camaraderie and festivity effulge throughout the packed bus. Although I can’t understand what they are saying, I’m still affected by the charge of human stimulation, and my giddiness builds to a degree that I can’t keep my mouth shut. “Play a Huapango!” I yell over the din to the musicians. Actually, I just learned this word for a style of dance from Reynaldo, and feel very proud to be able to use it in this situation. Leaning forward, I yell again, “Play a Huapango!” One musician, who is sitting with his back against the window and his bajo sexto between his legs, looks at me and then looks forward with no change of expression. “What’s wrong?” I ask Linda. Privately, I think he’s an esnob. “Did I say something wrong?” Linda shrugs. She asks one of the other musicians something in Spanish. “He says they are going to Espinazo for the Fiesta. They’ll play something there, but probably not a Huapango.” Suddenly, it’s clear this is a busload of Espinazo pilgrims. Linda grabs her Kirkland bag and starts stepping on the backs of the seats, because the aisles are crowded with luggage. Passengers give her a hand across the seat backs as she is handing out homemade necklaces, crocheted crosses, and hard candy. Children are laughing and reaching their hands out for the palanca. Someone starts singing La Paloma de Niño Fidencio, and half the bus joins in. It makes for a short trip to the town of Mina where half of the travellers get off and go home. But the rest of us peregrinos continue our sojourn to the Promised Land. »»» We’ve turned off Highway 53 onto a dirt road, just past the steelfenced desert land posted officiously, “No Trespassing” (in Spanish). Linda says this vast expanse of desert is a nuclear waste dump, and the five-hundred Espinazo residents vociferously protest its Federal presence. But oh! Look! Here to immediately greet us on this dirt road, when we look up, is a thing divine. I wonder that the divine always insists we look up—cathedral windows, church spires, prayers directed, Christ on the cross. Niño Fidencio on the adobe wall, his standards fluttering high above him, and a sign that reads, Bienvenidos, Penitentes de Niño Fidencio. The dirt road we turn onto is a straightaway with neither a bend nor a curve—a brave arrow through the high desert ecosystem of mountains, thorny plants, dry dusty ground and intermittent sightings of dust devils. It is 12:30, the time of day when the noon demon is on the prowl. She whirls and howls as she sweeps through the montes (wilderness) looking for one to devour, one stupid enough to be outside working in the heat instead of inside taking a siesta while the sun is at its zenith. The road goes on forever, but the party attitude has seemingly changed to reverential hope as the pilgrims stare out their windows, expecting miracles to bless them in the Holy Land. I notice small shrines along the right shoulder of the road. Linda explains these were erected back in 1988 by individual materias (shamans who channel the spirit of Niño Fidencio) from all over, both Mexico and the U.S., to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the crowning, the deification, of El Niño Fidencio. Espinazo! Finally, we cross over some railroad tracks, and that crossing causes the penitentes (those who endure hardship in exchange for answered prayer) to shout in jubilation. We’re in Espinazo! Before the bus skirts the village, I get my first brief impression: a postcard of true Mexicana. Flat-roofed adobe structures—homes? Really?—painted in bright colors, with rustic wooden doors, hug the dirt streets. I’m glad and sad at the same time to see pictureimperfect electricity lines; appalled to see a satellite dish on top of an impoverished shack which doesn’t even have a front door. As the bus takes a left before hitting the town proper, a parade of twenty or so people and one eight-foot gorilla approach us. Gorilla? They are carrying outlandishly large sprays of floral arrangements. Well, the gorilla is not. He stops dead in his tracks to watch our bus go by. I turn on my knees to look out the back window as the distance grows between us. He waves. I turn back around. “Linda? Did you see that gorilla? He waved at me!” “Oh, yes. That was a víejo.” “El Víejo? Reynaldo was talking about El Víejo being Lucifer, The Old One. How can El Víejo be a gorilla?” “Not just a gorilla,” Linda says, “but demons and clowns and wild animals and perverted old men. All kinds of scary things.” I try to comprehend the association between scary things, trickster things, El Viejo, and Satan. I can’t grasp it. The concept of El Viejo is too foreign, too Other. The bus drives to the outskirts of town, stopping inside a wide corral. Linda again opens the emergency exit door. There is Reynaldo, bigger than life, wearing black pants and a white shirt, grinning from ear to ear. I wonder what my hair looks like. Linda begins throwing things out to him. Ma’lena chooses to get off at the front where steps are available. Reynaldo reaches his hand up to help Linda jump down, saying “Hi, honey. How was the trip?” “Just fine. Well, Katherine brought a lot.” “I can see that.” He grins up at me and offers me a hand, too. “Hi, Sister Katherine. Quite the traveler, aren’t we?” He looks me up and down. “You look nice. Are you expecting a dinner party?” In the skirt, I have to skooch from my perch at the emergency exit in a precise position to keep my underwear undercover before Reynaldo helps me jump down. He gives me a bear hug when my feet hit the ground, whereupon a man with a big grin enters the picture with a professional video camera. He is filming Reynaldo hugging me “You’ll learn many things from this, your first trip to Espinazo,” Reynaldo says wisely to the camera man, one arm still around my shoulders. Glen filming Reynaldo in Espinazo montes I wonder what my hair looks like. The man lowers the camera to reach out to shake my hand. “Glen, from the Dallas Morning News. Reynaldo has told me you are an anthropologist, come to research the Fiesta. But honestly? You are quite a contrast to what I’ve seen so far in Espinazo. You look very nice. And you have a lot of nice luggage.” He points the camera’s eye at the dangling wheels of my leopard skin tote. “I’m not an anthropologist, yet. Please quit filming me.” Using my hand, I flip my hair back over my shoulder. Everybody grabs luggage and takes off, including Ma’lena. She thinks she’s blessing me with a merciful smile when she turns to look over her shoulder to be sure I saw her help. I predict from here on out, Ma’lena will assume saintly behavior in front of Reynaldo, who appears to be famous in Espinazo. I’m left alone with only the leopard skin tote! Well, and my book bag. And my purse which I hang around my neck like a necklace. But my relief is forestalled as I begin what turns out to be a solitary, penitential trek from the bus stop to the town. I anchor my eyes resolutely on Reynaldo’s and the photographer’s backs for succor. With almost every step placed on the rocky ground, my ankles twist in the sandals-withjust-a-little-heel. I have to hold my elegant tote up off the ground because the wheels act like brakes if I try to drag it. I’m sweating inside the silk blend. I’m sure my hair is flat. I’m so tired of lugging luggage. Dust is caking to my legs. And I repeat, my poor aching feet are wobbling across the rocky road. My toe catches a big rock, but I make a fantastic save just before the swingy fringe of my skirt bites the dust. Then, as if someone pulled a theatre curtain, I enter a different world, staged on the main street of Espinazo. There are people everywhere, most of them banded in groups. Some carry huge sprays of flowers, some are singing, and some are chanting. Some play instruments. There are vendors setting up their puestecitos on both sides of the main street. The press of colorful activity makes me forget my personal Inferno. I start digging for my camera. A wolf-thing runs across my view. When it sees me holding my camera, it runs up to me and poses, pointing from my camera to himself. I am elated to get this shot. Just before I press the button, the wolf-thing lunges at me. I shriek, but I got the shot. “You’re gonna be a magnet for those viejos, Sister Katherine!” Reynaldo calls to me from the sidewalk across the street. “But they won’t bother you at my house! Mi casa es su casa.” With a chivalrous bow and a sweep of his arm, Reynaldo invites me through a white gated arch onto a spacious porch, of which one wall is lushly draped in both fuscia bougainvillea, and yellow esperanza. An ebony tree grows in its own little plot of ground. The porch is decorated with bright fiesta pennants and flowers. This porch is beautiful. Except…uh oh. Off by itself in a private corner is an outhouse. “Reynaldo? Is there a shower in your casa?” “Not exactly. We take spit baths because the city of Espinazo only turns its water on once a day. If we’re lucky we can use a garden hose to fill up a 55 gallon trash can before they turn the water back off. I hope Ma’lena told you to bring wipes.” “Lucy did…” at Luby’s.....“Chur you can take a chower. Aa-h-h-h-hah-hah-hah.” So it’s true: four days of flat hair. Arrgghh, the horror. I soon buy a straw hat at a puesticito. It becomes the signifier of my anthropologist persona for the duration of my First Trip into the Field. I never take it off.

Powerful Memories By Alexandra H. Rodrigues Some memories survive survive the living and the dead. One such item is a little notebook bound in colorful cloth. This first impression does not speak of really old age; it is clean and very attractive. On the side, there is a little loop to put a thin pencil. The pencil itself is missing. On the inside of the first page is written in modern script – Lieselotte Graffenberg, Zehlendorf – West, Lessingstr. 12. It is the handwriting of my mother. Graffenberg is her family name. Lessingstr. is the old name for what became Limastrasse around the time of Hitler. It was already Limastrasse when I was born. Under the address is a picture of my mother taken in a Quick photo booth, black and white of course. My mom looks to be in her early twenties. She wears a turbanlike cap and a coat with a fur collar. On the next page is the poem Rheinsage. This and other poems are written in an older style of script, which I personally only taught in first grade. Here is one I tried to find on Google, but in vain. Unfortunately, my mother failed to add the poet to the poems. Here is the way it sounds in the book, in German. Ellengroesse Die Pappel spricht zum Baeumchen “Was machst Du Dich so breit? Mit den geringen Pflaeumchen?” Es sagt: “Ich bin erfreut, dass ich nicht bloss ein Holz Nicht eine leere Stange!” “Was” ruft die Pappel stolz. “Ich bin zwar eine Stange, doch eine lange, lange.” Yardsize The Poplar speaks to the little tree: “Why do you take such wide room? With your meager plums?” It says: “I am happy that I am not only a piece of wood. Not an empty stick.” “What?’ cries the poplar proud. “Yes, it is true I am a stick, but one that’s long and big.”

Giving Respect By Alexandra H. Rodrigues A little pink note is glued to two letter-size pages. They are titled “Das Ist IHR LEBEN” large handwritten uppercase print. She, Ilse Bardeleben, would always write like this and was known for it. The pink note is from my mother. It says, “Das soll das Leben meiner Kleinen sein” oooo (for kisses) and dated March 08, 1996. Ilse Bardeleben was a good friend of my mother. Gave lots of assistance to my mother and spoiled me through all her life. She was not rich but always found money to make me presents. The attachment I am referring to, is a poem. It was meant for me but never given to me by my mother. I found it in a folder with other letters meant for me after my mother died in 2001. After the death of my mother, Ilse stayed in touch with me. She, in Berlin Germany, and I, here in New York. I remember that most of her writes to me were in form of poems and mostly spiked with humor. I also remember that at one time I promised her that I would try to publish some of her poetic creations. That was years before I myself decided to become a poet. Ilse had several unhappy and sickly years before passing away at the age of ninety-nine in a nursing home in Berlin. Till her last day, I stayed in touch with her. She had been robbed and ended up without means. To a point where I had to send her the postage for her letters to me. Better late than never! I want to make good on my promise to publish something she wrote. Here it is. It will also show with how much interest she followed my entire life. May she be blessed and rewarded for all her good deeds in heaven. Here is the original text in German.

Das ist ihr Leben By Ilse Bardeleben Die kleine Alexa wurde gross Nabelte sich von Omi und Mami los Die Zeit verging, die Jahre eilen Sie wollt in Deutschland nicht mehr bleiben Es zog sie in die Welt hinaus Was sollte sie denn auch zu Haus? Flugs dachte sie, man kanns begreifen Mal gründlich in die Ferne schweifen Das Ziel, sich in die Lüfte schwingen Warum sollt ihr das nicht gelingen? Zuerst wars nu rein Schnuppern in der nur ein Welt Dann war’s Beruf der ihr gefaellt Nun blieb sie ganz in USA Und war begeistert was sie alles sah So recht war’s Mami wohl nicht Amerika war weit aus ihrer Sicht Vom Fliegen kam nun esrt der Stres s Doch alle Tücken überwand sie kess Die Rutsche runter, wie im Spiel Nichts war ihr da zuviel Sie lernte alles mit Bravour und dann, dann gings auf grosse Tour Wieviele Länder, Betten, Strände sah sie, bis dann kam das Ende Pan Am, sie lahmte in den Flügeln Sie konnte ihre dollar nicht mehr zügeln Pan Am kam nun zu Nöten Alexa’s job ging damit flöten Pan Am ging hops, was man bedauerte Alexa nur ganz kurz erschauerte Dann traf sie doch ein Geistesblitz und eine neue Sache war geritzt Sie machte schnell sich auf die Socken Sie wollte nicht zu Hause hocken Denn Ehe, Kind und Haus, füllten ihr Leben doch nicht aus. Sie machte nun in Häusern gross und klein Und liess das auch bis heut’ nicht sein Sehr viele Klinken puzte sie im Nu So manches Haus blieb für sie zu Ein andrer war schon vor ihr da Alexa man dann frustriert auch sah Nicht immer ist es Sonnenschein Nicht immer kommen Dollar rein Und immer soll man es verstehen Das Dollar kommen und auch gehen Was der Chronist beinah’ vergass war Wirklichkeit und nicht ein Spass Inzwischen kam doch das absurde Alexa spät noch Mutter wurde Wie Mütter manchmal doch so sind Gab’s auf Erden nichts als dieses Kind Dies Kind, es war ein Knabe Der Chronist sprach von Gehabe…. Sie liess es nicht von ihrem Schoss Bis war der Knabe doch zu gross Heut ist der Knabe ganz schön stramm und ganz bestimmt ein ganzer Mann Es fragt sich leise der Chronist Ob Deutschland noch die Heimat ist And here is the translation: This is her Life Author Ilse Bardeleben Translated by Alexandra H. Rodrigues The little Alexa grew up Cut the cord from Mama and Pap The time moved on. The years sped on She felt that no longer into Germany she did belong She wanted to see the world at any cost Nothing any longer at home she had lost. Far away she planned to wing As stewardess into the sky she did swing Finally, she remained permanently in the USA Was amazed about all that she had seen on her way. Of course, she was often also under stress Still Alexa succeeded over any new mess. Mom was not really happy with all this America was far, her daughter she did miss Alexa learned all with great bravour 70 hours per month she was flying on tour She saw a multitude of countries, beds, beaches And the wonders of the world Till problems the airline out of grandeur hurled Pan Am weakened in its wing The dollar was short and caused the airline to sink Alexa’s fancy job did end that way But she quickly found a new niche so to say She did not care to sit around in the house Despite that she had a child and a spouse. So, she showed houses big and small With patience, she did sell them all If another realtor came ahead of her She was upset, did not like that to occur Alexa later became a mother Suddenly with nothing else she wanted to bother. A boy it was, and he grew well Suddenly marriage and motherhood were swell Writing this chronicle, the question comes to me Does Alexa Germany still as homeland see?!

Words Of Wisdom By the Cherokees of California Many thanks to our Cherokee friends. Visit their website at: http://www.powersource.com/cocinc/default.html



"The Cherokee legacy is that we are a people who face adversity, survive, adapt, prosper and excel." "And to fulfill this legacy, we must ask the questions... Where will we be as people five, ten, fifty or one hundred years from now? Do we brag about our full blood ancestor or do we brag about our Indian grandchildren? Do we live in the past or do we focus on the future? Is being Cherokee a novelty or a way of life? Is being Cherokee a heritage or a future? Our ancestors who walked the grounds of this capitol building resoundingly cry, 'Don’t forget the legacy we passed on. Don’t let it lapse. Pass it on, stronger and stronger to your children. Let the Cherokee language laugh, speak and sing again. Let our history be known and discussed. Live by our wisdom. Don’t let us die as a people. If you do then all our sacrifice will be for nothing and you will lose those things that fulfill your life.' Principal of the Cherokee Nation, Chief Chad Smith State of the Nation Address September 1, 2001 "Being Indian is mainly in your heart. It's a way of walking with the earth instead of upon it. A lot of the history books talk about us Indians in the past tense, but we don't plan on going anywhere... We have lost so much, but the thing that holds us together is that we all belong to and are protectors of the earth; that's the reason for us being here. Mother Earth is not a resource, she is an heirloom." David Ipinia, Yurok Artist, Sacramento, CA "The strength of our future, lies in the protecting of our past." Seminole Elder "The Earth was created by the assistance of the sun, and it should be left as it was. The country was made with no lines of demarcation, and it's no man's business to divide it. I see the whites all over the country gaining wealth, and I see the desire to give us lands which are worthless. The Earth and myself are of one mind. Perhaps you think the Creator sent you here to dispose of us as you see fit. If I thought you were sent by the creator, I might he induced to think you had a right to dispose of me. Do not misunderstand me; but understand me fully with reference to my affection for the land. I never said the land was mine to do with as I choose. The one who has a right to dispose of it is the one who created it. I claim a right to live on my land, and accord you the privilege to return to yours. Brother, we have listened to your talk coming from our father, the Great White Chief in Washington, and my people have called upon me to reply to you. The winds which pass through these aged pines we hear the moaning of departed ghosts, and if the voice of our people could have been heard, that act would never have been done. But alas though they stood around they could neither be seen nor heard. Their tears fell like drops of rain. I hear my voice in the depths of the forest but no answering voice comes back to me. All is silent around me. My words must therefore be few. I can now say no more. He is silent for he has nothing to answer when the sun goes down." Thunder Rolling in the Mountains-Chief Joseph, Nez Perce "Our fathers gave us many laws which they had learned from their fathers. They told us to treat all men as they treated us. That we should never be the first to break a bargain. That it was a disgrace to tell a lie. That we should speak only the truth. We were taught to believe that the Great Spirit sees and hears everything and that he never forgets. This I believe and all my people believe the same." Thunder Rolling in the Mountains-Chief Joseph, Nez Perce "Wars are fought to see who owns the land, but in the end it possesses man. Who dares say he owns it- is he not buried beneath it?" Cochise, Chiricahua Apache "When you are a person who belongs to a community, you have to know who you are. You have to know who your relatives are, and as a tribe we have to know where we came from..." Charlotte Black Elk, Oglala Sioux "Marriage among my people was like traveling in a canoe. The man sat in front and paddled the canoe. The woman sat in the stern but she steered." Anonymous "A Nation is not conquered until the hearts of its women are on the ground. Then it is done, no matter how brave its warriors nor how strong its weapons." Cheyenne "Have patience. All things change in due time. Wishing cannot bring autumn glory or cause winter to cease." Ginaly-li, Cherokee "Lose your temper and you lose a friend; lie and you lose yourself." Hopi "With all things and in all things, we are relatives." Sioux "Kinship with all creatures of the earth, sky and water was a real and active principle. And so close did some of the Lakotas come to their feathered and furred friends that in true brotherhood they spoke a common tongue. The animals had rights... the right of man's protection, the right to live, the right to multiply, the right to freedom, and the right to man's indebtedness." Luther Standing Bear, Teton Sioux

The Letters of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart FIRST PART—ITALY, VIENNA, MUNICH.—1770 TO 1776.Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born in Salzburg on the 17th January, 1756. His father, Leopold Mozart, belonged to a respectable tradesman's family in the free city of Augsburg. Conscious of being gifted with no small portion of intellectual endowments, he followed the impulse that led him to aim at a higher position in life, and went to the then celebrated University of Salzburg in order to study jurisprudence. As he did not, however, at once succeed in procuring employment in this profession, he was forced, from his straitened means, to enter the service of Canon Count Thun as valet. Subsequently, however, his talents, and that thorough knowledge of music by which he had already (according to the custom of many students) gained some part of his livelihood, obtained for him a better position. In the year 1743 he was received into the band (Kapelle) of the Salzburg cathedral by Archbishop Sigismund; and as his capabilities and fame as a violinist increased, the same Prince shortly afterwards promoted him to the situation of Hof-Componist (Court Composer) and leader of the orchestra, and in 1762 he was appointed Hof-Kapellmeister (conductor of the Court music). In 1747 Leopold Mozart married Anna Maria Pertlin, a foster-child of the Convent of St. Gilgen. The fruits of this marriage were seven children, two of whom alone survived,— Maria Anna, (the fourth), called Nannerl, born in 1751; and the youngest, Wolfgang Amadeus Johannes Chrysostomus. The daughter at a very early age displayed a most remarkable talent for music, and when her father began to give her instructions in it, an inborn and passionate love of this art was soon evident in her little brother of three years old, who at once gave tokens of a degree of genius far surpassing all experience, and really bordering on the marvellous. In his fourth year he could play all sorts of little pieces on the piano. He only required half an hour to learn a minuet, and one hour for a longer movement; and in his fifth year he actually composed some pretty short pieces, several of which are still extant. [Footnote: The Grand Duchess Helene Paulowna, a few weeks ago, made a present to the Mozarteum of the music-book from which Mozart learned music, and in which he wrote down his first compositions.] The wonderful acquirements of both these children, to which Wolfgang soon added skilful playing on the violin and organ, induced their father to travel with them. In January, 1702, when the boy was just six years old, they went first to Munich, and in the autumn to Vienna, the children everywhere on their journey exciting the greatest sensation, and being handsomely remunerated. Leopold Mozart, therefore, soon afterwards resolved to undertake a longer journey, accompanied by his whole family. This lasted more than three years, extending from the smaller towns in West Germany to Paris and London, while they visited, on their way back, Holland, France, and Switzerland. The careful musical instruction which the father perseveringly bestowed on his son, went hand in hand with the most admirable education, and the boy was soon as universally beloved for his amiable disposition and natural simplicity and candor, as admired for his rare gifts and acquirements. After nearly a year passed at home in unremitting musical instruction, and practice of various instruments as well as composition, the father once more set off with all his family to Vienna,—on this occasion with a view to Wolfgang paving the way to Italy by the composition of an opera, (Italy, at that time, being the Eldorado of music.) He succeeded in procuring the scrittura of an opera buffa, "La Finta semplice;" but, when finished, although the Emperor himself had intrusted the composition to the boy, the cabals of envious singers effectually prevented its being performed. But a German operetta which the lad of twelve also wrote at that time, "Bastien und Bastienne," was given in private, at the summer residence of the Mesmer family, in the suburb called Landstrasse. The father, too, had some compensation by the Emperor commissioning his son to compose a solemn mass for the consecration of the new Waisenhaus church, which Wolfgang himself directed with the conductor's baton, in presence of the Imperial Family, on the 7th December, 1768. Immediately on their return home, the young virtuoso was appointed archiepiscopal Concertmeister. He passed almost the whole of the year 1769 in Salzburg, chiefly engaged in the composition of masses. We also see him at that time eagerly occupied in improving his knowledge of Latin, although two years previously he had composed a comedy in that language,—"Apollo et Hyacinthus." From this study proceeds the first letter which is still extant from his hand:-1. Salzburg, 1769. MY DEAR YOUNG LADY,-I beg you will pardon the liberty I take in plaguing you with these few lines, but as you said yesterday that there was nothing you could not understand in Latin, and I might write what I chose in that language, I could not resist the bold impulse to write you a few Latin lines. When you have deciphered these, be so good as to send me the answer by one of Hagenauer's servants, for my messenger cannot wait; remember, you must answer this by a letter. [Footnote: By a messenger of the Hagenauer family, in whose house, opposite the inn of "Den drei Allurten," Mozart was born, and with whom his family were on the most intimate terms.] "Cuperem scire, de qua causa, a quam plurimis adolescentibus ottium usque adeo oestimetur, ut ipsi se nec verbis, nec verberibus ad hoc sinant abduci." [Footnote: "I should like to know the reason why indolence is so highly prized by very many young men, that neither by words nor blows will they suffer themselves to be roused from it."] WOLFGANG MOZART. The father's plan to go to Italy, there to lay the foundation of a European reputation for his son, was realized in the beginning of December, 1769, and during the journey, the boy, who was at that time just entering his fifteenth year, subjoined to his father's reports scraps of his own writing, in which, in true boyish fashion, he had recourse to all kinds of languages and witticisms, but always exhibiting in his opinions on music the closest observation, the gravest thought, and the most acute judgment. 2. Verona, Jan. 1770. MY VERY DEAREST SISTER,-I have at last got a letter a span long after hoping so much for an answer that I lost patience; and I had good cause to do so before receiving yours at last. The German blockhead having said his say, now the Italian one begins. Lei e piu franca nella lingua italiana di quel che mi ho immaginato. Lei mi dica la cagione perche lei non fu nella commedia che hanno giocata i Cavalieri. Adesso sentiamo sempre una opera titolata Il Ruggiero. Oronte, il padre di Bradamante, e un principe (il Signor Afferi) bravo cantante, un baritono, [Footnote: "You are more versed in the Italian language than I believed. Tell me why you were not one of the actors in the comedy performed by the Cavaliers. We are now hearing an opera called 'Il Ruggiero.' Oronte, the father of Bradamante, is a Prince (acted by Afferi, a good singer, a baritone)."] but very affected when he speaks out a falsetto, but not quite so much so as Tibaldi in Vienna. Bradamante innamorata di Ruggiero (ma [Footnote: "Bradamante is enamored of Ruggiero, but"]—she is to marry Leone, but will not) fa una povera Baronessa, che ha avuto una gran disgrazia, ma non so la quale; recita [Footnote: "Pretends to be a poor Baroness who has met with some great misfortune, but what it is I don't know, she performs"] under an assumed name, but the name I forget; ha una voce passabile, e la statura non sarebbe male, ma distuona come il diavolo. Ruggiero, un ricco principe innamorato di Bradamante, e un musico; canta un poco Manzuolisch [Footnote: Manzuoli was a celebrated soprano, from whom Mozart had lessons in singing when in London.] ed ha una bellissima voce forte ed e gia vecchio; ha 55 anni, ed ha una [Footnote: "She has a tolerable voice, and her appearance is in her favor, but she sings out of tune like a devil Ruggiero, a rich Prince enamored of Bradamante, is a musico, and sings rather in Manzuoli's style, and has a fine powerful voice, though quite old; he is fiftyfive, and has a"] flexible voice. Leone is to marry Bradamante—richississimo e, [Footnote: "Immensely rich."] but whether he is rich off the stage I can't say. La moglie di Afferi, che ha una bellissima voce, ma e tanto susurro nel teatro che non si sente niente. Irene fa una sorella di Lolli, del gran violinista che habbiamo sentito a Vienna, a una [Footnote: "Afferi's wife has a most beautiful voice, but sings so softly on the stage that you really hear nothing at all. A sister of Lolli, the great violinist whom we heard at Vienna, acts Irene; she has a"] very harsh voce, e canta sempre [Footnote: "Voice, and always sings"] a quaver too tardi o troppo a buon' ora. Granno fa un signore, che non so come si chiame; e la prima volta che lui recita. [Footnote: "Slow or too fast. Ganno is acted by a gentleman whose name I never heard. It is his first appearance on the stage."] There is a ballet between each act. We have a good dancer here called Roessler. He is a German, and dances right well. The very last time we were at the opera (but not, I hope, the very last time we ever shall be there) we got M. Roessler to come up to our palco, (for M. Carlotti gives us his box, of which we have the key,) and conversed with him. Apropos, every one is now in maschera, and one great convenience is, that if you fasten your mask on your hat you have the privilege of not taking off your hat when any one speaks to you; and you never address them by name, but always as "Servitore umilissimo, Signora Maschera." Cospetto di Bacco! that is fun! The most strange of all is that we go to bed at half-past seven! Se lei indovinasse questo, io diro certamente che lei sia la madre di tutti gli indovini. [Footnote: "If you guess this, I shall say that you are the mother of all guessers."] Kiss mamma's hand for me, and to yourself I send a thousand kisses, and assure you that I shall always be your affectionate brother. Portez-vous bien, et aimez-moi toujours. 3. Milan, Jan. 26, 1770. I REJOICE in my heart that you were so well amused at the sledging party you write to me about, and I wish you a thousand opportunities of pleasure, so that you may pass your life merrily. But one thing vexes me, which is, that you allowed Herr von Molk [an admirer of this pretty young girl of eighteen] to sigh and sentimentalize, and that you did not go with him in his sledge, that he might have upset you. What a lot of pocket-handkerchiefs he must have used that day to dry the tears he shed for you! He no doubt, too, swallowed at least three ounces of cream of tartar to drive away the horrid evil humors in his body. I know nothing new except that Herr Gellert, the Leipzig poet, [Footnote: Old Mozart prized Gellert's poems so highly, that on one occasion he wrote to him expressing his admiration.] is dead, and has written no more poetry since his death. Just before beginning this letter I composed an air from the "Demetrio" of Metastasio, which begins thus, "Misero tu non sei." The opera at Mantua was very good. They gave "Demetrio." The prima donna sings well, but is inanimate, and if you did not see her acting, but only singing, you might suppose she was not singing at all, for she can't open her mouth, and whines out everything; but this is nothing new to us. The seconda donna looks like a grenadier, and has a very powerful voice; she really does not sing badly, considering that this is her first appearance. Il primo uomo, il musico, sings beautifully, but his voice is uneven; his name is Caselli. Il secondo uomo is quite old, and does not at all please me. The tenor's name is Ottini; he does not sing unpleasingly, but with effort, like all Italian tenors. We know him very well. The name of the second I don't know; he is still young, but nothing at all remarkable. Primo ballerino good; prima ballerina good, and people say pretty, but I have not seen her near. There is a grotesco who jumps cleverly, but cannot write as I do—just as pigs grunt. The orchestra is tolerable. In Cremona, the orchestra is good, and Spagnoletta is the name of the first violinist there. Prima donna very passable—rather ancient, I fancy, and as ugly as sin. She does not sing as well as she acts, and is the wife of a violin-player at the opera. Her name is Masci. The opera was the "Clemenza di Tito." Seconda donna not ugly on the stage, young, but nothing superior. Primo uomo, un musico, Cicognani, a fine voice, and a beautiful cantabile. The other two musici young and passable. The tenor's name is non lo so [I don't know what]. He has a pleasing exterior, and resembles Le Roi at Vienna. Ballerino primo good, but an ugly dog. There was a ballerina who danced far from badly, and, what is a capo d'opera, she is anything but plain, either on the stage or off it. The rest were the usual average. I cannot write much about the Milan opera, for we did not go there, but we heard that it was not successful. Primo uomo, Aprile, who sings well, and has a fine even voice; we heard him at a grand church festival. Madame Piccinelli, from Paris, who sang at one of our concerts, acts at the opera. Herr Pick, who danced at Vienna, is now dancing here. The opera is "Didone abbandonata," but it is not to be given much longer. Signor Piccini, who is writing the next opera, is here. I am told that the title is to be "Cesare in Egitto." WOLFGANG DE MOZART, Noble of Hohenthal and attached to the Exchequer. 4. Milan, Feb. 10, 1770. SPEAK of the wolf, and you see his ears! I am quite well, and impatiently expecting an answer from you. I kiss mamma's hand, and send you a little note and a little kiss; and remain, as before, your——What? Your aforesaid merry-andrew brother, Wolfgang in Germany, Amadeo in Italy. DE MORZANTINI. 5. Milan, Feb. 17, 1770. Now I am in for it! My Mariandel! I am so glad that you were so tremendously merry. Say to nurse Urserl that I still think I sent back all her songs, but if, engrossed by high and mighty thoughts of Italy, I carried one off with me, I shall not fail, if I find it, to enclose it in one of my letters. Addio, my children, farewell! I kiss mamma's hands a thousand times, and send you a thousand kisses and salutes on your queer monkey face. Per fare il fine, I am yours, &c. 6. Milan, Carnival, Erchtag. MANY kisses to mamma and to you. I am fairly crazed with so much business, [Footnote: Concerts and compositions of every kind occupied Mozart. The principal result of his stay in Milan was, that the young maestro got the scrittura of an opera for the ensuing season. As the libretto was to be sent to them, they could first make a journey through Italy with easy minds. The opera was "Mitridate, Re di Ponto."] so I can't possibly write any more. 7. Milan, March 3, 1770. CARA SORELLA MIA,-I am heartily glad that you have had so much amusement. Perhaps you may think that I have not been as merry as you; but, indeed, I cannot sum up all we have done. I think we have been at least six or seven times at the opera and the feste di ballo, which, as in Vienna, begin after the opera, but with this difference, that at Vienna the dancing is more orderly. We also saw the facchinata and chiccherata. The first is a masquerade, an amusing sight, because the men go as facchini, or porters; there was also a barca filled with people, and a great number on foot besides; and five or six sets of trumpets and kettledrums, besides several bands of violins and other instruments. The chiccherata is also a masquerade. What the people of Milan call chicchere, we call petits maitres, or fops. They were all on horseback, which was a pretty sight. I am as happy now to hear that Herr von Aman [Footnote: The father had written in a previous letter, "Herr von Aman's accident, of which you wrote to us, not only distressed us very much, but cost Wolfgang many tears. You know how sensitive he is"] is better, as I was grieved when you mentioned that he had met with an accident. What kind of mask did Madame Rosa wear, and Herr von Molk, and Herr von Schiedenhofen? Pray write this to me, if you know it; your doing so will oblige me very much. Kiss mamma's hands for me a thousand million times, and a thousand to yourself from "Catch him who can!" Why, here he is! 8. Bologna, March 24, 1770. Oh, you busy creature! Having been so long idle, I thought it would do me no harm to set to work again for a short time. On the post-days, when the German letters come, all that I eat and drink tastes better than usual. I beg you will let me know who are to sing in the oratorio, and also its title. Let me hear how you like the Haydn minuets, and whether they are better than the first. From my heart I rejoice to hear that Herr von Aman is now quite recovered; pray say to him that he must take great care of himself and beware of any unusual exertion. Be sure you tell him this. I intend shortly to send you a minuet that Herr Pick danced on the stage, and which every one in Milan was dancing at the feste di ballo, only that you may see by it how slowly people dance. The minuet itself is beautiful. Of course it comes from Vienna, so no doubt it is either Teller's or Starzer's. It has a great many notes. Why? Because it is a theatrical minuet, which is in slow time. The Milan and Italian minuets, however, have a vast number of notes, and are slow and with a quantity of bars; for instance, the first part has sixteen, the second twenty, and even twenty-four. We made the acquaintance of a singer in Parma, and also heard her to great advantage in her own house—I mean the far-famed Bastardella. She has, first, a fine voice; second, a flexible organ; third, an incredibly high compass. She sang the following notes and passages in my presence. [Here, Mozart illustrates with about 20 measures of music] 9. Rome, April 14, 1770. I AM thankful to say that my stupid pen and I are all right, so we send a thousand kisses to you both. I wish that my sister were in Rome, for this city would assuredly delight her, because St. Peter's is symmetrical, and many other things in Rome are also symmetrical. Papa has just told me that the loveliest flowers are being carried past at this moment. That I am no wiseacre is pretty well known. Oh! I have one annoyance—there is only a single bed in our lodgings, so mamma may easily imagine that I get no rest beside papa. I rejoice at the thoughts of a new lodging. I have just finished sketching St. Peter with his keys, St. Paul with his sword, and St. Luke with—my sister, &c., &c. I had the honor of kissing St. Peter's foot at San Pietro, and as I have the misfortune to be so short, your good old WOLFGANG MOZART was lifted up!

Voltaire MICROMEGAS,PHILOSOPHICAL HISTORY (Book Excerpt)

CHAPTER I. Voyage of an inhabitant of the Sirius star to the planet Saturn.On one of the planets that orbits the star named Sirius there lived a spirited young man, who I had the honor of meeting on the last voyage he made to our little ant hill. He was called Micromegas[1], a fitting name for anyone so great. He was eight leagues tall, or 24,000 geometric paces of five feet each. [1] From micros, small, and from megas, large. B. Certain geometers[2], always of use to the public, will immediately take up their pens, and will find that since Mr. Micromegas, inhabitant of the country of Sirius, is 24,000 paces tall, which is equivalent to 20,000 feet, and since we citizens of the earth are hardly five feet tall, and our sphere 9,000 leagues around; they will find, I say, that it is absolutely necessary that the sphere that produced him was 21,600,000 times greater in circumference than our little Earth. Nothing in nature is simpler or more orderly. The sovereign states of Germany or Italy, which one can traverse in a half hour, compared to the empires of Turkey, Moscow, or China, are only feeble reflections of the prodigious differences that nature has placed in all beings. [2] This is how the text reads in the first editions. Others, in place of "geometers," put "algebraists." B. His excellency's size being as great as I have said, all our sculptors and all our painters will agree without protest that his belt would have been 50,000 feet around, which gives him very good proportions.[3] His nose taking up one third of his attractive face, and his attractive face taking up one seventh of his attractive body, it must be admitted that the nose of the Sirian is 6,333 feet plus a fraction; which is manifest. [3] I restore this sentence in accordance with the first editions. B. As for his mind, it is one of the most cultivated that we have. He knows many things. He invented some of them. He was not even 250 years old when he studied, as is customary, at the most celebrated[4] colleges of his planet, where he managed to figure out by pure willpower more than 50 of Euclid's propositions. That makes 18 more than Blaise Pascal, who, after having figured out 32 while screwing around, according to his sister's reports, later became a fairly mediocre geometer[5] and a very bad metaphysician. Towards his 450th year, near the end of his infancy, he dissected many small insects no more than 100 feet in diameter, which would evade ordinary microscopes. He wrote a very curious book about this, and it gave him some income. The mufti of his country, an extremely ignorant worrywart, found some suspicious, rash[6], disagreeable, and heretical propositions in the book, smelled heresy, and pursued it vigorously; it was a matter of finding out whether the substantial form of the fleas of Sirius were of the same nature as those of the snails. Micromegas gave a spirited defense; he brought in some women to testify in his favor; the trial lasted 220 years. Finally the mufti had the book condemned by jurisconsults who had not read it, and the author was ordered not to appear in court for 800 years[7]. [4] In place of "the most celebrated" that one finds in the first edition, subsequent editions read "some jesuit." B. [5] Pascal became a very great geometer, not in the same class as those that contributed to the progress of science with great discoveries, like Descartes, Newton, but certainly ranked among the geometers, whose works display a genius of the first order. K. [6] The edition that I believe to be original reads: "rash, smelling heresy." The present text is dated 1756. B. [7] Mr. Voltaire had been persecuted by the theatin Boyer for having stated in his Letters on the English that our souls develop at the same time as our organs, just like the souls of animals. K. He was thereby dealt the minor affliction of being banished from a court that consisted of nothing but harassment and pettiness. He wrote an amusing song at the expense of the mufti, which the latter hardly noticed; and he took to voyaging from planet to planet in order to develop his heart and mind[8], as the saying goes. Those that travel only by stage coach or sedan will probably be surprised learn of the carriage of this vessel; for we, on our little pile of mud, can only conceive of that to which we are accustomed. Our voyager was very familiar with the laws of gravity and with all the other attractive and repulsive forces. He utilized them so well that, whether with the help of a ray of sunlight or some comet, he jumped from globe to globe like a bird vaulting itself from branch to branch. He quickly spanned the Milky Way, and I am obliged to report that he never saw, throughout the stars it is made up of, the beautiful empyrean sky that the vicar Derham[9] boasts of having seen at the other end of his telescope. I do not claim that Mr. Derham has poor eyesight, God forbid! But Micromegas was on site, which makes him a reliable witness, and I do not want to contradict anyone. Micromegas, after having toured around, arrived at the planet Saturn. As accustomed as he was to seeing new things, he could not, upon seeing the smallness of the planet and its inhabitants, stop himself from smiling with the superiority that occasionally escapes the wisest of us. For in the end Saturn is hardly nine times bigger than Earth, and the citizens of this country are dwarfs, no more than a thousand fathoms tall, or somewhere around there. He and his men poked fun at them at first, like Italian musicians laughing at the music of Lully when he comes to France. But, as the Sirian had a good heart, he understood very quickly that a thinking being is not necessarily ridiculous just because he is only 6,000 feet tall. He got to know the Saturnians after their shock wore off. He built a strong friendship with the secretary of the academy of Saturn, a spirited man who had not invented anything, to tell the truth, but who understood the inventions of others very well, and who wrote some passable verses and carried out some complicated calculations. I will report here, for the reader's satisfaction, a singular conversation that Micromegas had with the secretary one day. [8] See my note, page 110. B. [this note, in Zadig, says: "This line is mostly written at the expense of Rollin, who often employs these expressions in his Treatise on Studies. Voltaire returns to it often: see, in the present volume, chapter I of Micromegas, and in volume XXXIV, chapter XI of The Man of Forty Crowns, chapter IX of The White Bull and volume XI, the second verse of song VIII of The Young Virgin. B."] [9] English savant, author of Astro-Theology, and several other works that seek to prove the existence of God through detailing the wonders of nature: unfortunately he and his imitators are often mistaken in their explanation of these wonders; they rave about the wisdom that is revealed in a phenomenon, but one soon discovers that the phenomenon is completely different than they supposed; so it is only their own fabrications that give them this impression of wisdom. This fault, common to all works of its type, discredited them. One knows too far in advance that the author will end up admiring whatever he has chosen to discuss.

My Tragedy to Triumph Story By Glenn Lovell I recently watched a video online about the adversity and tragedy that Keanu Reeves has gone through in his life, yet despite all of it how he’s gone on to achieve massive success and is one of the biggest charitable stars in Hollywood. Now I’m sure he doesn’t act the victim with any of this stuff himself, the creators of this video were merely using his story as an example of how you can still succeed even in the face of adversity… Here’s what the video said… Tragedy to triumph the Keanu Reeves Story. He was three years old when his father left. After his parents divorced they moved from City to City. He attended 4 different high Schools and struggled with Dyslexia. He eventually left without a diploma. His ‘struggles’ continued. At the age of 23 he lost his best friend to a drug overdose. Just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse, his girlfriend gave birth to their daughter who was stillborn. Due to the grief of losing their daughter, they split up, 18 months later she died in a car accident. Despite all of the tragedies, Keanu kept pushing forward. He went on to dominate the box office with the film The Matrix. But probably the most important of all, he is known as one of the most charitable in Hollywood. At one point he gave £80 million of his £114 million earnings from the Matrix to the film crew. With all the tragedy he has dealt with, Keanu still decides to make this world a better place by caring and giving. So the question to you is, how are you going to respond to what life throws at you? This got me thinking, thinking about my own life and the adversity I’ve endured specifically during my childhood but also in later years during my business life that led to success, but more importantly all that I witnessed my mother go through. The strength she’s had to somehow maintain throughout her life, to continue on, to grow and somehow learn something, anything at all from everything she suffered. To try understand and make some semblance of sense out of it all. By sharing my story with you my hope is to pass on some valuable life lessons to you in the process. Here’s my tragedy to triumph story. It starts with the cliché of my Dad leaving when I was a year old. Cliché maybe, but it’s true none the less. I was brought up living in various council estates and before I reached secondary School we had lived in eight different council flats across the City. I moved Schools five times before we eventually settled in the house I grew up in as a teenager. By that time my initial education was fucked and I walked into secondary School without even knowing my times tables. I’m by no means blaming my Mother for this because ultimately a lot of what happened was dictated by the circumstances she found herself in. We lived in a very humble environment of council housing, even though I can’t say I ever felt like we went without, my parents struggled financially most of my life but somehow managed to feed and clothe us and always do us proud at Christmas and Birthday’s, BUT at a massive cost of huge debt to themselves. I’m the eldest brother of seven immediate related siblings, let me explain. Lee, my first brother was born four years after me to another father. A man who was violent and used to beat my mother up. I have very vague memories of these events as I was still young at the time, but I do recall various incidents when he was aggressive with her and somehow those occasions have left an indelible mark upon me that has ensured I have never hurt or hit a woman in my life. Although, I’m sure this has more to do with my mother’s stern vociferous education in how to treat a woman, in that ‘if I ever hit or hurt one I would have her to deal with!’, a threat that loomed large when I was younger, I can assure you. I am hugely grateful for this as an adult now though, as witnessing these acts of domestic violence could’ve quite easily had the opposite effect on me as it has with so many others. Fast forward a few years and my mother had met another man who she has remained with ever since. A kind, generous and as giving a man as you’re ever likely to meet. They had their first son together, Andrew. Andrew was only a few months old when tragedy struck. My brother Lee was knocked down and killed by a car whilst he was playing outside our flat when he was just four years old. Please understand, it was a different time then, it wasn’t uncommon for young children to be playing outside by themselves. I was eight years of age and I witnessed him lying in the road, blood pouring from his head. This is an image that will never leave me. Lee wasn’t killed instantly, he died in transit on the way to the hospital. The impact of the car had broken his ribs which punctured his lungs and he succumbed to these injuries by drowning in his own blood. Andrew, was merely a few months old when this happened so he never really got to meet Lee. The loss of Lee had a massive impact on me and my life. He was my brother. My best friend. We played together all the time. Now he was gone and I couldn’t really comprehend or fully understand why at the time. My final - and has since become - repetitive memory of him is of us both waiting in the car one day, whilst our Mum was in the Dr’s surgery and we had a fight over a ball. I hurt him and made him cry and the feeling of guilt from this has lived with me ever since. I know we were kids and it’s what’s brothers do, but it still doesn’t change the fact that that’s remained my most prominent memory of my time with him. Rightly or wrongly as I’m still unsure after all these years, I visited him in the chapel of rest prior to his funeral to see him off and say our goodbyes. I remember looking at him and hoping he would simply wake up. As an eight year old boy, to me, he looked like he was sleeping and he could just wake up at any moment. The funeral was horrific. I can recall it in great detail even now, but specifically because my Mum broke down as they were lowering his coffin into the grave. She fell to her knees and was trying to claw her way to the grave to stop the coffin, whilst family members held her back. It was as if she didn’t believe he was dead and wanted to open the casket and he’ll be in there somehow alive still. This memory destroys me as I write and makes me cry even thinking about it. The hopelessness of not being able to do anything to help my Mum. Even at such a young age I felt somehow responsible and wanted to take my Mum's pain away. A couple years later my next sibling, Katie was born. My first sister. For some reason my mother always harbored a yearning for two boys and two girls, so they tried for another baby not long after having Katie and her desire was fulfilled as she gave birth to another girl, Gemma. She was set; two boys, two girls notwithstanding losing Lee of course. But little did we realise the joy of this baby was to be very short lived, as Gemma died of cot death two weeks following birth. I can vividly remember my step-dad almost falling down the stairs whilst clutching her in his arms as he was frantically trying to get help for her. Not too long after grieving for the loss of Gemma, and I can only assume my Mum wanted to fill the void of that loss as quickly as she could, she decided to try again. This time she was carrying a boy. All was going well during the pregnancy until within an hour before he was due to be born, Guy which he was named, was stillborn. Back to back, two of my mothers babies, taken from her with a combined eighteen months of pregnancy, and the gap of trying to conceive in-between of course. Not forgetting losing her second son, my brother Lee, to the car accident years before, this was now three of six children my Mum gave birth to all died under completely different but extremely heartbreaking circumstances and within a window of approximately eight years. A shocking chain of events is an understatement. It sounds like beggar's, belief doesn’t it? You would be quite right and forgiven for thinking that all of this should’ve been enough for her. That enough was enough right? No more trying for anymore Children. The pain is too raw. To my mind, how the hell could anyone endure so much pain and suffering, yet potentially put themselves through it all over again. But that’s exactly what she did, she wouldn’t give in or quit. She still wanted her two boys and two girls. She fell pregnant and again her wish was granted, she had another daughter, Samantha. Samantha was born with Down Syndrome! Sammy Lou as we affectionately called her had many complications at birth, from hole’s in her heart to the tubes of her heart needing repair as is a very common occurrence with children born with Trisomy 21. Now I’m sure you’re reading all this in disbelief and shock and probably feeling very sorry for my mother right about now. All those losses of children to emotionally contend with and now the ‘burden’ of a child born with Down Syndrome. Please don’t though. Sammy was an absolute blessing more than anything else, as she brought an amazing sense of balance and purpose to my Mum and Dad’s life. Not that any of the other children could be replaced of course, but Sammy was a gift for my Mum and she certainly become an antidote to her grief and in a small way filled the void of her losses. She was a light to be around and could sense when any of us weren’t feeling yourself or if we were upset. She would sit and lay into my chest to comfort me as if she knew what I needed when I needed it the most. My fondest memories of Sam is when she would lay on me when she was very young and I would sing into her ear, she loved it as much as I did doing it. Her favourite song for me to sing to her was Metallica’s Enter Sandman. It always helped me forget and ease the troubles of my day away. She had that magic effect on me and everyone she came into contact with. Like a proverbial kick in the teeth, and I’m sure you’re not going to believe this next sentence, but we’ve since lost Sammy too. She lived until she was twenty one, but eventually succumbed to heart complications associated with her conditions at birth. That being said, she died a lot earlier than we expected. In her few short years she lived a wonderfully fulfilled and fully loved life. As much as it’s painful to think about her, I am grateful for the time I got to share with her. The memories I have can never be taken. Her warmth and love was unquestioning, unconditional and without judgement. It’s a love you can never fully understand until you have a child with Down Syndrome in your life. Of which I too also have myself now, but more on him later. For now, I want you to understand that this is the adversity I lived through as an eldest son and brother. Spectating, enduring and living a part of these individually horrific ordeals throughout my entire upbringing. Witnessing firsthand the feelings of huge grief surrounding circumstances of trauma, loss, pain and suffering of my mother losing four of her children, each one a brother and sister to me. As a father myself now and knowing the huge depth of love you feel for your own children, when I take the time to think about all of this I literally cannot fathom the scale and enormity of the loss that my mother endured in her one and only lifetime. If just one of these deaths and I mean literally just ONE of these child loses were to occur to any parent I’m sure it would be enough to crush them, but to lose four of your Children, each one carried in your womb for nine months, is quite simply devastating beyond comprehension and belief and makes you question the very meaning of faith; faith in a god, faith in a higher power and of all things ‘happening for a reason’. Because what possible reason did this one lady, my mother need to be put through all of that pain and suffering for? What lesson was she and all of us supposed to learn from it? Even though I lived each moment of this with my parents and the deep profound impact I know it’s had on me and my personality, I know I can never fully comprehend my mothers pain and sorrow and what it would do to me if it was anyone of my children. But throughout all of that pain and suffering that it’s caused her over the years and the huge emotional grief and mental scars it’s left, she still stands tall after enduring everything. She was and is still available to anyone of us, at any time, day or night even through some of her own recent illness’s, she listens intently and when shit hits the fan, she offers advice as best she knows how and has never, never rightly or wrongly sought any form of counseling throughout any of it. Now that’s strength of character! And yet somehow none of this has broken her. She’s still quietly standing after all these years and has raised the bar for the rest of us when it comes to strength under adversity and dealing with whatever the fuck life throws at us; quite simply we don’t fold, we don’t give in, we keep moving forward, because that’s how life is. As far as I’m concerned, she’s a fucking hero. So let me put that earlier question to you again here, how are you going to respond to what life throws at you? When life gets tough. When life takes a turn and throws a huge fucking curveball in your direction and turn’s your world upside down, because I can guarantee that it’s going to one way or another, it always does or if it already has and you’re struggling to pull yourself back from it, will you let it be the breaking of you or the fucking making of you? I can only hope that this story, my mother's story will give you some sense of perspective, that anything you might be going through right now, may not be as bad as you think. It may not be as bad as what you’ve just read. If so, you can call upon my little story, maybe in your hour of need and hopefully in some small way it helps you in your moment of grief. Or even if you are going through something just as traumatic in your life right now, let this be a reminder that you’re not alone. There’s others you can confide in. Others who have endured huge suffering and come out the other side. My hope is that one day, maybe one day someone will say to themselves and it may well be you, ‘what would Debbie do’? Because you’ve got to keep moving forward. Everyday. Moving forward. You’ve got to find a way. Take each day as it comes. Regardless of the pain and suffering, light does, eventually always finds a way. As the Winston Churchill quote says, ‘if you’re going through hell, keep going!

Happiness By Alexandra H. Rodrigues Happiness is a delight in simply being. Depending on one’s temperament, it can show its wings when meditating or during a leisurely walk. It can overwhelm one when finding a related soul in a crowd of strangers or even when killing a mosquito. Let’s picture the latter. It is a hot summer night and we are sitting on the porch watching the slow moving waves in the canal. We are enjoying the breeze that passes through the blooming pink mimosa tree and touches our skin in cool embrace. Little red and black cats with citronella candles on the table are meant to chase away the mosquitoes. I could swear I hear those unwelcome bugs buzz. They appear to delight in playing with me by avoiding my hand when I try to smack them. They indulge in the poisonous scent and are all around us. My husband is their main target. The minute he kills one on his arm or leg, two or three more are having a ball on his forehead or the naked toes in the open sandals. I tease him, “You must have sweet blood. They really don’t bother me.” And that’s the truth. When he is around, I am not their target. Apparently my blood does not entice their taste buds as much as his blood does. It bothers me however when they buzz around the food, fall into my cocktail or sit on the edge of my cigarette. “Let’s turn the lights down, maybe that will help,” my husband suggests. We do so and for a short while we seem to have mastered the situation. Unfortunately, those mosquitoes kept still for a short while only as they acclimated to the new situation. Maybe they went back for help, because after a short span of peace they attacked in even bigger armies. We are getting ourselves some blankets, but blankets at 80 degrees are not the answer. So we decide to break it up and go inside. They occupied the walls, even the bed. The mosquitoes have followed us. We have screens on all our windows. They must have taken the few seconds while we had the screen door open to come inside with us. They outsmarted us again. We fall asleep around midnight. A short while later, I am awakened as my husband sits up in bed, a devilish smirk on his face; in his palm, a dead mosquito. He proclaims, “Got it! I won!” There was pure happiness on his face, happiness caused by the satisfaction of having eliminated a great annoyance for good.

How I Married the Girl of My Dreams By Jake Cosmos Aller This is the true story of how I met and married the girl of my dreams. The dreams started when I was a senior at Berkeley high school in 1974. About a month before I graduated, I fell asleep in a physics class after lunch and had the first dream: A beautiful Asian woman was standing next to me talking in a strange language. She was stunning – the most beautiful girl I had ever seen. She was in her early twenties, with long black hair, and piercing black eyes. She had the look of royalty. She looked at me and then disappeared, beamed out of my dream like in "Star Trek." I fell out of my chair screaming, "Who are you?" She did not answer. About a month went by and then I started having the dream as I called it, repeatedly. Always the same pattern – early morning, she would stand next to me talking, I would ask whom she was, and she would disappear. She was the most beautiful, alluring women I had ever seen and I was struck speechless every time I had the dream. This went on for eight long years; I had the dream every month during those eight years when I went to College and later after I joined the Peace Corps. In fact, the dream lead me to Korea. After College, I had joined the Peace Corps and had to decide whether to go Korea or Thailand. The night before I had to submit my decision, I had the dream again. However, this time I knew that she was in Korea waiting for me. I felt that the girl of my destiny was in Korea so I called up the Peace Corps and signed up to go to Korea. Therefore, I went to Korea and joined the Peace Corps. During my two years in the Peace Corps, I met many Korean women, but I knew that none of them was the one for me. I kept looking and looking for the girl in the Dream. One winter while I was in the Peace Corps I went to Taiwan on a personal visit. I met a famous fortuneteller who made three predictions – I would marry an Asian woman, I would marry when I was 27 and I would become a diplomat. All three predictions turned out to be true. I got a job after the Peace Corps working for the US Army as an instructor. In addition, I kept looking for the girl in the dream. I was about to leave Korea to go back to the US to go to graduate school when she walked out of my dreams and into my life. One morning I had the last of these dreams. She was standing next to me but she was speaking to me in Korean and I finally understood her. She said, "Don't worry, we will be together soon." That night getting off the bus in front of me was the girl in the dream. She got off the bus at my stop and went on to the base with an acquaintance of mine, a fellow teacher. They went to see a movie on base. She was applying for a secretarial job on the base. I was at a loss for words and wondered what I would say to her when I met her next. At the end of the class, I saw her leaving and found the courage to speak with her. We exchanged phone numbers and agreed to meet that weekend. I went to bed and the dreams stopped. I knew that was the women for me and I was determined to have her. The next night she was waiting for me at the army base where I was to teach a class. She told me that she had to see me as she had something to tell me. I signed her on to the base and left her at the library to study. She was a college senior she told me. We went out for coffee after class. She told me she was madly in love with me and that I was the man for her. I told her not to worry as I felt the same. That weekend we met Saturday and Sunday and hung out all day. On Sunday, we went for a hike in the woods. I proposed to her that night three days after we had met, but for me it felt that we had met 8 years ago, I had been waiting all my life for her to walk out of my dreams, and into my life and here, she was. We married two months later after a Buddhist priest told her Mother that our astrological match was a perfect fit. Her mother did not want her to marry a foreigner. One day about a month after we had met, she invited me to meet her parents, but she did not tell them I was a foreigner. I brought a bottle of Jack Daniels for my Father-in-Law and dranked the entire bottle with him. He approved of me but my Mother-in-Law still had reservations. After the Buddhist Priests told her it was a perfect astrological combination, she agreed and we planned on getting married. We held the ceremony in January at a Korean army base where I was teaching ESL to Korean Army officers going to the US for advanced training. The wedding was a celebrity wedding covered on the morning news. I was blissfully unaware as I did not watch the Korean news that much – still don’t as it a bit beyond my Korean level to this day. The reason for the news coverage was that my wife was part of the Kyunju Lee family who were related to the last King of Korea. In the history of the clan dating back over 600 years only two people had married foreigners, Symung Rhee the first president of the ROK whose wife was Austrian, and my wife some 50 years later. The second reason that this was a celebrity marriage was that my father came to the wedding. He was a former undersecretary of labor under Kennedy and Johnson and that was big thing for the Koreans. My father was even interviewed on the morning news. And the third reason was that this was the first time in Korean history that a foreigner married a Korean on a Korean military base. Over 1,000 people came the wedding. It was done in Korean and was a catholic ceremony as my wife wanted a Church wedding so I converted to Catholicism for her. But we never really became church goers as we are both sort of Buddhists. We have been married for 35 years now. Whenever things are rough between us, I recall the dream and realize that I had married the girl of my dreams and I fall in love with her all over again. In fact, I see the same girl in the dream whenever I look at her.

They Rock! Two Popular Biographies Reviewed By Charles E.J. Moulton They are more than they seem, as believers and spirits. Not only are they brilliant storytellers in their own right, their stories are also told through music in tales of the events of their lives. Not only because of the noteworthy fame of the authors or the rocking similarities, but also because of the eye-opening effect of the contents. These two artists have more in common than can be seen at first glance. They speak in feelings and thoughts. What really becomes evident when reading these autobiographies back to back is that these guys vividly invite us on a tour of their lives in written form, poetically, thoughtfully and with a very raunchy and extremely wild honesty. Two autobiographies published this decade deserve special attention. Forgive them their many four-letter-words for these two very extravagant rockers are sensitive souls. In fact, we are dealing with men who tried every drug known to man and still believe in God, speaking of souls leaving the body at death and music's effect on the eternal spirit. Steven Tyler, born Tallarico in 1948 back in Yonkers. U.S.A., the self-confessed natureboy and the son of a classical concert pianist, was mistaken for Mick Jagger during his early career. This caused him to put on a British accent in order to capitalize on this similarity. Billy Idol, born William Broad in 1955 in England, spent a few years in the U.S. during his childhood before moving back to Bromley in England and gaining back his Brit accent. So both artists were capable of articulated Brit and Yank accents. Both believers are by now clean ex-drug-addicts. Idol's nearly lethal motorcycle accident in 1991 might have sobered him up, an incident that gave him a very real out-of-body-experience. Tyler's soberness might have come out of necessity to survive, who knows? In any case, after reading these biographies, though, the human side of their artistic lives become very clear. Idol's most challenging time, health-wise, had him disappearing into a heroin-cocoon, ultimately causing his father to travel across the Atlantic to save him. No matter how famous he became, to the Broad family he was still just their Billy from Bromley. While Tyler was supported to become a musician, his mom driving him to early concerts in a van, Idol took the leap very much against his father's will, who wanted him to take over his hardware store. It is then a happy fact that both men made happy family peace parents: with mother, in Tyler's case, and father, in Idol's case, before their respective deaths. It is touching, yet heartwrenching, to read about these extravagant rockers with their wild lives and their last moments holding and embracing their loved ones and, in retrospect, feeling good about how they said good bye. Tyler even speaks of God as a Her, a Goddess. Idol speaks of an out-of-body-experience and an eternal inspration far away from this world. With all the fascinatingly gritty details of the punk- and rock-life in both books, completely normal functions and day-to-day rehab drudges, with explosive anecdotes of rock shows, at the end all of this makes us discover a humane and sympathetic truth. Genius is genius, celebrity is no less human because of fame. Sensitivity makes celebrity even more endearing. Celebrity can hurt. Therefore, the feud Lead Singer Vs. Lead Guitarist dominates both artistic careers. Steven Tyler's dramatic relationship with his "Toxic Twin" Joe Perry has been a four decade love-hate affair. Likewise, Billy Idol's tight fights with his guitarist Stevie Stevens sometimes reached hair raising proportions, a relationship that now has calmed down to bloom into an again prosperous collaboration. Two enormous stage personalities, whose writing and composing have improved through the years, followed by energetic stage shows with firework-like physical activity. Billy and Steven have a full throttle work ethos intact, one that cost Tyler multiple foot surgery and Idol a bad back. Idol, the sneering punk-poet with a heart of gold, and Tyler, the bouncing rag-doll dude with hyper-sensitive drum-rhythm: both speak lovingly and sweetly about their children. Proud fathers both with rocket careers to boot. Sobered up, extraordinary, normal, human, angelic, beastly and spiritual, all at the same time. Why do we love them? Because they signify what we humans are all about: we are emotional creatures, willing to learn and willing to rock. Steven Tyler: "Does the Noise in my Head Bother You?" Harper Collins, 2011 Billy Idol: "Dancing with Myself" Simon & Schuster, 2014

Rocking for Christ

By Charles E.J. Moulton

“It would be nice to walk upon the water, talking again to angels on my side ... all my words are golden, so have no Gods before me. I'm the light.” Was that a saying by the great St. Francis of Assisi? Maybe that was a quote from a book by Deepak Chopra? I could tell you that was Albert Schweizer. We could tribute Socrates, Plato or St. Paul with those words, the Pope or even the Dalia Lama. All of that sounds plausible, doesn’t it? Well, guess what? It was Alice Cooper, back in 1971, during the hayday of his dark rock career. Wait a minute, rewind the tape. Alice Cooper? The shock-rocker? Wasn’t that the villain of rock ‘n roll, the guy that spent and still spends his life performing explosive hard-rock theatricals filled with electric chairs, guillotines and bleeding dolls? Wasn’t that the guy that agitated more provincial housewives than Charles Manson? What does Alice say about all this? “It’s just electric vaudeville.” Then why do we think rock ‘n roll isn’t just a show? Because back when the music style first launched, it was a rebellion. Ten or twenty years later, academics like Freddie Mercury turned the music-style into a Vaudevillian melodrama. But it doesn’t end there. “If you listen clearly to all of my lyrics,” Alice says, “the warning is clearly written on the box. Don’t follow the dark side. It’s not a good idea. I am just playing the villain of rock ‘n roll. I invented him, like Shakespeare invented MacBeth.” Keep on reading, though. Now it gets really interesting. “As the son of a Baptist pastor, I grew up in the church, in religious surroundings. My father got the whole villain-of-rock-thing. He dug it. He just didn’t dig the lifestyle that went with it. The drugs, the alcohol, the excess. It killed a lot of my colleagues.” The faithful Christian churchgoer Vincent Damon Furnier was born February 4, 1948, a Cold-War-Kid, the son of a preacherman. His social life as a child was centered mainly around church activities. It was this life that made his conciously living Christian soul confess not belonging to this world. Vincent’s creative decision to invent a new kind of Captain Hook in a rocking world of Peter Pan-characters was a testament to his artistic freedom. His show was an invention, mere storytelling, not a credo. Accordingly, Alice Cooper’s original band colleagues were art students. They were academics, just like the members of the band Queen. To Alice and his band, something was missing in other rock concerts of the time: there were no creative theatricals to go with them. So the canvas they painted for themselves, creating the fictitious antagonist-like and character-drenched show called “Alice Cooper”, sprung from a need to actually add some dramatic flair to the popular streamline. The canvas they chose was similiar to the framework the English teacher Stephen King’s chose for his work: the birthplace of the horrific and perilous playground of lost souls: guillotines and ghosts. Maybe the era of the 1960s inspired them. Maybe the pain of Vietnam inspired the escapism, the creative outlet. Cooper’s love of art really came alive when he met the surrealist artist Salvador Dali back in 1973. Dali liked Alice so much that he created a holographic artwork of the rocker, worth $ 2 million today, exhibited in the Dali Museum in Figueres, Spain. Believe it or not, what Alice says about his own show – and about creativity in general – makes perfect sense. As an artist myself, I know that’s what we do. We tell stories. The fictitious tale in itself is a warning: it ends badly. Alice gets punished, Vincent goes home. The actor takes off his make-up, just like I do after a show, and kisses his wife good night. The fact that it’s rock ‘n roll and not opera, heavy metal and not Shakespeare, is irrelevant. Edgar Allan Poe told us about the tell-tale heart, Verdi told us about what happened to the punished court jester, Alice Cooper told us the story of what happened to the extravagant crook. So don’t kill messenger. According to Alice, the theatrical message leads home to Vincent, the faithful churchgoer. “Choose God and not the Devil,” Alice has been quoted as saying. “I created a vaudeville show with a villain. Even the bible has villains. Me? I believe in Jesus Christ. I believe in the eternal soul and in the afterlife.” If it is just a show, then the distinction between what is public and what is private, what is professional and what is personal, becomes an even more important. “If you live the same life on- as off-stage, that’s a really bad sign.” Foreboding warnings from his peers show us the way where not to go. It is where some rockers went in order to make us believe their public personas were private, as well. Canadian talk-show host Jian Gomeshi from Studio Q, who also interviewed Alice back in 2011, mentioned conducting an interview with Johnny Rotten from the Sex Pistols. In that interview, Johnny treated Jian rudely throughout, only to transform into his real and private personality as John Lydon in the commercial breaks. “Was that okay?” John Lydon asked Jian in his Cockney accent. Alice Cooper could only confirm that this two-faced act was a part of the show. He called Lydon’s behaviour “the ultimate rock swindle.” The man who created Alice Cooper learned the hard way how to separate his true self from the on-stage-personality. He had 27 television sets at his house, he was an alcoholic. It was, therefore, all the more amazing that his sober lifestyle came as a complete surprise. During the beginning of his career, Vincent spent lots of time with the likes of Jim Morrison and Jimi Hendrix. He’d never drunk a beer before, but soon he was consuming a bottle of whiskey a day. He called Morrison and Hendrix his “big brothers.” Both are quoted by Alice as “living the same life on- as off-stage,” constantly drunk or high on something. In fact, they thought it was necessary to live up to that rock-star lifestyle. “Somebody is going to die here,” were Alice’s words, “but it’s not going to be me.” Vincent was a constant church-visitor during his spiritual awakening. The pastor seemed, in his mind, to speak to him and him alone, again and again. It was almost a pain to go to church and hear the sermons back in the early 1970s, but Vincent Furnier knew in his heart that he had to go there. His intuition demanded it. The medics called Alice’s recovery, in quote, “weird” and, indeed, “a divine miracle.” When his doctors asked him, in the clinic, how many alcoholic relapses he’d had, Alice could truthfully say that he’d had none at all. “A Christian is a soul who is constantly being sculpted by God,” he admitted, “and given hints by the creator in how to become a better person.” In Joe Cocker’s case, becoming sober was a matter of life and death – and Christian faith helped him get there, as well. Bono, the lead singer of U2, did not need an addiction to find God. He believed, anyway. In fact, he was quoted in saying that his stardom was given to him by God himself. The band, Bono said, simply wasn’t good enough to succeed on its own. God had to have been the catalyst. Bono even continued by pointing out that, “Jesus was his hero.” Vincent, alias Alice, says that becoming sober was “like winning the lottery three times over – it just doesn’t happen.” Not only did Alice Cooper remain sober, he also turned this spiritual renewal into a charitable enterprise, giving other unfortunate souls the chance to change, as well. Today, Alice Cooper’s project “Solid Rock” helps improve the lives of mistreated youths. Underprivilaged children from broken families are taught how to sing, play guitar, bass and drums. Alice goes out and performs with them, live on stage. His belief in Christ, the eternal soul and rock ‘n roll boosts the confidence of thousands of delinquents. How many lives could Alice change if given the chance? Could he have prevented the hospitalization of the elderly busdriver, beaten up by two 14 year-olds, who told them to leave the bus? Could “Solid Rock” have boosted the confidence of the drugdealing teenager, who now serves his second term behind bars? We must unlearn our preconceived conceptions about rock ‘n roll. Rock fans are aging alongside their heroes and even Bryan Adams is performing for a crowd of fifty year-olds. Vincent, the faithful husband, would rather go home to his wife instead of to a strip-club. He claims that “everyone will find Christ eventually” and would “choose God any day”. He plays golf with his buddy Bob Dylan and appears in Christian talk-shows. So what was this about Alice Cooper being scary? Being a Christian, though, he goes on, makes it harder because of the constant pressure to be perfect. Show business is creative, technical and organizational work, but it is not a show reality. If the ideas are sung, painted, written or danced, they are creative outlets, the ideas of the soul at work. Behind the skill, though, we find years of hard work. Out of 10 hours of stage rehearsals, 9 are dedicated to music. Going back to a former comparison, we find Stephen King, the guru of horror stories, whose showmanship is also combined with devout faith. He told the press repeatedly that he has faith in God. A self confessed family man, a loving father and a completely dedicated friend. Mick Garris from Toronto, Canada, in fact, back in December of 2000, wrote: “Few would guess what a happy, childlike, loyal and generous man the Big Guy is.” He goes on to say how hilariously funny Stephen is, a joy to be around, very local, very unaffected and very much just “Steve” to his pals. Not at all the horrific master of the macabre that he became when he writing his books. Orson Wells played Shakespeare’s MacBeth. Playing a bigot villain didn’t mean that he really believed in being incestuous or in practicing witchcraft. Vincent Furnier’s creative choice resembles the choice Sir Anthony Hopkins made when playing Hannibal Lecter. He could go back to Malibu Beach and be a private person, an intellectual or just a beach bum, after the show. A storyteller, the prodigal son that found God in his heart, the good samaritan who helped the underprivilaged and didn’t even ask anything of them in return. I have the advantage of being an actor, an author and a singer. I am, like Alice and like Stephen, a storyteller, as are we all, artists or no artists. So I know exactly where Alice is coming from. People love stories and we love telling them. No more. No less. I know that the roles I play are part of my stage persona. I know that the stories I write are part of my creativity. When I make up a story about a killer voodoo prince, it is just a story. When I portray a villain, it is only a portrayal. Me? I am really a nice guy. I have been in show business since I was 11 years old. That is a career that has been going on for 34 stage years by now. In Bizet’s “Carmen”, I played Zuniga, a misogynistic killer. I was an evil vampire in Polanski’s “Dance of the Vampires”, an egocentric record producer in “Buddy – the Musical” and the mean Uncle Scar in “The Lion King”. That doesn’t mean, however, that I am an egocentric, evil, mean killer in my private life. I have played that killer lion, that bloodthirsty vampire, that psychopathic murderer, that coldhearted husband, that bastard record producer, that evil king, that village idiot, that mean bandit, that butchered deer, that death row prisoner and that mean ghost, maybe just to warn people not to become like that. Maybe that’s the point of art: to point a finger to what is. Nobody would ever think of coming to me after a show and asking me why I wanted to kill Simba. Drama has to meet romance, darkness has to be filled with light, truth has to meet reality, classic has to meet rock, souls have to meet, people have to put aside their preconceived conceptions in order find out what lies behind the surface. We tell gruesome stories, we tell stories that are uplifting and positive. Alice is one of those forerunners who went through hell in order to tell us how he found God. It also goes to show that most of us have a completely different view of what rock ‘n roll was or is to Alice Cooper in the first place. It just goes to show that the people that complained about his performances never really listened to the actual lyrics. “I just play the villain of rock ‘n roll,” he concludes. “It’s not really who I am.” Touché, Alice. Touché. Now go back to church and dig up that undiscovered treasure, turning it into your reality and uncovering what might be revealed as true spiritual gold. Praise Jesus, Alice has seen the light. “Everyone carries a seed of love within them, even villains do. The real secret is nourishing that seed and blessing every other life with its power.” - Anonymous

Celebrities By Alexandra H. Rodrigues Excerpt from “Emotion in Motion: Tales of a Stewardess.” My personal meetings with well-known people (while flying as an air hostess) include: * Maria Callas. She could not be bothered with holding on to 50 red roses given to her by shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis upon departure from Rome. * Walt Disney. I met him as a good looking, distinguished passenger on one of my Inter German flights. He gave me an autograph on the inside of my first Pan American shoulder bag. Unfortunately, that bag got lost. I wish I still had it. * Stephen King. We had time to talk for a while. When I mentioned my interest in writing, he predicted that I would do well. How he could come to this conclusion during our short conversation, I do not know. I’m happy to say, “Thank you Mr. King. Your words have been heard by the power of destiny.” * Charles Kálmán. (son of Emmerich Kálmán best known for the opera Maritza). The composer and I became good friends. * The Supremes. They impressed me most by their identical leather coats in three different colors. I had the pleasure of hanging up those coats in our Pan American coat room. Albert Schweitzer. Doctor, theologist and missionary. * Wilhelm Furtwängler. German conductor and composer considered to be one of the greatest symphonic and operatic conductors of the 20th century. * Jackie Kennedy. We met during a transit in Ireland. * Ted Kennedy. On the flight I had him, he chose to fly Economy Class. He provided me with an autograph on a A mistake I am realizing only just now. After all it is not fair to be handed a First Class menu when you have to eat an Economy meal. * On our crew bus, I often met actress Maureen O’Hara on her way to meet Charles Bennett, a very attractive Pan American Captain. * During my time in Germany I took a ride on the backseat of a motorcycle owned by actor Kurt Maisel. * When in Limerick, Ireland, I enjoyed lunch with Mirette Hanley-Corboy, who later became well-known for her contributions to construction and education in Ireland. * The Beatles. Pan Am brought them to New York for their first performance in the States when Ed Sullivan introduced them to America. * During my time in management, I got to know talk show host Barry M. Farber. He is an American conservative radio talk show host, author and language learning enthusiast. He ran for Conservative Party nominee for Mayor of New York City in 1977, preceded by Maria Biaggio and succeeded by John Esposito as Conservative Party nominee for the position. After the fall of Pan Am, I was selected by Barry Farber to run his language clubs on Long Island. The Language Club was a stimulating, well-educated, interesting, fun group of people from all walks of life. People who enjoy speaking foreign languages. It was open to any body regardless of fluency in language and quite an opportunity to learn while making new friends. * “Emotion in Motion: Tales of a Stewardess” by Alexandra H. Rodrigues is available through Amazon.com and on Kindle.

The Making of “Business for Pleasure” By well-known actor, baritone and author

Herbert Eyre Moulton (1927 – 2005)

I have starred in many movies, including “Firefox” with Clint Eastwood and “Mesmer” with Alan Rickman. Often, I am confused with another colleague of the same generation and of the same name. We share the same profession, but I am also a singer, a teacher, an author and have worked a greater part in Europe. I was MCA Records’ 1950’s Hot-Shot Dinner Singer, the conductor of the Camp Gordon Chapel Choir during the Korean War, a part of the duo “The Singing Couple”, the other half being my wife Gun Kronzell, creator of the school-radio-programmes for the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation and actor in over three hundred stage productions across the world. As for the movies, one of my more curious anecdotes concerned the following one. Yet another of my hot Oscar-Contenders was an Austro-American goody produced in 1996 by “Erotic-Pioneer” Zelman King of “9 ½ Weeks”-fame. This was one little sweetmeat that actually got released, or it snuck out when no one was looking. I know for a fact that it was let loose back home, because a matronly towncrier of my acquaintance phoned me from the Chicago area to relay the glad tidings: “Don Nichols called last night and said he’d rented a Soft-Porn video and guess who was playing the butler? Not just the butler, but also a sort of uniformed Procurer? Herb Moulton, that’s who! So, of course, we had to have a look at it, and we recognized you, because you were the only one with your clothes on.” This rococo fertility-rite starred Jeroen Krabbe (Harrison Ford’s nemesis in “The Fugitive”) and two dishy young shooting stars who needed the work, I guess: Caron Bernstein and Gary Stretch, and it was filmed (my scenes, anyway) in various splendidly restored castles ornmenting the Austrian countryside. As usual, I wasn’t especially wellinformed about my actual duties. All I knew was: I was to meet and greet the lissome Ms. Bernstein at the portal and usher her up several flights of long winding stairs into a vast bed- and ballroom, in the center of which stood a gilded ornamental bathtub complete with sumptuous Turkish towels and exotic perfumes and ungents. She was to make use of it at once. On this very first day of shooting I was handed a xeroxed resumé of the convoluted, so-called plot which bore the cryptic stamp “UNAPPROVED 2/7/96”. After a moment’s persual I could see why. To match its sheer gooey grandiloquence you’d have to turn to the Collected works of Dame Barbara Cartland. Talk about “Dynasty”- and “Dallas”Damage. Allow me to quote some purple patches: “Isabel Diaz, a beautiful and sophisticated, rising executive, is facing a crisis,” it begins. “That moment in life, when each time she looks in the mirror, she asks herself: ‘What am I saving myself for?’” The question being wholly rhetorical, the narrative gurgles on: “A self-possessed woman with a smouldering sensuality, she longs to push beyond the limits of the day to day.” Helping her push is the powerful, ultra-wealthy magnate Alexander Schutter, with whom she forms an unholy alliance. With him, she “has met her match”. This is Mr. Krabbe at his silkiest and most icky, and his first demand on Isabel is that she “pass a test of personal loyalty and cater to his peculiar sensual desires.” She is to bring two call girls to his suite and observe them making love to Rolf, Schutter’s chauffeur, whom the handout describes as “darkly handsome and gifted lover.” (Well, he’d want to be, wouldn’t he?) One question, if I may: Why is it always the chauffeur and why not the poor old butler who has all the fun? As the gray eminence of this particular castle, I know I had to be above all that, grandly ignorant of the carnal olympiad swirling all around me, and much more concerned with such domestic duties as supervising a corps of bewigged flunkies as they served a splendiferous candlelight supper out on the terrace. The trouble was it poured wih rain on each of the all-night filming sessions (always tedious and depressing at the best of times), which rather dampended the orgiastic merriment. Luckily, Gary Stretch, alias Rolf the sexually athletic chauffeur, took pity on me and let me take refuge in his heate caravan, for which a benison on him, and may Heaven safeguard his libido. But wait, there’s more, much more. “The game begins,” announces the funky travelogue, and before anybody can say “Priapus”, the show is taken off the road and moved to the glitter and swank of Vienna, where “an intensely erotic triangle develops among Isabel, Schutter and Rolf.” The relentlessly lascivious Schutter gets further kicks from watching the other two making what Iago in Shakespeare’s Othello terms “the beast with two backs.” The gameplan breathlessly unfolds: “The tension in this emotional thriller builds against the background of Vienna where love of life, beauty and luxury echoes Isabel’s growing passion for sensuality. (“Getting There Is Half The Fun!”) But now danger looms for heedless, headstrong Isabel, along with hints of tragedy buried in the past, as “Schutter’s world of power, risk and decadence becomes an addiction for her.” What withdrawal struggles, what cold turkey the poor dear will have to endure while kicking the habuit must be left to the imagination. For now, the whole heroic saga is being rounded off: “Business for Pleasure is the story of one woman’s brave journey to the heart of her own desires. Isabel’s entry into Schutter’s dark world leaves her shattered ...” (And she’s not the only one!) But now come the great crashing chords that signify Redemption and The Grand Finale: “With the help of the mysterious and hauntingly beautiful Anna ...” (Mysterious, is right. This is the first we have heard of her!) “... she is able to pick up the pieces of her life. When finally Isabel triumphs over disaster, she helps Schutter confront his own emptiness and take his first steps into the light.” What this reminds you of is the grand old era of Super-Soap Heroines like Mary Noble, Backstage Wife, and tragic, self-sacrificing Stella Dallas. Isabel has got to be the most distressed and poignant figure since Tolstoy or possibly Jacqueline Susanne. Yet what is the only thing that bugged those yahoo-acquaintances of mine in Chicago? The next time I’m in that neck of the woods, remind me to check out for myself the video of “Business for Pleasure”, if only to see just what fun-and-games the butler had been missing all that time.

A Celebrity Named Gun Kronzell By Charles E.J. Moulton and Gun Kronzell The 1960's must've been quite a decade for my mother. She was a working opera star active in a dozen German theatres. She sang oratories in Belgium, France and England. She met my dad in Hannover in 1966, toured with him through Europe, appeared on Irish TV and was still able to travel back to the calm home base in her beloved home town of Kalmar in Sweden. My mom loved Kalmar. It was her centre, her safe haven. As a global citizen touring the world and working with and meeting stars like Luciano Pavarotti, Alan Rickman and the Swedish King, she had been at home most everywhere. But her heart was Swedish. Her soul belonged to Kalmar. As a little boy in Gothenburg, I was exposed to my mother's amazing imagination. She told me these wonderful good night stories about the trolls Uggel-Guggel and Klampe-Lampe. They eventually turned into the high point of my day. The coolest thing, though, is that I am passing on these stories to my daughter. She is starting to invent stuff for the stories just like I did. I see that she loves the inventive and crazy creativity of our stories just as much as I did. Having my mom as a good night story teller and my daddy as a professional author was the best mixture a boy could ask for. I thank them for that. For triggering my imagination. For opening the vaults of endless creativity. For that is what it is about, guys. All of it. Creation. Creating always greater versions of ourselves. New parts of ourselves we thought were gone. New pieces of ourselves we didn't know we had. Pieces that appear once we just trust ourselves to be more than we thought we were or could be. There are so many old documents in my cupboards and closets. Old clippings and reviews that my mom kept as evidence of her glorious career. One paper in particular describes what kind of a career she was having back then. I also know, being the only child, that if I don't transcribe these documents and have them published somehow, nobody will. I could ask my wife or daughter to transcribe these old things, but it is actually my job as a son to spread the word of what kind of folks they were. They worked so hard for what they became and accomplished. They perfected their art so beautifully that a new generation just deserves to hear about them and damn great they were. Singers, actors, authors, directors, teachers, scholars: they were everything and more. So, here we go: back to the beginning of the 1960's. John F. Kennedy was still alive. The Space Race was still on. Armstrong had not yet landed on the moon. And a certain young opera singer named Gun Kronzell travelled the world and inspired people with her voice. This is what Gun herself wrote in a document that was intended for a newspaper that was about to write an article about her. Her schedule looks like a big city phone book. So many operas and oratories to learn. She must've been rehearsing constantly. "These are some of my concerts and performances that I have been assigned to carry out during this season of 1962-63: On March 11th, I am singing Brahms' Altrapsodie and Mozart's Requiem in Beleke with Matthias Büchel as conductor. Then, I am travelling to Bünde to sing Bach's Matthew Passion on March 31st. The April 1st, I am singing the same piece in Ahlen. I am travelling to Brügge in Belgium on April 4th to sing Beethoven's 9th Symphony. On April 17th I am again singing the Matthew Passion by Bach in Bergisch-Gladbach with Paul Nitsche as conductor. I am back in Sweden on May 31st to sing at the 100 year anniversary of the Kalmar Girl's School. On July 8th, I am singing Bach's Vom Reiche Gottes in the Church of Zion in Bethel. In the German Vocal Festival in Essen, I am singing Haydn's Theresien Mass and Koerpp's The Fire of Prometheus. In November, I am singing Bruckner's Mass in F-Minor in Witten. On November 28th, 29th and 30th I am performing Beethoven's Mass in C Minor in the Mühlheim City Arena and Duisburg City Theatre. On December 2nd and 3rd, 1962, I am singing Bach's Christmas Oratory in the Church of Zion in Bethel. On December16th, I am singing the same piece in Mainz. I am also singing the Christmas Oratory by Bach in Soest with Claus Dieter Pfeiffer as conductor and in Unna with Karl Helmut Herrman as conductor. January 12th, 1963, hears me singing Bach's Christmas Oratory again in Bethel. On March 31st I have been hired to sing Dvorak's Stabat Mater in Lippstadt. Those were the concerts. Now for my operatic performances: I have been hired as Mezzo Soprano at the City Opera in Bielefeld since September of 1961. This season has seen me perform 5 roles. The Innkeeper's Wife in Moussorgsky's Boris Godunov. That production had its premiere in September here. But I also guested with that part twice in Cologne this year. We have performed this opera 13 times so far. The second role was Emilia in Verdi's Othello. We premiered with that on Christmas Day and have played it 10 times so far. The third role for me this year was Dritte Dame (Third Lady) in The Magic Flute by Mozart. Our musical director Bernhard Conz often guest conducts in Italy and in Vienna. 5 shows of this so far. The gypsy fortune teller Ulrica in Verdi's A Masked Ball had its premiere on January 23rd and this show has been playing for sold out houses 8 times so far. Another Gypsy lady role, Czipra, in Johann Strauss' The Gypsy Baron had its premiere on March 6th. My next role, Hippolytte in Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream, is going to be fun. A new colleague of mine arrived this year. He is the Swedish son of an archbishop. His name is Helge Brillioth." Not only did her schedule look like a phone book, the reviews were as impressive as her CV. My mom had just returned from a tour through Ireland with my dad and appeared on Irish TV. She was pregnant with me while singing Ortrud in Wagner's Lohengrin. The daily newspaper wrote, on December 28th, 1968: "The best thing that the Opera House of Graz in Austria offered its ensemble was Gun Kronzell with her astounding portrayal of Ortrud. She already made a lasting impression as Mrs. Quickly and confirmed her skills here as well. This voice is a real winning triumph for our city: its intensity and wide range impresses. Gun Kronzell's Ortrud, if directed by a top notch world director, could become really interesting and a global phenomenon." One critic spoke of a voice that was illuminate in glory. The journal "Die Wahrheit" wrote that she sang a magnifiscent Ortrud with dramatic expression filled with movement and vocal prowess. Kleine Zeitung remarked on December 28th, 1968, that she was the only one that truly could shine in that production. Her clear and bright mezzo produced a brilliant fully controlled performance worthy of extraordinary theatrical mention. Ewald Cwienk from the Wiener Kurier wrote on January 3rd about the high level of her excellent vocal work. But even across the country in Augsburg they wrote about the masterful vocal presence and powerful expression of the Hannover's leading mezzo Gun Kronzell. They even went so far as to say that the audience in the olden days would have interrupted the scene after the operatic Plea of the Gods just to give the singer a standing ovation. Opern Welt, one of Germany's leading operatic journals, described her thusly: "Gun Kronzell (Hannover), vocally and dramatically convincing devotee of sensual passion." But her operatic skill alone did not gather rave reviews. Her collaboration with her baritone husband Herbert Eyre Moulton (1927-2005) had the European critics throwing proverbial roses at their feet. The Reutlinger General Anzeiger, on February 5th, 1968, published the following rave review after a triumphant show in Regensburg, Germany: "BIG VOICES IN A SMALL CONCERT HALL A successful concert performed at the America House They do not only sing duets. The married artistic couple Gun Kronzell (a mezzosoprano from Sweden) and Herbert Eyre Moulton (a baritone from the U.S.) are a living duet. When they appear on stage, they grab each other's hands before singing and try successfully not to compete with each other, but they try to achieve symbiosis. During the solo songs it becomes evident that the wife's lyric expression, vocal volume, skill and artistic temperament is a perfect mirror image of the husband's beautifully placed Irish baritone with its lyric joie de vivre. Both voices are obviously too big for this concert hall. It would have been great to hear them in the Carnegie Hall or at the London Festival Hall, where Miss Kronzell has sung recently, in order to hear the voices reverberate and swing in locations fit for their level of brilliance. And still: compliments to the America House for hiring them in the first place. This concert distinguished itself through a sophisticated programme and excellent interpretation. But even sophisticated programmes don't lift off the ground if the pieces in question don't have the longing of a lover's kiss. This programme did. The singers communicate. They love what they do. The concert started out with three duets by Henry Purcell, vitalized by constant sounds of musical joy. This was Baroque Art at its most lucious, where voices mingled and climaxed in full, soft alto tones and a natural high baritone that never seemed forced or uncomfortable. The three American Songs by Aaron Copland that followed, sung by Gun Kronzell, were functional straight forward pieces with a little bit of romantic flight hidden within the framework. The last song, Going to Heaven, explosively vocalized by the soloists with an accentuated pronounciation on the word HEA-VÉN, was effective to say the least. The baritone spoke a few words between songs in his selfproclaimed Chicago-German idiom, claiming that composer Charles Ives was the primitive composer of musical history. The singer disproved this. Ives is THE genius of American Music. The folkloristic song 'Charlie Rutlage' is a musical Western in itself: exciting, juicy, full of artistic trivialities. It was sung excellently and served by the singer as a juicy artistic peppersteak of sorts. It was a dramatic number that became a fast speech rotating kind of song, not unlike the Pitter-Patter vocabulary present in Gilbert & Sullivan's operetta chants. The third song, 'The Election', is a political elective song, but no direct campaign hit. National Pathos came as expected and the audience was thrilled to hear it. The first half of the show ended with duets: the pure enjoyment of the magic songs by Dvorak were the topics of conversations at the intermission bar. The Swedish mezzosoprano sang Swedish songs with clean artistic expression after the break. The succeeding Hölderlin-songs by the Irish composer Seán O'Riada - a cycle in four parts in which the simplistic harmonies of the beginning returned at the end could not have been sung better by the baritone Herbert Eyre Moulton. These compositions from 1965 are actually ancient in style and format. These stilistically mysterious thought-songs were triumphs of passionate interpretation. The finale provided us with the necessary crowning glory: five songs from Gustav Mahler's 'Des Knaben Wunderhorn'. These were not duets. Instead, the songs were divided into dialogues. We found the sadness, we experienced the parody of superiority, scenes were acted out and still nobody feared losing the essence of the tones. The accompanist Karl Bergemann proved himself to be an accomplished expert in all mentioned musical areas. No harmony was left unsung, no heart was left untouched, the singers were never overpowered by the sound of his piano playing and still he knew how to present himself well. His instrumentation entailed a magnetic expressive force. His support was a counterpoint that even more famous colleagues would have envied taking them by their musical hands. The audience were eternally thankful, providing the three artists with standing ovations." Critiques such as these give even music lovers who didn't have the joy of hearing "The Singing Couple" live the hint of how wonderfully entertaining artists they were. The amazing thing was that my parents were full fledged and extremely experienced artists already when I was born. They accomplished being successful artists and still being there for me at all times. I spent a week in London with my mom in 1979. We met my Godfather, the composer James Wilson, and went to musicals like "Jesus Christ Superstar" and "Oliver!" (with a real dog running around the musical London stage, we weaved that, too, into the good night stories). This trip provided me with good memories. It was a dear part of my childhood whose many events were included in our good night stories: my stuffed dog Ludde fell in love with our hotel chamber maid Maria. That's what we said, anyway. With my dad, I went to Copenhagen during early 80's three winters in a row. Two guys going to the opera, eating Spaghetti, going to theatre to see an uncut version of Hamlet (the box office lady called Hamlet "a very good Danish play"), going to see a Bond movie in a Copenhagen cinema called the Colloseum (an Italian waiter told us: "The Colloseum is in Rome!") and running through Copenhagen after the royal guards to Queen Margarete's palace only to see them vanish into the courtyard and away beyond the entrance. We had hoped to see the Changing of the Guards, but only saw them march. It didn't matter. It was all good. All three of us (the holy family) took trips to Sweden and America together, played board games on Friday nights, went to art museums, laughed until we cried on the living room couch we called Clothilde, took long trips in the Volkswagen we called Snoopy and invited my best friends for pancake breakfasts on Sunday mornings. My parents were witty, generous, experienced people with lots of spirit. They were able to take responsibility for their lives as adults and still have some crazy spontaneous fun along the way. I will always be eternally thankful for their fantastic influence. What they gave me I can pass on to my daughter. And they are our Guardian Angels. What a fantastic job they are doing. As always. Now, a newspaper article about my mother Gun Margareta Kronzell published during her heyday from the local newspaper Barometern in 1971: KALMAR’S OPERASINGER IS A EUROPEAN STAR! HER FATHER KNUT GAVE HER HIS UNENDING SUPPORT Think about this for a moment: Gun Kronzell can sing! This discovery was made during Gun Kronzell’s last year at the Girl’s School in Kalmar. Nobody at the school had heard her before, neither the teachers nor the school friends knew it. Now everybody in Europe knows it. She is a star. Gun Kronzell, born on Nygatan 16 in Kalmar, lives in Vienna and works as a Dramatic Mezzo-Soprano all across the continent. She has been working at the Volks-Opera in Vienna during the Springtime and has sung on many European Stages , including London’s Festival Hall. Her appearances in Sweden have been few, but now the Kalmar audience has the possibility to hear her fantastic voice in the Kalmar Cathedral on Monday. There will be two other concerts in the local area. She lives all summer in her mother Anna’s and her father Knut’s apartment on Odengatan and is taking with her son Charlie. Her husband Herbert Eyre Moulton is still in Vienna, working at the English speaking theatres as an actor, teaching English, creating school radio programs for the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation (ORF) and writing plays. “My husband and I met in Hannover in Germany. We were both working singers and shared the same singing teacher. I asked him if he would speak English with me. Since then, we have only spoken English with each other. That is, when we are on speaking terms,” Gun laughs with a twinkle in her eye. “We love performing with each other and promoting ourselves as The Singing Couple.” MULTILINGUAL Two year old Charlie is raised to speak many languages, among them English and German. His grandparents are right now teaching him Swedish. Some day he will be able to compete with his mother, who fluently speaks at least three languages, if not more. Sea Captain and Swedish Church Chief Accountant Knut Kronzell wanted to become an opera singer, but his parents had other plans. He had to be satisfied with singing for his family at festive gatherings. In the beginning, Gun wasn’t impressed. But as time went on, she was. When she applied to study at the Royal Musical Academy in Stockholm, her father Knut gave her all his support. A FAMOUS FAMILY Success came flying from high and wide and from all the right places. Her education was superb, her vocal range was phenomenal, her interpretation became renowned: a perfect mixture. Stockholm’s Opera House was too limited a forum and Gun moved to Germany, where Bielefeld, Hannover, Köln, Recklinghausen, Wiesbaden, Paris, Brügge and Graz has become her own “home turf.” Her husband Herbert Eyre Moulton is from Chicago. He is a singer, author and works for Austrian Radio. Last year he joined his wife in order to sing at the festival Kalmar 70. This year he has not had any time to come to Sweden. VITALLY ITALIAN “I like acting on stage,” Gun Kronzell says. “It’s better than singing concerts. I feel lonelier on the concert stage. The opera stage is always lively and full of action.” The Italian composers are among her favorites. Verdi is number one. Of course. A LIFE FULL OF SONG Gun Kronzell: “I’m actually quite tired of Wagner. He was an amazing composer, but in his operas there is a whole lot of endless singing and that gets strenuous for the audience. Brünhilde, Erda, Kundry, Ariadne, I’ve sung them all, and I was always happy to have a good vocal technique to help me get through those roles and a happy to wear a good pair of shoes.” The new kind of pop music world wide radio keeps playing is not something Gun dislikes. The Beatles have many good successors, she says. Charlie just loves pop music. The hotter, the better. SWEDEN’S TOP 40 Gun Kronzell doesn’t mind hot music. However, schmaltzy Schlager Muzak is not her thing and she admits that she also doesn’t really know what’s hot in Swedish popular music today. “I have no idea what vinyl EPs are being handed over the counters and what songs are making the top record charts in Sweden right now,” she laughs. RADIO Gun Kronzell will record a radio program for Swedish Radio this year. Her concert from last year, recorded at the festival Kalmar 70, will appear in a rerun. This autumn there will be a whole range of continental concerts. “I have to return to Kalmar at least once a year,” she says. “That family contact is important, the sea air rejuvenates me, the food, the sun, the laughter, the flowers and the friends. And my mom and dad are very happy when I come. Especially when I bring Charlie along.”

The Legend of the Flying Dutchman Written by Kerry Sullivan Many thanks to http://www.ancient-origins.net/myths-legends/legend-flying-dutchman-ghostly-apparitionship-captain-hendrick-007285 *** Among nautical myths and legends, few are as famous as the Flying Dutchman. Many have claimed to see the ghostly vessel of Captain Hendrick van der Decken (the Dutchman) since it sank in 1641. It is because of his brash attitude in the face of God’s stormy wrath that Captain van der Decken and his crew are cursed to sail the high seas until doomsday. Captain van der Decken had made the perilous journey from Holland to the Far East Indies in order to purchase lucrative goods like spices, silks, and dyes. There had been close calls of course but they eventually arrived. After purchasing as much as the hull could hold and having made the necessary repairs to the ship, captain van der Decken set out for Amsterdam. As his ship rounded the coast of Africa, captain van der Decken thought of how convenient it would be if his employers, the Dutch East India Company, made a settlement near the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa to serve as a respite from the turbulent waters.

Voyage and Curse The Captain was deep in thought as his man-of-war ship began to round the Cape. Suddenly, a terrible gale sprung up, threatening to capsize the ship and drown all aboard. The sailors urged their captain to turn around but Captain van der Decken refused. Some say he was mad, others say he was drunk but for whatever reason, the Captain ordered his crew to press on. He lit his pipe and smoked as huge waves crashed against the ship. The winds tore at the sails and water spilled down into the hull. Yet the Captain “held his course, challenging the wrath of God Almighty by swearing a blasphemous oath” (Occultopedia, 2016). Pushed to their limit, the crew mutinied. Without hesitation, Captain van der Decken killed the rebel leader and threw his body into the turning seas. The moment the rebel’s body hit the water, the vessel spoke to the Captain “asking him if he did not mean to go into the bay that night. Van der Decken replied: ‘May I be eternally damned if I do, though I should beat about here till the day of judgment’” (Wagner quoted in Music with Ease, 2005). At that, the voice spoke again saying, “As a result of your actions you are condemned to sail the oceans for eternity with a ghostly crew of dead men bringing death to all who sight your spectral ship and to never make port or know a moment’s peace. Furthermore, gall shall be your drink and red hot iron your meat.” At this, Captain van der Decken did not quaver for an instant. Instead he merely cried “Amen to that!” (Occultopedia, 2016).

Ghost Ship Since then, Captain van der Decken has been given the moniker the Flying Dutchman, sailing his ghost ship the world over. Sailors claim the Dutchmen has led ships astray, causing them to crash on hidden rocks or reefs. They say that if you look into a fierce storm brewing off the Cape of Good Hope, you will see the Captain and his skeletal crew. But beware, legend has it that whoever catches sight of the Dutchman will most certainly die a gruesome death. The legend of the Flying Dutchman first gained widespread popularity with Wagner’s 1843 opera, The Flying Dutchman. Yet, the reason the legend has endured so long and has been the subject of so many retellings (seen in or inspiring not only Wagner’s opera but also Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Pirates of the Caribbean, a SpongeBob Square Pants character, a Scooby-Doo episode, and more) is because there have been so many supposed sightings of the ghost ship. One of the most famous encounters was made on July 11, 1881 by Prince George of Wales (future King George V) and his brother Prince Albert Victor of Wales. At the time, they were sailing off the coast of Australia. Prince George’s log records: July 11th. At 4 a.m. the Flying Dutchman crossed our bows. A strange red light as of a phantom ship all aglow, in the midst of which light the masts, spars and sails of a brig 200 yards distant stood out in strong relief as she came up on the port bow, where also the officer of the watch from the bridge clearly saw her, as did the quarterdeck midshipman, who was sent forward at once to the forecastle; but on arriving there was no vestige nor any sign whatever of any material ship was to be seen either near or right away to the horizon, the night being clear and the sea calm. Thirteen persons altogether saw her ... At 10.45 a.m., the ordinary seaman who had this morning reported the Flying Dutchman fell from the foretopmast crosstrees on to the topgallant forecastle and was smashed to atoms.” (Ellis, 2016) Today, scientists insist that the Dutchman’s ship is nothing more than a mirage, a refraction of light off of the ocean waters. Sources: Ellis, Tony. "Maritime Ghosts." The Flying Dutchman. Woodbury Central, 2016. Web. www.woodbury-central.k12.ia.us/common/pages/DisplayFile.aspx?itemId=9931541 (http://www.woodbury-central.k12.ia.us/common/pages/DisplayFile.aspx?itemId=9931541) MI News Network. "Ghost Ship: The Mysterious Flying Dutchman." Marine Insight. Marine Insight, 21 July 2016. Web. 20 Dec. 2016. http://www.marineinsight.com/maritimehistory/ghost-ship-the-mysterious-flying-dutchman/ (http://www.marineinsight.com/maritime-history/ghost-ship-the-mysterious-flyingdutchman/) Music with Ease. "Source of the Legend of The Flying Dutchman." Operas of Richard Wagner The Flying Dutchman. Music with Ease, 2005. Web. 20 Dec. 2016. http://www.musicwithease.com/flying-dutchman-source.html (http://www.musicwithease.com/flying-dutchman-source.html) Occultopedia. "Flying Dutchman." Occultopedia, the Occult and Unexplained Encyclopedia. Occultopedia, 2016. Web. 20 Dec. 2016. http://www.occultopedia.com/f/flying_dutchman.htm (http://www.occultopedia.com/f/flying_dutchman.htm)

The Spirit of Anacleto By Alexandra H. Rodrigues He is dead I am sure. He was a few years older than me. Apart from that, I seem to recall that my mother had mentioned that he was involved in some political groups and lost his life. I met Anacleto, a true-blooded Italian man only one single time. This as the result of my mother having met him on a vacation trip with Kurt, her second husband. She was full of praise for the young man. “He looks fabulous, he is intelligent, he is very polite, he is not married,” and so on and on. To him, she must have spoken the same way about me. The year was 1958. I agreed to meet with Anacleto in Paris! True, he was a nice young man. He fell in love with me! For some reason he wanted to keep contact via my mother. I did not waste much thought on him. He was not my type and also too young. In addition, I was dating the chief surgeon of a large hospital. All this had happened just before my new life as a stewardess with consequently my going to America. My mother did not mention Anacleto any more, at least I do not remember. He, however, wrote several letters to her meant in a way to be related to me. Yet I had not even the idea that they existed. In retrospect, it really did not matter but for some odd reason, those letters lay here on my desk now in the year 2017. It is time to put them to rest. I feel forced to write this story about Anacleto. Ghostlike his pictures, photos from the years 1958 and 1959 are part of the letters. I meant to throw out the entire package. It stands to reason that I did not care then and do not now, but here they are. I found the writes and pictures in a folder when cleaning my mother’s house in Berlin after her death in 2001; I had not known that they even existed. For 16 years now, I have meant to write a short piece about this, to keep, but never did. Never could I bring myself to throw all out either. So today is the day. Otherwise my own son might find it after my death, and whatever force this material possesses might give him trouble too. I am turning even more into a believer of ghostly interference. When I broke a few hours ago on this story to have dinner, I had saved it. Nothing unusual about that. When I returned I could not restore or find it. Now, a few hours later and without even trying, the Anacleto story popped up on my computer’s screen. Believe it or not! The letters I found cover 1957 to 1959 and are all directed to my mother. They are written in broken German. I just notice that Anacleto’s last name was Verrecchia. The name combination, Alexandra Verrecchia would not have been too bad! Here is the translation of selected letters from German into English and I am going to use it as material for a story. A story that is disturbing as the write was so confusing and constantly interrupted by uncommon incidents of artificial(?) intelligence. Here are some excerpts from the letters that pertain to me: …Torino October 31, 1957… (All letters start with “Liebe Frau Krause,” which is my mother, and open with some polite niceties.) You know already that I do correspond with Alexandra. Of course, I am not a sky-blue Prince but only a common, young man, as you know. Now Alexandra wrote me that she needs to be operated and I am sorry. As I cannot get any news from her for the next 10 to 12 days, I ask you to please keep me apprised of the outcome, yes? I am satisfied to write to Alexandra as she is said to be a beautiful, intelligent and friendly girl, because as daughter of Mr. Krause, this has to be so. (With Mr. Krause he means the second husband of my mother, whom he had also met at the vacation. He did not know that Kurt Krause was not my father.) I feel good, no longer suffering from an epidemic, just a little heart problem…I am already looking forward to an answer from you and many, many good wishes for Alexandra. …Torino December 12, 1957…Maybe Alessandra told you already why I have not written lately. I feel better again now, just minor pains, most likely from the cold in the mountains. Dear Mrs. Lilo (my mother’s name is Lilo – even as I edit this piece for publication, words that were italicized suddenly become roman.) and Alexandra’s mother, what can I do to come to meet, your blue prince seeking daughter, in person? I would love to come for Christmas to Berlin but have little time. I asked my boss today if he would give me off from Christmas to New Year’s, but unfortunately, he said “no.” If however, Alexandra would like, and you and your husband would not mind maybe Mekka could go to Macmetto? I know I should not ask for that. The Germans love the Christmas feast more than we do and I, who live alone, can maybe not understand how nice it could be in a small, lovely family. For me the biggest wish is to meet Alexandra in person. I know her so little. …Torino 30 January 1958… I have not heard anymore from you. Hope all is well. I know you have no time, but when you can please. When will you come again to Italy? Write me a long letter. You are so helpful and motherly that it is a treat for me to read something from you. Alexandra writes that it got warm in Berlin. She thinks it is so different here but that is not so. Now I will finish. I hope to see Alexandra around Easter and finally come to meet her. Maybe I, the prince, will in Alexandra my princess find. Now I also suddenly come across a letter from Anacleto written to me directly. A letter I never saw before. Guess my mother was supposed to give it to me: …Torino February 17, 1958…Dear Princessa Alexandra! I got a nice letter from your mother. But you, you my dear love, and loved one (platonic like you say) and still unknown principessa, what do you do that you do not find time to write to me? Are you too lazy to write or is the weather in Berlin so bad that your hands tremble from the cold? You must know that letters from you are a true joy for me. I say that slowly or you will say I exaggerate. Yes Alexandra, I share with you many, many thoughts. In the letter from your mother was a picture of you. You always look beautiful. Why do you say you are afraid that I will not like you? Do you want a backhanded compliment or do you believe I am already like Paride or Hyperion? I am afraid, you should not be. One more month till Easter. What will we do? Where will we meet? For how long will you come? If you never have been to Italy, we could meet at Riva di Garda or Luenchen, Innsbruck or wherever you want. Do not expect that I speak German like Goethe or you. For me it is easier to talk than to understand, so I will ask you to speak clear and slow. No fear, I will hang on your words like they are spoken by an angel. By the way, how tall are you? I am 1.75, is that tall enough? I am shaky from joy to see you. …Torino February 15, 1958 …Your letter Mrs. Lilo was very nice and I thank you. Alexandra also wrote to me, just a postcard, and now I am waiting for a letter from her. It would be lovely if we, I mean I and Alexandra, could meet for Easter. I guess I need not to tell you that I want that very much. So far, it is just a Pleonasmus. Please, if you do not mind and trust me, let Alexandra go. Of course, that depends also on Alexandra and I really do not know how she thinks about it. I can only say that when she once comes to Italy, it will brighten her beauty even more. Thank you for the picture. Please tell Alexandra that I find her prettier every day. (I am not sure where this belongs, so I will add it here.) …Alexandra sent me a nice card with a big cat and I answered with an obedient dog. As you see we are like dog and cat. The card was written in good Italian. How come? Maybe you are correct to say that Alexandra is still a child. Also for that, I love her. Maybe she does not even understand what a beautiful and lovable mother she has. If I had a mother like that, I would scream with joy and need nothing else. I told you already that my poor mother died during the War. So, I grew up mostly without parents. I know Alexandra still too little to speak of her weird complexes. Please try to bring her with you to Italy. Maybe then the sun will open her heart. Listen to me and come back to Costa Adriatic. It is nice and not expensive. When will you come? What you tell me about Love and yourself is touching. What shall I answer? Mr. Krause can be happy to have such a wife. I too know the world and must say that women with value get fewer and fewer. Who has such a wife can be happy. Hope Mr. Krause is not jealous and wants to wring my neck for these compliments. …Torino April 9, 1958…Today the sun is shining in Torino and also my face, my soul and my heart are more rested than in Paris. But also in Paris there was a sun for me even though a cold one. Your child, Mrs. Lilo, is wonderful. Now maybe you can understand if I say that I am in love with Alexandra. True 4 or 5 days are not enough to come to know a person but enough to fall in love. Love and friendship complement each other but only the friendship needs time to be born not the love. When I saw Alexandra the first time at the Hotel D’Orsey, I came to understand all, that Alexandra si sarrebe riuscita fatale. That I am Italian or Turkish has nothing to do with it. The truth is only that I am in love with Alexandra, or if you like, that I like her a lot. Her deep and restless eyes I cannot forget, will never forget. This is not Poesy, neither Madrigal, dear Mrs. Liselotte but only a confession of the soul. Do not think that I am only romantic or gallant. With Alexandra I do not want to make literature but something much more. It is for me the first time that I seriously think about marriage. Yes, for me it is careless so fast about love and honor to talk. Maybe it is naïve, but every man who is in love is naïve. That is the strength of the women, and Alexandra has possible more strength than me. Yet I do not want a toy. I am in love, if it is not forbidden in Germany like it appears with Alexandra. Her I do not understand and that is for sure difficult. If I only could understand her and maybe she does not have a cold heart. Alexandra said, I must fight to conquer her heart. Fine, but how so if she lives in Berlin and I in Torino? Also with letters I cannot fight because now I know how bad my German is. If I could express myself in German the way I do in Italian, my competition to her German lovers would be much less. I am not rich enough to move to Berlin and wait without work till I win Alexandra over. But I will fight, even if I am not a Quixote. I will try to get work in Berlin. Not sure if that is possible but I must try it. There I can also learn German, Italian, and Russian, which brings good money. I know also that Principessa could come to Italy to her blue prince, but that I no longer believe she will. Later ! ? I could work in a travel agency. I will for sure try, even as journalist. Please try for me too. Now I am waiting for a letter from “my Princepessa” she is a real principessa. Dear Mrs. Lilo please do not tell Alexandra about this letter. Tell her nothing. With Alexandra, it is nearly prohibited to talk about love and she might be right because nothing is so boring like a man in love and I do not want to be boring. Please answer soon, my soul needs peace. How nice it would be if I could talk this evening with you and Mr. Krause. …Torino April 17, 1958...How can I now answer your lovely but sad letter? What you write to me – and I am grateful for it – makes me sad, not only for myself but also for you and Alexandra. Sad but one cannot always only talk with the heart. Now I have no right or reason any more to have Alexandra like me and even less the hope that there will come the day that she would love me. I don’t know what Alexandra thinks and wants. On top of that, it would be idiotic to beg a woman for love. Love comes right away or not at all. For Alexandra, a career as airhostess is better than me. An experience! Yes, the world is large but nice I do not think so it is said and in Italy there are also pretty girls. I know that but despite my philosophy and the reality of all, I am still in love with Alexandra. More than nice, life is funny, Mrs. Liselotte. Just think, a nice and also rich, pretty girl calls me often and also writes me love letters but I do not want to hear of it. Alexandra, on the other hand, does not contact me and I am still in love with her. He was right Hamletus dear Horatius. In the world much more exists than what your philosophy will understand There was no way to continue on the original document. Yesterday while I was writing, the letters on the Word Document appeared far apart. Spaces of four or five open spots between. I cannot get to the next line, cannot continue. It is something that has never happened to me before. If I go to another story or document, all is fine. It is something that has never happened to me before. Am I being tested? Is the spirit of this man, once in the past wanting to be my lover, still clinging on to me and still in love with me? A ghostly thought! And now what? A handwritten page about all this, from this morning has disappeared. Today, just now I could not at all find this document! Again, it gives me now the extended letter spaces. I would not even know how to do this if I wanted to. …Torino April 17, 1958…Only in Paris Alessandra told me that she wants to fly. I only answered, I am not here to marry you right away but if I had known that before, maybe I would not have come to Paris but went skiing. Later she did not say, I will not fly but come to you in Paris. You can see that Alessandra is looking for a Blue Prince or angel in the air. What can one say. I wish her all the best. Please know Alessandra was quite nice to me in Paris. Possible I was not always nice to her. I had no urge to dance. I think with a pretty girl the time is everywhere and always nice even if one does not dance. But I repeat, Alessandra was nice to me and I was satisfied. Cold is different and has nothing to do with this. As you can see, this time I am less stressed and do not let my heart talk. But I shall still tell you that I love Alexandra. I think Alessandra belongs to those women who are only born so that men can lose their head. They are without heart, only brain but do sell magic. I should really not tell you this but Alessandra seems to have too many whimsical ideas. Guess I would like to see her the way I like her not how she really is. If you and Mr. Krause and of course Alessandra want it, I will marry her. Believe me that I mean this. Now I will also write to her so she does not say I am too lazy to write. …I got two airmail letters from you. Entertaining and I thank you for it. You are so motherly and I do not at all understand how your daughter can be so different from you. Maybe she just wants to hide her feelings. I got a postcard from Alexandra. She writes that even if she flies I should not be sad but happy be. Why? I do not understand. She said flying has nothing to do with the two of us. I do not agree. When she is flying and I am on earth, we cannot do anything together. You cannot imagine, dear Mrs. Lilo, how much I have lately suffered for Alex. It is not only yearning for a pretty girl but also for my desire for Germany, the half culture. Due to that also my deep sympathy, illustrated a little nuts, she and me too. For you and your husband, I want to marry Alessandra even if she is cold and I am nuts. Please tell me the full truth. I do not know with what I deserve the silence from Alessandra. (I had lost the second handwritten page. Found it. Not sure how it got to where it turned up. This could however have been my mistake. Is it a kobold or imp playing tricks? Is it the once-ignored energy of the young man Anacleto. Wow! And now I am getting, what I keep calling chicken feet (editing marks). Marks that I have not set for my writings ever. Is Anacleto or rather his spirit finally having his say? A lady who is a computer wiz will be able to fix all this but I am sure she too will not know how all this came about.) …Torino Mai 2, 1958… Just this minute our concierge brought me a letter from Berlin. Thought immediately that it is from Mrs. Lilo or Alexandra. (Now the type is changing from italic to roman without my doing, figures. I hope it remains italic long enough to get to press.) But no, it is a letter from a lady who I came to meet in Paris. Her name is Marta and she was quite nice. (Now the computer adds a grey background on its own and a random email at the paragraph’s end followed by a timestamp???) Do you know dear lady, that the poor Christus from Anacleto again fell when skiing? Till yesterday I limped like Rigoletto or Goebbels. As I live alone, without a wife, I am mostly alone with just my books. Your newspaper greetings and books I did not get this time. Are you mad at me? No, that I would never believe. Sometimes I am afraid that you misunderstand my letters and Alexandra too because my German is bad. I translate my Italian thoughts into German, and that is not always the same. Dear Alexandra, hope you're doing well…Best regards from Alan 11:02AM Please forgive me if I write stupid things at times, it is only because I cannot express myself well in German. (See what just popped up! it has nothing to do with what I am just now typing) …Torino Mai 10 1958…Your letter from Mai 7 was appreciated but I did not understand all. Please tell me in your next letter still something about Alexandra. But please do not tell Alexandra. Who was it who lost their head? Alexandra for the 25-year-old man or I? About this I had already the answer when Alexandra said to me at one time in Paris, “You are too young for me.” If you want to know still more about Paris, you can talk with Mrs. Schumacher in Berlin who was with us nearly all the time. Please phone this lady, she can tell you about me. I think I made a big mistake to meet Alexandra in Paris. It would have been better to meet Alexandra in Italy or Berlin. Alexandra is a spoiled girl, used to luxury and to keep up with that in Paris one has to be as rich as Krupp, Agnelli or Olivetti. That I am for sure not. It is my fault. I should have listened to you and waited till August. This is followed by a few more pages of letters to my mother. Somewhat resigned but perpetually speaking of love for me and the deep and sad experience it was that I did not feel the same way. The last date is from September 1959 – almost 60 years ago. Now I should be able to get rid of all the documents, letters and pictures but and that is the clincher. (Suddenly, again, a random email paragraph appeared here and a gray background.) Consequently, the memory of Anacleto will continue to hang on. Never before have I been visited by spirits. Never before had I the feeling that someone could love me past the earthly life. It was a short encounter with apparently eternal consequences. I am forced to continue to stow these documents as I fear I may be called upon to produce them later. This was an eerie write as something or someone inside the computer seemed to be forcing its desires as I typed. Odd formatting, disappearing documents, time stamp, random email messages. I am ending this story before the computer starts talking to me.

International Quotes About Creativity Hindi: , - , , , , " - Creativity is the quality that you bring to the activity that you are doing. It is an attitude, an inner approach – how you look at things . . . Whatsoever you do, if you do it joyfully, if you do it lovingly, if your act of doing is not purely economical, then it is creative.” – Osho Greek:

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Every moment of inspiration is a moment of out of one's mind. -Aristoteles Valaorites, greek poet Posted by Apostolos Kanaris, Greek Tenor and Pianist, Recklinghausen, Germany German: "Mutige Ideen sind wie Schachfiguren: sie bewegen sich vorwärts, können geschlagen werden, aber starten ein Gewinnspiel."Goethe “Daring ideas are like chessmen moved forward; they may be beaten, but they may start a winning game.” — Goethe Italian: “Quello che è un artista? Una provincia che si trova a metà strada tra una realtà fisica e uno metafisica .... E 'questo, questo paese di frontiera in-between che sto chiamando una provincia tra il mondo tangibile e l'intangibile unico che è davvero il regno dell'artista.” – Federico Fellini “What is an artist? A provincial who finds himself somewhere between a physical reality and a metaphysical one…. It’s this inbetween that I’m calling a province, this frontier country between the tangible world and the intangible one—which is really the realm of the artist.” — Federico Fellini English: “A man may die, nations may rise and fall, but an idea lives on.” - John F. Kennedy









Arabic:













The beauty that fulfils you is beauty that reveals to you the image of your own soul without the distortions of the murky waters of life Musafā adiq al-Rāfiī Suaheli: “Hebu daima kukutana kila mmoja na tabasamu, kwa tabasamu ni mwanzo wa upendo.” “Let us always meet each other with smile, for the smile is the beginning of love.” - Suaheli Proverb French: “Jésus a pleuré; Voltaire sourit. De cette larme divine et de ce sourire humain est dérivée la grâce de la civilisation actuelle.” – Victor Hugo “Jesus wept; Voltaire smiled. From that divine tear and from that human smile is derived the grace of present civilization.” – Victor Hugo English: “Creativity is using imagination and knowledge to show love!” Patrick Bryant Michael Swedish: ”Om målet med samhällsutvecklingen skulle vara att vi alla skulle arbeta maximalt vore vi sinnessjuka. Målet är att frigöra människan till att skapa maximalt. Dansa. Måla. Sjunga. Ja, vad ni vill. Frihet.” – Ernst Wigforss ”If society’s developmental goal would be maximum work, we would all go insane. The goal is to free manking to ultimate creativity. Dance. Paint. Sing. Whatever you want. Freedom.” – Ernst Wigforss Japanese: “I will master something. Then the creativity will come.” - Japenese Proverb Gaelic: “Is ceannaireacht enlightened spioradálta má tuigimid spioradáltacht ní mar an dogma creidimh nó idé-eolaíocht de chineál éigin ach de réir mar an bhfearann feasachta ina taithí againn luachanna cosúil le fírinne, maitheas, áilleacht, grá agus compassion, agus freisin intuition, cruthaitheacht, léargas agus aird dírithe.” – Bryan O’Flanagan “Enlightened leadership is spiritual if we understand spirituality not as some kind of religious dogma or ideology but as the domain of awareness where we experience values like truth, goodness, beauty, love and compassion, and also intuition, creativity, insight and focused attention.” – Bryan O’Flanagan Russian: Чтобы создать там должна быть динамическая сила, и какая сила более могущественна, чем любовь “In order to create there must be a dynamic force, and what force is more potent than love?” – Igor Stravinsky Spanish: La creatividad y la inspiración: son susurros y suspiros del corazón Creativity and inspiración: are whispers and sighs of the heart. - David Thorpe

From the King James Bible Matthew 28:1 - 20 1In the end of the sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulchre. 2 (https://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/Matthew-28-2/)And, behold, there was a great earthquake: for the angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door, and sat upon it. 3 (https://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/Matthew-28-3/)His countenance was like lightning, and his raiment white as snow: 4 (https://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/Matthew-28-4/)And for fear of him the keepers did shake, and became as dead men. 5 (https://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/Matthew-28-5/)And the angel answered and said unto the women, Fear not ye: for I know that ye seek Jesus, which was crucified. 6 (https://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/Matthew-28-6/)He is not here: for he is risen, as he said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay. 7 (https://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/Matthew-28-7/)And go quickly, and tell his disciples that he is risen from the dead; and, behold, he goeth before you into Galilee; there shall ye see him: lo, I have told you. 8 (https://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/Matthew-28-8/)And they departed quickly from the sepulchre with fear and great joy; and did run to bring his disciples word. 9 (https://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/Matthew-28-9/)And as they went to tell his disciples, behold, Jesus met them, saying, All hail. And they came and held him by the feet, and worshipped him. 10 (https://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/Matthew-28-10/)Then said Jesus unto them, Be not afraid: go tell my brethren that they go into Galilee, and there shall they see me. 11 (https://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/Matthew-28-11/)Now when they were going, behold, some of the watch came into the city, and shewed unto the chief priests all the things that were done. 12 (https://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/Matthew-28-12/)And when they were assembled with the elders, and had taken counsel, they gave large money unto the soldiers, 13 (https://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/Matthew-28-13/)Saying, Say ye, His disciples came by night, and stole him away while we slept. 14 (https://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/Matthew-28-14/)And if this come to the governor's ears, we will persuade him, and secure you. 15 (https://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/Matthew-28-15/)So they took the money, and did as they were taught: and this saying is commonly reported among the Jews until this day. 16 (https://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/Matthew-28-16/)Then the eleven disciples went away into Galilee, into a mountain where Jesus had appointed them. 17 (https://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/Matthew-28-17/)And when they saw him, they worshipped him: but some doubted. 18 (https://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/Matthew-28-18/)And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. 19 (https://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/Matthew-28-19/)Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: 20 (https://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/Matthew-28-20/)Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen.

Memories of the War By Alexandra H. Rodrigues The renaissance was the historical period around the 1400s. I should know some solid facts about it, but I don’t and I blame my history teacher in Germany for that. Yes, I remember his name, Mr. Lipke. He was tall, skinny with a wooden leg and a glass eye. We made a lot of fun of him and now that I am a grown up, I recognize that we gave him a harder time than he gave us. He is the cause for the mental block I have when it comes to history. The year was 1942 it was during World War II when I was assigned to Mr. Lipke at my school in Berlin Germany. History classes were mainly focused on our “Great Leader” Adolph Hitler. I had managed to stay in school thanks to the help by some of our friends, but I knew that any small mistake could have had unpredictable, horrible results on my family’s future. My father was at that time already in France, having had to leave our home in Austria because of his Jewish background. Mother and I had come to Berlin and had managed so far to avoid letting anybody know why my father had left. I got away without having to wear the Jewish star. I am only glad that nobody, not even Mr. Lipke, thought of connecting my failure in history classes to anything but a dumb mind. I did not even prepare for the history classes. Why should I make an effort, waste my time, if I would not get good grades anyhow. The problem ended when in 1943 I was evacuated to Vienna and on my return put into a school in Potsdam a quaint little town near Berlin with the prominent castle Sanssoucci, the former summer residence of the King of Prussia This brings me back to the years shortly after World War II in Berlin. I was 13 years old when it ended.. All of us who had survived the terror of the air raids and the street fights during the last gruesome days, were now yearning for the enjoyments and pleasures of good life. A lot happened though before we could breathe easier. Never will I forget the day when the first Allied troops approached. We heard their guttural shouts coming closer and getting louder and louder. Then we saw them. Chasing ahead like hoards of animals. Filthy, bearded, tired and smelling of manure We tried to hide but did not know where. My aunt and uncle put me in a bed in their dinghy, moldy cellar apartment. They covered me with blanket and when the soldiers rushed in, ready to satisfy their sex drive by raping, my uncle motioned to them that I am very sick. It worked, thank God. Most German women made themselves look real ugly with torn kerchiefs around their head. But the soldiers did not care Raping was going on all around us. My mother came up with a different solution. She dolled herself up in a pretty dress, high heels, lipstick. A high ranking officer claimed her. Treated her well and even provided my family with food. As mean as those invaders were, they were quite nice to children I remember being dressed in a red jumpsuit The red is the color for the Soviets and was to show the admiration for the troops. A group of kids from my street met at the corner and together we marched for about fifteen minutes to the place where the mess halls had been erected. Then we stood in line and some soldiers dished out soup to fill our containers. It was fat and greasy soup, not easily digestible for our hunger ridden intestines but better suited for the inhabitants of the Ural mountains, the homeland of these soldiers. With the fat swimming in layers on top of the soup the dish was still steaming when we got home. It was obvious that these ground troops had no education, no culture All they knew was the cold and mountains of Siberia. Some displayed a childlike curiosity when coming across a novelty. I remember on soldier sitting on a closed toilet seat, my music box on his lap. This blood thirsty, looting and raping soldier suddenly had turned into a little boy in awe with a new toy. Another soldier had noticed the gleaming handle on the toilet and motioned his friend to get up. He opened the toilet seat and pulled the handle. The flushing noise scared both of them out of their wits. To our relief they both rushed away. For many of us, a bicycle was the only means of transportation in those days. Now with the Russians confiscating everything nothing was save. My bicycle was old, rusty but still relatively well working “Put it into the attic and cover it with blankets” my aunt advised but I could not make myself carry it up 4 floors. I still needed it that day. So I leaned it against the house wall, taking my chances. Another group of “Hurrah” screaming soldiers appeared shortly thereafter. Like the ones before they were Mongols. They had come on brand new bikes. Beautiful. Their first way was up into the attic. Instinct told them that it was there where people tend their valuables. They found nothing in our attic, others had been up there before and cleared it out already. They needed a deal. So they took my old bike and left me a shiny new one. Figure it out. Finally Berlin was divided into four sectors and we were lucky to become occupied by the Americans. Among the four groups, Russian, French, British and American we felt like we had won the lottery. The American mess hall had been opened at a coffee shop close to our house, far closer than the Russian kitchen had been. As it was summer, the American soldiers would take their meals inside and outside. Many finished their rations only halfway and left the rest on the tables. We climbed the wooden fence and dumped whatever we found into the paper bags we had brought with us for that purpose. Occasionally the MP military police would chase us away but they never put a hand on us. Surely they felt sorry for us. They could see how under nourished we were. Our spirits got a damper when in 1948 the East was cut off from the West leaving West Berlin stranded like an Island . It was called the Berlin blockade. The American, British and French sectors were surrounded by Russian occupied areas.. The Airlift came to our rescue. Airplanes, compliments of the American Air Force, were assuring us day by day that provisions for our daily needs were flown in steadily. Those planes crossed the air corridor between Berlin and West Germany many times a day. I remember the dried potatoes that tasted like rubber, the powdered eggs, and the dried vegetables. Not really delicacies, but we were immensely grateful nonetheless. After all, it was more and richer than anything we had been eating during the last years of the war. Amazingly we survived on dandelion salads from the yard, homegrown potatoes and pumpkins, rare quantities of goat’s milk and a six-ounce piece of meat a week. I do not remember anybody suffering from obesity in those years. The noise of the airplanes shattered our windows and the boom from the planes breaking through the sound barrier was often deafening,. For us Berliners it was like a sound of music as it assured us of a decent meal each day and gave us confidence that we were not forgotten. I recall having been given my first chewing gum during that time. Never had I seen one before. When I told my mom she asked : “Where is it” “Oh gone, I ate it!” Mom explained to me that I should not have eaten it but she was not mad. We both laughed. Twelve years later, then living in New York after having been sponsored to come to New York and fly for an American Airline, I married an American. He really had been in Berlin during the occupation after having landed in Normandy. He spread the story that he had met me and that I was so cute, with pig tails, that he had promised my mom and me to come back, would sponsor me and marry me once I became of age. “And so I did” he would say to anybody he had told that story too. He was so happy that most people believed him. Although I did not like history when I had to study it in school, I did live it.

IF PEOPLE ONLY KNEW HOW BEAUTIFUL ALLEPO WAS

A Poetry Collection By Lyn Lifshin LIFE IN ALEPPO a day without bombs, is good. You can leave your apartment, wander thru small oasis of color and light. No words, only the sense of loss. No color except for an plot of green and one plum tree, not turned to drift wood. One man who has not left, says you must live on the lower floors to try to escape airstrikes, shells, rockets, phosphorous bombs, cluster bombs. Dreams blend with nightmares, ghosts rise from the ruins. Stark white bones litter the streets. No more dancing, no more violins. No flamingos or pelicans. Terror blooms under a blue moon. When a small bomb lands on top of a building, it often takes out just the top 2 or 3 stories. Lately Basha al-Assad and the Russian military have been using a new kind of bomb that demolishes the whole building. People stay out of any rooms near the street. There’s no electricity. Families rarely leave the apartment, prefer to die together THE LAST GARDEN IN ALEPPO this small oasis of color and life as cluster bombs, barrel bombs, missiles rain on houses, hospitals, schools in this hazardous, unpredictable place, a gardener was able to grow flowers, vegetables, broad leaved plants. Roses, gardenias, bougainvillea. The gardener’s whole existence dedicated to the beauty of life, a small courageous attempt to promote peace. Dust and smoke blur the stars, the watered ferns and lilies in the shadows. Shivering thru the raids, dreaming of his dead wife until eventually a barrel bomb lands near his garden, kills him, his dream that the “essence of the world is a flower,” the color, smell, how it can inspire. But in the time since his death, Aleppo seems mostly defined by another floral attribute: fragility THE CHILDREN in Aleppo have to stay off the streets or they’ll be killed. Their parents listen for sounds of war, planes or shells, or cluster bombs. “We try to live like underground rodents,” one father says. There are some underground schools but many parents find them too risky. Some families who live close to the school let their children go if its not too long a walk, one man opened a school called al Hikma which means wisdom IN ALEPPO if you have a car you’ll have a hard time getting gas for it. If you’re hoping to keep it from being blown up or damaged by shrapnel, you might store it in an empty garage or shop. Open the windows too. Other wise the glass may crack from the pressure of bombs exploding LISTENING FOR SCOUTING PLANES they sound different from fighter jets on bombing runs. The scouts fly lower and they make a constant buzzing sound. If you hear them, you’ll know that shells will be falling soon, bringing death with them. If you go outside make sure you don’t end up in a group of more than 20 people one man says or you might attract a plane. Scouting runs are especially dangerous in summer when there aren’t any clouds to obscure pilots’ vision. But they’re also bad on clear days in winter. Going out at night is especially risky because you can’t see planes coming over head and you have to drive with out headlights. One man said he suddenly felt pressure in his ears and the windows of his car cracked. It was an air strike less than 100 meters behind him, reminding him he was still alive WHEN THE BOMBARDMENT IS AT ITS WORST you start to worry you might lose more of your friends, call them to check in. If you see them, when you say goodbye, you tell them “take care of yourself. Maybe I won’t see you again” IT’S EASY TO LOSE YOUR MIND IN ALEPPO you might go one day to look for food and come back to find your building is destroyed and your family killed. People stand in front of bombed out buildings screaming and crying in disbelief. More and more people have lost their homes and now are living on the streets asking for money. Before the war, they never imagined they would be beggars. Even people who still have their houses, struggle to cope. One man killed him self with a machine gun after another died. He shot himself in the chest. Tho more common in the west, in Syria it is very rare. In Islam, suicide is a terrible sin ALEPPO if you are not killed, your next worry is food. Now many don’t have enough money to buy any thing to eat. There aren’t any jobs so every neighborhood has young volunteers whose responsibility is to get food and other supplies. Families that still have a father are lucky. His mission is to get food and other supplies every day MAYBE YOU’LL TRY TO GROW VEGETABLES IN YOUR GARDEN some grow eggplant, parsley and mint. Many gardens have become burial grounds because there isn’t room anywhere else to bury dead bodies after four years of war. But if the alternative is starving to death, you might not mind eating food that’s been grown among corpses ONE MAN SAID PRAY YOU DON’T HAVE TO GO TO THE HOSPITAL they’re absolutely miserable. I don’t know how the doctors and nurses can stand all the blood, bones and bowels all over the floor. The smell is awful. Patients who can’t leave are constantly screaming in pain. This man says, “several weeks ago I was shot in the hand by a sniper and I have some broken bones. So I go to the hospital once a week to change my bandages. I can’t bear to be there more than half an hour.” EVERGREEN, PEARS, TEREBINTH, HAZELNUTS, ROSES, MAQUIS, ROSEMARY in the last garden of Aleppo. For resistance, not remembrance. The gardener, father of the flowers, and his son. He thinks of the garden as music. One flower was hit by shrapnel but it is still alive. Some buy plants and scatter them around the city. Many leave freshly cut flowers around the ruins. Then a bomb landed near the garden and killed the gardener. His son is lost. He doesn’t know what to do. The chameleons are dust. To live here is to live with grief. But in time he will remember how his father described the cycle of life. This one dies but another grows. It is the beauty from god IF PEOPLE ONLY KNEW HOW BEAUTIFUL ALLEPO WAS the most beautiful buildings reduced to rubble. The lost houses, the lost flowers. You get used to the bombs. One man, 53, says he’s seen enough. He doesn’t want to get to 60 ALEPPO, A WORLD HERITAGE SITE the camera was the worst enemy. One poet whose whole family was killed sings to the pigeons. My heart is broken, my eyes can’t sleep. Fly away and reassure me. Tell me about yourself. Don’t forget the beautiful words IN ALEPPO, A HAVEN OF BEAUTY in the middle of hell on earth. But it was more than the jade abundance and the brilliant colors that made it an oasis of tranquility and repose for those who chose to stay in Aleppo or can’t leave. Barley wind from Yarmook River. Abu Ward, whose name means “father of the flowers,” fought to preserve beauty in the rubble of what has been from the last remaining garden center in the once bustling liberated area of Aleppo. “My place is worth billions of dollars,” he told a video journalist, “it soothes like Mozart.” LATER AS THE GARDENER GENTLY TOUCHED A FEW GREEN LEAVES growing out of the top of an otherwise barren stick of a tree. “This one was hit by shrapnel but it is alive. The tree will live and we will live.” The essence of the world is a flower ABDULLAH, HELPING WITH THE FOOD SHORTAGE runs a small garden on a blasted out patch of ground that was at one point attacked by a bomb dropped by a helicopter leaving 3 people dead. After the bomb attacked the patch of ground he started planting tomatoes, peppers, potatoes, Middle East grain. He says his 250 square feet of produce is his way of saying he won’t be brought down by terror. “My garden,” he says, “is a message to the Assad regime and those who support it. We will stay in our city even if they bomb it to smithereens, we will resist no matter how long their siege lasts” SYRIAN BOY cries for Dad after losing both legs in a blast. “Pick me up Daddy,” he cries “pick me up, pick me up” BEKAA VALLEY, LEBANON ramshackle tents, children playing in garbage. Young boys and girls, nephews, nieces, huddled together on the tent floor. In the dry dust and wind of dead roses the tents catch on fire. Refugees from Syria’s civil war wait for something to change but nothing does. No jobs, no hope. Flamingos in rubble. Crying babies. Men staring into space most days. One stays hungry when the man doesn’t work ONE FAMILY HAS BAD FEELINGS FOR THE NUMBER SEVEN one man says his brother was disappeared on the 7th of April. Another brother on September 7th. A fellow government employer was taken, tortured and electrocuted, his family got the corpse back on the 7th day of the 7th month ISRAELIS HELP GERMAN AID WORK WITH SYRIAN REFUGEES after taking the dangerous journey from war torn Syria to Berlin, refugees are surprised to be greeted by professionals from the Israeli Trauma Coalition. One man says the long scar on his left cheek is not very heroic—it was from barbed wire on the Macedonia-Serbia border. He’s 29 years old but the marks of exhaustion on his face are from someone much older. 11 years ago he started working for the Red Cross then protests were banned. “Every Friday we’d go to the mosque and after prayers we’d start rioting and protesting. Hidden among the masses we could protest in relative security until Asad’s people starting planting undercover agents in the rallies to identify the protesters and arrest them. Soon the noose tightened so they paid a smuggler who hid them in a car and took them to Beirut, then he got to Greece, then Turkey where they left from Izmir on a small boat with 40 other refugees. It was so small they weren’t allowed to sneeze because any small movement could have flipped the boat and cause every one to drown ONCE IN GERMANY the refugees are treated for trauma. Israelis know a lot about trauma and how to treat it because of the terrorism in their own country and organizations that treat Holocaust survivors. Politically this is an interesting experiment: Israelis are coming to aid refugees from enemy countries on German soil SURREAL helping the trauma victims among the Israeli professionals is Vivian Reuflinger in the settlement Oranit where Mohammed, a Palestinian social worker who moved from Qalgilya to Berlin 4 years ago and is now helping refugees. In the past, Vivian and Mohammed were on opposite sides of the conflict and hadn’t come in contact with each other. Now, she’s instructing one how to help Syrian refugees deal with the ache of war. “I have nothing against the Israelis, I accept all people,” he says during a coffee break as a way for two people on two different sides of a conflict, to say “ hello” when they meet far from the conflict zone” IN THE TRAUMA CENTER POLITICS IS SWEPT ASIDE dozens of children raised in the belief that Israel is as bad as Satan are receiving life saving treatments at Ziv Medical Center in Safed after escaping the pain and suffering of civil war in Syria. “I was afraid of the Jews, but now I’m not afraid at all,” says a ten year old boy whose hands were saved by Israeli doctors THE REFUGEES FROM SYRIA have been thru three life shattering experiences. the war, the journey which is often horrendous and immigration which is considered one of the most difficult experiences of a person’s life IN THE REFUGEE CENTER the food is halal, adhere to Islam’s dietary laws. But many of the refugees have grown tired of Islam, with some often seeing it as one of the reasons for their situation. Many even let their children eat local gummy bears even tho they contain gelatin produced from pig’s meat. “God,” they believe, “is looking the other way” THE REFUGEE HILTON there are signs in English and Arabic all over the building. Small windows are decorated with small German flags, leaving no doubt as to what country the refugees want to live in. Jugs with drinking water are everywhere while large rats run around the trash cans outside enjoying the piles of left over food ONE OF THE BUILDINGS FLOORS IN A REFUGEE CENTER has a room strictly for women designed by female refugees using donated fabrics. In large bags they can find knitting needles and balls of wool. On the table are bottles of nail polish to give the women some link to their old lives AT THE GERMAN REFUGEE CENTER the Israeli therapist finds the exercises awaken many demons. No one knows in weeks she will go back to Israel to work with Holocaust survivors. “Coming in contact with the German street, the accent and the buildings is not easy for me,” one woman would say later. “Berlin is not my favorite tourist destination. But working in the center is like being in a bubble encompassing past, present and future. Here I can do what was not done for my family and my patients—perhaps minimize the trauma, silence and pain that are passed down with the generations THERE ARE MANY CULTURAL GAPS BETWEEN THE REFUGEES AND THE AUTHORITIES the refugees are frustrated by the fact that the Germans don’t understand what they went thru and their response is not always the right one. The Germans misinterpret the refugees’ action. They think if they are yelling, then they are displaying violence or aggression but this is pain. A therapist says “we who came from the Middle East understand this emotionality better than the Europeans. Our work is that of Tikkum Olam (the Jewish concept of repairing the world) a way of coming full circle nights the refugees huddle under flannel, listen to night birds unlike any they’ve heard in cities they hate to see torn to rubble in streets they don’t expect to see again or listen in their old beds to the sound of mulberries thru where once those leaves were a magical, mysterious WE DON’T SEE POLITICS we meet people all over the globe whose world was taken away from them. Everywhere similar stories of sorrow and pain. Every where young women weep for those sunny afternoons sipping dark coffee under the shade of Terebinth branches. In all these places, therapists committed to dealing with crisis. They leave politics out of it. Some say it is the Israelis who understand pain well. Here there are no “us” and “them” only what we do together THERE IS A CLOSENESS You understand the area and the history one woman says. This is a sort of tikkun because we’re doing something good for them. There are people who have never seen Israelis so we’re doing a kind of PR. In their wildest dreams they didn’t think they’d be sitting next to an Israeli.” SYRIAN TV ALWAYS SHOWS THE ISRAELIS STEALING LAND murdering Palestinians, poisoning the water. One man says, “but when I meet Israelis here I see they are humans. There are many countries that choose to remain silent seeing the horrors in Syria. Israelis not only help the wounded in Syria but they also help us here.” “Perhaps,” a young man who fled Damascus says, “the world is not such a rotten place.” SYRIAN REFUGEES IN CANADA’S NORTH it’s not warm in weather, but in emotions. In communities such as Yellow Knife the temperature can sink to -40, a dramatic change for refugees who had never experienced anything like it. After a rocket hit his sister’s house and killed his brother and nephew, Mustafa knew he had to leave Syria. He says, “I was not expecting to end up in the kind of place where snow blankets the ground for months at a time and temperatures drop to -40. As refugees from Lebanon, the family took courses to prepare for the move to Canada. They were warned it would be cold but just how cold would depend on where they ended up. When they arrived in Yellow Knife that was a surprise. Within hours, Mustafa, his wife and four children were taken on a shopping expedition to stock up on winter gear. The trip was the final detail in the carefully planned operation to bring the family to Yellow Knife as privately sponsored refugees. They arrive in Canada, stopping in Montreal. “Don’t go to White Horse,” they were warned. Not many people and it’s freezing.” Soon after getting there however the family realized there was little truth to what they had been told. “People were so good to us. Yes, the cold is really cold. Luckily even the cars have heat.” They saw Northern lights for the first time and were thrilled. “Here it’s not warm in weather but warm in emotion and feelings.” SYRIAN REFUGEE GIVES BIRTH IN CANADA secretly entering labor en route Ibtesam Alkarnake had already started the hard 24 hour journey from a temporary home in Jordan to asylum in Canada when her water broke. Nearly six years after they fled the war in Syria, safety seemed finally in reach as the family made their way to northern Alberta to begin new lives as privately sponsored refugees. Dreams of dates and barley, roses in the dust of bombs, plum wind from the Yarmouk River still in her dreams, Alkarnake said nothing, enduring hours of discomfort in silence as they made stopovers in Frankfurt and Calgary. When the family landed in Fort McMurry she posed for pictures, trading hugs and smiling at the dozens who showed up at the airport to greet the city’s newest residents. Only when the family was she taken to their new home did she reveal to one of the sponsors, she was about to give birth and just hours later her son Eyad was born at a local hospital, a month early, making, for the whole town, a memory magical as the print a leaf makes in amber or stone

How to say "Thank You!" in 50 languages AFRIKAANS – dankie ALBANIAN – faleminderit ARABIC – shukran ARMENIAN – / chnorakaloutioun BOSNIAN – hvala (HVAH-lah) BULGARIAN – благодаря / blagodaria CATALAN – gràcies (GRAH-syuhs) CANTONESE – Mh’gōi CROATIAN – hvala (HVAH-lah) CZECH – děkuji (Dyekooyih) DANISH – tak (tahg) DUTCH – dank u ESTONIAN – tänan (TA-nahn) FINNISH – kiitos (KEE-tohss) FRENCH – merci GERMAN – danke GREEK – (ef-hah-rees-TOH) HAWAIIAN – mahalo (ma-HA-lo) HEBREW – . / todah (toh-DAH) HINDI – dhanyavād / shukriya HUNGARIAN – köszönöm (KØ-sø-nøm) ICELANDIC – takk (tahk) INDONESIAN – terima kasih. (tuh-REE-mah KAH-see) ITALIAN – grazie (GRAHT-tsyeh) JAPANESE – arigatô (ah-ree-GAH-toh) KOREAN – (gamsahamnida) LATVIAN – paldies (PUHL-dyehs) LEBANESE – choukrane LITHUANIAN – ačiū (AH-choo) MACEDONIAN – Благодарам / blagodaram (blah-GOH-dahrahm) MALAY – terima kasih (TREE-muh KAH-seh) MALTESE – grazzi (GRUTS-ee) MANDARIN – Xièxiè MONGOLIAN – Баярлалаа (bayarlalaa) NORWEGIAN – takk POLISH – dziękuję (Jenkoo-yen) PORTUGUESE – obrigado [masculine] / obrigada [feminine] (ohbree-GAH-doo / oh-bree-GAH-dah) ROMANIAN – mulţumesc (mool-tzoo-MESK) RUSSIAN – спасибо (spuh-SEE-buh) SERBIAN – xвала / hvala (HVAH-lah) SLOVAK – Ďakujem (JAH-koo-yehm) SLOVENIAN – hvala (HVAA-lah) SPANISH – gracias (GRAH-syahs) SWEDISH – tack TAMIL – nandri THAI – kop khun TURKISH – teşekkür ederim (teh shek uer eh der eem) UKRAINIAN – Дякую (DYAH-koo-yoo) WELSH – diolch (DEE-ol’ch) YIDDISH – a dank ZULU – ngiyabonga

Sunshine and Superman by Gerald Arthur Winter

Before his teens Tommy feared he’d been adopted because his older brother Billy’s blunt insinuations that he’d been dropped on his parents’ doorstep didn’t bolster any confidence that his fear of disconnection from his family could be merely his vivid imagination. Billy would often whisper aside to his friends that Tommy was his adopted little brother, just loud enough for Tommy to hear. Billy’s pretending to keep their blood separation a secret gave more validity to Tommy’s fear. They’d be playing football in the empty lot up the street, and Billy would foster the idea of Tommy’s detachment from his own preferred genes in his younger brother’s head as he handed him the football for an end run. Tommy can’t run as fast as I can because he’s adopted. His real parents were trolls. Tommy thought he’d heard Billy say aside to the other older boys, which gave him an inordinate fear of goats in the neighbor’s pasture, from Little Billy Goat’s Gruff to Big Billy Goat’s Gruff. Tommy often peaked under the bridge that crossed the creek in the meadow to see if any of his kindred trolls were dwelling beneath the wooden blanks. The tackle football was dangerous enough to life and limb with teams of five players on each side, just a few helmets of the 1950’s vintage with no face guards, or cushioned chin straps, but rather just a thin strap with a snap or buckle to tighten around a player’s head with no protection from concussions. Often during contact the helmet would caused even greater injury in a pile-up than no helmet at all. Shoulder pads under a sweatshirt were the only other equipment used for protection, but only half the kids could afford them, so they had sixteen-year-old boys with helmets and shoulder pads playing full contact against ten-year-olds with no protection other than fleeing avoidance or true grit against the odds of survival. For the most part, Tommy fit into the latter with a short stature his dad referred to as “built like a bric shithouse.” Tommy wasn’t sure if the doubts Billy put in his head were to make him falter or to make him try harder when playing with the older boys. Tommy was blond and Billy had black hair, but they still had many facial similarities and gesturing mannerism that could be attributable to both their parents. Tommy didn’t dare ask his parents if he’d been adopted for fear Bobby had told him the truth that troll blood flowed through his veins. Billy was three years older then Tommy, and was born two days before Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. Not until they were teenagers had Tommy heard the story from his mom that his dad thought Billy, with his straight black hair as an infant, might be have been mixed up with some Japanese woman’s baby. His dad had wondered if a Japanese woman had taken his real blond, curlyheaded son home from St. Albans Hospital and had switched the baby’s as part of some yellow-peril plot to invade America. Without his mom’s recounting that story for his reassurance, Tommy suffered from doubts through his adolescence about his true family connection. He never realizedback then how the threeyear difference in their ages, made him a drag on Billy’s illperceived social life at school. Tommy’s acceptance among Billy’s older friends bugged Billy no end. They lived off the Belt Parkway near Springfield Boulevard in Laurelton, Queens at a time when Idlewild Airport had just two hangers with only a few daily commercial flights. Rockaway Playland and the best beach north of Coney Island were a short train ride on the El from home. By car with his parents and Billy, it was just fifteen minutes across Jamaica Bay. Pat Behner was a seventeen-year-old neighbor who often took Tommy to Rockaway Beach on the train when Billy was at summer day camp. Tommy was five and Pat was his babysitter, though she was careful never to use that dreaded term. From the first day she’d clasped his little hand in hers and sat beside him on the wicker train seat, Tommy was in pre-pubescent love. A light brushing kiss and brief hug of affection from Pat were exciting to Tommy’s unhatched libido. After a day with Pat at the beach, lying in bed at night, feverish from sunburn, and the scent of Pat’s suntan lotion redolent in his memory, Tommy felt certain he could jump out his window and fly to her bedroom window. Even peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with gritty chomps of sand didn’t matter to Tommy, always longing to return to Rockaway Beach with Pat. She was the quiet studious type, but like a caterpillar fresh out of her cocoon waving her colorful wings in the salty sea breeze. Lying face down on the blanket beside her, Tommy wondered if it was the surf or his heart that was pounding so loud against the sand beneath their shared beach blanket. Tommy saw that Pat was also his protector. Serene and spread out on the blanket, she suddenly looked up from the book she was reading, Mr. Peabody and the Mermaid, and jumped up to smack a strange kid bigger than Tommy when he tried to steal his pail and shovel. With her shoulder-length black hair swishing, Pat looked like Wonder Woman in her two-piece bathing suit. That’s when Tommy knew he had to become a man. He couldn’t be like the runt in the Charles Atlas ads on the back page of comic books, the skinny guy with his ribs showing who gets sand kicked in his face by a muscle-bound lug stealing his girlfriend.. Tommy kept it a secret and didn’t let Billy know he was conditioning himself with “dynamic tension” exercises under the covers on the top bunk in their shared bedroom—no dead weights or apparatus, just one arm against the other like an an irresistible force against an immovable object. Pat took Tommy to Rockaway Playland after they left the beach to go on the rides and venture through Davy Jones’s Locker, a fun house with spiraling barrels, distorting mirrors, and traps that made you lose your balance. Rolling around together in the turning barrel, Tommy could smell Pat’s scent. He was in heaven. Wanting Pat, made Tommy’s mind soar from the sunshine of Rockaway Beach to becoming Super- man, able to leap tall buildings with a single bound. Tommy thought maybe he was adopted, just like Clark Kent, and his real parents died on Krypton and left him to fend for himself, an alien among earthlings who were inferior to his inner strength. But Tommy’s foster family must have decided that he’d have a better chance of survival on this foreign planet if they moved to north Jersey where he and Billy had less chance of becoming juvenile delinquents in Queens. Even though Tommy had to say good-bye to Pat Behner, he vowed to fly back across the Hudson River to make her his life-long sweetheart. * * * There was little opportunity for Tommy to fly in Bergen County in 1954, other than vicariously from the swooshing sound on a blackand-white 12-inch TV when actor George Reeves shed his suit and tie in a phone booth and sprang with his fluttering cape into the sky. Tommy was nine years old having similar feelings toward Janet Daniels, his same age, as he had for Pat Behner. His affection; for Pat had faded like snowflakes falling on a sizzling volcanic lava. The flakes may have melted, but the lava continued to flow. That’s when Tommy’s mom asked him what he wanted most for Christmas that year. “A genuine Superman suit,” he told her without hesitation. “But you have to make it for me from scratch, just like Ma Kent did for Clark.” “I’ve seen them on sale at the five-and-ten for Halloween. I’ll get you one if you do well on your next report card from school..” “School? Superman doesn’t need school. He’s smarter than everyone.” “Not when he’s Clark Kent,” his mom retorted. “Those outfits are junk, Ma. If you make it for me, it’ll be bulletproof and with my red cape I could fly.” She gave Tommy the kind of look you get from the librarian when you fart in the library, but maybe Billy was right that their mom thought of Tommy as her Golden Boy. He wished his hair was black like Billy’s and Superman’s with blue highlights just like in the comics. * * * Billy received everything he wrote on his Christmas list, and Tommy got many toys and games he’d asked for, too. Then his mom told Tommy he’d better put on his bathrobe because the heat hadn’t come up high enough in the house yet on that chill Christmas morning. Snow was in the air. When Tommy opened his wardrobe, there it was, just like in DC’s World’s Finest comic book last month with Superman, Batman, and Robin fighting crime together on the same cover. The Superman suit was blue with a red “S” and a yellow background on the chest. The red cape had a yellow “S” on the back. The stretchy blue pants and red tights had a yellow belt, and on the wardrobe’s floor was a pair of knee-high, red boots. Just with the brush of his hand across the “S” on the chest, Tommy could tell his suit was bulletproof and he could hardly wait to put on his red cape and fly. Now he could be sure Janet Daniels would be his girlfriend forever. He was prettier than Lois Lane or Lana Lang, and she was real and smelled like Juicy Fruit gum. * * * Fortunately it was cold that January when Tommy went back to school, so he wasn’t that uncomfortable wearing his Superman suit under his regular clothes. “You’ve gained a lot of weight over Christmas vacation,” Janet Daniels said in the hallway by his locker. He closed the locker in time before Janet could see his red cape hanging inside, just in case he had to stop a robbery after school. He’d wait until the corridor was empty before catching his bus home, so he could fold up the cape to fit in his book bag. Fortunately for those robbers, he couldn’t take out his cape on the bus ride home, because that would give away his secret identity. He couldn’t tell Janet until they were in high school. She’d be more serious and mature at seventeen, just like Pat Behner, now twentyone. She was practically a grandmother. Billy teased him about wearing the Superman suit under his clothes at school. He was in junior high now, so he couldn’t bother Tommy at middle school, not until they got home from school. Clark Kent was lucky he didn’t have an older brother to keep reminding him that, with that blond wavy hair, he probably was adopted. * * * In May a new kid moved next store. Tommy turned ten and Eric was only seven, so Tommy figured he’d take him into his confidence and reveal his secret identity to him. A next door neighbor was almost like family, so he figured Eric wouldn’t give him all that negative jive Billy showered him with every day. Eric was a chubby kid with an odd manner of expression. When he had to pee, he’d say: “I have to make “tiddlelizz.” When he had to poop, he’d: “I’ve got to make a “whoorsht.” Tommy later learned that Eric was referring to a wurst, as in liverwurst—a graphic image that left little to the imagination. Disney’s animated feature Peter Pan was in theaters that summer, so the fantasy of flying overtook Tommy again. With summer vacation from school for three months Tommy had cultivated Eric’s belief that he was Superboy. Apparently Eric wasn’t as gullible as Tommy thought, so it shattered his confidence when Eric called him a liar—a harsh word for a kid with a dream to fly. There was only one way out. He’d have to fake it, but not just with words. Tommy had to make this odd, but stubborn little kid believe him, certain that was the only way to redeem himself. Tommy planned his strategy for weeks, and finally took his wizened brother Billy into his confidence to help him with some of the details. He brought Billy into their daily games played in late July, so Billy could observe Eric’s temperament firsthand. Watching Looney Tunes on TV everyday, Tommy and Billy convinced Eric to play a game they called “Fudd Pesters.” “He’s only seven,” Billy reminded him. “Should be a cinch. What does Eric like most? Maybe he isn’t such a Superman fan like you and has to be shown what your super powers can do.” “He’s more into Peter Pan, “Tommy said. “You know, the pixie dust and flying out your window to fight pirates and Indians on an island called Never Land with mermaids and pixies. Little kids’ stuff.” Billy smirked maliciously. “Let’s see what we can make him fall for.” “How?” “I’ll show you tonight.” Billy and Tommy shared a second-story bedroom above Eric’s firstfloor bedroom window with only ten feet between the houses. They could look down from their high window and see into his bedroom. When it was dark, they turned off their bedroom lights and watched from their window until Eric’s light turned out. Billy took one of his marbles, pushed up the screen in their window, and bounced the cat’s-eye marble off Eric’s window sill with a loud—clink! They held their pillows to their mouths to muffle their laughter. “Eric!” his father shouted. “Stop fooling around in there and go to sleep!” “It wasn’t me, Daddy!” “You heard me! Knock it off or I’ll give you a lickin’!” They waited a minute then Tommy threw a marble that made a boing sound off Eric’s screen, not loud enough for his father to hear from the other room, but enough to bring Eric to the window. “E-e-e-ric,” Billy chanted softly, but loud enough for Eric to hear. “It’s Peter Pan. Time to fly away with me to Never Never Land.” We stayed below our window sill in case Eric looked up toward us. “Where are you, Peter?” Eric whispered loudly. “Where’s Tinkerbell? I can’t see her pixie dust flashing in the dark.” Tommy and Billy were about to burst with laughter when Eric’s dad came into his room. “What did I tell you? Get back in bed and go to sleep! Now!” We waited about five minutes and Billy found a sparkler left over from The Fourth of July and lit it with a match from a book in his desk drawer. About to start eighth grade, Bobby had already started smoking with his friends in the woods behind Valley School. He nodded for Tommy to lift the screen then he tossed the sputtering sparkler out the window. It landed in a bush outside Eric’s window. “E-e-e-ric, it’s Peter Pan. Tinkerbell is with me. She’s in the bush, but she’s dying because she thinks you don’t believe in fairies. Clap your hands loud so she knows you believe. She’ll be OK if you shout loud enough for her to hear. Tell her you believe in fairies and clap your hands.” Eric came to his window and pushed up his screen. The sparker was fizzling out. “I do believe in fairies!” he shouted and clapped his hands loudly. Tommy and Billy were hysterical, but Eric’s father burst into his room, pulled down Eric’s pajamas and began spanking him on his bare backside. Eric wailed, “It was Peter Pan, Daddy! I have to save Tinkerbell!” “No more movies for you!” his father shouted. “Now get to sleep before I take a strap to you!” Tommy felt kind of sick inside about Eric getting a spanking, but Billy gave him a smirk and said, “Just wait. Now you can convince him your Superboy. Here’s how. . . .” * * * Billy gave Tommy some ideas how to prove to Eric that he had super powers. Billy had to go to Boy Scout summer camp, so he couldn’t be around and Tommy was on my own—just him and his super powers. He didn’t want to be obvious, so Tommy tried to act cool even though he was visibly sweating in his Superman suit under his clothes in the August heat. He’d never shown Eric his suit before. In his pocket Tommy had two nails. Both were four inches long, but he’d bent one in half in his dad’s vice on his workbench in the basement. “Hey, Eric! Tommy called to him in his yard where he was playing with some toy trucks in his sandbox. “Come here and I’ll prove to you that I’m Superboy!” Curious, Eric got to his feet and waddled toward him. “Oh, yeah. How?” The bent nail was inside Tommy’s sleeve. He took the straight nail from his shirt pocket. “Do you think you can bend this nail in half?” he asked handing it to Eric. Eric grunted so hard trying to bend it with his little hands that he farted. He was stubborn for a little kid, so he tried again, so hard and with his face turning red that he pooped his pants. He let out a howl and his mom came out to their back porch. “What are you boys doing out there?” she shouted. Tommy grabbed the nail from Eric and said,” Watch this. I’m Superboy.” He put the straight nail in one hand and covered it with his fist then shook his sleeve and dropped the bent nail into his hand and tucked the straight nail back up his sleeve. He’d practiced that maneuver after watching Bonomo the Magic Clown on TV. “See! I have super strength. I’m Superboy.” “Nah! That’s not the same nail,” Eric huffed with a frown. I dropped the straight nail behind my back. “No. See, that’s the only nail,” I said. “Your not Superboy,” he grimaced. “That’s just a comic book. My dad said so. Just like Peter Pan is fake and so is Santa Claus.” Now this little creep was treading on sacred ground. Tommy pulled his shirt open to show him the super suit with its big red “S” on his chest. “That’s just a Halloween costume. I saw ’m in Woolworth’s. You not Superboy.” “Oh, yeah,” Tommy challenged. “Try and punch me in the chest.” Eric was little so he punched Tommy at the bottom tip of the red “S” right in the solar plexus. Caught off guard, Tommy could hardly breathe and his face turned red. When he got enough air back into his lungs, he shouted to Eric’s mother, “Eric pooped in his pants!” As he dizzily staggered back home and into the house, Tommy heard the sound of Eric crying and getting a smack from his mom, not on his behind because she saw he’d pooped his pants. * * * Billy was still away at camp, so Tommy had to take matters into his own hands. The next afternoon Eric was playing in his sandbox again. This time Tommy wore some of Billy’s clothes so he had room under his clothes to attach his red cape to his neck and tuck its drapes under Billy’s shirt and pants. He had to role up his cuffs and wore loafers so he could slip them off quickly. He’d left red boots on the sundeck above the garage with access to the sundeck from his parents’ bedroom across the hall from his and Billy’s. As he ambled across his yard toward Eric, Tommy noticed Eric’s mom peering out of their kitchen window where she was washing breakfast dishes. Her expression was suspicious with one eye squinting at him. “Don’t tell me you’re Superboy anymore,” Eric said. “My mom says you’re just teasing me. People can’t fly.” “That’s because you don’t believe in fairies and Santa Claus, neat stuff that all kids are supposed to believe in. When they don’t, there not kids anymore. My brother Billy is fourteen, so he’s not a little kid. I’m three years older than you, but I want to believe in all that fun stuff for as long as I can until I’m too old. You’re only seven years old and missing out on a lot a fun. That’s why I’ve got to prove to you that I’m Superboy.” I noticed Eric’s mom was smirking at me through the window. “I’ll be back in a couple of minutes, but first I’ve got to save a kid caught in a tree, stop a bank robbery, then help a plane make a safe landing because it has an engine out on one of its propellers and will crash if I don’t show up. I’ll be right back.” As Tommy ran around the side of my house, he let Eric see him shedding Billy’s clothes until his red cape fluttered behind him for take-off and he shouted, “Up, up and away!” Tommy ran into his house through the front door before Eric could follow him and see where he went, then he ran up the stairs to the second floor. He kicked off his loafers in the hallway then ran through his parents’ bedroom and onto the sundeck where he slipped on his red boots. He grabbed the edge of the slanted roof and pulled himself up on the railing around the sundeck and stood on the top so he could pull himself onto the roof. Holding the side of the full dormer, he worked his way up the slanted roof to the top of the dormer above the bedrooms where the roof was level. He ran across the flat roof toward the other side of the house next to Eric’s house. He visualized himself looking just like Superman in the comics. He came to the slanted roof on the other side of the dormer and eased down the slanted roof until the heels of his red boots in the rain gutter kept him from falling fifteen feet to the ground. He spotted Eric below. Eric had wondered around Tommy’s house in pursuit to see him take off in flight. Sure it was a lie, Eric was heading back toward his sandbox. When Eric was directly below, Tommy imitated the whooshing sound from George Reeves flying as Superman on black and white TV. But in full color, Tommy leaped from the roof and over Eric’s head. Thinking back on it, Tommy was glad his Olympic gymnastic, tenpoint landing hadn’t gone to his head. Though he felt his thigh bones jam up into his hips, Tommy had broken no bones. He turned on his heels with exhilaration as his red cape swirled with the grace of a matador avoiding a bull’s charge. Eric’s mom came running across the yard and shouted, “Oh my God! Are you all right?” Of course, she meant Tommy, but he folded his arms and pumped up his chest then said with a wink, “Yes, Eric’s fine. But he must promise to keep my true identity a secret.” With her mouth dropped open, she said, “Of course, Superboy. We both promise to keep your secret. You’ll never have to prove it to us again. Absolutely, never. We even promise never to tell Daddy. Right, Eric?” Eric’s face was still in awe after seeing Superboy come flying out of the sky from nowhere and land in front of him. Tommy remained standing in the yard like a statue of strength for truth, justice, and the American way until Eric and his mom went back into their house. When it was safe, Tommy broke his statuesque pose and limped painfully back into his house and upstairs to his bedroom. He cried in pain for an hour. Tommy never grew quite as tall as Billy and often wondered if his Superboy landing had stunted his growth. Billy told him that he was shorter than him because he’d been adopted. Even if he was physically damaged or genetically different, in his mind, Tommy always felt taller since that sunshiny day with Eric just for taking a leap of faith that all kids needed—to dream of feats of strength and wish they’d come to pass.

From the "Gilgamesh" The Epic of Gilgamesh is, perhaps, the oldest written story on Earth. It comes to us from Ancient Sumeria, and was originally written on 12 clay tablets in cunieform script. It is about the adventures of the historical King of Uruk (somewhere between 2750 and 2500 BCE).

He who has seen everything, I will make known to the lands. I will teach about him who experienced all things, ... alike, Anu granted him the totality of knowledge of all. He saw the Secret, discovered the Hidden, he brought information of (the time) before the Flood. He went on a distant journey, pushing himself to exhaustion, but then was brought to peace. He carved on a stone stela all of his toils, and built the wall of Uruk-Haven, the wall of the sacred Eanna Temple, the holy sanctuary. Look at its wall which gleams like copper(?), inspect its inner wall, the likes of which no one can equal! Take hold of the threshold stone--it dates from ancient times! Go close to the Eanna Temple, the residence of Ishtar, such as no later king or man ever equaled! Go up on the wall of Uruk and walk around, examine its foundation, inspect its brickwork thoroughly. Is not (even the core of) the brick structure made of kiln-fired brick, and did not the Seven Sages themselves lay out its plans? One league city, one league palm gardens, one league lowlands, the open area(?) of the Ishtar Temple, three leagues and the open area(?) of Uruk it (the wall) encloses. Find the copper tablet box, open the ... of its lock of bronze, undo the fastening of its secret opening. Take and read out from the lapis lazuli tablet how Gilgamesh went through every hardship. Supreme over other kings, lordly in appearance, he is the hero, born of Uruk, the goring wild bull. He walks out in front, the leader, and walks at the rear, trusted by his companions. Mighty net, protector of his people, raging flood-wave who destroys even walls of stone! Offspring of Lugalbanda, Gilgamesh is strong to perfection, son of the august cow, Rimat-Ninsun;... Gilgamesh is awesome to perfection. It was he who opened the mountain passes, who dug wells on the flank of the mountain. It was he who crossed the ocean, the vast seas, to the rising sun, who explored the world regions, seeking life. It was he who reached by his own sheer strength Utanapishtim, the Faraway, who restored the sanctuaries (or: cities) that the Flood had destroyed! ... for teeming mankind. Who can compare with him in kingliness? Who can say like Gilgamesh: "I am King!"? Whose name, from the day of his birth, was called "Gilgamesh"? Two-thirds of him is god, one-third of him is human. The Great Goddess [Aruru] designed(?) the model for his body, she prepared his form ... ... beautiful, handsomest of men, ... perfect ... He walks around in the enclosure of Uruk, Like a wild bull he makes himself mighty, head raised (over others). There is no rival who can raise his weapon against him. His fellows stand (at the alert), attentive to his (orders ?), and the men of Uruk become anxious in ... Gilgamesh does not leave a son to his father, day and night he arrogant[y(?) ... [The following lines are interpreted as rhetorical, perhaps spoken by the oppressed citizens of Uruk.] Is Gilgamesh the shepherd of Uruk-Haven, is he the shepherd. ... bold, eminent, knowing, and wise! Gilgamesh does not leave a girl to her mother(?) The daughter of the warrior, the bride of the young man, the gods kept hearing their complaints, so the gods of the heavens implored the Lord of Uruk [Anu] "You have indeed brought into being a mighty wild bull, head raised! "There is no rival who can raise a weapon against him. "His fellows stand (at the alert), attentive to his (orders !), "Gilgamesh does not leave a son to his father, "day and night he arrogantly ... "Is he the shepherd of Uruk-Haven, "is he their shepherd... "bold, eminent, knowing, and wise, "Gilgamesh does not leave a girl to her mother(?)!" The daughter of the warrior, the bride of the young man, Anu listened to their complaints, and (the gods) called out to Aruru: "it was you, Aruru, who created mankind(?), now create a zikru to it/him. Let him be equal to his (Gilgamesh's) stormy heart, let them be a match for each other so that Uruk may find peace!" When Aruru heard this she created within herself the zikrtt of Anu. Aruru washed her hands, she pinched off some clay, and threw it into the wilderness. In the wildness(?) she created valiant Enkidu, born of Silence, endowed with strength by Ninurta. His whole body was shaggy with hair, he had a full head of hair like a woman, his locks billowed in profusion like Ashnan. He knew neither people nor settled living, but wore a garment like Sumukan." He ate grasses with the gazelles, and jostled at the watering hole with the animals; as with animals, his thirst was slaked with (mere) water. A notorious trapper came face-to-face with him opposite the watering hole. A first, a second, and a third day he came face-to-face with him opposite the watering hole. On seeing him the trapper's face went stark with fear, and he (Enkidu?) and his animals drew back home. He was rigid with fear; though stock-still his heart pounded and his face drained of color. He was miserable to the core, and his face looked like one who had made a long journey. The trapper addressed his father saying:" "Father, a certain fellow has come from the mountains. He is the mightiest in the land, his strength is as mighty as the meteorite(?) of Anu! He continually goes over the mountains, he continually jostles at the watering place with the animals, he continually plants his feet opposite the watering place. I was afraid, so I did not go up to him. He filled in the pits that I had dug, wrenched out my traps that I had spread, released from my grasp the wild animals. He does not let me make my rounds in the wilderness!" The trapper's father spoke to him saying: "My son, there lives in Uruk a certain Gilgamesh. There is no one stronger than he, he is as strong as the meteorite(?) of Anu. Go, set off to Uruk, tell Gilgamesh of this Man of Might. He will give you the harlot Shamhat, take her with you. The woman will overcome the fellow (?) as if she were strong. When the animals are drinking at the watering place have her take off her robe and expose her sex. When he sees her he will draw near to her, and his animals, who grew up in his wilderness, will be alien to him." He heeded his father's advice. The trapper went off to Uruk, he made the journey, stood inside of Uruk, and declared to ... Gilgamesh: "There is a certain fellow who has come from the mountains-he is the mightiest in the land, his strength is as mighty as the meteorite(?) of Anu! He continually goes over the mountains, he continually jostles at the watering place with the animals, he continually plants his feet opposite the watering place. I was afraid, so I did not go up to him. He filled in the pits that I had dug, wrenched out my traps that I had spread, released from my grasp the wild animals. He does not let me make my rounds in the wilderness!" Gilgamesh said to the trapper: "Go, trapper, bring the harlot, Shamhat, with you. When the animals are drinking at the watering place have her take off her robe and expose her sex. When he sees her he will draw near to her, and his animals, who grew up in his wilderness, will be alien to him." The trapper went, bringing the harlot, Shamhat, with him. They set off on the journey, making direct way. On the third day they arrived at the appointed place, and the trapper and the harlot sat down at their posts(?). A first day and a second they sat opposite the watering hole. The animals arrived and drank at the watering hole, the wild beasts arrived and slaked their thirst with water. Then he, Enkidu, offspring of the mountains, who eats grasses with the gazelles, came to drink at the watering hole with the animals, with the wild beasts he slaked his thirst with water. Then Shamhat saw him--a primitive, a savage fellow from the depths of the wilderness! "That is he, Shamhat! Release your clenched arms, expose your sex so he can take in your voluptuousness. Do not be restrained--take his energy! When he sees you he will draw near to you. Spread out your robe so he can lie upon you, and perform for this primitive the task of womankind! His animals, who grew up in his wilderness, will become alien to him, and his lust will groan over you." Shamhat unclutched her bosom, exposed her sex, and he took in her voluptuousness. She was not restrained, but took his energy. She spread out her robe and he lay upon her, she performed for the primitive the task of womankind. His lust groaned over her; for six days and seven nights Enkidu stayed aroused, and had intercourse with the harlot until he was sated with her charms. But when he turned his attention to his animals, the gazelles saw Enkidu and darted off, the wild animals distanced themselves from his body. Enkidu ... his utterly depleted(?) body, his knees that wanted to go off with his animals went rigid; Enkidu was diminished, his running was not as before. But then he drew himself up, for his understanding had broadened. Turning around, he sat down at the harlot's feet, gazing into her face, his ears attentive as the harlot spoke. The harlot said to Enkidu: "You are beautiful," Enkidu, you are become like a god. Why do you gallop around the wilderness with the wild beasts? Come, let me bring you into Uruk-Haven, to the Holy Temple, the residence of Anu and Ishtar, the place of Gilgamesh, who is wise to perfection, but who struts his power over the people like a wild bull." What she kept saying found favor with him. Becoming aware of himself, he sought a friend. Enkidu spoke to the harlot: "Come, Shamhat, take me away with you to the sacred Holy Temple, the residence of Anu and Ishtar, the place of Gilgamesh, who is wise to perfection, but who struts his power over the people like a wild bull. I will challenge him ... Let me shout out in Uruk: I am the mighty one!' Lead me in and I will change the order of things; he whose strength is mightiest is the one born in the wilderness!" [Shamhat to Enkidu:] "Come, let us go, so he may see your face. I will lead you to Gilgamesh--I know where he will be. Look about, Enkidu, inside Uruk-Haven, where the people show off in skirted finery, where every day is a day for some festival, where the lyre(?) and drum play continually, where harlots stand about prettily, exuding voluptuousness, full of laughter and on the couch of night the sheets are spread (!)." Enkidu, you who do not know, how to live, I will show you Gilgamesh, a man of extreme feelings (!). Look at him, gaze at his face-he is a handsome youth, with freshness(!), his entire body exudes voluptuousness He has mightier strength than you, without sleeping day or night! Enkidu, it is your wrong thoughts you must change! It is Gilgamesh whom Shamhat loves, and Anu, Enlil, and La have enlarged his mind." Even before you came from the mountain Gilgamesh in Uruk had dreams about you."" Gilgamesh got up and revealed the dream, saying to his mother: "Mother, I had a dream last night. Stars of the sky appeared, and some kind of meteorite(?) of Anu fell next to me. I tried to lift it but it was too mighty for me, I tried to turn it over but I could not budge it. The Land of Uruk was standing around it, the whole land had assembled about it, the populace was thronging around it, the Men clustered about it, and kissed its feet as if it were a little baby (!). I loved it and embraced it as a wife. I laid it down at your feet, and you made it compete with me." The mother of Gilgamesh, the wise, all-knowing, said to her Lord; Rimat-Ninsun, the wise, all-knowing, said to Gilgamesh: "As for the stars of the sky that appeared and the meteorite(?) of Anu which fell next to you, you tried to lift but it was too mighty for you, you tried to turn it over but were unable to budge it, you laid it down at my feet, and I made it compete with you, and you loved and embraced it as a wife." "There will come to you a mighty man, a comrade who saves his friend-he is the mightiest in the land, he is strongest, his strength is mighty as the meteorite(!) of Anu! You loved him and embraced him as a wife; and it is he who will repeatedly save you. Your dream is good and propitious!" A second time Gilgamesh said to his mother: "Mother, I have had another dream: "At the gate of my marital chamber there lay an axe, "and people had collected about it. "The Land of Uruk was standing around it, "the whole land had assembled about it, "the populace was thronging around it. "I laid it down at your feet, "I loved it and embraced it as a wife, "and you made it compete with me." The mother of Gilgamesh, the wise, all-knowing, said to her son; Rimat-Ninsun, the wise, all-knowing, said to Gilgamesh: ""The axe that you saw (is) a man. "... (that) you love him and embrace as a wife, "but (that) I have compete with you." "" There will come to you a mighty man, "" a comrade who saves his friend-"he is the mightiest in the land, he is strongest, "he is as mighty as the meteorite(!) of Anu!" Gilgamesh spoke to his mother saying: ""By the command of Enlil, the Great Counselor, so may it to pass! "May I have a friend and adviser, a friend and adviser may I have! "You have interpreted for me the dreams about him!" After the harlot recounted the dreams of Gilgamesh to Enkidu the two of them made love.

The Life and Times of Voyager Review by Charles E.J. Moulton

We could be watching Harrison Ford running through the wilderness hunted by U.S. Marshalls, we could be following Charlton Heston lost in the future hunted by apes or just following Thelma and Louise on their road toward crime and debauchery. Then again, we might be travelling with Captain Kathryn Janeway and her crew lost 70,000 lightyears from home. Star Trek: Voyager, the TV-series that ran for seven seasons, explores the unknown adventure. However we choose to experience our lust of joining mutual seekers of the journey, the result of that search is the same. The road is the way. We all love seeing people travel, but why are we drawn to stories about seekers? If we don’t travel ourselves, we do so through others. That conveys movement and there’s nothing we love so much as movement. Many people are lost, many people hope to find something real beyond that proverbial rainbow. Then, of course, there is the afterlife. We really belong somewhere else: in heaven with God. Every life we lead here on Earth really brings us back to work on some task or solve some problem. “Star Trek: Voyager” ran for seven years and the reason for its success is the fact that it really is an extended road movie. So, here it is: a team of space explorers is sent out on an away mission, prepared to be away a couple of months at the most. Among them are talented prisoners on parole, fresh graduates and experienced veterans. The ship, however, gets catapulted through the galaxy 70 000 lightyears from home by mistake and so the crew has to find another way home. On their way home, they encounter a hundred species, visit hundreds of distant planets and ultimately change the course of time. The fascinating aspect in general is the eternal question we always ask ourselves every time we read a book or watch a film: what if? What would a world based on interstellar communication look like? What might aliens look like? What would their world be like? We know how it is to travel between New York and Rio, but what would a world look like that is based on travelling between planets on a regular basis. Roddenberry continues on a very old tradition that Homer, Voltaire, Melville and Verne dwelled in: the journey. Captain Janeway is a future day Don Quixiote. Encountering barbarians and killers just as much as benevolent philosophers on her seven year odyssey, she perseveres in spite of incredible setbacks. Actress Kate Mulgrew’s uncanny resemblance to Katherine Hepburn got her the job portraying the famous thespian in a one-woman show. It is also Mulgrew’s almost painful and ruthless, Hepburnesque, honesty that keeps the spaceship going and eventually takes the weird and wonderful crew home to Earth, eventually happy, eventually joyous. Robert Beltran’s extraordinary mixture of internal depth with an angry command, as First Officer Chakotay, gives Janeway’s Sherlock her conscience of an eternally wise Watson. In more ways than one, we here have a resiliant team that would not survive as a singular unit. Even when they are stranded alone on a lonely planet, their almost marital team inspires Chakotay’s Adam to create an unusually resistant Eve. Only toward the end of the episode, when Janeway gives in to her quiet seclusion, are they saved to return to Voyager. Adam and Eve again, willingly unwilling, become Bill and Hillary. Robert Picardo breathes life into The Doctor in a role that couldn’t be more different than his most famous portrayal as the Cowboy in “Innerspace”. For those of us who followed Voyager through its journey, the holographic doctor’s love of opera he presents created episodes like “Virtuoso”, where Verdi could be introduced to viewers and aliens alike alongside simple songs like “Someone’s in the Kitchen with Dinah”. The Doctor also becomes an author, a husband, a commanding officer and an advocate of human rights. Wonderfully holographic. I remember seeing Tom Paris-portrayer Robert Duncan McNeill in a Twilight Zone-episode named “A Message from Charity”. Since then, he has come a long way. His matter-of-factway and almost functional form of acting grew in time and became a real jewel of storytelling toward the sixth and seventh seasons of Voyager. McNeill’s very American truthfulness is sympathetic and his cute and constant reparté with Harry Kim in the Captain Proton episodes are worth while to say the least. Jeri Ryan’s looks have been described as worthy of expressions like “Va-Va-Voom”. Although rather sterile a role, she manages to unify moments of tenderness with a cyborg’s hard battle for individuality as “Seven of Nine”. Tender episodes such as “Someone to Watch Over Me” give us that sweet sneak-peeks of viewing other talents emerge other than looks and strong acting. Her duet with Picardo makes the listener wonder what she would do as the vocalist of a big band. Maybe she already is one. If that is the case, a fellow big band vocalist like me would like to hear her perform songs like “Fly Me to the Moon”. No Star Trek-ship is complete without a Vulcan. So it is actor and Blues-singer Tim Russ that gives us his constant concentration as Tuvok. The moments when Tuvok is allowed to step outside his own controlled boundaries, however, are the most memorable. Russ is allowed to become a tender and angry soul, happy and enthusiastic, and we find much more beneath that controlled enigma. Shakespearian actor Ethan Phillips turned Talaxian tour-de-force and Janeway-Alter-Ego Neelix into a weirdly wonderful Pumbaa-like caleidoscope of alien and gastronomical wit. I know he has spent years doing Star Trek, but I also know he is a playwright and the owner of a Master’s Degree in Fine Arts from Cornell University. UCLA-student Garrett Wang became everybody’s favourite little beginner as Ensign Harry Kim. His smart and honest portrayal was believable enough to inspire people to review the episodes in which he played the focal part. He is and remains Voyager’s charming conscience. Roxann Dawson created a feisty, angry character with a sensitive core in B’Elanna Torres. As with many of the portrayals in Voyager, we see the development with the oncoming years. We, as actors, do grow with our assigments. Roxann presented superior theatrical skills even in her first episode in addition to being what you could label as versatile and supremely interesting. Jennifer Lien’s work as Kes unified strength with tenderness. Of all the characters in Voyager, hers is the most feminine, the one with the most thespian introspection. On the surface, Star Trek Voyager is a sitcom, a soap-opera set in space. At a closer glance, it is a deep and heartfelt plea to enjoy the knowledge the ride itself provides. It is the discoverer’s dream, the seafarer’s love for eternal wisdom. As I said, we are all seekers and we all love to see that other enjoy seeking, as well.

The Singing Couple, HerbertEyre Moulton and Gun Kronzell, and their Irish sheepdog Fred, during the heyday of their European concert tour, 1966, singing Rodgers, Bernstein, Copland, Verdi and Brahms.

Dead Flowers By Herbert Eyre Moulton (1927 - 2005) “A lyrical film, a flop ...” So wrote the Austrian film magazine DIAGONALE about “Dead Flowers” three years after the fact. And this was really tragic, this flop, one of the few movies I’ve ever been associated with that was truly all of a piece, with no nonsense and no camp about any portion of it. It was only the second work by the brilliant young Austrian writer/director Peter Ily Huemer, who divides his time between his native Vienna and his adopted New York, where he lives and works. Huemer’s first work, the film noir “Kiss Daddy Good Night”, had been shot in New York and was just as much a success as “Dead Flowers”, made in Vienna. Financially speaking, let it be said, it was a failure. It stands today as a thoroughly fascinating modern retelling of the old Orpheus and Eurydice myth, transplante to the industrial outskirts of the city and its robust working class, a totally integrated work, in turns endearingly funny, raunchy, somber, spooky, and disturbing. Huemer, known as a man of understatement, is a thoughtful and indeed lovable “Mensch” of infinite patience and kindness, especially towards his chosen players. And with what care he chooses them, too. His casting sessions are famous for their thoroughness. Mine lasted well over half an hour and consisted mainly of thoughtful pauses and groping for the answers to his many searching questions, some of them personal, some seemingly irrelevant, many of them psychological: What animal would you like to be, and why? What would you do if a child of yours was in serious trouble/ mixed up with drugs/ killed in an accident? What would you do to try and prevent it, if possible? Have you any cruel impulses, surpressed or otherwise? Questions like that, a baffling, mentally stretching halfhour ... and then no word of the results for weeks. In fact, I’d quite forgotten the whole incident when the agent handling it phoned and said I’d been cast as Mr. LeMont, a rich, powerful executive at the United Nations, in some way mixed up with arms smuggling. As a bonus, Mr. LeMont would speak in my own dulcet tones, Chicago-Deutsch and all, without being dubbed later by some low-Viennese kraut-head, as so often happens. LeMont’s only daughter Alice is the Eurydice of the tale, who was killed in a traffic accident two years before and comes back mysteriously from the underworld to fall in love with the hero, or anti-hero, Alex. And never has Eurydice had a more unlikely Orpheus, laconic, rough-appearing, almost primitive, but with a huge heart and tender nature, by profession with the harrowing of hell with his shirttail hanging halfway out. Alex lives with his dotty old grandmother (Tana Schanzara, who received an international prize for her delicious portrayal), a grandma who talks to herself when not addressing the image of her dead husband in his illuminated closet-shrine. Whenever she happens to stumble, out in her garden, she just has to lie there on her back like a tortoise, squealing and calling out until somebody, Alex usually, appears and helps her to her feet again. Into this odd little household comes my daughter, Alice/Eurydice, whom Alex has picked up one night hitchhiking on the highway, bruised and soiled as if she’d been in an accident. This is a haunting performance by the American actress Kate Valk, whom in the idiotic way of moviemaking I have never ever met, while I was filming, she was onstage in New York. Alice is a figure of mystery, and is already being stalked by a sinister network of agents from Hades, headed by a sadistic creep named Willy deVille, in mauve Liberace-type outfit and dark shades. The flight of the young pair, Alice must be returned to Hades whence she escaped, is packed with danger and excitement and ends up in a truly scary night-sequence in a shutdown zoo. There she gets separated from Alex and is abducted by deVille. Now deeply in love, Alex breaks out in a desperate search which leads first to Alice’s father, who only compounds the mystery. And that’s where I come in, out of the butler’s pantry for once, and into a top position in the UNO-City-by-the-Danube. I’m first seen in the parking lot there, getting into my big expensive car to drive to my big expensive home in Grinzing. On the expressway I’m increasingly aware of Alex tailing me in his van. Once at my place, he gets himself zapped unconcious by a couple of goons in my employ – Blues Brothers types, only evil, and comes to my cellar where I’m enjoying his getting roughed up, that is, until he mentions his quest for Alice. At which, I get up and come forward to inform him that she has been dead these two years now, the victim of a traffic accident, which Alex, of course, finds incomprehensible. After a moment’s consideration, I order my gorillas to set him free. LeMont had only a couple of scenes, but these were as meticulously staged and filmed as if it were a major role in a topbudget thriller. Peter guided me through them with great patience and understanding. For the interrogation in the cellar he took me step-by-step, phrase-by-phrase, until, speaking of my dead daughter, I was almost choked with emotion – this tough, amoral, affluent wheeler-and-dealer. For the chase on the expressway, the traffic was blocked off so that I could race down the wrong way, for a more advantageous shot, the camera whirring away just at my right elbow and Peter directing me from the back seat: “Okay, Herbert, now look in the rearview mirror to see if he’s gaining on you – now speed up a bit – glance at the side mirror, speed up slightly again – shift in your seat – another glance in the mirror – excellent, Herbert, super! That’s it, CUT! Thank you very much!” Alex’s quest culminates in a foggy rowboat-crossing of the Danube/River Styx – Huemer’s screenplay follows the old legend faithfully, and is studded with intriguing details like Alex meeting a dead pal, just recently killed in a train accident involving the express from Salzburg, the “Rosenkavalier”. He inquires how it was that Alex died – Alex tells him he’s only visiting. Then, in an unforgettable encounter with The Boss, who turns out to be a transsexual Bulgarian woman in a dark suit and boy’s haircut, he learns that, in order to get Alice freed again, someone else must die in her place ... This little detail is neatly dispatched by dear old Granny, once Alex gets back to the other side. A fresh viewing of our “Dead Flowers”-video (recorded off the air) convinced me that this is nothing short of a minor masterpiece which deserved a far happier fate than a few prizes and citations from scattered film festivals, followed by a week in a grotty little cinema in Vienna’s 9th district. There, except for a couple of teeny gigglers, my family and I were the only audience that dismal Saturday afternoon – after which it folded up its petals and crept into oblivion. Some days later, wretchedly true to form, advertising posters began blossoming in streetscars and buses and on railway platforms – just one more example of too little/too late, as if purposely being sabotaged by the insensitive slobs in charge of promotion and distribution. No doubt they were already launched on something much more commercial, something reeking of sentimental schmaltz, but profitable. Peter’s only printed comment: “Da ist man schon einige Zeit angeschlagen – You can be pretty hard hit for a while after that.” As for the ultimate fate of Alex and Alice, one can only hope there’ll come another oppurtunity some day to re-live this haunting and fascinating picture. Given half the chance it still has all the makings of a genuine cult-film.

A Fellow MEETS His DAD Way BEFORE He HAD Kids A look at The BACK TO THE FUTURE-Trilogy By Charles E.J. Moulton Small town, America. 1955. A young boy saves his friend from a car accident, who thanks him by simply jumping on his bike and driving off into the sunset. Sounds like pure soap opera, fifties style. Yes, but with a twist: the hero is his son and they are both 17 years old. Huh? What was that? 17? Both? Rewind the tape. Marty McFly’s friend, the much older Doc Brown, has invented a time machine with the help of plutonium-smuggling Libyans. During a demonstration, Marty McFly is accidentally catapulted thirty years back to a time when his parents were in high school. Oops. The only problem is that he never expected to stand in their way. He interrupted with his parent’s first meeting and now Marty has to get his folks back together so he can be born. At first, it doesn’t work at all. His Dad is a complete wimp, mobbed by the local bully Biff, and his own mom is in love with… Marty. So it takes a whole lot of courage and pain and playing of love songs on proms to get them back together before he can by the help of a lightning bolt go back to the future, only to find out that he changed his parents: his formerly drunk loser parents are now prime yuppies out for tennis speaking like rich middle-class people. Who are better people? Losers or phoneys? Is the loser more honest because he lost? Wait a minute, there is more. In the second picture, old Doc Brown travels back from the future, 2015, to tell Marty and his girl that their kids are in trouble. They go there to save them, but Marty is tempted by the dark side of the force (sorry, Mr. Lucas). He is chased on a hovering skateboard by Biff’s grandchild when he buys an almanac that reveals all sport results of the later half of the 20th century. Doc prevents him from taking it back with him, but evil things lurk in the minds of men and the entire story becomes a very Shakespearian parody. Old Biff steals the book and takes the time vehicle back to the past and gives himself this desirable object. The result is a 1985 Hill Valley Gambling Hell with Biff as the rich devil replacing his murdered father. They accordingly go back to the past to fix this present in the past. They do succeed, run into themselves a couple of times, before burning the book and saving the future. You think this is over? Not yet. Doc’s car was struck by lightning and sent back to 1885. Marty has to travel back there, against the Doc’s wishes, because he finds out that the Doc was murdered by Biff’s great grandfather. He does so, in the process letting Indians rip the fuel line. The result is that he meets his ancestors, his grandpa even pees on him as a baby, in order to find a home in his own town a hundred years back in time. He gets into a fight with Biff’s grandpa Buford “Mad Dog” Tannen (“I hate that name!”), who challenges him to a duel. The Doc, however, has fallen in love and after the victorious duel he elopes with his Miss Clara Clayton, whilst Marty pushes up to high velocity by a steam train into the present. But there is hope yet. Doc returns with a new invention, prompted by the hover board from the future. He is now the owner of a time steam train. Sound like fun? Yes. It is. Fast, furious and funny. But let’s look a little behind the scenes, shall we now? Having read two of Michael J. Fox’s biographies, I am a little smarter. He tells us that his now very evident Parkinson’s disease comes from an accident in the hanging scene of the third movie. “Accidents are temporary, film is forever.” These were his exact words. However, we must admire a man who so bravely left Canada to become a star and decided to work day and night on two projects while doing the movie. What about the characters in the film? All Marty’s family are losers made winners in the movies, through Marty’s timely doing. Biff’s family are winners made losers in the movies, also through Marty’s doing. There is thus a reverse side to the movies, with Marty undoing ill and doing well. Is it too bad that Marty and Doc are not together at the end? Yes. But Doc was always lonely and now has a family in the only place he ever really truly loved: the old west. Looking at them as a whole, with all of their reversible fun of characters meeting themselves and changing lives, the most interesting part of it is still how the characters can change personality wise according to circumstance and situation. Marty’s mother is a drunken housewife who, completely and utterly resigned to a dull poor life, really has given up. But because of loving a man of heroics (Dad prompted by Marty) she turns into the fit, self secure and hip mother in 1985. The hip mother, however, turns into a rich, silicon pumped and frustrated wife in the alternate reality just because wealthy Biff murdered her husband and married her. Biff is a pure sleaze, who has been used to winning all his life and therefore does the same thing he did in the fifties and even gets away with it because no one tells him otherwise. But the fact that Marty’s father has the guts to retaliate in 1955 he turns Biff into a meek and shy car mechanic thirty years later. Receiving the book from himself in 1955, moreover, turns him into the evil man we all love to hate. Marty’s father is a shy loser in 1985 because no one ever told him he was a capable man. But by receiving the right courage he dares to take the risk he needs and becomes a successful author and eventually a happy, rich grandpa. Marty’s problem is that he never lets anyone call him coward. And so he gets into an accident in 1985 that ruins his life. But by the actual intervention of Doc he changes his mind and is able to not get into the accident and thereby make himself a future with his girl without being a loser. TIME magazine was once quoted as saying that these films are like a fugue improvising on the theme of the previous movies. Interesting point, this. A man might change his life if he makes the right decisions. What are the right decisions? Being strong and feeling strong. Having the guts to say: “Man, I am so talented. I can handle this, all right.” Marty travels close to hundred and fifty years in time to find out that it isn’t the main thing to defend yourself against people who judge you ignorantly. Defending yourself to save your soul from ignorance might be the main thing. The main thing is not holding on to your past mistakes and letting your intuition lead the way. Is that what Marty does? Time is illusive and strange and maybe that is what the movies want to teach us. That going on with your life and working from the moment is the most important thing. Don’t keep reminding yourself that you did a mistake. Make sure that you don’t make the mistake again. Don’t be a bully like Biff or as quick in the draw as Marty. Be as good as you possibly can be. Sail through time in your own speed and with your own elegance and eloquence. Don’t be intimidated by past mistakes. Don’t be so sure that you cannot learn anything from a movie just because pop corn and coke is labeled on the cover of a motion picture. Surprising truths can be found at the backsides of cereal cartons. This little extravaganza about time tells us that hotheads do well in not following grudges. BACK TO THE FUTURE: Three Motion Pictures (© 1985, 1989, 1990) Director: Robert Zemeckis Music: Alan Silvestri Actors: Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Lea Thompson, Crispin Glover, Thomas F.Wilson, James Tolkan; Producer: Steven Spielberg.

Creative Non-Fiction can also be poetic, as Alexandra H. Rodrigues points out in this poem. We can redefine literature by asking ourselves the eternal question what literature is, what words are, what poetry is. Music can be poetic, stories can be creative, and we certainly know that many authors write their stories with their own lives in mind. So enjoy this poetic painting by Alexandra. The Creativity Webzine is the journal where all the arts meet. Redefine the borders. Enjoy the eternal moment.

The Painting By Alexandra H. Rodrigues My painting won first prize Yet my smile was just a disguise. My sister had sat for this sample During her very last week As I, on the canvas, each line or Dimple to capture did seek. Only in her thirties, my sister was Certainly, much too young To be already from this earth gone. During the show, I was offered good money For the portrait of her It made no impression, I swear. Being a very close-knit family For our sister we opened a kind of a shrine I visited often, when no one else around In the painting, she was mine and peace I found. The portrait exuberated life and showed me a way With her, who I loved so much, to stay. A photo is great, also as memory can be seen But paint strokes on canvas show how she has been Executed while she still did breathe Not just ink that quickly on paper would freeze Causing minute changes in her pose When fatigue to exhaustion rose. Before my sister’s death, I viewed my talent an art Now I thank destiny that of me it became part. It is the memory of the time spent on the strokes That now a different intimacy with her evokes. Why I just wrote this, I really don’t know Never did I have a brother or sister to show.

Excerpts from Christopher Columbus' Log 1492 A.D. IN THE NAME OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST Whereas, Most Christian, High, Excellent, and Powerful Princes, King and Queen of Spain and of the Islands of the Sea, our Sovereigns, this present year 1492, after your Highnesses had terminated the war with the Moors reigning in Europe, the same having been brought to an end in the great city of Granada, where on the second day of January, this present year, I saw the royal banners of your Highnesses planted by force of arms upon the towers of the Alhambra, which is the fortress of that city, and saw the Moorish king come out at the gate of the city and kiss the hands of your Highnesses, and of the Prince my Sovereign; and in the present month, in consequence of the information which I had given your Highnesses respecting the countries of India and of a Prince, called Great Can, which in our language signifies King of Kings, how, at many times he, and his predecessors had sent to Rome soliciting instructors who might teach him our holy faith, and the holy Father had never granted his request, whereby great numbers of people were lost, believing in idolatry and doctrines of perdition. Your Highnesses, as Catholic Christians, and princes who love and promote the holy Christian faith, and are enemies of the doctrine of Mahomet, and of all idolatry and heresy, determined to send me, Christopher Columbus, to the above-mentioned countries of India, to see the said princes, people, and territories, and to learn their disposition and the proper method of converting them to our holy faith; and furthermore directed that I should not proceed by land to the East, as is customary, but by a Westerly route, in which direction we have hitherto no certain evidence that any one has gone. So after having expelled the Jews from your dominions, your Highnesses, in the same month of January, ordered me to proceed with a sufficient armament to the said regions of India, and for that purpose granted me great favors, and ennobled me that thenceforth I might call myself Don, and be High Admiral of the Sea, and perpetual Viceroy and Governor in all the islands and continents which I might discover and acquire, or which may hereafter he discovered and acquired in the ocean; and that this dignity should be inherited by my eldest son, and thus descend from degree to degree forever. Hereupon I left the city of Granada, on Saturday, the twelfth day of May, 1492, and proceeded to Palos, a seaport, where I armed three vessels, very fit for such an enterprise, and having provided myself with abundance of stores and seamen, I set sail from the port, on Friday, the third of August, half an hour before sunrise, and steered for the Canary Islands of your Highnesses which are in the said ocean, thence to take my departure and proceed till I arrived at the Indies, and perform the embassy of your Highnesses to the Princes there, and discharge the orders given me. For this purpose I determined to keep an account of the voyage, and to write down punctually every thing we performed or saw from day to day, as will hereafter appear. Moreover, Sovereign Princes, besides describing every night the occurrences of the day, and every day those of the preceding night, I intend to draw up a nautical chart, which shall contain the several parts of the ocean and land in their proper situations; and also to compose a book to represent the whole by picture with latitudes and longitudes, on all which accounts it behooves me to abstain from my sleep, and make many trials in navigation, which things will demand much labor. Friday, 3 August 1492. Set sail from the bar of Saltes at 8 o'clock, and proceeded with a strong breeze till sunset, sixty miles or fifteen leagues south, afterwards southwest and south by west, which is the direction of the Canaries. Monday, 6 August. The rudder of the caravel Pinta became loose, being broken or unshipped. It was believed that this happened by the contrivance of Gomez Rascon and Christopher Quintero, who were on board the caravel, because they disliked the voyage. The Admiral says he had found them in an unfavorable disposition before setting out. He was in much anxiety at not being able to afford any assistance in this case, but says that it somewhat quieted his apprehensions to know that Martin Alonzo Pinzon, Captain of the Pinta, was a man of courage and capacity. Made a progress, day and night, of twenty-nine leagues. Thursday, 9 August. The Admiral did not succeed in reaching the island of Gomera till Sunday night. Martin Alonzo remained at Grand Canary by command of the Admiral, he being unable to keep the other vessels company. The Admiral afterwards returned to Grand Canary, and there with much labor repaired the Pinta, being assisted by Martin Alonzo and the others; finally they sailed to Gomera. They saw a great eruption of names from the Peak of Teneriffe, a lofty mountain. The Pinta, which before had carried latine sails, they altered and made her square-rigged. Returned to Gomera, Sunday, 2 September, with the Pinta repaired. The Admiral says that he was assured by many respectable Spaniards, inhabitants of the island of Ferro, who were at Gomera with Dona Inez Peraza, mother of Guillen Peraza, afterwards first Count of Gomera, that every year they saw land to the west of the Canaries; and others of Gomera affirmed the same with the like assurances. The Admiral here says that he remembers, while he was in Portugal, in 1484, there came a person to the King from the island of Madeira, soliciting for a vessel to go in quest of land, which he affirmed he saw every year, and always of the same appearance. He also says that he remembers the same was said by the inhabitants of the Azores and described as in a similar direction, and of the same shape and size. Having taken in food, water, meat and other provisions, which had been provided by the men which he left ashore on departing for Grand Canary to repair the Pinta, the Admiral took his final departure from Gomera with the three vessels on Thursday, 6 September. Sunday, 9 September. Sailed this day nineteen leagues, and determined to count less than the true number, that the crew might not be dismayed if the voyage should prove long. In the night sailed one hundred and twenty miles, at the rate of ten miles an hour, which make thirty leagues. The sailors steered badly, causing the vessels to fall to leeward toward the northeast, for which the Admiral reprimanded them repeatedly. Monday, 10 September. This day and night sailed sixty leagues, at the rate of ten miles an hour, which are two leagues and a half. Reckoned only forty-eight leagues, that the men might not be terrified if they should be long upon the voyage. Tuesday, 11 September. Steered their course west and sailed above twenty leagues; saw a large fragment of the mast of a vessel, apparently of a hundred and twenty tons, but could not pick it up. In the night sailed about twenty leagues, and reckoned only sixteen, for the cause above stated. Friday, 14 September. Steered this day and night west twenty leagues; reckoned somewhat less. The crew of the Nina stated that they had seen a grajao, and a tropic bird, or water-wagtail, which birds never go farther than twenty-five leagues from the land. Sunday, 16 September. Sailed day and night, west thirty-nine leagues, and reckoned only thirty-six. Some clouds arose and it drizzled. The Admiral here says that from this time they experienced very pleasant weather, and that the mornings were most delightful, wanting nothing but the melody of the nightingales. He compares the weather to that of Andalusia in April. Here they began to meet with large patches of weeds very green, and which appeared to have been recently washed away from the land; on which account they all judged themselves to be near some island, though not a continent, according to the opinion of the Admiral, who says, "the continent we shall find further ahead." Monday, 17 September. Steered west and sailed, day and night, above fifty leagues; wrote down only forty-seven; the current favored them. They saw a great deal of weed which proved to be rockweed, it came from the west and they met with it very frequently. They were of opinion that land was near. The pilots took the sun's amplitude, and found that the needles varied to the northwest a whole point of the compass; the seamen were terrified, and dismayed without saying why. The Admiral discovered the cause, and ordered them to take the amplitude again the next morning, when they found that the needles were true; the cause was that the star moved from its place, while the needles remained stationary. At dawn they saw many more weeds, apparently river weeds, and among them a live crab, which the Admiral kept, and says that these are sure signs of land, being never found eighty leagues out at sea. They found the sea-water less salt since they left the Canaries, and the air more mild. They were all very cheerful, and strove which vessel should outsail the others, and be the first to discover land; they saw many tunnies, and the crew of the Nina killed one. The Admiral here says that these signs were from the west, "where I hope that high God in whose hand is all victory will speedily direct us to land." This morning he says he saw a white bird called a water- wagtail, or tropic bird, which does not sleep at sea. 19 September. Continued on, and sailed, day and night, twenty- five leagues, experiencing a calm. Wrote down twenty-two. This day at ten o'clock a pelican came on board, and in the evening another; these birds are not accustomed to go twenty leagues from land. It drizzled without wind, which is a sure sign of land. The Admiral was unwilling to remain here, beating about in search of land, but he held it for certain that there were islands to the north and south, which in fact was the case and he was sailing in the midst of them. His wish was to proceed on to the Indies, having such fair weather, for if it please God, as the Admiral says, we shall examine these parts upon our return. Here the pilots found their places upon the chart: the reckoning of the Nina made her four hundred and forty leagues distant from the Canaries, that of the Pinta four hundred and twenty, that of the Admiral four hundred. Thursday, 20 September. Steered west by north, varying with alternate changes of the wind and calms; made seven or eight leagues' progress. Two pelicans came on board, and afterwards another,--a sign of the neighborhood of land. Saw large quantities of weeds today, though none was observed yesterday. Caught a bird similar to a grajao; it was a river and not a marine bird, with feet like those of a gull. Towards night two or three land birds came to the ship, singing; they disappeared before sunrise. Afterwards saw a pelican coming from west- northwest and flying to the southwest; an evidence of land to the westward, as these birds sleep on shore, and go to sea in the morning in search of food, never proceeding twenty leagues from the land. Friday, 21 September. Most of the day calm, afterwards a little wind. Steered their course day and night, sailing less than thirteen leagues. In the morning found such abundance of weeds that the ocean seemed to be covered with them; they came from the west. Saw a pelican; the sea smooth as a river, and the finest air in the world. Saw a whale, an indication of land, as they always keep near the coast. Saturday, 22 September. Steered about west-northwest varying their course, and making thirty leagues' progress. Saw few weeds. Some pardelas were seen, and another bird. The Admiral here says "this headwind was very necessary to me, for my crew had grown much alarmed, dreading that they never should meet in these seas with a fair wind to return to Spain." Part of the day saw no weeds, afterwards great plenty of it. Sunday, 23 September. Sailed northwest and northwest by north and at times west nearly twenty-two leagues. Saw a turtle dove, a pelican, a river bird, and other white fowl;--weeds in abundance with crabs among them. The sea being smooth and tranquil, the sailors murmured, saying that they had got into smooth water, where it would never blow to carry them back to Spain; but afterwards the sea rose without wind, which astonished them. The Admiral says on this occasion "the rising of the sea was very favorable to me, as it happened formerly to Moses when he led the Jews from Egypt." Tuesday, 25 September. Very calm this day; afterwards the wind rose. Continued their course west till night. The Admiral held a conversation with Martin Alonzo Pinzon, captain of the Pinta, respecting a chart which the Admiral had sent him three days before, in which it appears he had marked down certain islands in that sea; Martin Alonzo was of opinion that they were in their neighborhood, and the Admiral replied that he thought the same, but as they had not met with them, it must have been owing to the currents which had carried them to the northeast and that they had not made such progress as the pilots stated. The Admiral directed him to return the chart, when he traced their course upon it in presence of the pilot and sailors. At sunset Martin Alonzo called out with great joy from his vessel that he saw land, and demanded of the Admiral a reward for his intelligence. The Admiral says, when he heard him declare this, he fell on his knees and returned thanks to God, and Martin Alonzo with his crew repeated Gloria in excelsis Deo, as did the crew of the Admiral. Those on board the Nina ascended the rigging, and all declared they saw land. The Admiral also thought it was land, and about twenty-five leagues distant. They remained all night repeating these affirmations, and the Admiral ordered their course to be shifted from west to southwest where the land appeared to lie. They sailed that day four leagues and a half west and in the night seventeen leagues southwest, in all twenty-one and a half: told the crew thirteen leagues, making it a point to keep them from knowing how far they had sailed; in this manner two reckonings were kept, the shorter one falsified, and the other being the true account. The sea was very smooth and many of the sailors went in it to bathe, saw many dories and other fish. Wednesday, 26 September. Continued their course west till the afternoon, then southwest and discovered that what they had taken for land was nothing but clouds. Sailed, day and night, thirty- one leagues; reckoned to the crew twenty-four. The sea was like a river, the air soft and mild. Sunday, 30 September. Continued their course west and sailed day and night in calms, fourteen leagues; reckoned eleven.--Four tropic birds came to the ship, which is a very clear sign of land, for so many birds of one sort together show that they are not straying about, having lost themselves. Twice, saw two pelicans; many weeds. The constellation called Las Gallardias, which at evening appeared in a westerly direction, was seen in the northeast the next morning, making no more progress in a night of nine hours, this was the case every night, as says the Admiral. At night the needles varied a point towards the northwest, in the morning they were true, by which it appears that the polar star moves, like the others, and the needles are always right. Monday, 1 October. Continued their course west and sailed twenty-five leagues; reckoned to the crew twenty. Experienced a heavy shower. The pilot of the Admiral began to fear this morning that they were five hundred and seventy-eight leagues west of the island of Ferro. The short reckoning which the Admiral showed his crew gave five hundred and eighty-four, but the true one which he kept to himself was seven hundred and seven leagues. Saturday, 6 October. Continued their course west and sailed forty leagues day and night; reckoned to the crew thirty-three. This night Martin Alonzo gave it as his opinion that they had better steer from west to southwest. The Admiral thought from this that Martin Alonzo did not wish to proceed onward to Cipango; but he considered it best to keep on his course, as he should probably reach the land sooner in that direction, preferring to visit the continent first, and then the islands. Sunday, 7 October. Continued their course west and sailed twelve miles an hour, for two hours, then eight miles an hour. Sailed till an hour after sunrise, twenty-three leagues; reckoned to the crew eighteen. At sunrise the caravel Nina, who kept ahead on account of her swiftness in sailing, while all the vessels were striving to outsail one another, and gain the reward promised by the King and Queen by first discovering land--hoisted a flag at her mast head, and fired a lombarda, as a signal that she had discovered land, for the Admiral had given orders to that effect. He had also ordered that the ships should keep in close company at sunrise and sunset, as the air was more favorable at those times for seeing at a distance. Towards evening seeing nothing of the land which the Nina had made signals for, and observing large flocks of birds coming from the North and making for the southwest, whereby it was rendered probable that they were either going to land to pass the night, or abandoning the countries of the north, on account of the approaching winter, he determined to alter his course, knowing also that the Portuguese had discovered most of the islands they possessed by attending to the flight of birds. The Admiral accordingly shifted his course from west to west-southwest, with a resolution to continue two days ill that direction. This was done about an hour after sunset. Sailed in the night nearly five leagues, and twenty-three in the day. In all twenty-eight. Monday, 8 October. Steered west-southwest and sailed day and night eleven or twelve leagues; at times during the night, fifteen miles an hour, if the account can be depended upon. Found the sea like the river at Seville, "thanks to God," says the Admiral. The air soft as that of Seville in April, and so fragrant that it was delicious to breathe it. The weeds appeared very fresh. Many land birds, one of which they took, flying towards the southwest; also grajaos, ducks, and a pelican were seen. Tuesday, 9 October. Sailed southwest five leagues, when the wind changed, and they stood west by north four leagues. Sailed in the whole day and night, twenty leagues and a half; reckoned to the crew seventeen. All night heard birds passing. Wednesday, 10 October. Steered west-southwest and sailed at times ten miles an hour, at others twelve, and at others, seven; day and night made fifty-nine leagues' progress; reckoned to the crew but forty-four. Here the men lost all patience, and complained of the length of the voyage, but the Admiral encouraged them in the best manner he could, representing the profits they were about to acquire, and adding that it was to no purpose to complain, having come so far, they had nothing to do but continue on to the Indies, till with the help of our Lord, they should arrive there. Thursday, 11 October. Steered west-southwest; and encountered a heavier sea than they had met with before in the whole voyage. Saw pardelas and a green rush near the vessel. The crew of the Pinta saw a cane and a log; they also picked up a stick which appeared to have been carved with an iron tool, a piece of cane, a plant which grows on land, and a board. The crew of the Nina saw other signs of land, and a stalk loaded with rose berries. These signs encouraged them, and they all grew cheerful. Sailed this day till sunset, twenty-seven leagues. After sunset steered their original course west and sailed twelve miles an hour till two hours after midnight, going ninety miles, which are twenty-two leagues and a half; and as the Pinta was the swiftest sailer, and kept ahead of the Admiral, she discovered land and made the signals which had been ordered. The land was first seen by a sailor called Rodrigo de Triana, although the Admiral at ten o'clock that evening standing on the quarter-deck saw a light, but so small a body that he could not affirm it to be land; calling to Pero Gutierrez, groom of the King's wardrobe, he told him he saw a light, and bid him look that way, which he did and saw it; he did the same to Rodrigo Sanchez of Segovia, whom the King and Queen had sent with the squadron as comptroller, but he was unable to see it from his situation. The Admiral again perceived it once or twice, appearing like the light of a wax candle moving up and down, which some thought an indication of land. But the Admiral held it for certain that land was near; for which reason, after they had said the Salve which the seamen are accustomed to repeat and chant after their fashion, the Admiral directed them to keep a strict watch upon the forecastle and look out diligently for land, and to him who should first discover it he promised a silken jacket, besides the reward which the King and Queen had offered, which was an annuity of ten thousand maravedis. At two o'clock in the morning the land was discovered, at two leagues' distance; they took in sail and remained under the square-sail lying to till day, which was Friday, when they found themselves near a small island, one of the Lucayos, called in the Indian language Guanahani. Presently they descried people, naked, and the Admiral landed in the boat, which was armed, along with Martin Alonzo Pinzon, and Vincent Yanez his brother, captain of the Nina. The Admiral bore the royal standard, and the two captains each a banner of the Green Cross, which all the ships had carried; this contained the initials of the names of the King and Queen each side of the cross, and a crown over each letter Arrived on shore, they saw trees very green many streams of water, and diverse sorts of fruits. The Admiral called upon the two Captains, and the rest of the crew who landed, as also to Rodrigo de Escovedo notary of the fleet, and Rodrigo Sanchez, of Segovia, to bear witness that he before all others took possession (as in fact he did) of that island for the King and Queen his sovereigns, making the requisite declarations, which are more at large set down here in writing. Numbers of the people of the island straightway collected together. Here follow the precise words of the Admiral: "As I saw that they were very friendly to us, and perceived that they could be much more easily converted to our holy faith by gentle means than by force, I presented them with some red caps, and strings of beads to wear upon the neck, and many other trifles of small value, wherewith they were much delighted, and became wonderfully attached to us. Afterwards they came swimming to the boats, bringing parrots, balls of cotton thread, javelins, and many other things which they exchanged for articles we gave them, such as glass beads, and hawk's bells; which trade was carried on with the utmost good will. But they seemed on the whole to me, to be a very poor people. They all go completely naked, even the women, though I saw but one girl. All whom I saw were young, not above thirty years of age, well made, with fine shapes and faces; their hair short, and coarse like that of a horse's tail, combed toward the forehead, except a small portion which they suffer to hang down behind, and never cut. Some paint themselves with black, which makes them appear like those of the Canaries, neither black nor white; others with white, others with red, and others with such colors as they can find. Some paint the face, and some the whole body; others only the eyes, and others the nose. Weapons they have none, nor are acquainted with them, for I showed them swords which they grasped by the blades, and cut themselves through ignorance. They have no iron, their javelins being without it, and nothing more than sticks, though some have fish-bones or other things at the ends. They are all of a good size and stature, and handsomely formed. I saw some with scars of wounds upon their bodies, and demanded by signs the of them; they answered me in the same way, that there came people from the other islands in the neighborhood who endeavored to make prisoners of them, and they defended themselves. I thought then, and still believe, that these were from the continent. It appears to me, that the people are ingenious, and would be good servants and I am of opinion that they would very readily become Christians, as they appear to have no religion. They very quickly learn such words as are spoken to them. If it please our Lord, I intend at my return to carry home six of them to your Highnesses, that they may learn our language. I saw no beasts in the island, nor any sort of animals except parrots." These are the words of the Admiral.

Gods and Heroes Among Us A True Story of Spiritual Awakening and Meaning

By Chris Aldridge The Greek gods are real, and human determination is not something that can be easily conquered. The gods who are great of Olympus and rule all, also guide us to achievement, for they wish us to be a great and prosperous people, not live in self-pity or loathing at the belief that we are somehow inherently broken. These things are evident to me, and have been for years. The story of my wife and son is but one way I tell the truth of these events from a belief system that so many have forgotten throughout the centuries of destruction and persecution of pagans and polytheists. While the ancient Greek temples are in ruins across the Hellenic landscape, the gods they honor are not. They are as real today, for they are not statues or tall columns that melt in the fires of religious hatred, rot away with the winds of time, or deteriorate with the pounding of continuous downpours, but gods who live eternally in the universe with ultimate authority. Little did I know in my much younger days, this would be a great revelation for me in later life, because like most people in the south, I was born and raised Christian, particularly southern baptist and all of its hell-fire preaching, taught that there is only one god, and I’d go to hell should I believe otherwise. I sometimes remember being taught to fear the devil, his eternal punishment of fire, and the assaults of demons more than to actually love Jesus. This terror was drilled into my every brain cell and thought. But this indoctrination and fear would not be able to hold me back from my true spiritual calling. This is testimony, I think, to the validity of my life experiences, because in order for someone to let go of a lifetime of fear successfully and abandon what they have known their whole life as religion, spirituality and truth, something profound must take place, beyond the experiences of normality. What child born in the late 20th Century of American Christianity would have possibly thought they would grow up to follow the old Greek gods? Certainly not me at the time, but life’s roads are as nearsighted as they are curvy. My first official taste of ancient Greece came in high school when my English class studied Homer’s classic The Odyssey. I was ever-fascinated with the ancient gods, culture, and the timeless adventures of noble and brave Odysseus. I even decided to dress like him one day during high school spirit week to honor “Hero Day.” Many others dressed in military outfits, because we were just coming out of the September 11th attacks, but I took up the ancient Greek robes of the famed king of Ithaca. Certainly, it’s not to say that I wasn’t a patriot. I simply didn’t want to be the same as everyone else. I had always been my own person. Odysseus was a hero to me as he was to the ancient Hellenes. Then I saw the movie Troy for the first time in 2005, and I began to lean more toward the interest in actual Greek religious and spiritual belief; not just the captivation of mythology. In 2009, I met my wife Anastasia, and together we had an awesome spiritual experience where the Greek gods Athena and Apollo saved us from a very bad haunting that our new apartment had turned up, after all other prayers received no response. The next morning, Anastasia and I officially and fully converted to Greek Polytheism. Growing up in Thomasville, North Carolina, I never thought I would marry a girl from the Land of Lincoln. I was a proud southerner and wanted everything in my life at one point to remain that way, but then I met Anastasia. We had similar youtube channels and interacted through discussions with one another. She fascinated me with her intelligence, so much so that I regularly messaged and asked her for advice in debates I was having with people on the website. The more we talked, the more we fell into intense passion with one another, even escalating to the point of seeing ourselves together in dreams. Without ever having met me in real life and living nearly a thousand miles away in Chicago at the time, Anastasia was able to tell me precise details about the inside of my home through a dream she had. It was very compelling evidence that divinity was at play in our relationship. She would journey a seemingly endless amount of miles to visit me on a regular basis. Sometimes, she spent more time on the road than with me, but each moment together was worth it to the both of us entirely. She was the ultimate road warrior with her ice coffee and beat-up red car. It probably wasn’t the safest to drive straight through for twelve to fourteen hours, but her desire for me simply could not be frightened or discouraged. We fell instantly in love, and spent our days together frolicking around the local towns. It was as if all was right with our world. I enjoyed being with her so much that it became harder to let go of her each time. I simply cried as she pulled away and left for Illinois. I had other women trying for my hand at the time, but I decided to choose the most dedicated, and nothing fulfilled that requirement more than the cute little northern girl who was willing to come so far just to be with me consistently, even for a short amount of time. Being that I had experienced many girls in my past, I knew how to spot commitment as opposed to a lack thereof. None of the women in my life had ever demonstrated a willingness to even cross the street for me, but Anastasia was prepared to go any distance. I knew that if I wanted a serious, long-lasting relationship, here was the opportunity. The last time she ventured down toward the summer of that year, she made me promise to never let her leave again. I knew that if I truly loved her, now was the time to make the ultimate decision. Needless to say, my grandmother who I lived with at the time did not approve of our relations, nor did her own parents. She and I were complete strangers to the other family. So I chose to take the chance of being homeless for a while than to live without the love of my life. I packed up my things and we left, bound for wherever the North Carolina roads would take us. My grandparents who were supposed to have cared for me didn’t even bother to know me at that point. They did not care at all that I had nowhere to go. I felt so abandoned and alienated, like I had never actually had a place in that family at all. Fortunately, Anastasia was able to find a job within a week, which enabled us to obtain our first apartment that summer in High Point. We literally ran away together. Many may only dream of such a fairy tale, but we lived it in a basic sense, and survived often on just love, sometimes sitting on our clothes or sleeping on an air mattress, and eating chicken and rice every night. It wasn’t always the glorious story of freedom that poets make it, as we basically only had four walls, but we were still as happy as those who had it all. It was one of the most joyous times of our lives. We spent the summer watching new movies, traveling the area and visiting wonderful and memorable Pagan shops as much as our limited funds would allow, and swimming in the pool of the apartment complex which usually welcomed us as its only attendants. As the year drew to a close, my son was conceived and I was very proud to be a father. I thought it would be a wonderful, exciting adventure, but big problems began occurring within the ultrasounds at early stages. Judging by the readings, they feared he would have Down Syndrome or Cystic Fibrosis. My wife was visibly devastated, and no one in the doctor’s office seemed to care the least. No one comforted her except me. They gave us the option of abortion, but we refused. We decided that we would never give up on our child, just as we had never given up on each other. In June 2010, my wife’s blood pressure skyrocketed to stroke level because of pregnancy complications, and Gryphon Maximus Aldridge had to be delivered at 24 weeks on June 4th and placed in the NICU at Forsyth Medical Center in Winston Salem, North Carolina. Fortunately, the doctors successfully stabilized our son, and he had none of the problems his other doctors had previously feared. Had we aborted him, we would have done so entirely on false grounds. However, that did not change the fact that he now had to face an entirely new set of problems, ones that could end his life just as easily. There was still the risk that he would not make it out of the hospital alive. His chances of survival, even with all of the advanced medicine and technology they had, was only 50%, and around a 70% chance of basically being a vegetable or severely mentally disabled should he survive at all. However, from the very start of his journey, we knew there was divine favor with him. He was born on the 4th, his incubator number was 4, and Anastasia’s discharge room number was 4444. I did not notice the signs offhand, but my wife, being the oracular woman she is, pointed them out. Four stands as the number of good fortune and prosperity, and the gods can send messages through signs and omens. I was astonished, knowing that it was not possible that all of these coexistent representations were all merely coincidences. When something happens enough, it ceases to be an accident. As Aristotle said, nature does nothing without use. All things have purpose and direction, from the strifeful relationship my wife and I started out in, to the birth of our son, all things happen for a reason, and more importantly, nature or the gods, intend purpose behind everything they push into this world. The universe, likewise, would also not have given us all of these consistent signs needlessly. We decided to listen to the gods, and take the lessons of the journey. When his mother and I first visited him together in the NICU, I placed pictures of Athena, Apollo and Artemis on the windows of his incubator. Athena is a strong protective goddess and Apollo and Artemis help infants and children. Gryphon soon began to breathe on his own for a while without the help of a ventilator. The doctors were amazed. I realize now that what I saw was more than just my son taking the element that gives us all life, it was the presence of the gods there with him. He himself was also the strongest little fighter, so much will to live packed into his tiny body. Whatever ailments wanted to come his way, they were clearly in for a very hard time. Each day looked better and better, no one willing to give up the fight. We all loved him far too much to give in to defeat, and his doctors worked round the clock to save his life. They are most certainly a kind of hero in themselves. When it came time for Anastasia to first feed him, she was told to not be worried if he only took a few sips, because that was to be expected. He took the whole bottle down. He was certainly earning his name of Maximus. Day by day, we watched our son grow, develop and progress without any real complications. They never even had to do any surgeries. It was clear, this baby’s life had purpose and meaning. After being in the NICU for over one-hundred days, we finally got to take him home, growing to around five times his size at birth at the time of discharge. I pulled up in my Buick Park Ave with a carseat in the back for the first time in my life, ready to welcome in my first son. Never again would Anastasia and I have to enter those dim parking decks and walk to the NICU in fear that our son would be gone when we arrived, each step more worrisome than the last. No more would my wife have nightmares about him never being released and vanishing from our embrace. Gryphon was finally home. Today, our son has surpassed his expectations. He is not the crippled, extremely disabled person as we previously feared. He can walk, run, laugh, play, eat, learn, and do basic things for himself. He does have a mild case of Cerebral Palsy in his legs, but it’s treatable and does not prevent him from moving. In Kindergarten, he even learned how to ride a tricycle. School remains one of his favorite activities, and his mother and I are gladly so because the great education and assistance he has received has tremendously progressed him. Each day when Eos escorts the morning light, I thank the gods that I have such a wonderful wife and son to love. While it was hard, I thank them also for this amazing religious and spiritual journey they have brought me on, to teach me the value and meaning of life through the eyes of the ancient gods, culture and men who shaped the very foundation of the America in which we live today. The lesson is simply that we still possess the ability to reach that Golden Age from the old world that we so often long to replicate. And I certainly consider my family and I fortunate enough to live in a world where there are still gods and heroes among us.

An Ode to Warmth

Creative Non-Fiction by Charles E.J. Moulton

The palmtree in the corner covered parts of the dining room lamp. It looked like the sun shining through the rainforest on an August morning. The ginger tea had the taste of that rainforest warmth, a look that resembled the color of the Egyptian painting in the living room. The feeling in my soul really encompassed warmth, logical warmth, if ever there was such a thing. The warmth I heard in Toto’s “Rosanna” playing on German radio, cool keyboard sounds originated in the 1980s. Warmth, like a palmtree providing a soothing shade away from the heat of a bright light. Warmth, like the soothing love of a daughter practicing math to the sounds of Leopold Mozart. Warmth, like a wife knitting a cap while the tea trickled down a wintery chill-protected larynx. Warmth, like the studious attention of six vocal pupils whose fine personalities gave a teacher pride of being an artist. This singer looked up at the painting that hung upon his wall: one artwork painted by one Caspar David Friedrich. A boy holding a Swedish flag fluttering in the ocean breeze. 19th century men and women lingering on the stones of an ocean shore, overlooking the departure of five ships. Five people, five ships, one sunset. The chill of the breeze still unable to freeze any of the love that came flooding out into the world from within the endless soul out into the ether. One word: warmth. Warmth, like a lucious evening bath to Chopin music. Warmth, like making love on the sea shore. Warmth, like creating a baby that changed the world. Warmth, like the smile of a baby. Warmth, like the future of the world held together in one oyster shell. Warmth, like a universe residing within the joyous teardrop emanting out of a baby boy’s eye. Warmth, like ginger tea steaming inside an Elvis cup. Warmth, simple red and yellow and orange warmth. Warmth, like the dainty staccatis of a Mozart quintet. Warmth, like a sage in his couch on the bear rug in front of a roaring fireplace. Warmth, like a brandy and a cigar. Warmth, like a hug and a boo. Warmth, like a kiss on a summer day. Warmth, behind the scenes. Warmth. Simple and genuine warmth. The creation of art, the creation of love, the creation of truth, the creation of a baby, the creation of warmth, the creation of faith. Building bridges, building houses, building trust, building churches, building temples, building trust. A fiddler in the corner stamping his feat to the sound of the tin whistle and the bodhran, creating warmth in the hearts of Irish rovers. Warmth, like the rum of pirates, pulling their ropes on deck. Warmth, like a baking pizza in a stone oven. Warmth, like a fresh hug from a wife and daughter after a long business trip. Warmth, like laughing friends around a table on a spring night. Warmth, like a hot cup of coffee given to a homeless man on a cold winter’s day. Warmth, like love. Warmth, like old friends drinking a pint at the local Dublin pub. Warmth, like applause after a concert. Warmth, like confession. Warmth, like marriage. Warmth, like unselfish behavior. Alive, alive-oh. Send those gypsy harmonies into the world. Make a circle, bless you. Let’s all make a circle right now. Think good thoughts and good thoughts shall come to you. Good thoughts create good actions, good actions create a good world. If you don’t start spreading warmth around this rock, who will? It’s up to you. Yes, you CAN change the world. That’s where the future lies.

*** Odyssey of an Opera Freak or Waiting For Callas By Herbert Eyre Moulton (1927 – 2005)

Imagine being a 19-year old opera freak, a voice student between jobs and suddenly finding yourself shepherding a whole carload of famous, if impoverished opera singers overnight from Chicago to New York in the middle of a midwestern winter – in February 1947 yet. Imagine that these splendid artists have been stranded by an opera season that folded before it opened, and, just to add to the fun, that they have barely a word of English among them, while your own knowledge of foreign language is almost as sketchy as theirs. Then imagine that this whole bizarre, impromptu interlude would turn out to be one of the most memorable of your lifetime, vivid even now, more than half a century later. But first we’d better backtrack a bit ... The previous summer, dazzled by the prospect of mingling with some real live opera singers – past, present, and future – I’d given up an academic scholarship for the richly rococo voice studio of oldtime diva Anna Fitziu and her fascinating entourage of students of hangers-on. (One of her last and finest gifts to the world would be the megastar Shirley Verrett). That same summer I was engaged as the youngest 2nd tenor to grace (or disgrace, as some would have it) the Chicago Opera Company chorus for what would be the city’s last resident season until 1954 – no connection there, really, folks. By mid-July we were rehearsing for the October opening of a 6-week season to feature such household Gods of ours as Milanov, Björling, Traubel, Warren, and Tibbett, along with overseas newcomers like Ferruccio Tagliavini and Italo Tajo. For me, all this amounted to The Big Time, or as near as you would come to it in Chicago of 1946 – but wait! What was that brilliant light shining on the horizon? A brand new opera company. Glory! Hallelujah! A veteran impressario from South America named Ottavio Scotto had suddenly appeared – a feisty little turkey-cock of a gent with flowing silk scarves, a widebrimmed champagne-colored Borsalino hat, silver-headed cane, and – I swear it – spats and pince-nez glasses. And he was fizzing over with grandiose plans for an ambitious new undertaking with the imposing name of The United States Opera, to open its inaugeral season at the Civic Opera House on January 6th, with an all-star production of Puccini’s Turandot. But that wasn’t all – thanks to generous backing, a constellation of legendary European stars had already been signed, names familiar from recordings and opera magazines, along with an excellent musical staff from conductors (Sergio Failoni, George Sebastian) and coaches to a chorus master from the old opera days. And the company would live up to its name by using Chicago as a base for touring all over opera-hungry America. Signor Scotto strutted through the studio several times to audition singers for smaller roles, always with a squad of Cosa Nostra types, and though Madame Fitziu was always her usual gracious self, it was obvious that she Didn’t Quite Trust That Little Man. She disclosed that he had at one time been the manager and possibly lover of the tragic, Duse-like prima donna Claudia Muzio. Also, his vibes were negative in the extreme. Once at a rehearsal in South America, she saw him slap star tenor Miguel Fleta viciously across the face for cracking on high notes due to sexual excess. (Ah, the mysterious mystique of Art!) Anyway, we choristers were at once plunged into daily rehearsals for the new season. In addition to Turandot, there would be several operas new to many of us: Tannhäuser, Don Pasquale, Cavalleria, and two Massenet works, Thais and Manon, as showcases for a star of the Paris Opéra, Georgi-Boué, and her baritone husband, Roger Bourdin. (She was reputed to be drop-dead gorgeous, perfect casting for Massenet’s romantic heroines.) We never did see this pair – did they know something we perhaps didn’t? Among the Italians would be established singers like Mafalda Favero, Galliano Masini, Cloe Elmo – while the German wing would be led by Heldentenor Max Lorenz, the famed Konetzni sisters, Hilde and Anny, from Vienna, and the young Swiss bass Heinz Rehfuss. Most compelling of all: a superb Italo-Russian basso from La Scala, Nicolo RossiLemeni, who arrived early enough to become a familiar figure at Fitziu’s studio, a stunning singing-actor, 27 years of age, too intellectual really to be an opera star, simpatico, and physically what nowadays would be called a Hunk. Moreover, he was probably the only singer ever to get a rave review from critic Claudia Cassidy for singing over the telephone, sending her to the highest heaven of invention, where she remained for at least 24 hours. It was Nicola who first told us about our Turandot, a fabulous young GreekAmerican soprano still back in New York – only 23 years old: shy, nearsighed, plump, and awkward to play the fire-in-ice princess, but possessor of one of the most fantastic voices that he or anybody had ever heard. Her name was something like Maria Kalogerapoulous shortened, or so he believed, to Callas (though advance publicity, bumbling as usual, dubbed her “Marie Calas”.) She had been something of a phenomenon in Greece during the war – singing roles like Tosca, Santuzza and Fidelio, but for the past year or so, back in New York she hadn’t had a chance. Learning Turandot had been a godsend – coached by a singer-pianist, who was along on our epic trip – but with the collapse of the season, she’d be back to square one, poor girl. However – the future held such things for her that no fairytale could envision. (By the way, many of the the Callas biographies have her coming to Chicago and getting stranded there like all the others, but it simply isn’t true. She remained in New York. If she HAD been along – in that concert AND on that train, I’m sure somebody would have noticed. So much for good reporting. Take that, Arianna Stassinopoulous. Sic semper Tabloidiensis! Another outrider from the Scotto troupe was an Italian comprimaro tenor named Virginio Assandri (or “Sandro”), amiable and high-spirited. From him I acquired the Italian cusswords and scatological terms that still stud my vocabulary. (He later went on to New York to sing in several of Toscanini’s legendary NBC opera productions, starting with Cassio in the benchmark Otello the following autumn.) December came and went, and with it the usual Chanukah and Christmas festivities, with Turandot all but coming out of our ears – one foot in Ancient Peking, the other in Limbo, because at that point we didn’t know where we stood: still no “Marie Calas”, and, what was worse, no money. Illustrations artists kept on arriving, and, though the opening had already been put forward a couple of weeks, ticket orders were already being filled. Rumors were rife and speculation becoming general because nobody had as yet seen a penny of rehearsal pay. And we were constantly being put off by the vaguest of excuses – the money was there, all right, but (a) being held up by the government, or (b) caught up in the bureaucratic tangle of international finance, or (c) tied up in the escrow, whatever the hell that meant. When the opening date was again moved forward, our AGMA chorus-delegate, a lady named Evelyn Siegel, who Took No Prisoners, issued a Put-Up-or-We-Shut-Up ultimatum that brought matters to a nasty head. Signor Scotto, meanwhile, last of the Bigtime Impressarios, had vanished in a puff of smoke like Rumpelstilskin – scarves, pince-nez, and spats, leaving his luckless partner, an agent named Eddie Bagarozy, holding the tab for something like $ 100 000 in debts. The backers – invisible Millionaires from Outer Space – had suddenly withdrawn their support, taking all of their gold with them like Alberich and his seven dwarfs in Das Rheingold. The bitter, unvarnished truth: there would be no opera season, there would be no United States Opera Company ever. The key word was bankrupt. Kaputt. Fini. Finiti. That’s all she wrote, as they say in This Man’s Army. And those magnifiscent singers from overseas, what would happen to them? How would they going to bankroll their journey back to Europe? What, by giving a benefit concert for themselves, that’s how ... And what a concert it turned out to be – one of those rare occasions which one can, in all confidence, call unforgettable. The Civic Opera House was packed, and the audience was as enthusiastic as the Super Bowl’s. True, the programme handed out consisted of only one page mimeographed in that blotchy purple ink that old office machines used to have – no Xerox yet in 1947. The vast stage was empty except for the piano, a seat for the accompanist (Sandro on his very best behavior). The singing and the artistry were, of course, something else again. As one by one these wonderful artists came and went, most of them in pre-war finery that had seen better days, they planted themselves by the piano and delivered with a grandeur of voice and style that had nothing to do with costumes or scenery – an inner pride, a rocklike self-confidence that could only come from generations of tradition and hard work, showing us just what were about to be deprived of. Now, more than five decades later, highlights are still fresh in memory, and these are only as one spectator remembers them. There are bound to be some errors. Nodody’s perfect, as the fellah said. Especially memorable high points – a Rigoletto Quartet that was, in a word , simply to die for – Mafalda Favero’s lovely but delicate soprano, heartbreaking in scenes from La Boheme and La Traviata (the latter with an attractive lyric baritone named Daniele Cecchele) – a humorous basso buffo (Melchiore Luise) and itinerant quack hawking his wares to a gullible country bumpkin (tenore-di-grazia Nino Scattolini) who looked like a waiter at the Italian Village café a few streets over, but who sang like a Donizetti angel – sparkling Rossini from a beauteous young senorita named Carmen Gracia – superb arias from Masini, still one of the greatest Italian tenors extant. Then there were the tremendous Wagnerians, and you’d have to journey all the way to Bayreuth or Vienna to hear them or their like – Max Lorenz and Hilde Konetzni flooding the house with the lyrical springtime of Die Walküre (So what if it was incest? This was opera!), and her sister Anny, her dramatic soprano matching the royal purple velvet of her gown, taking us through all 18 minutes of Brünhilde’s Immolation, the longest aria in the lexicon, and this to only the plinkety-plonk of a piano. Most impressive of all: two singers on the brink of world fame – the contralto Cloe Elmo, delivering a Il Trovatore aria which critic Irving Kolodin would call an “incitement to arms” when the same lady debuted with it at the Met a year or so later – and RossiLemeni, as unique an actor as he was a singer, with a Boris Godunov. That oldtimers were comparing to Chaliapin’s. (A few seasons later, when Nicola was performing Boris with the San Francisco Opera, one of my oldest friends, the actress Janice Rule, was suddenly stricken with a bursting appendix, but refused to be taken to hospital until Boris had expired. Luckily, she didn’t follow suit, but greater love hath no opera buff! For me the concert had an unexpeced encore, a Second Act in this young American’s life that rounded things off perfectly. My own troubles seemed tiny indeed compared to the stranded titans, but still and all, in addition to disappointment of the shipwrecked opera (six or more weeks of unpaid rehearsing), I’d been bellowing Grand Old Opry for something like seven months and felt I deserved a break. And what better tonic that a weekend in New York? So I got myself a ticket ($ 34,50 round trip) on the New York Central’s economical, no perks, no-frills coach train, the Pathfinder, which left the LaSalle Street Station every afternoon and plunked you down at New York’s Grand City Central early the next morning, come rain or come shine, all in one piece, and, apart from feeling rather moldy, ready for anything. But please hang on – here’s an excerpt from a letter which my dad wrote to his father about it – were are a family of incurable letter-writers and letter-savers, as well, for which I have been grateful many times – Nell and I went to see Herby off at 3 p.m. on the 6th. Waiting to take the same train were all of the stranded stars mentioned in the enclosed clipping. He had met several of them backstage or at Fitziu’s and had made good friends with Rossi-Lemeni especially. They sang and had a glorious time all the way to New York. The Turkish Consul was there with baskets of lunch. Herby threw his box of lunch into the pot. The sane people on the train wanted to get some sleep and the conductor threatened to put the whole crowd off at Buffalo ... And thereby, as they saying goes, hangs a tale ... There weren’t any seat reserveration (at those prices, you were lucky they had seats) so we got there nice and early so the Beamish Boy could get a decent place on this, his first real adventure. My mom Nell, as was her custom, had provided me with enough provender to sustain a goo-size travel group a full week on the Trans-Siberian Railway – none of it was going to be wasted. There was something unusual about the crowd milling about, waiting to board the train. Besides the usual clutter of seedy Willy Lomans with their cardboard sample cases, and the families with kids who should have been in school, this was a mob not exactly typical for a Thursday afternoon in February – a laughing, babbling, polyglot crush of wayfarers and wellwishers, many of them flamboyant in flowing scarves and berets, some armed with bottles of wine and long loaves of fresh French bread, one even wielding a king size salami. The air was vibrant with chatter and snatches of song. And suddenly there was Sandro, pushing his way towards me: “Ciao, ‘Erby! Tu stai qui? Molto bravo! Anche tu a New York? Benissimo!” – “Una gioia improvvisa, Dearie!” put in “the Fitziu”, at my elbow and suddenly gone all Traviata. She had arrived with what seemed like half of the town’s music world – Rosa Raisa, her husband Giacomo Rimini, Edith Mason, Claire Dux, and the critic Rene Devries. Her trilling continued: “I had a distinct feeling that something marvelous was going to happen today. You’re just the one to lead all these poor darlings to the promised land!” And she was jostled away by a moustached gentleman in a black homburg and a fur-collared overcoat, who turned out to be the Turkish consul, and he and Fitziu began handing out beribboned lucnh bags to our displaced canaries. They seemed to be everywhere you looked – Favero and Masini and Elmo with her rich contralto laugh, and the lovely Spanish soprano, Carmen Gracia, lugging the guitar which would help us thru the long night ahead. I could also pick out some of the others – Melchiore Luise, Cecchele, and the boyish Scattolini, Rossi-Lemeni, who greeted me with a hug, and a lady who proved to be the wife of Bagarozy, the agent who had lost such a bundle on the scuttling of the season. She was also a singer and had been coaching the Greek-American girl, Maria Whatzername, for the role of Turandot. But where was the Wagnerian contingent ...? Ach ja, they could be seen off to one side in a stolid little cluster, looking rather askance at the Roman carnival swirling all around them. As was their custom, they were keeping themselves to themselves, which was fine with me, considering the new-found responsibilities I had just fallen heir to as bellweather to the Italian herd. Deafening loudspeaker crackling, and the train’s departure was announced – much hissing of steam and whistling as the train backed majestically in from the yards up ahead. The crowd started moving toward the gate, where some of the crew had gathered, looking most important: official caps, dark overcoats, clipboards ... But first Sandro had to make his farewell speech to the troops, which ran somewhat as follows: This was ‘Erby, he began, aa fellow singer and a Chicago Paisan, who would take good care of them all until delivery at the hotel in New York. This news was greeted with smiles and clapping, and, I have to say, I stood mighty proud. Boy, what would they say at the Music School I’d opted out of? A final chorus of “Ciao’s” and “Bye-Bye’s” and “Arrivederci’s” and we pressed forward. My parents, who had been enthralled by the spectacle being played out all around them, kissed me goodbye, handed over the grubstakes especially prepared for the trip, and took their leave. A final departure call and the conductor bawled out in a ratchetty voice: “ALL A-BO-O-ARD!” – one more impatient whistle and I hustled the last of precious charges up the steps and into the day-coach. The epic journey, pure Fellini, and surely one of the most singular in the history of American rail transport, was about to begin ... Once inside, it took some time to get everyone sorted out and settled in our portion of the coach, lifting luggage – bags, umbrellas, cardboard boxes, real gypsy impediments – up onto the overhead rack, finger wiping off dusty windowsills and grimy windows – to a true worshiper like myself, every one of their actions and reactions, each small gesture had flair and style. One immediate project: an improvised buffet to be arranged on top of two suitcases piled one on top of the other on one of the seats, followed by sloshing of red wine into wax-paper cups (Chin-Chin! Cheers! Salute!) and slicing of bread and salami and cheese, all of it spiced with laughter. It was all so easygoing, so goodnatured that you couldn’t help wonder at these blithe musical spirits. They weren’t any of them despondent or depressed over the shipwreck of the opera. The thumping success of the concert the night before, both artistic and financial, plus the unqualified praise for each of them in the newspaper reviews of Claudia and Colleagues kept spirits soaring. Even if I’d had my pocket dictionary with me, I couldn’t have provided a very good translation, but they got the gist of it and were duly set up. When you think about it, those weeks in America must have been a kind of vacation for them all, perhaps the first most of thm had ever known. Remember that in the winter of 1946 – 47, the war had only been over for about a year-and-a-half, and privation, rationing, and black marketeering were still a big part of everyday European life. The threat of rampant communism was growing ominously, though the newly-coined phrase Iron Curtain wasn’t even a year old. The Nuremberg Trials were still fresh in memory and the Marshall Plan wasn’t even a plan yet. Large population centers like Berlin and Vienna were divided and being administered by the occupying victors, while most of the once-lovely historic towns still lay in ruins. What a contrast with our own bustling, prosperous, wasteful and wisecracking cities. Even viewed through the grimy windows of a cheap day-coach, Small Town U.S.A. with all the lights and cars and overflowing shops must have had the storybook unreality of a Hollywood movie. Compared to what these happy and gifted people had endured – who, with their music and their merriment, were even now annoying the hell out of the Willy Lomans and the day-coach conductors – compared to all that, the collapse of a mere opera season was small beer indeed, and the fineglings of a tin-horn impressario were reduced to their proper puniness. During the first leg of the trip I was like a Red Cross orderly heading out reliefpackets to the survivors of a disaster, supplementing the Turkish contributions with my own hoard of fried chicken, meatloaf-and-peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches, topped off with a variety of traditional American delicacies like Hostess Twinkies and cupcakes, Fig Newtons, and Tootsie-Rolls. “Grazie, caro, molto gentile –“ I can still see the great lyric soprano Mafalda Favero, whose recordings of Boito and Massenet and the Cherry Duet from L’amico Fritz with Tito Schipa were among my most cherished 78’s, polishing off the last of my mom’s tollhouse cookies and rolling the crumbs between forefinger and thumb: “Delizioso, veramente, Signor ‘Erby!” I’d be so pleased to discover that my Puccini-and-Pizzeria Italian wasn’t so hopeless after all. My only regret was that I had no German. How I’d have loved checking out the Wagnerians, wherever they were roosting for the night, to ask if they’d ever heard of this or that singer, and to pick their brains about prewar Bayreuth and Salzburg and Vienna. But, alas, at that point all that my Deutsch consisted of was “Bei mir bist du schön” (Early Andrews Sisters damage), a verse or two of Schubert, and bits from Lohengrin, one of the two German operas I’d ever been in, and there are limits to what you can do with phrases like “Heil dir, Elsa von Brabant!” and the praise for a knight’s shining armor: “Wie glänzt sein Waffenschmuck!”, while couplets like “Heil, deiner Fahrt, deinem Kommen!” wouldn’t do at all. We must have been halfway across Indiana and well into the vino rosso when somebody toom out the guitar and struck up the Brindisi, the Drinking Song from La Traviata, and soon everybody joined in. For the first time the other, “normal” passengers actually sat up and took notice. (“Sane” was my Dad’s word for them, and who needs it?) The voices were so powerful and the singing so stirring and so true that at first the audience was simply incredulous – the newspaper reviews helped clarify matters – and before long they’d be genuinely interested. Of course, as the hours flew by on wings of song and as Sandman-time approached, the fascination began to wear a wee bit thin. Each time the conductor came through, he resembled more and more the old Scots comic James Finlayson. Remember Fin? Laurel and Hardy’s furious nemesis with the Scots-burr and the baleful double-takes? Well, he had a Doppelgänger working for the New York Central in the 1940’s and that particular week his luck ran out. I don’t suppose he’d ever had to deal with a coachload of opera stars before. How do you ever prepare for such a challenge? Just then, our storied songsters enjoyed a high approval-rating, so all the poor sod could do was shake his head and to plead with me to “get ‘m to put a lid on it.” But imagine anyone putting a lid on a singer like Cloe Elmo? Follia! The sturdy little contralto was only just warming up, and soon, with only a guitar and not even a piano, let alone a full 110 piece orchestra, she’d be trading glavanic Sicillian taunts with the intensely dramatic Masini in the big showdown duet from Cavalleria Rusticana. (They’d been scheduled to do it in Chicago along about that time.) This might confrontation ends with Santuzza laying a death-curse on her former lover, and with him brushing her off with loud sardonic laughter, and if that didn’t break every window in the car it wasn’t for want of decibels. That should give some of the Hoosier Hot-Shots something to talk about at their next Kiwanis meeting. The dearly handsome Masini had been a special idol of mine ever since ten years before when my parents took me to a performance of Lucia di Lammermoor, starring Lily Pons, we we all adored. She tweeted and chirped divinely, but the one I remember to this day was her tenor-lover Edgardo, played by Galliano Masini right up to the hilt and perhaps a quarter-of-an-inch beyond, the same Masini who was even sitting across the isle from me, nibbling chicken from Nell Moulton’s suburban kitchen and bantering between bites. Back then in autumn 1937, he was winding up one of the most sensational engagements our opera had ever witnessed, “one long crescendo of excitement,” as the trib critic described it. To this day I can see him in his last aria, espiring from a self-inflicted dagger wound, propped up on one elbow and singing his great Livorno heart out. Then, at the final curtain calls, waving his hands up over his head to screams and cheers, like the true champion that he was. Later, during my high-school goofing-off period, I used to haunt the main Public Library reading room to pore over the old Tribune reviews of his performances, many of them hysterical in tone: WILD OVATION STOPS OPERA AS MASINI SINGS, headlined the Trib about one of his Tosca appearances when he had to encore his last act aria, something almost unheard of before or since. The same critic nominated him for “the mantle of Caruso.” The next year he’d had to share the limelight with none other than Beniamino Gigli, who was singing opera for the first and only time in Chicago, and not even a grand “Can Belto” like Masini could top that. But he went on to a successful Met debut in the same season that was Favero’s only time in New York. After her second Mimi there, both she and Masini, so the story goes, were ordered back home to Italy, and in those days nobody defied Il Duce. Then came the war and that was the last the were heard from for years, except for an occasional recording like the complete Forza del Destino, which Masini made in Rome and which is still state-of-the-art. If Masini had his faults, they came with the territory and Caruso and Gigli shared them, too – emotional overdrive heartrending sobs even in the middle of a word, and the endemic terminal grunt at the end of a high note. Sure they were (and are) in questionable taste, but audiences lap them up regardless. So when both Favero and Masini were announced for the U.S. Opera in Chicago, it all but blew my mind. And as Masini walked on out onto that stage that had witnessed such triumphs a decade before, to be greeted by polite, but hardly wild applause, I wondered if I was the only one there who recalled that “one long crescendo of excitement.” It was a nice enough success that he scored with a couple of arias, a consummate Boheme Act I scene with Favero, and the Rigoletto Quartet with himself as the Duke and Elmo as a once-in-a-lifetime Maddelena, joined by Carmen and Cacchele. It was as grand a finale as possible, given the circumstances: still and all, it was deeply anti-climactic , and must have perplexed him, like Othello, in the extreme. If only my Italian had been up to the task of telling just how much his voice and his art had meant to me all of these years. But no – there he was, just across from me, relaxed and receptive as he would be for the next few hours – and what did I do? Italiano or no Italiano, I blew it, let the moment slip away from me forever. I have regretted it ever since. My bittersweet musings were broken off by more urgent matters. The ladies of the ensemble, temporarily exhausted by so much high-powered yodelling, and sated with juice, cola, and red wine, sent up such a heartrending lament for “acqua fresca” that I set off at once in my appointed role of Ganymedes, cup-bearer – no, make that PAPER-cup-bearer to the Gods – on a search for fresh water. My quest too me through each and every stuffy, smelly coach on that train, past the scowling Finlayson and his goons, past knitting womenand senior couples doing crossword puzzles and trying to ignore the minor sexplays of necking teenagers, past people still nasching and others already snoozing. It also took me through squealing knots of small nosepickers, one of whom, a fat little girl with glasses, plunked herself right down in my path and greeted me with an enormous pink Double-Yum Bubble-Gum balloon, which emerged slowly but surely from her mouth and was almost as splendiferous as I could have blown myself if I’d not had better things to do. Moving on, I knew at once which car was serving as Valhalla-on-wheels for the German-speakers, for they were conversing in low yet resonant Deutsch. Funny how the less you know a language the more you try to cover your embarrassment with idiotic grins, and I must have been grinning like a zonked-out samurai. My efforts were met with regal nods and a courtly bow from the Heldentenor, Max Lorenz, highly esteemed on both sides of the Atlantic, just then between pre- and post-war Met engagements. He and his companions seemed so grateful for any contact with another humanoid that I was instantly swept up in a handshaking marathon. Maybe they could even help to solve the water shortage problem. “Wasser?” I ventured with descriptive gestures. “Ach ja! Jawohl, junger Mann! Ist gut!” I felt I hadn’t quite got my message across. “No, I mean water --- aqua --- dov’é? --- where Wasser?” By now it was clear that my miming would never put Marcel Marceau out of business. The great tenor took over most courteously, and in French: “Milles regrets, mon brav, mais il n’y a pas de l’eau ici. Je regrette beaucoup.” Now he, too, was trying to break the language barrier. “Um --- Kein --- No WASSER here ---“ “Well, thanks anyway, Sir,” I pulled my ragged faculties together with a heartfelt “DANKEY!” “Bitte, bitte, bitte!” And we went back to shaking hands again, like a scene from a silent movie. And that was the extent of my contact with Tannhäuser & Co. Just as well, because formal teutonic politeness was nowhere as much fun as the wine-dark, many-throated turbulence a few cars back. (Footnote: To illustrate how fast things can move once Destiny takes over, that same Max Lorenz would sing Tristan to the Isolde of Maria Callas a little more than a year later in Genoa.) My noble quest continued until, so far that it was practically in the engineer’s cab, I fetched up at the onl water-cooler still functioning. So, with a high heart and a dripping offering, I staggered back to home base and my precious charges, who by then must’ve been languishing like Manon Lescaut in Puccini’s Desert Near Louisiana. One sip, however, unleashed such a torrent of lipcurling scorn, so stentorian a chorus of “Cloro! Gesumaria! Cloro!” that it still resounds in my inner ear. So much for good intentions, Ganymedes! Outside, wintry darkness, lit now and then by a small town flashing by. Inside, dim lights and the heat hellish. (No such thing, apparantly, as a thermostat, so it was either FREEZE or FRY, so we got FRY.) Even the washroom facilities were all but non-existant. Talk about your American Primitives! So what else was there to do but sing? It was a bit past Toledo that the really smashing vocalizing began --- not just opera and operetta, but folk songs all the way from Napoli to Harper’s Ferry. John Brown’s Body never had it so good, with the Glory, Glory Halleluya-chorus rolling out like thunder, with myself taking the lead, and solid guitar strumming provided by Rossi-Lemeni, the Romanov Burl Ives. Everything at full throttle, of course, including the complaints by some of our fellow- travellers, the woebegone Willy Lomans whose flat midwestern grousing was no match for operatic yodelling. Every time one of them tried to get a word in, he’d be engulfed in song and good-natured guffawing and invitations to join in the fun. There was enough Vino Rosso for many a mile, that good wine that our good conductor-friend offensively called Dago Red. Luckily, I was the only one who understood this last. “Oh, what did I ever do to deserve this?” he kept on moaning. “This was always such an easy run --- no sweat, no problems --- until tonight! And he regarded us balefully. A golden flourish on the guitar, and Nino --- last night’s beautifully Singing Waiter -- burst into the tenor torch song to end all tenor torch songs: Core ‘n grato, Catari, Catari “Just listen to that,” I burbled in ecstacy. “We’ve been listening since we crossed the Indiana border.” “But where could you hear singing like that – for free?” At this point, the Assistant Conductor, Fin’s catemate, a spotty yahoo with an IQ of 10, waddled through the car and offered his opinion: “Never mind these fancy foreigners. Gimme Vaug-han Monroe any day --- or Gene Autry.” And he went off on his business. Dulcet Tenor: “Catari, pecche me dicesti parole amare?” I persisted in my admiration: back home these were all famous singers. “If they’re so famous, what are they doing sitting up in a day-coach to New York? How come they ain’t with all the fat cats on the 20th Century?” “They couldn’t afford the 20th Century?” Dulcet Tenor Voice: “Pecché me parlee o core me turmiente, Catari?” I continued my arguement: “They could barely afford this miserable cattle-car!” Irate passenger at the other end: “Can’t you jokers hold your summit conference someplace else?” Another angry voice: “Yeh, we wanna get some rest!” Mr. Coffee-Nerves, the conductor (still smarting from my last remark, furiously grinding his dentures:) FIN: Miserable? You take that back? It ain’t miserable and it ain’t no cattle-car, at least not until now! (Starting to lose it:) This is my car! My train! And these are my passengers! An’ it’s up to me that they get peace an’ quiet, unnerstan’?” Tenor: Cor’ – Cor ‘n grato! FIN: Peace ‘n quiet! It’s a rule! ANGRY VOICE FROM THE REAR: Knock it off, you guys! We gotta get some rest! Dammit, we all got things to do tomorrow! FIN: There, ya see? (To Tenor:) Stop That! He’s gotta stop now, ya hear! Make him stop! This display had the whole company laughing and applauding. Then they joined the tenor on the climactic notes of his big number. FIN: Are they making fun of me? ‘Cause if they are ---! SHADDUP, alla ya! Make them stop! ME: But I don’t know how! They’re only singing to keep their spirits up. FIN: I’m going out to get some help! I can’t handle all this! You wait right there! (Next stop: PARANOIA CITY!) And out he went once more, fists flailing and muttering imprecations. He was definately coming unstuck ... we’re talking seizures here. We’re talking hyper thrombosis. We’re talking the dreaded PUCCINI-INDUCED CARDIAC ARREST, or PICA for short, far more deadly than mere TRAVIATA-SYNDROME, from earlier on the trip. That had been only a mild case of Brindisi-fever, but this was something else again. And speaking of Puccini, The Golden Gleeclub had now ripped into Musetta’s Waltz from Act 2 of La Boheme, the most elaborate ensemble piece in that whole enchanting score. Maybe it was the scent of danger that gave it that extra pizzaz, but it was their finest achievement so far. You recall how the flirtatious Musetta leads off proudly “Quando m’en v’o ...”, then one by one the other Bohemians join in, and soon they are all celebrating youth and love on Christmas Eve in Paris. This was a communal effort led by Masini himself doing his Toscanini-conducting impression, with Rossi-Lemeni doubling on guitar and singing his role of Colline, Favero’s vintage Mimi, and with Cecchele providing great arcs of melody as Marcello. The Willy Lomans were truly stupified. Just as the whole cast was going for gold on the finale, Fin and his vigilantes burst in again, running in smack into this tidal wave of sound. It all but blew them all out again. The effect was catatonic. “How about that?” I yipped, as Fin shook himself all over like wet hound dog. I had a feeling that this time was going to be different, and, sure enough, te new manifesto was as follows, and MERCILESS: All singing, all jabbering loud laughter and carrying on of any kind, especially the drinking of “Dago Red” must cease AT ONCE, DID WE HEAR? AT ONCE ... or else the entire troope, this whole operatic travelling circus, the original Ravioli Express, part and parcel and guitar, would be tossed off the train without any ceremony or apology at the next stop, which happened to be Buffalo, for us The City of Destiny, Realm of Doom. It would be the next stop, and, for us, the very last. ME: But you can’t do that to this people! They were already stranded in Chicago! FIN: Yeh, and they’re gonna be stranded in Buffalo! Let them go out and sing to the Falls! (A sudden vision: Elmo, Massini, Favero and all and all, trying to compete with the neighboring Niagara --- and coming off rather well, at that. Of course, the Wagnerians would have to be there to back them up.) The train had already strarted to slow down and the outskirts of Buffalo to appear. I had to act and act faster than ever before in my life, and what was more, in comprehensible Italian. The resulting oration was born of sheer damn-the-torpedos/ you-have-nothing-to-lose-but-your-cadenzas desperation, a pastiche of every operatic or literary cliché I’d ever read or heard --- molto pericoloso --- guardate per piacere ---- catastrofe, disastro --- nel nome del Dio! --- Zitta per carita! --- all rounded off with a little saying I’d learned from Sandro: Chi va piano va sano, e va lontano ...: Take it nice and slow, keep your wits about you, and you’ll go the distance! And I wrapped it all up with a quote from --- what else? --- La Boheme: “C’e freddo fuori ---“ Rough translation: “Mimi-baby, it’s cold outside!” And wonder of wonders, it worked, transmuting all those volatile gremlins into a choir of Raphael Putti, angelic smiles as if manna wouldn’t melt in their mouths. When The Evil One reappeared to carry out the sentence, he was stopped dead in his tracks by the wall of silence flung up in such a haste. He was dumbfounded, one might even say discombombulated. Having to rescind the Banishment AND Issue a general pardon had not been part of the game-plan at all. Brought up short, he could only squeak: “NEXT STOP, BUFFALO!” And he repeated it, for my benefit: “NEXT STOP: BUF ... – FA – ... – LO!” His voice cracked. (I had to surpress an insane urge to shout out two of Madame Fitziu’s surefire teaching instructions: “Out your ears, dearie!” and “Keep your larynx down!”) He then delivered his final word, and a pretty string of triple negatives it was, too: “You can tell ‘em from me in that queer lingo of theirs, I don’t take no crap from nobody, unnerstan’?” A pyrrhic victory at best. He knew it, and so did we. As soon as he’d disappeared, there arose a fine Italian murmur of mixed amusement, derision and relief ... A sudden loud clanging from beneath the train, reminiscent of Garbo’s suicide scene in Anna Karenina, and the train gave a massive shudder. Then, with much hissing and creaking, we were under way once more. We wouldn’t have to face Niagara Falls after all. It was an uneasy truce but it held. Only a few more hours to go. In the background someone was picking out, ever so softly on the communal guitar, “Good Night, Irene, I’ll see you in my dreams ...” “Oh, Gawd,” a man’s voice groaned from a afar. “Here we go again.” This was followed by a woman’s drawl: “At the next stop remind me to have this entire car backed into a siding a left there.” “Lady,” I informed her, “the next stop is Grand Central Station.” “You’re kidding,” came the reply. “Oh, well.” The last couple of songbirds were settling down as best they could in their improvised nests when The World’s Friendliest Train Conductor came back into focus. Before he could say another word, I informed him coldly that we were trying to get some sleep and to go away and leave us in peace. He was flummoxed as usual and for once speechless. He then beat a retreat – thus endeth the Saga of the Fiend we’ve been calling Finlayson. (Oh, forgive us, Fin, wherever you may be.) I turned back to the passengers that really mattered. “Buona notte,” I murmured, and the answer came with a little laugh, “Buona notte, caro ...” Then for the first time since our departure from Chicago I had a chance to relax and maybe nod off a little bit ... I remember this pause in the night’s activities, with everyone bedded down at last and all quiet except for some sonorous snoring ... quiet enough to hear the hypnotic click of the wheels, and the train whistle and its attendant echo screeching up the Hudson River Valley. (How I still miss the old steam locomotives and everything about them!) One positive thing that learned from this whole surrealistic experience: Opera-Singers always go “Hmmm-Hmmm” at regular intervals, maybe to check if the voice is still present and accounted for, even in their sleep --- oh, especially in their sleep. That came as an interesting revelation, an insomniac revelation. But, being an ex-altarboy AND as a boyscout 2nd class, brought up in the security of the suburbs, I had never slept with an opera singer before, nor anywhere near one. (Don’t anyone say anything!) Yet there I was, with a good baker’s dozen of the best “Hmmm”-ers in the business, strewn all about me like the petrified inhabitants of a newly excavated Pompeiian villa, all within snoring distance, and each one going “Hmmm” like mad ... There was Favero-Mimi, her lovely head pillowed on a topcoat-swaddled suitcase with one sleeve draped over her eyes. Opposite her, Cloe, Queen of the Gypsies, appropriately bundled in a fringed shawl, her head slowly sinking till it hit the wooden arm-rest. On the seat beyond, sprawled the gallant Edgar of Ravenwood as Sir Walter Scott had never imagined him, that is, more or less flat on his back, his Valentino features beneath a copy of Corriere della Sera, which rose and fell with rhythmic breathing. Across the aisle, Boris Gudonov thrashed and twisted in a heroic effort to stretch his elegant six foot frame. A little further off, the basso buffo, no longer Dulcamara, but an ordinary uprooted citizen craving repose, basque-beret shading his eyes – then Senorita Carmen, guitar laid aside and a terricloth towel in place of a mantilla, moaning softly in Castillian, and the remainder of the party: tenor, baritone, agent’s wife, each one in a caricature of slumber ... By then we were chuffing alongside the slate-gray Hudson, and not far from --- Are you ready for this? --- Sing-Sing. But for the moment no Sing-Song, no chatter, no moritorium on nasching and yodelling, even on bickering with the hired help. All passion spent, at least temporarily. With the long winter night already behind us, I found myself to turned on to sleep --- this would be my very first time in New York and I wasn’t about to miss a moment of it with anything as mundane as sleep. As the early gray light gave way, the approaches to the city seemed to follow exactly the start of the old radio series, complete with locomotive sound effects and oncoming express train: “Day and night great trains rush towards the Hudson River, sweep down its eastern bank for one hundred and forty miles, flash briefly by the long row of tenament houses south of 125th Street, dive with a roar into the two-and-a-half mile tunnel that burrows beneath the glitter and swank of Park Avenue and then --GRAND CENTRAL STATION: crossroad of a million human lives, gigantic stage on which are played a thousand dramas daily ...”



Diana By Alexandra H. Rodrigues It was early in the day on Long Island. The suburban houses with the closed shutters appeared empty but the yawning garages indicated that the men had left for work. I went to look for Diana, our summer guest from the orphanage. She stood motionless, doll-like, at a bed of fully opened, red and pink tulips, her bare feet exposed to the tranquilizing touch of grass still damp from the night’s dew. Her eyes reflected the clear, gleaming sun in the cloudless sky, and her fragile figure was another beautiful creation added to the abundance of nature’s treasures. Together with this child from the slums I marveled at the twittering birds on the wooden fence and at the ducks on the muddy, seaweed-covered canal. I was conscious of a faint scent from flowering lilac and pungent earth. The breeze that evoked a melodious timbre in the branches of the weeping willow, petted my face and the crackle of opening pine cones resembled tiny kisses. An airplane painted a silvery contour as it circled toward the airport. The remote swish of rushing cars on the chestnut-treed streets which border the community golf course gave assurance of a link with the pulsating city. Across the canal, two shaggy dogs jumped into the chilly bay water for a swim. Their splashing rippled the surface and upset the even swing of a wooden fishing skiff. When I bent down to free some baby strawberry plants from yellow, crowding weeds, Diana stretched out her arms – to the air, to the flowers, to the sky and to me. I was happy that she was happy! Often happiness singles us out at the oddest moment – allow it in!

EVERY SOUL HAS A STORY Article by Charles E.J. Moulton The wind cannot be caught, the soul can be categorized. Nowadays, everybody judges a book by its cover. Doing that is like chasing the wind. It will never ever have anything to do with reality. Spiritual reality. And yet, we do categorize. Ruthlessly. We always judge a book by its cover. Even if the contents inside is complete different than what is on the outside. Murders occur because people don’t get respect. Wars, divorces and cataclysms could be avoided with a simple: “I understand you!” or a nice “I like you!” The simple fact, though, is that everybody needs some respect. Even Aretha Franklin knew that. She even sang about it. It can be difficult to step outside the boundaries of generalization. “Soccerfans are lazy brutes, Germans eat Sauerkraut, Americans eat Hamburgers and Chinese people eat dogs. Kings are noble, the common man loves beer and movie stars are happy. There is no such thing as the common man. He does not exist, because no man, woman or child is common. Everyone is unique. Every soul has as story. So, who is he, this famous common man? What is ordinary? Society supports the cliché that “ordinary” exist and people buy it. The think that the media expects them to be common and the media think that the people expect them to provide the necessary output. People think that the other person expects something and then they act accordingly. But, basically, the other person might actually be expecting something else. Something different. Or they might just be caught up in themselves. In fact, who cares what they expect? Surprise them with your skill. Let them discover your brilliance. Lead them into your world of kindness and grace. This following examples are all true stories. Read, my dears, contemplate and examine. We see Joan Collins and we think: “That woman has never been poor!” What we don’t know is that she collected unemployment-money prior to her Dynasty-fame. We see the hardworking stagehand and repairman with many gaps in his teeth, close to retirement and we think: “This is a guy without much culture or education!” What we don’t know is that this man is an accomplished and artistically very skilled classic painter, who has sold his art for high money on countless exhibitions. We see the eccentric old lady, rummaging in her wallet for some spare smallchange at the supermarket check-out-line and we think: “What a crazy, boring old lady. Can’t she be quicker?” What we don’t know is that she is a Russian Jewish concert pianist, who survived the death-camp of Auschwitz in Poland. While sitting in the cold winter air, sketching a portrait, a man stinking of alcohol comes up to us and sits down to chat. We think: “What a loser! He stinks!” What we don’t know is that he is an ex-airplane-constructor that ruined his health through his hard work in the factory. He now spends his time travelling to Gran Canaria and Seville just to compensate for the pain of his early retirement, trying to get over his girlfriend’s early death ten years back. Fame is never a guarantee for happiness. Likewise, clichès are common. Follow your humane dreams, whatever those mankind-loving and Earth-improving dreams may be. I bet the Queen of England brushes her teeth at night and goes to bed, wondering if her children and grandchildren are all right. I bet she has a cold now and then. I bet Bill Gates has a stomach ache now and then and has to ask his wife if she will make him some tea. I am sure that the President of the United States gets sick now and then and tells his wife. “Dear, I can’t hold this speech tomorrow. I’ve lost my voice!” Basically, we are all people. No, I will correct that. We are all souls. People inside souls. The soul is the first thing that you should care about. Without that, life does not matter. Soul matters. Feelings matter. Individuals matter. Love matters. Our feelings, our microcosmos rules our lives. These feelings carry the packages that we brought with us into the world. God lives in us and our fate resides inside us and manifest the reality as we know it. Inside us. The answer is, was and always has been inside us. Inside us, there is a ticket that leads to the next world. What is the answer? In acting training, we speak of “thinking outside the nine dots”. What are they? Nine individual dots are formed on a paper inside a square. The assignment is to connect them without them crossing or the pen lifting from the paper. That is only possible if you make a triangle, whose boundaries end outside the square. That is symbolism. In acting, you have to look for character-similar emotion outside the normal borders of the play. Likewise, in the world we have to “think outside the dots”. We can’t afford to believe in clichés anymore. Brave innovators are unusual people. Edison would never have invented the lightbulb if he had followed the leader. Wires and glass don’t normally create light, right? Einstein would’ve never ever created his theory of relativity, if he hadn’t believed in the unique experience. But this is not just about famous people. Famous? Who cares if you’re famous? You’re famous, too. Yes, you. You reading this article. You are famous in your own right. A lot of people know you. Your family, your friends, your colleagues. I bet you have met thousands of people in your life and they all know you, like you and admire you. If that’s not fame, I don’t know what is. We live in a time, where the mainstream engulfs so much of what really is individualstic and true. In this time, it is vitally important that we try thinking for ourselves. Do unusual things. The kind man who let’s you go first into the elevator, ask him about his day. What did he do today? The little girl playing in the sandbox. Give her a flower and walk away, smiling. Teach her a song. The woman with the beautiful hat, give her a compliment. The busdriver yelling at you for being slow while getting into the bus. Tell him that you understand that he has had a long day. Only if we take brave steps to look beyond what is superficial can we change the world as we know it. Look deeper into the symbolic canvas of your spiritually manifested life. Don’t believe what society tells you. See for yourself what lies inside the hat of the beggar. If your colleagues tell you that the new boss is an awful man, go and talk to him yourself and find out what makes him tick. If the woman in the cantine at work tells you that the girl working in the art department is an antisocial snob, go talk to her. Find out who she is. If you don’t, at least don’t tell anyone else that she’s a snob. How can you know? You’ve never met her. Every microcosmos reveals individualism. Every soul has a story.

The Common Error By Sumant Sharma In a common man’s life, how much role does a ‘common’ politician play? I am not talking of the 5-6 top notched country’s decision makers. I am talking of the average goonda of the area who is sitting in the secretariat elected on the basis of providing freedom to break the law to the common man. This question assumes more importance today as every way side tea stall has become hub of discussion about the pros and cons of the so called surgical demonetization strike by the Indian Central Gov. Is the work of politicians just to stage a hue and cry in the media and furor in the parliament and the lower house? Is their role in the democracy just to pose themselves or do they really have a valid purpose? In one’s thinking an average fellow country man and woman doesn’t worry beyond the daily bread and butter and a good sleep at night for themselves and their families. No one is much bothered about what are the BRICS agenda or difference between OCI and NRI. The politicization of the external aspects of human life-like media and office gossip has nothing to do with the grass root values of us humans. So, there is a need to de-politicize the ‘common’ life of the ‘common’ man. As everyone realizes, the less the obligations and the less the liabilities, the better the state of one’s mind is. In today’s life politics and politicians have become more of unwanted responsibilities only. Unwanted -but not irremovable. Let’s ponder at a country that has lesser politicians. That will just mean a people that is at its own-no one to blame and no one to expect from. This removes the prime flaw in any society governed by unworthy people-that of shifting responsibility, of playing the blame game. The provision of basic amenities is and will remain in businessmen’s hands. The production of food grain and poultry will depend on natural resources as before, the number of poor farmers committing suicides is not going to change either. The masons, carpenters, drivers, mechanics, engineers and doctors will function ditto to the previous state too. The cooks will cook with similar culinary skills and the crooks will flourish with same unhealthy fervor. Instead there will be less noise on the TV about some ‘breaking news’ and less loudspeakers roaring against or for the ruling gov. Children will find their parents having more time to love them. The senior citizens will find peace to play with the nature more easily. The wives will find their husbands more available and the latter will see mirth in the thrift of time that will be saved from unnecessary gossip. Whatever will result because of depoliticization, it will be a welcome change. And it’s not only a welcome option but the need of the hour to get rid of the unwanted politicians. The political systems in today’s democracies have not only turned societies into jokes but have also converted them into masochistically oriented masses. The democracy was originally described as a government ‘by the people, for the people and of the people’. As we are, we can’t stay chaste for long. We prefer negativity to remaining neutral. Goodness for longer than usual bores us. It is the result of this game that we inflict upon us that the Democracy today is defined as a government ‘bye the people, far from people and off the people’.

My Moment with Clint Memories by the late, great Herbert Eyre Moulton (1927 - 2005) The bit part I played in Clint Eastwood’s Cold War adventure melodrama FIREFOX was one of his first times out as both director and star. In it he plays an American pilot disguised as an ordinary businessman and sent to Moscow to steal a new supersonic fighter plane. This was Vienna 1981 --- we were living in Sweden at the time, but this didn’t stop me from trundling down to Johann-Strauss-Ville every chance I got --- for theatre work, school radio recordings, translations, or what you will. This particular assignment was definately of the what-you-will variety, with myself as a KGB apparatchik hovering ominously in the middle background while “Our Clint” is being interrogated by a cool, polite, and deadly Soviet customs official regarding certain suspicious-looking items in his luggage --- the usual anti-American, anything-to-be-mean hard time those boyos used to specialize in. All I was supposed to do was stand there glowering, but I fear I did considerably more than that, and I’ve got a home video-clip of the scene to prove it. It could serve as a model for all time of how prominent a bit player in the background can be, if he has a mind to, and is sneaky enough to see his chance and take it. My bit being so miniscule, such an old ham like myself --- sugar-cured, hickorysmoked, pineapple-glazed --- naturally felt it could use a bit of fleshing out, which is precisely what I proceeded to do, by the simple expedient of staying right on camera the whole time, naughty, unprofessional, but devilishly effective. All it took was swaying back and forth ever so slightly on my two little cloven hooves, whilst staring into the camera with doubt and suspicion in my eyes, real Spy-Who-came-in-from-the-Cold-stuff ... Powerful, stark, menacing. But not everybody saw it that way, and my performance did not go completely unnoticed. At length one of the camera crew spoke up rather pointedly: “Clint, please tell that gentleman to stand still ... bobbing back and forth like that, he’s making me dizzy.” A tiny reprimand, and it did no good whatsoever. Clint for one, being much too preoccupied with his end of the scene and his interrogation, nodded and went on to say nothing but give me a tiny smile. So, accordingly, there’s “Old Herbie” or “Air-Bear”, as my college friends used to call me, in that key opening reel, beginning 21 minutes into the motion picture and going for another full one-and-a-half minutes (the black-haired and elegant gentleman behind the Soviet military official), swaying back and forth, back and forth, gently, quietly, like a padded pendulum, frowning his Filthy-McNasty-Tovaritsch frown, all the while ... To show you what a fine gentleman and colleague Clint Eastwood truly is, he came over to me afterwards and --- the very pineapple of politeness (to borrow Mrs. Malaprop’s phrase), thanked me for doing the scene with him. Hmm, doing it? Dear Hearts, it looks from this end like I was doing my damndest to ruin it, though I’d swear a great and terrible oath that such was never my intent. Alas, Firefox turned out to be one of the biggest proverbial and monetary duds of Clint’s career. Purest coincidence? As in W.W. Jacobs’ classic horror story “The Monkey’s Paw”, maybe, maybe not. But given my track record before or since, who knows? Mine wasn’t much a part as parts go in “Firefox”, but was it sufficient to jinx the whole operation? If that be the case, sorry about that, Clint. Tough luck that it had to happen at such a vulnerable stage in your endevors. It could have happened to a worse film and as anyone who reads these chronicles can tell --- could, and did. Were the fates even then getting me warmed up for a pre-destined role as plaguecarrier sui generis? Stay tuned. I only knew that in the bad old days they used to toss types like me overboard to placate the angry Gods causing all the shipwrecks: “And Jonah said unto them, take me and cast me forth into the sea, for I know that for my sake this great tempest is upon you.” I guess I’m lucky I’m still more or less intact. Let’s see, how things stand now? I shot my first motion picture in Ardmore Studios in Bray, Ireland, as a seaman, with dear Cy Knapp. Between that film (1961) and Firefox lay three thousand concerts, maybe one hundred stage productions and a few dozen commercials, one or two episodes in a local TV-series, not counting the radio-programmes. But as far as the motion pictures go, one vanished into the Bermuda Triangle as if it never existed, the other internationally distributed, but still a moderate flop --- 2 films, 2 flops, a perfect score. Where would the Moulton Menace strike next? The body count continues. Stay tuned. All joking aside, of all the celebrities I have had as colleagues Clint was the most supreme gentleman of them all. Alan Rickman, for his part, was very pleasant and softspoken intellectual, Mickey Rourke the cool buddy-type character, David Warner the friendly thespian, Zsa-Zsa Gabor the temperamentful diva par excellance, Viggo Mortensen the consummate professional. Clint? He was, remains and always will be the prince of politeness.

The 9/11 Syndrome Article by Charles E.J. Moulton I had a quarrel with a friend this morning. The discussion escalated out of nothing, really, the reason for our differences a very small detail, indeed. What saved the situation was something simple I said. Something I never would have thought could have resolved the issue. “I take half of the blame for this. You’ll have to take the other half!” That was more than anyone could ask. We went to the dance rehearsal we had originally cancelled because of our differences. The situation was far from perfect, but we were on speaking terms. Eventually, the situation went back to normal. We learned a few very important things through this experience: human beings defend themselves when they are attacked. Secondly, you only have to take half of the blame for any fight that erupts between you and any adversary. No more, but also no less. Telling another person that you are partly to blame gives him or her the chance to like you. You are not withdrawing from the situation. He or she knows that you know you hurt his or her feelings. Empathy is instrumental for a peace treaty. Without empathy or sympathy, a heated discussion will never cool down. If you don’t talk it out, it will inevitably turn into a disaster. We’re all human. Our human feelings are the cornerstones of every problem that arises. Whether we’re dealing with small petty differences or huge world wars, it’s all the same. The bigger and more impossible difficulties emerge when countries attack other countries or groups attack other groups. One million people who hate another million people, will they ever resolve their differences? They’re building defense towers to protect other defense towers. Those initial towers were built on lies, misunderstandings and accusations. So, how could you ever resolve a misunderstanding that was founded on a lie? That’s why I am writing this article. The idea for it came yesterday. I sat on the couch, calmly, my wife watching a movie, my daughter snoozing in her bed. I don’t know why I began researching the web for information about the events surrounding September 11th, 2001, but I did. I ended up sitting there for two hours, flipping webpages, trying to make heads or tails of both sides of the story. I wanted to start writing this thing already yesterday night. I sincerely do believe, though, that fate provided me with this little minor dilemma this morning in order to show me how to formulate my idea: the human issue I would like to label as the 9/11 syndrome. The opposing forces within us and between us fuel this syndrome and keep it thriving. Hate fuels disaster. There are now more conspiracy stories in circulation that deal with the cataclysmic events of that day than any other event in history. These conspiratorial explanations include alien invadors wanting to take over the world, senators sending their rocket missiles on the Pentagon and wealthy oil barons with greedy hearts bringing down their own creation just to collect the insurance money. The culprits are as varied as our world is vast and incomprehensible. Dozens of websites are devoted to 9/11-related illnesses, psychological, psychosomatic and physical in nature. The firefighters that lived through that day are now either retired or dead. There is even a little boy that claims he is the reincarnation of a firefighter that died in of one of the towers as it collapsed on 9/11. The events of that day were a human holocaust. Few modern day events have had such an impact on the minds of the world population as this catastrophy. Not even the Vietnam War or the assassination of John F. Kennedy terrified people as much. I remember the day vividly. Exactly 16 days later, I was flying to Barcelona to board the cruise ship M/S Arkona for a term full of vocal show work. The six weeks prior to that were filled with work. We were rehearsing 7 two-hour shows, learning 116 songs. We were five actors that were about to perform artistic cavalcades while cruising the world. I was headlining most of the shows, so my director summoned me for a solo rehearsal. We were going to rehearse some dialogue. That plan soon disintergrated into oblivion. As soon as we heard that a plane had flown into the World Trade Center in New York City, we quickly shortened the rehearsal. At first, I could not even comprehend what really had happened. Was this a small private plane that had lost itself in Manhattan and somehow crashed into the building? The issue turned humungous quicker than we believed to be possible. It seemed to influence all of what we thought was given and natural. Safety was a thing of the past. Nobody stepped into a plane without fearing never to land again without crashing. The world had turned into a terrorist’s filthy playground. Flights were cancelled, airport security became vicious and people with Arabic names were thrown manually off Boeings. The story became more and more incredible as it unfolded. A million questions appeared in my mind. Things just did not add up. I researched the subject to a great extent and found information all too incredible to be true. The alleged phone call that Barbara Olson made from Flight 77 was intensely described by her husband Ted Olson on Larry King Live. If there had been a passenger seat phone at Flight 77 in the first place, which there wasn’t, she couldn’t have made it because she apparently did not have her credit cards with her. Furthermore, cellular phones have been proven useless at such speeds and altitudes above 2000 feet. Later on, FBI released a a statement that Barbara never had made the phone call at all. In fact, Barbara had only made one single unconnected call within the plane. Ted changed his story three times and was then described as a liar. So, what are we supposed to believe? That Ted Olson lied to us? If that’s true, we have to ask ourselves why he lied to us? Who was he protecting? The Pentagon? In fact, Ted Olson has admitted on previous occassions that the government lies. Now the lawyer lied himself. The most astounding piece of information comes from the hijackers themselves. They were all proven to be miserable pilots, men who couldn’t even fly small planes, let alone huge ones that needed massive amounts of disclosed tutoring. They took over the planes with box-cutters. It has been said that such a take-over could be regarded as ludicrous, given that the passengers all had luggage with them which they could beat the hijackers to death. The FBI also knew all their names almost immediately after the attack, because Mohammed Atta obviously left a conveniently complete list of all 19 hijackers in a forgotten bag in Oregon. That sounds fake already. Why did U.S. intelligence ignore all the huge amount of leads that told them what was going to happen and where, but find Atta’s bag in such as remote place as Portland within hours of the attack? The horrible thing, yet again, is that people were talking about the attack for years before it happened, even pointing at the towers and saying they would come down in 2001. Hundreds of international leads were practically handed over to American intelligence and completely ignored. Sometimes, these leads were even pushed away with deliberate aggression. Flight 77 vanished completely after it hit the Pentagon. The part of the Pentagon that was struck was also partly closed for renovation and the only available evidence for what exactly hit the Pentagon, video tapes filming the attack, were confiscated by U.S. Intelligence. Seasoned commercial airlined pilot Russ Wittenburg reported that uneducated pilots like the hijackers would be physically unable to fly those planes into the towers or into the Pentagon. In fact, the data recorders read that Flight 77 flew 300 feet over and not into the Pentagon. Something else did hit the Pentagon. Flight 77 didn’t hit it. The hijackers didn’t reset the altitude device and the didn’t know how to operate the auto pilot. In fact, I will repeat this, these people were not even good enough to operate a small plane. Commercial planes like that carry tons of fuel, luggage and 300 people. They are not as flexible as smaller planes. They are unable to fly into towers, according to Wittenburg. The Pentagon attack left no wreckage, no motors, nothing of any kind. Even the hole of the Pentagon didn’t match the description. There should have been at least one more hole in the Pentagon from the one wing that had not fallen off. At the speed, as well, there would have been a great chance that the entire Pentagon would have been destroyed in the process. The hole? It looks like the hole made by a missile. Retired Intelligence General Albert Stubblebine, who spent his entire life studying intelligence photography, agreed with this assumption. He told a reporter that a plane could not have hit the Pentagon. There should have been plane marks. There weren’t. Stubblebine goes on to say that the free press have now ceased to be free. They are told what to report. That coincides with the journalist that resigned from his profession just this year, because he could not live with having to spread lies. David Ray Griffin’s compelling book “The New Pearl Harbor” summarizes the accusations, outlines scenarios, describes the many problems in the storyline, addresses problems that exists within the official accounts. Anyone interested in researching the issue should try first reading this book. Another controversial novel is Steve Alten’s “The Shell Game”, which outlines a certain reality that might come true one day. Here we find supposedly official reasons for the fake attack. The information blaming the government for the attack ends up flabbergasting any reader or viewer. The information flow is so overwhelming that it threatens to drive you insane. One can really not see the forest for the trees. That triggered a need in me to look at the other side of the story. One of Osama Bin Laden’s confession letters outlines a reason for his alleged revenge on the United States of America. He saw tens of thousands of his countrymen die in American attacks. Most prominently were his memories of seeing two towers fall and burn in his homeland. He wanted to destroy two American towers as a revenge. He claims that only a small amount of people died in the attacks in Manhattan. In his country, thousands more died. The question is if the government really is as bloodthirsty as the conspiracy says it is. We don’t really want to believe that, do we? But if the cover-up is so thinly disguised, holes really everywhere with absolutely no aim to try to keep the implausabilities a secret, then a million people will become suspicious. Most websites that debunk the myths don’t give much evidence. They show the official films, tell the official stories, claim that everything is what it seems. The only real evidence comes from people who question the official story. Eye witnesses claim to have seen a military plane with no windows at all flying into the first building. Milton William Cooper, former CIA-agent and author of the conspiracy-book “Behold A Pale Horse”, announced a statement on 6/28/2001 that a terrorist attack would be carried out in September and that Osama Bin Laden would be blamed for it. He knew. He also knew that the people planning the New World Order would be behind it. He said that Martial Law would be declared. It cost him his life. He was shot and killed by the Apache County Sherriff Deputy on November 6, 2001. Milton William Cooper will be sorely missed. There is hope. As strange as it seems, there is hope. Why is there hope? Because, as of yet, no martial law has been declared. FEMA has not taken over the world. There is Windows 10, that is claimed to be a spy program. There is Facebook, which is claimed to be a conspiracy. There is the Islamic State, which is claimed to be the reason the New World Order is seeking to plant and detonate an atom bomb within the American borders. But the I.S. is not going international, as little as the Ebola has gone international. If I understand the conspiracy right, 9/11 was created by the government in order to get the permission to invade Iraq. To do what? Get oil? I don’t know. Maybe someone was really afraid that America was going just as much down the drains as Rome did. It’s getting there. No superpower has ever lasted. Go through history. Every huge empire eventually fell. I just know that the whole conspiracy thing fell to smithereens. Nothing down there in Iraq turned out the way it was supposed to turn out. Trying to control the world by creating cataclysmic events is like trying to predict the weather. Let’s say you live in Angusville, California. Your local meteorologist says it’s going to rain on Tuesday. The low pressure could be influenced by a sudden gust of wind, though. The raincloud could change course. That is what happened with 9/11 and the proposed effects of FEMA martial law. You can’t predict people. You can’t predict life. We are seven billion people here on this planet. We all know that things turn out differently than we plan them to turn out. The critiques of conspiracy theories claim that they are ill informed and make up stuff as they go along. In this case, bro, the conspiracy theorists are more informed than the friends of the official account. The ones sticking their heads in the sand are the official storytellers. That is not the point, though. A part of the 9/11 syndrome is that, although we have a common cause, we act like we are enemies. This has become more a case of being in the right than actually being right. Bill Cooper did predict 9/11. We have to be on our guard. But I knew people who thought the world was going to end in 2012, because the Mayas allegedly predicted something the could not have known 5000 years ago. I knew people who were extremely nasty to me because I told them they were in the wrong. I knew people who told me that Operation Desert Storm in the first Gulf War was the beginning of the Third World War. Political Conspiracies are as old as time. They’re not new. They have just turned a little bigger, a little more technical. The people who plan them pretend they’re God. They’re not. Believe me. They eat, drink, laugh, cry, love, hate, read, write, think, feel, make love, shit and pee like the rest of us do. No matter how rich you get, you’re still a person. You’re still a soul. When the conspirators up there again in front of God’s throne, after they die, God will ask them, honestly and kindly, what the hell they thought they were doing down there? They’ll have to go back here in their next lives and they will have to make amends, seriously and honestly. The 9/11 syndrome is the mentality that we have to be enemies, build camps, complain at each other and tell each other that the other one is wrong, if we’re right or not. It is the mentality today’s lawyers present. They say truth is irrelevent. The only thing that matters is how you present your client’s case. We believe that everyone has the power except us. But I have news for you. You have the power over your own life. The politicians don’t. They don’t know you. They will never know you, even if they will hear about you in the papers or in the internet or even if you become more famous than Robert de Niro. You have a family, you have a home, you have a life, you like certain things, dislike certain things, you eat, drink, laugh, cry, love, hate, read, write, think, feel, make love, shit and pee like the rest of us do. And there is no one on the Earth like you. Be proud of that. The President of the United States, the King of Spain and the CEO of Microsoft are just as unique as you, their souls are just as eternal, they cry just like you do. They don’t control you. They can’t. They have no power over you. Laugh at them. Live your life. Do not follow the crowd. Life is not the 9/11 syndrome. Life is ALL about soul. The politicians and the conspirators are just people with incredibly cocky and very annoying attitudes. There are good ones, but there are also bad ones. Believe in your own soul. That most important thing in life is not how big your checkbook is. It’s how big your heart is that matters. The important thing is that you are faithful to what and who you love. The only thing that mattered to the conpirators was the size of their wallets. Unfortunately, they were so preoccupied with money that they forgot that their hearts had gaps in them. The gap in the heart of the main 9/11 conspirator was as big as the hole the missile made in the corner of the Pentagon. Be honest, be fair. God will reward you for it.

A Princess in the Making By the late, great Herbert Eyre Moulton (1927 - 2005) I made many movies in my day. One of them was with David Warner and Susannah York. In the script of the Italian-produced movie “Princess”, we find this direction: “The door opens and an elderly, impeccably dressed BUTLER appears, with a silver tray piled high with magazines. BUTLER Excuse me, Your Highness, but you said you wanted these urgently. Three guesses who the butler is, and the first two don’t count. That’s right: always the butler and never the boss, a somewhat wearying sentence I seem to be serving for a lifetime. The setting for this Graustarkian love story is the mythical principality of Lichtenhaus, with its royal family modelled on the Grimaldi clan of Monaco. For the part of the princesses, meant to be Caroline and Stephanie, two of Vienna’s most important dramatic regal landmarks were chosen to offer their cinematic bailiwicks. Even the minor players were handpicked by the director, Carlo Vanzina, a one-time protegé of Fellini, no less. So, it was a noble line I was about to tangle with when I turned up at Vienna’s equally noble Hotel Imperial for the casting interview. All right, yet another butler, but this one was special, for he was part of the household of His Royal Highness, Prince Maximilian, played by a favorite of ours, David Warner, not too long ago considered the quintessential Hamlet-for-our-time. His screenbreak-through came in 1966 with the crazy title role in “Morgan, A Suitable Case For Treatment”. That made him a star and my wife and me fans of his for life. Some time later, our son Charlie joined the club with “Omen”, and when he told Warner that himself, Warner snorted: “Oh, God, that!” Our film-freak son was likewise excited by the casting of Paul Freeman as Otto, the villain of the piece, remembering his evil turn as Beloque, the Nazi heavy in “Raiders of the Lost Ark”: “500 000 watts of Nasty!” My workaday duties for the prince were dispatched in two different palatial settings: the Hofburg, the Emperor Franz Josef’s old pad in the heart of Vienna, and, a few streets, and, a few streets and a couple centuries removed, the Theresianum, a superbly preserved baroque complex that once served as an officer’s training school and was named after its patroness, the Empress Maria Theresia, whose name it still bears as a college for budding diplomats. Its 18th century splendor has been has been kept lovingly intact, and we were to play our scene in the fabled library, a treasure house of precious inlaid wood and priceless antique leather volumes all the way up to the frescoed ceiling. It’s open to visitors only with a special pass and suitable pedigreed blue blood. Our first scene however was set in Maximilian’s princely bedchamber in the Hofburg, and I had the honor of waking up the royal slugabed with this exquisitely cadenced speech: BUTLER Good morning, Your Highness. Today is May twelfth, the feast of Saint Ladislas Martyr, also your cousin of Romania. The temperature is falling slightly: a high of fifty-three degrees, and a low of forty-five. The scenes with Mr. Warner were all of them fun, with his easy gift of friendly argle-bargle, both relaxed and refreshing. He even did me the kindness of autographing a portrait of himself which I’d removed from a calendar I’d bought at Stratford, a full-size head-and-shoulders done in pastels and dubbed “The Actor”. This was the first time he’d ever seen it! “To Herbert, Many Thanks, David Warner, ‘The Actor’, Vienna 1993.” Between takes we retreated to the cellar and the museum staff canteen. The scene there could well be entitled “Costumed Chaos in the Canteen”, for there happened to be another film, a real costume extravaganza, being shot in these hallowed precincts at the same time as ours, the latest Hollywood version of “The Three Musketeers”, the jokey one done with American accents and all, with Charlie Sheen and Kiefer Sutherland. The latter nearly brought down destruction on their entire operation by his tosspot antics in the allnight-fleshpots of Babylon-on-the-Danube. So, as things heated up, the Gods were already making rumbling noises. Of course both companies had to break for meals simultaneously, turning the canteen into the scene of the most variegated costume orgies, Louis XIII and Monaco Gold-Braid, since the climactic reels of Lon Chaney’s “Phantom of the Opera”. It might have been better if they’d released those goings-on as newsreel stuff and jettisoned the two doomed feature films. But of that, more anon ... The venue for my second scene was less crowded and yet more elegant: the Theresianum library doubling as the Lichtenhaus Council chamber, presided over by the sinister Otto, whose machinations were suddenly broken up by Maximilian’s no-nonsense and imperious entrance sweeping in, with me, padding breathlessly, in his wake. I was bearing the obligatory silver tray, onto which H.R.H. was lofting over his shoulder, without looking all manner of official-looking documents and letters. It was a dizzying journey across what seemed to me recently restored to its former glory. I am pleased to report that while scampering behind the Prince, molto allegro, I was somehow nimble enough enough to catch everyy single one of the documents he was tossing over the royal epulet. Limping and tottering at his heels, dodging and feinting, but always maintaining my dignity, so I went, and a memorable sight it should be, too, if the movie ever gets released. That’s precisely where the fate-keeps-on-happening routine comes in: a delicious light comedy script, first rate directing, handsome authentic settings, and stars like David Warner, Paul Freeman, and Susannah York as the Queen Mother, plus what Signor Vanzina promises in the press releases to be a sensational new Dutch actress, Barbara Snellenburg as Princess Sophia: “ This girl will be a star!” And the best of Viennese-Italian-Dutch luck to them all, what with Moulton here as Major-Domo (Major Disaster would be more like it). For as far as my sources can discover, “Princess”, running true to form, hasn’t yet seen the light of day anywhere, or if it has it hasn’t reached Central Europe yet or any of the international publications we subscribe to. It might have been shown in Vanzina’s native Italy, but it was filmed in English for the English-speaking market. As far as that all-too-jokey “Three Musketeers”-movie goes, well, of course it was a movie for the MTV-generation and a kind of a youthful introduction to Alexandre Dumas. Literary history for the Brat Pack with a huge Top 40 Hit as a PR-gag, Roddy, Sting and Bryan, the three musketeers of Rock ‘n Roll, singing it away, all for one and all for love. Me, Herbert Eyre Moulton, having shared tables with Kiefer and Charlie in the Hofburg canteen in Vienna, chatting away with good old David and hearing the Hollywood hotshots repeating their lines while drooling over their Wiener Schnitzels. Seriously now, Gang, could it be that this butler-playing character-actor is the subject not to a a pernicious, contagious curse, but a small blessing? Could it have rubbed off during those united lunchroom melées in the Hofburg cafeteria? After all, I wined and dined with the best. Maybe “Princess” will have its day in the sun after all. A sobering thought. And a good one. Just like the movie I was in.

Painting below by Gene McCormick

Let us Dance By Alexandra H. Rodrigues It was a guest performance. Ten days in total. Fully sold out at the Modern Opera House. The operetta shown – Cloudy Dancing! Ariana had talked herself into an illusionary love affair. She, the Prima Ballerina, who was desired by many men but unwilling to tie herself to either one of them, experienced for the first time the urge to be held, embraced and conquered by him. Would today be the day? Today was the last day of Cloudy Dancing on this stage. Ariana was not at all shy. She would try to meet up with Mr. Strange during the intermission, at which time she would let him have her cell phone number. The curtain opened. The stage was hers. She once again felt the elation of being the Prima Ballerina of this show. Dance for her was the world. The music, her movements and the intense admiration of the audience was what Ariana lived for. She was born to dance! Petite, proportioned like a dainty porcelain doll, she had never let anything interfere with the discipline required by her career. She had worked her way up, literally step by step: tap, ballet and modern dance. When friends were out partying, she was practicing, improving her talent, often spending excruciating long hours in yawning, empty training halls. Now, in her mid-twenties she was on top of her art. In society, she could be seen with suitors. These were men she asked to accompany her to required functions, nothing more. None of these men could ever claim to be her boyfriend. Ariana lived for her dance and in the characters she played. She glanced at the spectators. Again, the theater was full. It was the last performance of Cloudy Dancing. There he was. The good looking young man with those mesmerizing brown eyes that seemed to pierce through her body and set her emotions on fire. She had first noticed him the night of the Premiere in the third row at the orchestra side. His smile intrigued her. Her dance, always exhilarating, took on an etheric swing. The applause was deafening. He did not let her forget him. He was there again the next evening and every evening during the show. Always in the third row. Always smiling and intently following her every move. Every evening he was accompanied by a slightly older looking gentleman. That man hardly ever smiled, and one got the feeling that the performing arts were not exactly to his special liking. After a few nights, Ariana had expected to get a note from her obvious admirer or even a visit by him to her dressing room. But nothing! By now the exchange of their looks had taken on a certain intimacy. Who was that man? Why always the male company? Was he gay? In that case, why did he come every day? It was the first time in her life that Ariana allowed herself romantic expectations and even sexual fantasies. Thoughts about that stranger inhibited much of her free time and crept into her dreams. By now, this last day of the show, Ariana had talked herself into an illusionary love affair with her anonymous admirer. She had given her very best during the first act, and then came the intermission. He seemed a little sad today. Sad that it was the last time? She even imagined that he threw her a kiss when their eyes met. He was in for a surprise. She smiled to herself. As she made her way down to meet him she felt her heart beat with excitement and nervousness. Would he be happy? His friend had gone outside during the intermission and Ariana saw that Mr. Strange had remained in his seat. As she turned into row three, she saw something that made her entire body shake. Next to the stranger rested a folded wheelchair. The man’s upper body was immaculately dressed but it ended just below the thighs. He was an amputee. The companion most likely his aide. Ariana choked. He had noticed her. Too late to turn around. He had paled when he saw her approach. She went to him. “I should not have come today,” he whispered and added “By coming down here you gave me an unforgettable gift.” Ariana went close to him and pressed a timid kiss on his forehead. She did not leave her phone number. Her entrance was required on the stage again. She was confused. This last dance was for him despite that her legs felt like lead. The final part of the play required her to cry. Today she finished with real tears.

Speeches: Literary and Social by Charles Dickens SPEECH: EDINBURGH, JUNE 25, 1841 At a public dinner, given in honour of Mr. Dickens, and presided over by the late Professor Wilson, the Chairman having proposed his health in a long and eloquent speech, Mr. Dickens returned thanks as follows: If I felt your warm and generous welcome less, I should be better able to thank you. If I could have listened as you have listened to the glowing language of your distinguished Chairman, and if I could have heard as you heard the "thoughts that breathe and words that burn," which he has uttered, it would have gone hard but I should have caught some portion of his enthusiasm, and kindled at his example. But every word which fell from his lips, and every demonstration of sympathy and approbation with which you received his eloquent expressions, renders me unable to respond to his kindness, and leaves me at last all heart and no lips, yearning to respond as I would do to your cordial greeting-possessing, heaven knows, the will, and desiring only to find the way. The way to your good opinion, favour, and support, has been to me very pleasing--a path strewn with flowers and cheered with sunshine. I feel as if I stood amongst old friends, whom I had intimately known and highly valued. I feel as if the deaths of the fictitious creatures, in which you have been kind enough to express an interest, had endeared us to each other as real afflictions deepen friendships in actual life; I feel as if they had been real persons, whose fortunes we had pursued together in inseparable connexion, and that I had never known them apart from you. It is a difficult thing for a man to speak of himself or of his works. But perhaps on this occasion I may, without impropriety, venture to say a word on the spirit in which mine were conceived. I felt an earnest and humble desire, and shall do till I die, to increase the stock of harmless cheerfulness. I felt that the world was not utterly to be despised; that it was worthy of living in for many reasons. I was anxious to find, as the Professor has said, if I could, in evil things, that soul of goodness which the Creator has put in them. I was anxious to show that virtue may be found in the bye-ways of the world, that it is not incompatible with poverty and even with rags, and to keep steadily through life the motto, expressed in the burning words of your Northern poet "The rank is but the guinea stamp, The man's the gowd for a' that." And in following this track, where could I have better assurance that I was right, or where could I have stronger assurance to cheer me on than in your kindness on this to me memorable night? I am anxious and glad to have an opportunity of saying a word in reference to one incident in which I am happy to know you were interested, and still more happy to know, though it may sound paradoxical, that you were disappointed--I mean the death of the little heroine. When I first conceived the idea of conducting that simple story to its termination, I determined rigidly to adhere to it, and never to forsake the end I had in view. Not untried in the school of affliction, in the death of those we love, I thought what a good thing it would be if in my little work of pleasant amusement I could substitute a garland of fresh flowers for the sculptured horrors which disgrace the tomb. If I have put into my book anything which can fill the young mind with better thoughts of death, or soften the grief of older hearts; if I have written one word which can afford pleasure or consolation to old or young in time of trial, I shall consider it as something achieved--something which I shall be glad to look back upon in after life. Therefore I kept to my purpose, notwithstanding that towards the conclusion of the story, I daily received letters of remonstrance, especially from the ladies. God bless them for their tender mercies! The Professor was quite right when he said that I had not reached to an adequate delineation of their virtues; and I fear that I must go on blotting their characters in endeavouring to reach the ideal in my mind. These letters were, however, combined with others from the sterner sex, and some of them were not altogether free from personal invective. But, notwithstanding, I kept to my purpose, and I am happy to know that many of those who at first condemned me are now foremost in their approbation. If I have made a mistake in detaining you with this little incident, I do not regret having done so; for your kindness has given me such a confidence in you, that the fault is yours and not mine. I come once more to thank you, and here I am in a difficulty again. The distinction you have conferred upon me is one which I never hoped for, and of which I never dared to dream. That it is one which I shall never forget, and that while I live I shall be proud of its remembrance, you must well know. I believe I shall never hear the name of this capital of Scotland without a thrill of gratitude and pleasure. I shall love while I have life her people, her hills, and her houses, and even the very stones of her streets. And if in the future works which may lie before me you should discern--God grant you may!--a brighter spirit and a clearer wit, I pray you to refer it back to this night, and point to that as a Scottish passage for evermore. I thank you again and again, with the energy of a thousand thanks in each one, and I drink to you with a heart as full as my glass, and far easier emptied, I do assure you. [Later in the evening, in proposing the health of Professor Wilson, Mr. Dickens said:-] I have the honour to be entrusted with a toast, the very mention of which will recommend itself to you, I know, as one possessing no ordinary claims to your sympathy and approbation, and the proposing of which is as congenial to my wishes and feelings as its acceptance must be to yours. It is the health of our Chairman, and coupled with his name I have to propose the literature of Scotland- -a literature which he has done much to render famous through the world, and of which he has been for many years--as I hope and believe he will be for many more--a most brilliant and distinguished ornament. Who can revert to the literature of the land of Scott and of Burns without having directly in his mind, as inseparable from the subject and foremost in the picture, that old man of might, with his lion heart and sceptred crutch--Christopher North.

I am glad to remember the time when I believed him to be a real, actual, veritable old gentleman, that might be seen any day hobbling along the High Street with the most brilliant eye--but that is no fiction--and the greyest hair in all the world--who wrote not because he cared to write, not because he cared for the wonder and admiration of his fellow-men, but who wrote because he could not help it, because there was always springing up in his mind a clear and sparkling stream of poetry which must have vent, and like the glittering fountain in the fairy tale, draw what you might, was ever at the full, and never languished even by a single drop or bubble. I had so figured him in my mind, and when I saw the Professor two days ago, striding along the Parliament House, I was disposed to take it as a personal offence--I was vexed to see him look so hearty. I drooped to see twenty Christophers in one. I began to think that Scottish life was all light and no shadows, and I began to doubt that beautiful book to which I have turned again and again, always to find new beauties and fresh sources of interest. [In proposing the memory of the late Sir David Wilkie, Mr. Dickens said:-] Less fortunate than the two gentlemen who have preceded me, it is confided to me to mention a name which cannot be pronounced without sorrow, a name in which Scotland had a great triumph, and which England delighted to honour. One of the gifted of the earth has passed away, as it were, yesterday; one who was devoted to his art, and his art was nature--I mean David Wilkie. He was one who made the cottage hearth a graceful thing--of whom it might truly be said that he found "books in the running brooks," and who has left in all he did some breathing of the air which stirs the heather. But however desirous to enlarge on his genius as an artist, I would rather speak of him now as a friend who has gone from amongst us. There is his deserted studio--the empty easel lying idly by--the unfinished picture with its face turned to the wall, and there is that bereaved sister, who loved him with an affection which death cannot quench. He has left a name in fame clear as the bright sky; he has filled our minds with memories pure as the blue waves which roll over him. Let us hope that she who more than all others mourns his loss, may learn to reflect that he died in the fulness of his time, before age or sickness had dimmed his powers--and that she may yet associate with feelings as calm and pleasant as we do now the memory of Wilkie. SPEECH: JANUARY, 1842. In presenting Captain Hewett, of the Britannia, with a service of plate on behalf of the passengers, Mr. Dickens addressed him as follows: Captain Hewett,--I am very proud and happy to have been selected as the instrument of conveying to you the heartfelt thanks of my fellow-passengers on board the ship entrusted to your charge, and of entreating your acceptance of this trifling present. The ingenious artists who work in silver do not always, I find, keep their promises, even in Boston. I regret that, instead of two goblets, which there should be here, there is, at present, only one. The deficiency, however, will soon be supplied; and, when it is, our little testimonial will be, so far, complete. You are a sailor, Captain Hewett, in the truest sense of the word; and the devoted admiration of the ladies, God bless them, is a sailor's first boast. I need not enlarge upon the honour they have done you, I am sure, by their presence here. Judging of you by myself, I am certain that the recollection of their beautiful faces will cheer your lonely vigils upon the ocean for a long time to come. In all time to come, and in all your voyages upon the sea, I hope you will have a thought for those who wish to live in your memory by the help of these trifles. As they will often connect you with the pleasure of those homes and fire sides from which they once wandered, and which, but for you, they might never have regained, so they trust that you will sometimes associate them with your hours of festive enjoyment; and, that, when you drink from these cups, you will feel that the draught is commended to your lips by friends whose best wishes you have; and who earnestly and truly hope for your success, happiness, and prosperity, in all the undertakings of your life.

The Moulton Family Ghouls

Article by Charles E.J. Moulton Do you wake up in the middle of the night with a strange face screaming at you in the darkness? When you turn on the light ... is that spectre not already gone? Does something creep up behind you in your hallway and, in that case, is it the family ghost lurking around and making strange noises? Or is it just the heat making things crack in the hallway or the old pipes making spooky noises? Maybe it’s both. Everybody does have a family ghost. And so, we are left with a mystery. It is a mystery that is baffling and sometimes even irritatingly cryptic. We seek the mystery in our lives. We love it. We buy books about it, we even go to great lengths to create a mystery, even if it’s not there. Or was it there to begin with? That, too, is a mystery. As I write this, the radiator behind me makes a banging noise. Was that the family ghost or just an old metal part bending in the breeze of domestic heat? The enigma, my dears, keeps us alive. It makes us love the unknown. It keeps challenging us to keep discovering our own life as it unfolds, metre by metre, moment by moment, ghost by ghost. I am not saying ghosts are made up. Energies are here, the afterlife is real, very real, angels exist, the soul leads the way. No, we love the unknown because we come from the unknown. Our souls are part of God, so we inadvertantly seek what we don’t understand, because we want to remember our previous lives. Get it? No. You will. In the case of the Kronzell-Moulton family, that is: ours and mine, the family ghost was a woman named Mildred. Apparently, this lost but peaceful soul had died in an apartment that father Herbert Eyre Moulton occupied for a short time. Mildred decided just to stick around for a little while longer. I guess she liked my dad. She stuck around long enough for me to write this article. Accordingly, every proverbial family mystery was blamed on Mildred, every bump in the night and every missing object a friendly reminder from our invisible friend. We even imagined Mildred having a one-legged boyfriend in the other world. Why else would only one sock be missing when we emptied the washing machine? Mildred even made things vanish. Accordingly, we found ourselves misplacing all sorts of things. Every time it was Mildred’s fault. Or was it only Mildred half of the time? Hard to say. Mildred, however, is not the only ghost that has honored our family with its presence. During his seven years as an actor in Ireland, my dad had several supernatural encounters. All of them, supposedly unexplained. On the other hand, the explanation my father got from these experiences was sufficient in spiritual terms. What we call unexplained phenomena is only reality getting its rug pulled from under its feet. As a guest at the Eyre Family Mansion somewhere on the spooky Irish west coast, he was awoken at 4:30 one morning by the clanging of pots and pans in the household kitchen. He awoke his great-aunt, asking what that noise was. The woman just answered: “Oh, those are just the ghosts of the kitchen staff. They make a racket at this time of the morning! Nothing to worry about!” Perfectly sound explanation to me. The ghosts just decided to stick around for a couple of hundred years. Nothing strange about that, is it now? It gets more intense, though. Other than the occasional psychic dog foreseeing an upcoming crisis or my father meeting a long dead local gypsy, his most ghoulish encounter took place one New Year’s Eve in the year of 1963, somewhere close to the burned down ruin of his ancestor Baron Giles Eyre’s Eyre Court Castle. That evening, my father’d had a few pints and maybe a few glasses of whiskey. But he was still sober enough to walk home. The performance that evening had “taken the Mickey” out of him and so Herbie decided to saunter off home. After all, it was just a ten minute walk across the field to get there. “No, no,” the host exclaimed. “Don’t walk across the fairyfield. The bushes that grow there are haunted. If we cut them down, the cows die and our crop turns rotten. Walk around the field, Herbie, or you will get lost and we will never find you again.” Well, Herbie was tired and longed to sleep in his own bed soon enough. That was why he actually ignored his friend’s advice that night and walked across the field, anyway, when he came to it. Soon enough, he got lost as foretold, wandering about in the darkness. He kept seeing women in gala-dresses, waiters in tuxedos serving champagne and even hearing a pianist playing Cole Porter-tunes. After growing desperate, Herbie passed out in the ice-cold snow and first woke up the next morning in the local hospital. His friend, the host of the party, had found him laying unconcious in the snow. The epilogue of this tale remains as mysterious as it odd. That March 17th, 1963, Herbie was back in Dublin, living on Grafton Street and working at the Gaiety Theatre. St. Stephen’s Green was in full St. Patrick’s Day celebration, when he met an old lady-friend, who seemed to be worried about him. “Herbie,” she cried. “What were you doing in our Dublin house on New Year’s Eve? You appeared out of nowhere, looking really pale and sick. You stood out in the crowd, being the only one not wearing a tuxedo. I even wandered up to you in my blue galadress and tried to convince you to sit down and talk to me. But you left, you disappeared out of sight and we couldn’t find you after that. Why were you here and why didn’t you join us once you arrived?” “Honey, I was on the west coast on New Year’s Eve,” Herbie answered. “You couldn’t have been on the west coast,” his friend exclaimed. “You were here in Dublin in my house.” “No,” my father said. “I got lost on a field and I saw women in gala dress and men wearing tuxedos ...” My father’s soul had been lead astray by the fairies, for one moment travelling over 130 miles to the other coast, just to see his lady-friend. All of that seemed to have been forgotten later that autumn. He was on a concert tour in Ireland. One night after a late concert, he had talked a friend into giving him and his Irish Sheepdog Fred a bed for the night. The problem was that the husband alone knew Herbie was coming. The wife didn’t and that could become a problem. Everyone was asleep, but Herbie still tiptoed into the house with his dog on a leash. He found his bed, snuggled up and almost fell asleep. Fred started whimpering, begging for some food and so the snooze in question was interrupted. Although my father was unwilling to move, having already slipped into his nightgown and almost snoring, he lit a candle and found a pocket-knife in his bag with which he could cut up the sheep’s heart the local butcher had sold him this morning for the dog. It could serve as proper food for the canine. It was the only thing he had with him, anyway. So, my dad wandered down the stairs to the kitchen in his nighgown, holding a knife and a candle and a sheep’s heart. At that moment, the woman of the house appeared on the stairs. Imagine the horror she felt when she saw the strange man in the nightgown holding a knife and candles ... and a dripping heart. She screamed. “It’s alright, Madam,” my father said. “I’m a friend of your husband’s. I’m just going to the kitchen to cut up a heart!” The woman screamed even louder in fright. “It’s okay. It’s my dog’s!” Needless to say, the woman rushed into her bedroom again and was never seen again. At least not until my father left the house. Ghoulish tales are present not only in my father’s family, but in my mother’s, as well. Gun Kronzell’s ancestors can sport a spectre or two. Her childhood neighbors at Nygatan 16 in Kalmar were the Bobecker-family. Valter Bobecker, the family father, was a local journalist, who specialized in a daily column that researched supernatural tales criss-crossing between normal common folk and from generation to generation. He travelled the region on a regular basis, interviewing locals and letting them talk about their encounters with fairies, trolls, goblins and ghosts. One day in 1939, Valter even met an old lady way out on the countryside who claimed that the devil had come to visit her late one night. In the end, however, the demon turned out to be the headlights of a car. There weren’t many cars in the countryside back in 1939. Or had it been a demon? My mother’s hometown of Kalmar, though, is still a real meltingpot of ghost-stories. Not only that. East Sweden’s top tourist attraction presents a lively cultural life, amusement parks and an exquisite range of gastronomical wonders and wonderful natural habitats. Kalmar’s most prominent landmark is, nonetheless, Scandinavia’s most well kept Renaissance castle. Due to the city’s former position as last bastion before the Danish border, the castle has been elevated to achieve cult status. It was invaded 22 times and protected by over 287 cannons during the high point of its career. Up until 1648 the border lay only 25 miles away and this gave the city its nickname: “The Key to the Kingdom”. Whoever wanted to invade Sweden had to crush Kalmar Castle first. Needless to say, the 12th century fortress, rebuilt during the Renaissance, is also the home of many spectres and apparations. This palace was my summer vacation childhood playground. I climbed the cannons, pretending to be a pirate. I wandered about the castle walls, peeking into the gigantic storage towers, calling out the names of the giants my father and I imagined lived there inside: “Brambambus, Trenucheeya,” we called out, “come out!” In 1982, we also saw a small whirlwind at the corner of the castle moat. Naturally, the two giants had sent the whirlwind to catch us. Seven years later, working as a trilingual tourguide and inspired by the giants, I was taken on a private midnight tour of the castle’s many vaults and attics. We saw dead bats in the attic, skulls left over from the 14th century in the basement and heard our boss Erling Berg talk of the ghosts that might be lurking around the corner. These are the stories that Erling told us back then. One spectre that is constantly sighted bears the name The White Lady. She is believed to be the ghost of an aristocratic resident named Anna Bielke, the only castle inhibitor to support the later king Gustav Vasa against the Danish occupants back in 1520. The theory is that Anna acted as a false lighthouse, standing by the watchtower window and swinging a lamp, only to confuse enemy ships. Apparantly, she does so to this day. Royal antiquarian Dagmar Selling, a good friend of the family, was thought to be The White Lady when she accidentally got locked inside the castle after closing time one night. The township pedestrians reported seeing “some lady standing in the watchtower window waving a lamp”. We are left with a baffling question: why did fate actually make Miss Selling completely recreate this 16th century event? Did she know about Anna Bielke’s experience or was it a fluke that she was there? What is real? But there are more surprises along the way. A seven-yearold boy named Carl Gustav Wrangel is supposed to roam the palace rooms as a spectre, left alone in there one baroque evening by his strict father, who was an army colonel. Dorothea Öberg, a female prisoner, fell in love with a male prisoner named Johan. Their love letters were found stuck into the walls. She is now heard weeping at night in one of the rooms. The most haunting ghost story of all comes from a place close to the Queen’s Staircase by the main entrance. The Grey Monk has been seen walking on a floor level that existed prior to the Renaissance renovation, leading to a ghostly apparation only visible to its hips. Many people believe this has to do with the definate fact that the staircase in question was built out of tombstones, whose corpses never were removed. Was the monk actually one of the deceased locals, whose grave was robbed in order to elevate the castle’s stature? We conclude our journey as travellers through the haunted landscape of the Moultonian world in the same country, but now on the other coast: in Gothenburg, Sweden. We travel four centuries into the future, a distant future with a ghost of a completely different kind playing the main part. It is Friday, September the 23rd, 1983, around 8 p.m. Two schoolfriends play in a rural domestic garden. Suddenly, as the one boy notices a blinking light in the sky, he calls out and pleads to inspect it. The other friend thinks nothing of the light, but as his buddy insists on the mysterious nature of the event, it soon has them running up to his playroom with camera and binoculars. As they stand there on the boy’s balcony, a future ghost appears, a cosmic ghost. What meet their adolescent gazes that night is no age-old spectre. It is a ghost, perhaps, from outer space, one that flies right over the boy’s house, so close that they can almost touch its structure. It has a flat bottom, is formed like a car, only that it flies, and has six spotlights in the back. It floats on air, silent like the leaf gliding on a breeze and disappears as mysteriously as it first appeared. When the same vehicle appears a second time, now in a completely different place, their imagination takes its toll. Inspired by the popular science-fiction-films of their time, they invent telepathic creatures that communicate with them by the power of their minds. Who might these creatures have been and appeared in two different places? Was this just a coincidence? Although the UFO Organization called every possible nearby airport, police station and army camp, no one reported in having seen an unidentified object of its kind. Being one of the boys that saw the vehicle back then, I am left with a mystery. Who were these ghosts from outer space? Did I see a spaceship from another world or am I just an author with a wild imagination? And so we end where we began: with the mystery, one that is baffling and sometimes even irritatingly cryptic. On the other hand, that enigma makes us love the unknown. It keeps challenging us to keep discovering our own life as it unfolds, metre by metre, moment by moment, ghost by ghost. The mystery, after all, is an endlessly fascinating enigma. The mystery, as such, keeps us turning the pages of every book we will every read. It makes us scroll every internet-page to its finishing line and search every nook and cranny just to find the answers to a row of eternal questions: are ghosts real? What is real? Are we alone in the universe? That feeling I had that someone was watching me just now, was I right about that? Was that a ghost or just my own wild imagination going haywire? Or maybe I am crazy and sane at the same time? Who knows what sane really is? What is normal? That is the important question to which there are as many answers as there are people. Look out into the distance. Do you see the sunrise? How many colors mingle in that morning? If the eternal creator can create something as simple and magnifiscent as a sunrise, then he certainly will take care that we transcend easily into the next life when our time has come. Some of us just return, just to see what’s going on back home. It’s as simple as that.

Memories Evoked by Pictures By Alexandra H. Rodrigues Massapequa To verify happenings and special events by pictures is truly a good idea. Of course it is so much easier nowadays when we can snap a picture by camera, smartphone or any kind of tablet. We can have it taken by somebody, take it by ourselves or even ask a robot to take it. One thing I have learned many years ago is the importance of jotting down a date when writing a letter or postcard or when documenting something. I have collected pictures, articles, memorabilia and keepsakes since my early youth for no special reason. Not sure at this point for what! I guess in a weird way, my life was interesting for me and I do want to keep the memories. From childhood on I was always losing something: my father, my friends at school, my bicycle, our house, and on and on. How most of the notes and articles which I still have nowadays survived is a riddle to me. For years now I have pleaded with my son and used to tell my husband to date anything they give to me. Birthday cards, X-mas cards as well as pictures. They both had a hard time doing that. My son is slowly getting around to it. I recently leafed thru one of my folders, dated 1950 thru 1959, the last 10 years of my life in Germany, with a 14-month interval in Sweden, before coming to the States. I came across two pages of two different editions of the The Berliner Zeitung, a newspaper with the caliber of the New York Daily News. I had cut out the article showing the contest and my picture but did not keep the entire newspaper and thus could not find a date. The name of the contest was “Who shall have the Golden Pin?” It said that the jury would decide on May 15, but it did not give the year. Just like in “The American Idol” the public had the last word. It was a competition for the most accomplished female athlete in Berlin who also was very attractive. I don’t mean to say that I was especially pretty during those years, but I had just won second place in the Berlin Table Tennis matches and also had advanced considerably during some official tennis tournaments. Yes, there it was, I found a copy of the certificate issued for the Table Tennis. It says 1951. Great, now I can match this document with a time and date, May 1951. I was 17 years old then. No, I did not win that time. True in 1967 I visited the Blarney Castle in Ireland. It is the place where you are promised to gain the gift of eloquence, if you lean backwards out of the window to a point where you nearly fall out. Some interpret it that you will be able to brew up stories like Munchhausen, whose stories would not hold water if researched. Some of my stories about my past do not even ring true to me but thanks to my drive as collector, I have proof for most of them.

The Enjoyment of Little Things By Alexandra H. Rodrigues In our society today it has become a bitter struggle to keep up with the Johnsons. A futile endeavor because the Johnsons are doing the same. We all strive constantly for success and prestige. We want to get to the top, belong to the elite and be able to afford anything we desire. Yet how often do we hear about persons, who are at the top but nevertheless miserable. To live a full life, you do not need all those riches. Just get into the habit of recognizing the little pleasures, which are available to you without big expense. Even if you are at the top, you will be amazed how rewarding it can be to pay attention to little things. I own a big boat. The kind you can take longer trips on it and show it off to your neighbors. With us, on deck, we carry a small dinghy. It holds two people, is made of a hard rubber, has two plastic paddles and a throw rope. It is meant to take our little poodle to shore, when he has to do his business and we are cruising the waterways. This little gadget has become my biggest pleasure. You step inside, fight for balance and hope not to get splashed right from the beginning. I cannot go far with it and I have no desire to do so, the wind usually decides my direction anyhow. Sometimes I bump into one of the big party boats that are anchored along our 40 ft. wide and 3 city blocks long canal. But no problem, I bounce off them and back to the middle of the canal. No harm done. I sit there in my little nutshell, not working the oars except when I feel like exercise, I look at the sky and kind of meditate. We all know that little wonders of nature exist all around us but hardly ever take the time to watch them and enjoy them. We are so full of it when imagining ourselves, famous, rich and prominent. I use my imagination right on this little boat. It is my gondola and I am skimming along the waterways of Venice. I ignore that my neighbors’ black dogs bark at me furiously when I pass them. Maybe I interrupted their meditation. I pay no attention to the seaweed floating on the surface of the water. I am happy and only see and feel what I want. When I get back I notice the mimosa-trees in their pink bloom, the gardenias in their luscious white pride. I watch a squirrel climbing up a pine tree and call a friendly “hello”. Mother duck is taking her children for a first outing and I ponder what they are doing in the winter. I hear the happy noises from the seagulls in the distant bay, where they catch remnants of dead fish which fisherman throw overboard. I look at the weather-beaten red bench on the lawn of the house with the “For Sale” sign, and I wonder who used to sit on there in the past and who will in the future. All is so peaceful. No noise or vibration like on the big boat. No place to reach within a certain time. I just float, look and relax. I put my hand into the water and then let the water drops slowly dissipate in the sun. I lay down, with my chin on the rubber edge of my little gondola and watch how the sun is making the most colorful rays just below the water’s surface. A school of little fish is passing by, so much more enjoyable to watch here than on the hook as bait. On these occasions I do not want to change with anybody.

Below: Charles E.J. Moulton in Triptychon, an evening of three one-act operas. Gelsenkirchen, Germany.

The Eternal Now By Charles E.J. Moulton

“Each star represents a single thought.” That’s a line from the series “Star Trek: Voyager.” In the episode “Night”, fifth season, first episode, Tuvok, Spock’s post-centurion torch, tells us that he misses the stars he has gotten to know so well, during an excursion through empty space. That inspired a thought in me. A thought that follows the ideology of a quote I read on the way back in the train today: “We think all the time, so why not just CHOOSE to think good thoughts.” Life is a journey, definately, and everyone is involved. Choose to think positive. Choose not to complain. Choose to take responsibility. Even if someone did you wrong, you had the choice of going there to partake in it. Take responsibility. Positivity is a choice. You can choose. Life is a concerto ... and you play your instrument in the orchestra ... of life. You might not like the instrument playing next to you, bub, but unless he existed, you wouldn’t know who you are. So, you need him. You need the variety. Without it, you would lose your place as fast as someone that looks for streetsigns in a world of similar names. Your adversary points you in the right direction, but he tells you where not to go. I had a conversation with a singer in the chorus I am conducting ... a few days ago. We were having a spiritual conversation filled with deep thought. “The God Within counts,” he said. “The afterlife exists, but the key to it is not outside of you, but inside you. The God of Religions is a fabrication. The God inside you is eternal. I am not afraid of death, because God lives within me.” Just imagine, folks, if there was no death. That death was an illusion, that your soul all you have, all you need. Just imagine you are here to learn something, that the real world is where you are at home, beyond this world. You wouldn’t have to bicker about whose version of the afterlife was right, would you? It is. That’s it. There are a thousand synonyms for the word “beautiful”, but it is what is is. If we wear a scarf or a turban, call God “Allah” or “Brahma”, it doesn’t matter. It is what it is. Our interpretations vary. If we want the truth, we seek inside ourselves, not within society. We have to live with and within society in these days, no question. The inner truth remains the same. Every star represents a single thought. Respect life, for nothing comes without it. Respect every thought, for with every thought there is a feeling. Respect love, for without it you would not exist. Respect making love, for without it you would not have been born. Respect procreation. This is the magical forest. Think positive, for life is a journey. Always. We need diversity. Respect the eternal now. Take one moment of every day to realize what you are feeling ... and why ... ... and if you can turn every situation into a blessing ... within your personal eternal now.

The Boat By Alexandra H. Rodrigues A little white boat sails along the calm surface of the lake. Nobody steers it. Nobody tells it where to go. It gets stuck among yellow sea roses and pink coral. Gracefully it bobs up and down till it becomes free to move on once again. This little marvel is made of paper. It is no bigger than an egg carton. The paper is supposedly waterproof and the workmanship superb. At the shore stands the master who had folded the material into a boat: A little blonde blueeyed boy. He is still a kid, skinny, unkempt, but with a wide smile on his face. As an orphan, few pleasures were his. He watched his little boat. Now he knew! When grown up he would build himself a real boat. He would sail the seas. He was happy now in the prospect of what he imagined to be. He had a goal! Slowly he turned to join the group he had come with. As he walked away, the little boat got shook up by the unintentional waves caused by a proud white swan. The boat took on water and sank. The little boy was spared to watch this spectacle. When he came back the next day to have a look at his boat, the boat was gone. He was overjoyed. In his mind, the boat had taken off and sailed to some foreign place. The boy’s dream of future travel was safe.

Kan nit Verstehn By Alexandra H. Rodrigues “Tell me a story, you will need the practice,“ Lydia said. With that she pulled the covers over her nose and hugged the spread. Otto smiled at his pregnant wife. They were looking ahead to a growing, new life. And thus the story went: Kan nit Verstehn Sir Scott was on a holiday spree He had made plans a lot to see In Bavaria he took a taxi instead of renting a car He wanted to be able to see the near and the far. German he did speak not What was learned in school he long had forgot. The cab driver only a few words of English knew Talk must be short was the conclusion they drew. They passed a fancy mansion while driving along To whom does that marvel belong Sir Scott asked for a name “Kan nit Verstehn,” the answer came. Shortly thereafter a lake with swans was in sight Sir Scott inquired, “Who the owner might – “ Like a bullet the answer came. The cabbie gave a friendly smile, “Kan nit Verstehn”’ Nature’s luscious and plentiful farms rushed by Then Sir Scott a now dormant ski lodge did eye. “Who is the owner of this great place?” “Kan nit Verstehn,” a grin lit up the driver’s face. Back in the city they got held up by a hearse The cabbie could not pass and began to curse. “Do you know who it is that they burry there” Sir Scott asked though he hardly did care. Then he was truly surprised to hear again Mumble, mumble and, “Kan nit Verstehn.” That shows, Mr. Scott thought, all is in vain There is truly little value in the earthly gain. Obviously there is a moral in this story on hand “Kan nit Verstehn” means I cannot understand Sir Scott had thought it was a Dutch name That was why to a wrong conclusion he came.

Otto had wanted to discuss with his wife, why The story moved him so deep But right at the end Lydia had fallen asleep. Oh well, he chuckled and stroked her belly “Did you hear me Little One? There are many more stories to come!” Then he yawned and under the covers joined his wife. Relaxed and happy at the thought of the coming new life!

Below: Charles E.J. Moulton as Prince Alexander, 1989, in "Molly Munter - the Musical", during his time at the Kronoberg Music Academy. Here seen with Hans Weichbrodt as his butler.

Herbert Eyre Moulton (1927 - 2005) remembers July 17, 1936, Headline, Glen Ellyn News:

VACATION FOR A BIRTHDAY PRESENT We hadn’t planned on going so far afield but since my grandparents had left us their Ford V-8 Sedan (so much more comfortable than Henrietta, our 1927 Studebaker), why not take advantage of it? Our goal, a last-minute choice: Niagara Falls. So scenic, so educational, and so many lovely sights for Little Herbert to see on the way. What I saw was next to nothing. The whole expedition was planned for me and where did I spend it? Scrounched up on the floor of the back seat munching candy bars and having a glorious hog-wallow, reading comic books, movie magazines, Big Little Books, and Popular Mechanics. Whose birthday was it, anyway? All I wanted was some peace and quiet ... Peace and quiet, did someone say? My dear mother Nell was of a different mind. We were driving a long way all the way from Glen Ellyn, Illinois, it was costing a helluva lot for gas and oil alone, and we’d just better enjoy every single minute of Middle-America passing by ... “Now, is that clear, young man? Or else! Get up from there this instant, did you hear what I said? Little Herbert, you’re missing everything. Just look at this lovely town, the rolling countryside, all those lovely cows!” This kept up in every state we sped through, including Ontario: “Little Herbert, we’re in a different country all together now: Canada! Get up now and look around you. They don’t have a president as we do. They have a king.” “Maybe not for long,” my dad, Big Herb, chimed in, otherwise intent on his driving. “Oh, ish!” scoffed Nell. “A perfectly lovely man. Your cousin Virginia Gamon danced with him once. They had to put together a whole pitcher of Scotch at his place every meal. That’s when your Uncle Arthur was ambassador ...” “General Consul,” said Big Herb. “Or Consul General, Mexico someplace.” Nell bridled at this: “That’s right, make a liar out of me, as usual. I stand corrected.” “Oh, Nell, please.” “Just pay attention to your driving, Mister. Oh, Little Herbert, look at that lake or sea or whatever it is. I always forget which. Erie? Ontario? Well, it can’t be Michigan. That’s back home in Chicago.” Big Herb chuckled. “Try Lake Huron, Nell. It’s the only one of the two left.” Nell gave him a look and then shook her head. This wasn’t going as well as she’d hoped. It very seldom did. I did graciously consent to put away my reading for the sake of the Falls. They were, after all, quite worth seeing. Especially at night when lit up with colored lights. We took a little steamboat, Maid of the Mist, which went up as close as it could to the thundering waters (of which the composer Gustav Mahler once exclaimed: “Endlich fortissimo!” – “At last something loud!” But what I really saved to tell my pals back home was the rescue operation downstream at the treacherous whirlpool. A man had recently drowned. His corpse was whirling madly around – he had a white shirt on – and they were trying to fish him out by means of long pools, but each time, the vortex almost got them, as well. Vortex! Edgar Allan Poe! But we had to get going. My Dad had to get back to work, and Grand-Dad would want his car back. “When you’re as poor as we are,” said Nell in her best Irish-Martyr-Voice, “you can’t always do what you like.” “Oh, nuts,” was Big Herb’s comment. He was used to this. The trip back home was more of the same. “Get up off that floor, now. I’m not telling you again! Look at where we are on the map, Little Herbert! East Liverpool, Ohio, fancy that! Wouldn’t you like to have a new pennant for your bedroom wall with that on it? We must stop and get some things for your knick-knack shelf, oh, and some post cards. Are you looking, Little Herb? This is Pughstown, dear God in heaven! Imagine living in a town called Pughstown! Mother of Mercy! Wouldn’t you ashamed? HERBERT, I’m telling you for the very last time!” “Well, please don’t shout,” said my Dad. “Who the hell is shouting?” shouted Nell. “We go to all this trouble and expense to take this boy on a nice trip and what does he do? Spends the whole time on the damned back floor! Never heard of such a thing! Why can’t YOU say something to him, reprimand the boy?” “Please, Nell, we’ll have an accident!” “If you ask me, LIFE is an accident.” “Nuts.” “Stop the car, do you hear me? Stop it at once! I want to get out!” “What? Here? In Pughstown? You’re even crazier than usual.” “Well, thank you very much! Stop the car, I said!” In other words, a typical Moulton Family Excursion, and, like our life itself, one part Irish temperament, one part Yankee cussedness, and one part pre-pubescent bloodymindedness, a volatile mixture that always spelled out High Dramatics. A regular Brouhaha, but not a word of it to be taken seriously. This spirited exchange was followed by a long aggrieved silence. Then gradually the mellowing began, and before long, euphoria reigned once more. “Oh, thanks be God,” murmured Nell. “The Illinois border. Big Herb, you’ve done a beautiful job, as usual. And you, Little Herb, won’t you have a lot to tell your chums about? I can’t wait to phone Bess. Is there anything to drink at home?” And, as always, the next day found her writing about Glen Ellyn News.

Freudened by Sex By Charles Rammelkamp “I could set you up with Richie,” Debbie pleaded. Richie was her boyfriend, the class “wit.” He punned all the time. (“Can we play Haydn seek?” he impishly asked the music teacher, Mrs. O’Dell, who groaned appreciatively while the other students just looked puzzled. Debbie wasn’t sure if she was proud of him or not. He was smart, and not bad-looking.) “So he just came over? Did he call first?” Brenda pursued. “He told me he was going to the library. To ‘study.’” “Danny doesn’t mean anything to me. It was nothing, what we did. It was just nothing, you’ve got to believe me.” “Did he call first?” Brenda persisted. “He just showed up,” Debbie confessed. “I was the only one home.” She looked miserable. Brenda’s imagination fired with images of what they’d done, the betrayal, but she wasn’t going to ask. “Does Richie know?” “Please don’t tell Richie!” The pleading tone was back in Debbie’s voice. “Oh, well, he says he’s freudened by sex anyway.” “What?” “One of Richie’s little jokes.” They both sniggered in faint contempt then, and Debbie hoped the mutual disdain might bring her and Brenda back together. But Brenda didn’t thaw. She liked having the upper hand here, and she liked the new-found power of her coldness. It could be this way forever, she thought. She’d never much liked Debbie anyway, and here was her chance at a break. She’d be going to college next year anyway and wouldn’t have to deal with Debbie or Danny ever again anyway. “Don’t worry, Deb. I won’t breathe a word to Richie.” As she turned to go she heard a sob escape from Debbie and the sound of her friend sucking back snot. A sinus of the times, Brenda thought, channeling Richie and she wondered why Debbie had offered to set her up with her boyfriend. Some sort of consolation prize? A quid pro quo? But it sure wouldn’t have been satisfying revenge.

Gratitude By Alexandra H. Rodrigues It is true! I am grateful to have outsmarted the odds I will refer to as survival umpteen times. These occurrences are so numerous that I could write a book about them. However, I will try to be brief. They will lose on impact but maybe can serve as an outline for a booklet in the future. I was born prematurely on the couch of a Villa in Berlin. Once this house had been ours but had sold when inflation warranted it – I survived. World War II – Bomb craters behind our house. My father had to flee to Paris to avoid the Nazi camps -- I survived. Evacuated to Vienna during World War II, I contracted a serious disease and was at the mercy of Social Services – I survived. It was the time when Vienna experienced its first major destruction by air -- I survived. As teenager, I had my stomach pumped out at the hospital and was subjected to painful tests for serious illnesses. Finally, the medical team was unable to come up with a reason for my pains and nausea – I survived. Constant problems resulting from a deviated septum put me into the Ear and Eye Infirmary. After the operation, I was black and blue in the face, but still unable to smell and always sniffling. Finally, a plastic surgeon in New York City, who also had operated on one the Gabor sisters, solved my problem. I had to agree to also have a nose job at the same time – I survived. 1949: My tonsils were removed. The next morning when I expected my doctor to make his rounds, I was told he had had a heart attack shortly after he had performed the operation on me. For years after, I thought about what could have happened if he had died with the scalpel in my throat. Needless to say – I survived. In my early 20s I fell skating. Diagnosis: a sprain in my leg. It got taped up, got swollen, black and blue, and I was crying for days. It was broken, and I nearly lost my leg. Four months under the care of a top surgeon and in traction followed. You guessed it – I survived with both of my legs. I will never forget the day when, after a drinking splash of several hours, I declined a ride home on the back of a motorcycle of a friend. Going home with another friend a little later, we saw the motorcycle on its side laying on the street, the body of the driver on the side of the curb and police all over. Good judgment -- I survived. When flying as a stewardess, our plane dropped 8,000 feet; the oxygen masks were deployed. I missed a flight I was scheduled for; that being the flight that crashed over Lockerbie, Scotland. Another time, the plane I was on lost an engine in flight. All close calls – I survived. 1964: I was told I would go into shock and could die unless I had my thyroid removed. The medicine Synthroid came on the market at exactly that time and I have3 been taking it ever since – I survived. 1972: Pregnant at 39, I was expected to have a difficult delivery and was likely to need a caesarian. I gave natural birth using the Lamaze method, something new at that time -- I survived. 1979: I was in a hospital to have a biopsy for breast cancer. Pretest results, possibly from another patient named Rodrigues, showed a silent heart attack and ischemic heart disease. The biopsy was postponed. I checked myself out of the hospital. A week later a consultation with a specialist for breast diseases assured me that my breasts were fine – I survived. During the years I came close several times to be hit by careless drivers -- I survived. Recently I had a bad fall, which resulted in facial lacerations that ended just millimeters below my left eye. My eyesight was not damaged -- I survived. I could go on and on, but enough for now. I am grateful to whatever power it is that is watching over me.

Teen Angst By Alexandra H. Rodrigues My teenage years? They had followed a most confusing childhood. There were not too many illusions left. I was 13 years old when the war ended in 1946. Berlin had been freed. The terror of air attacks was over. No longer did I have to be afraid of being woken by shrill sirens. Those sirens had been the sign to grab some belongings, already packed in a little suitcase, and sneak into the bunker across from our house. I had swallowed my first chewing gum, given to me by an American soldier when the Russians had finally left our area and we had become the American sector. That took place after I had witnessed rapes and destruction by the Russians. Still I had managed to save my family from starvation by venturing to a Russian Military Cantina and, dressed in a red jumpsuit, the Soviet color, begged for soup. The soup was rich and fatty. I thumbed thru some old letters recently, written in 1944 in Vienna to my grandmother in Berlin. “Dear Grandma. How are you? Are you still sick? How is the food in Berlin? We just had a real air raid and went into the bunker. There were shots, but not too bad. Hope I will find some nice shrapnel tomorrow for my collection.” Yes, I had been evacuated to Vienna in 1943. Presumably safe! I was there when the first air raid destroyed most of the city in March 1944, the city of Music of Strauss and his Waltzes, Franz Liszt and Mozart. At school in Vienna I received a “B” in music, imagine that! In Berlin my report cards showed a “D” year after year. I deserved the “D.” I cannot hold a note and never could. This brings me to an event that occurred during my teen years: At the age of seven, I had joined a local dance school. Ms. Irene taught us creative dancing. I loved it, and I was good at it. Eventually, I became the star of the group and the pet of Ms. Irene. When I was 13 years of age, two friends of mine, sisters, both in my dance class, decided to apply to the Berlin Opera. Their classes were free and students were also provided special allowances on food stamp cards. “I am even better than they are,” or so I thought, and went to apply. I was accepted. I hated it: Creative dance had been my strength not Ballet! It was very strenuous, no room for imagination. I wanted to be a Ballerina! My grades in school plummeted. I began to dread the days I had Ballet class. Mrs. Merina obviously saw no merit in my dancing, and I did not like her a bit. Then one day my pride got its ultimate shock. My mother awaited me with a letter from the Opera. ”We regret to inform you that your daughter Alexandra can no longer be supported by our Ballet school as she has no ear for music, a requisite for becoming a Solo dancer.” I was devastated. I hated Mrs. Merina even more. It was my pride that was hurt most of all. Well life has its ways. Ten years later, when I was already a stewardess, I had Mrs. Merina as a passenger on the DC-4 from Berlin to Stuttgart. It was quite a bumpy flight. Mrs. Merina was afraid and got sick. With a typical stewardess smile I handed her the airsick bag from the seat pocket. I mumbled, “I have to thank you for getting this fabulous job.” And a little devil made me add, “Some people have no ear for music, and some people have no stomach for flying.” She did not hear me – it did not matter. I had had my say.



Roger Maris Comes Back By Robert Cooperman What Roger Maris regretted most? Breaking Babe Ruth’s home run record, that asterisk forever next to his 61 homers, since it took him all of the bloated 162 game season, not the Bambino’s 154, when the Sultan swatted 60. Maris took crap from Yankee lovers, Yankee haters, fans who shouted he didn’t deserve to break the record, never a .300 hitter, the Babe batting a gaudy .360 or so. Besides, so many of Maris’ homers just farted over the Stadium’s short right field fence, while Ruth’s blasts broke windows, and if anyone on that 1961 team deserved to break the record it was beloved Mickey Mantle, who kept his hatred of little kids a semi-secret. And to cement Maris’s misery, the next season when he hit a paltry 39 home runs, and fans rode him with, “Hey Maris, how come you’re such a bum!” he snapped, flipped the bird at some bleacher buzzards. So after the cancer tagged him out, he came back as a hobo, hopped freights, slept under bridges, but far happier than blaspheming the Babe’s sacred record. And when his time came that second time, he went straight to Hobo Heaven: pies cooling on window sills, barns filled with soft hay, and whiskey flowing in streams.



Leo Durocher

Baseball Manager Extraordinaire In His Next Life By Robert Cooperman “Leo the Lip”—the baseball manager who could spit a stream of invective so sharp, the poor umpire would wipe his face for a good half hour-came back as a librarian, shushing gossiping mothers, looming over kids who had no idea that “Library” meant “Silence, people are trying to read,” and with just a glare, separating giggling teens in the stacks, where they hid in their hormone-raging youth. He could make his whispered, “Quiet!” carry farther than a homer hit to dead centerfield at the cavernous Polo Grounds. And God help anyone who brought back books late; he treated them as if they’d robbed little old ladies of their pensions. Worse, to return a book a dog had left fang-marks and slobber all over the now unreadable pages, Leo the Librarian pronouncing like a hanging judge, “That will cost you exactly….Plus, your borrowing privileges are suspended until the debt is paid in full. Next!” And the next suppliant would slink up to the counter, and with wringing hands, plead his or her worthless case.

Thinking of Food By Alexandra H. Rodrigues Going through my Pan Am memorabilia, I came across several menus from our Lunch and Dinner Services in First Class. It was then that I realized how blasé I had become through the years. From nearly starving through the War years and being thrilled with dandelion salad and greasy, grimy leftovers from Russian Soldiers canteen food (when a slice of toasted cornbread with fatty bacon was a delicacy exclusively for holidays), I have risen to become part of the top of culinary consumers. Orange blossoms (Champagne and freshly squeezed orange juice) for breakfast or a Bloody Mary (vodka and tomato juice spiced with horseradish and decorated with a slice of fresh lemon) after a night of walking up and down the aisles of a transatlantic jet serving passengers was commonplace when arriving at a crew hotel for a 24-hour layover. Lunch was often taken at airport restaurants anywhere from New York to Zurich to Rome, Beirut, Tehran, Karachi, Hong Kong, Dakar, Johannesburg to Dar es Salaam, Tanzania (where the blue Tanzanite gem comes from). The tanzanite has become quite a gemstone of choice demanding a high price now. I could have picked it up real cheap, but I did not do so. Another opportunity missed. Memories of bratwurst in Germany, curry dishes in New Delhi, and Calderada, a soup made with at least six different kinds of fish, in Portugal still today make my taste buds tingle. While we were indulging on those local tidbits, the aircraft was provisioned by the station’s commissary with superb specialties of the respective country and the everstandard juicy prime rib of beef which we cooked and served rare, medium or well done to those passengers unwilling to indulge in unfamiliar fare. A Dinner menu consisted of cocktails, hors d'oeuvres, fish, a main entrée of choice, cheeses from all over the world and dessert of irresistible quality, like cherries jubilee or vanilla ice cream with a thick chocolate sauce. All this was followed by cordials. French wine, Brut Champagne and beer were available without limitations – in First Class that is! I became an expert in popping Champagne corks and am still being admired for my dexterity in it. Here are a few dishes I will never forget. Russian caviar, served with chopped egg and lemon slices, accompanied by Stolichnaya Vodka, Lobster Thermidor. Quail with grapes. Cornish Hen. Veal chops with Calvados sauce. Pâté foie gras and truffles. Not to forget the cherries jubilee: Sour cherries slightly heated, and served over heart-melting vanilla ice cream. Well, I am getting carried away and hungry. A good espresso for digestion to end the feast in style. I am looking at an inflight menu; it signed by Ted Kennedy who happened to be a passenger that day. On international layovers of several days in the 1960s and 1970s, I made it a habit to sample the native delicacies: Kippers for breakfast in Scotland, avocado and eel in Mexico, chorizo and eggs in Portugal, venison with lingonberries in Sweden, sushi in Japan. Different roasts from the carving board in England, Kobe beef in Guam, turtle soup, goulash and a multitude more. Today I would settle for oysters and eggs benedict. I guess you can understand that my taste has been spoiled, confused and become quite unconventional during the years. I am thinking about world-renowned chefs! My husband could have joined their ranks. He loved to cook. He had worked as a butler for several mega-rich families where the old ladies loved him as he was very handsome. Only the best chefs worked for those families and my husband had plenty of opportunity to mingle and taste the pheasant under glass, the beef wellington and more. From there Pan Am got hold of him and they sent him to become acquainted with the services of superb dining at Maxim’s in Paris. He was not to learn to cook, but to excel in the elegant ways of serving food. All thru my marriage I profited from those experiences.

Creative Spirtituality Reflection By Dustyn Taylor

How do you define “spirituality”? I define spirituality as one’s ability to be in touch with their inner emotions as well as being in touch with outside forces that we cannot see. These forces can be simply as simple as love or as complex as an entity that created us all. I would consider people who do yoga to be spiritual. What they are essentially doing is releasing all of their problems and worries and synergizing their body and mind with the universe. Spirituality is the ability to connect with something other then what is visible or audible to us. To be spiritual one would have to believe in more than just himself. Does spirituality differ from religion? Spirituality differs from religion, even though the both can exist within each other. The main difference between the two is that a person can be spiritual and not religious, but in order to truly be religious you would have to be spiritual. Religion is mad made. It is a group of people who all believe in similar spiritual entities and rules laid out by those entities. It is essentially an umbrella for a group of spiritual people. While a hippie for example could be consider spiritual because the value the earth and environment, plants and animals. Many believe they are in touch with mother earth and that is why they are so “free”. How do you define “creativity”? I define creativity as being innovative and unique and analyzing all approaches and developing your own. You have to be willing to try new things and create new things while accepting that you may make many mistakes. In order to be creative you must be willing to go against all common perceptions and beliefs and dismantle social constructs. Michelangelo’s sculpture David, is a prime example of this. The funniest thing is that he is considered creative because he created an image of a man stripped of all societies bonds. He was naked, no clothing, no stipulations and no restraints. What is the source of creativity? As cliché as it sounds, creativity comes from the heart. It comes out when you dig deep and let your mind and heart go to work. Some of the most compelling writings, songs and pictures are created out of raw emotion. All of these pieces of art you can tell the artist put all they had into and exposed their inner emotions. This is where creativity comes from. It is on the inside and we find unique and different ways to display it. ~ by Dustyn Taylor, August 10, 2014

The Bucket List By Alexandra H. Rodrigues The bucket list is an expression I had never heard. Does that mean I am left with an empty bucket? Not for long. Let me throw some stuff into it. Here we go. Let’s fill the bottom with some heavy artillery. Four books. Actually two issues per topic: 2 hardcovers and 2 paperbacks. Author of both these books -- ME. They are about 400 pages each. One is entitled “Emotions in Motion” about my life as a Stewardess. The other book is entitled “Reasons Why it is Foolish to Pick on Older People.” The middle of the bucket is filled with newspaper clippings. There are pages of The New York Times covering both books on the bestseller list for weeks in a row. At one time both of the books are mentioned honorably on the same page. “Emotions in Motion” was quite easy to complete. I had a diary over the years, yes nearly a lifetime, and thus had all the material I needed at my fingertips. The second book had been quite a challenge. Ever since I had turned 70, it annoyed me that I would come across more and more NO-NOs due to my age. None of us get younger. Even if I had thrown the idea of getting younger into the bucket, I know it would not have done much good. Younger at heart, maybe, but that is just idle wordplay. The second book had required some research, many interviews and countless hours of brain- and soul-searching. People say: You look good for your age. I think: Nice complement but why for your age? You look good would have pleased me more. People say: Sex at your age?! I think: Careful now, wine too mellows with age and gets better. People say: You want to buy yourself a bicycle? You mean a stationary one? I think: Now, now. I can run circles around you. People say: Your husband looks much older than you. I think: Sure, he is ten years older and he fought for this country but he is young in his ways. Unfair profiling keeps taking place. Why do companies ignore applicants over 56 despite their exceeding qualifications over younger applicants? Why is long hair a privilege for young ladies? Why are jeans silly when worn by an old lady with a perfect size 8 figure with a 30-inch waist line? Why is dressing modern is labeled not suitable for old age? Why are old people expected to be feeble, on the verge of dementia or Alzheimer’s even if they have clearer thinking than some of the younger people on drugs or alcohol? Is it the old people who form gangs? Who molests kids? Who rob banks? What happened to equality? To same rights for all? Age should not automatically be used for exclusion of any kind. Each person should be judged on an individual basis. It appears that we are all brainwashed and automatically view each other as marionettes categorized by age. See, I proved it can be done. I started at old age with an empty bucket. I threw in some challenges which I felt would be worthwhile to be accomplished before I die and I did it! Or is it old age that gives me the illusion that I did?!

Will there be a David-Bowie-Street in Berlin?

By Charles E.J. Moulton They flock in droves to Hauptstrasse 155 in Berlin-Schöneberg, laying flowers on the pavement in front of the

megastar’s former flat. They listen to his music in order to calm down their sorrow. The legend, who sold 140 million records world wide, died on Sunday night, January 10th, 2016, of liver cancer, two days after his birthday. Since then, his Berlin-fans have launched a movement to inspire the city to name a street after the star. Politician Daniel Krüger doesn’t exclude the possibility that this could become a reality, “but first in five years, according to state law”. It would make perfect sense. Berlin meant a great deal to David Bowie. He spent many formative years here that shaped his musical career, recording the famous Berlin Trilogy at the Hansa Studios, changing Rock history forever and still keeping a safe distance to his own fame. On his 57th birthday, his friend Ricky Gervais joked: “Isn’t it time you got a real job?” Bowie mused: “I have one. Rock God!” This wit was Bowie incarnate. He was the intellectual art collector with a brilliant mind and still the tongue-incheek-rebel with a brave heart. The director of Bowie’s Broadway-Musical “Lazarus”, Ivo Van Howe, told reporters Bowie broke down during rehearsals back-stage last year, but still spoke of writing another musical, soon enough. A David-Bowie-Street in Berlin would most certainly make many fans happy, perhaps even give young rockers enough guts to try to make it as musicians.

Charles E.J. Moulton (2008) as the rich blonde in the Gelsenkirchen production of "Die Fledermaus" by Johann Strauss Photo: Marion Lauer

Rich By Karen King

Are you rich? Are you worthy? Do you count in this materialistic society? Sorry, but if you are a woman and you don’t care for the latest designer dresses, handbags and shoes, you don’t count! If you don’t have the latest hairstyle, you don’t count! If you don’t go the most exotic places, you don’t count! If you don’t have the latest designer kitchen and equipment, you don’t count! If you don’t have the latest décor in your house, you don’t count! Sorry, but if you are a man and don’t care for the latest designer jeans, you don’t count! If you don’t travel to the most exotic places, you don’t count! If you don’t have the trendy car, you don’t count! Sorry, but I don’t care for the latest designer dresses, handbags, shoes, hairstyle, exotic holidays or the latest equipment and décor in my house! Does that mean I am less? No, I don’t think so. If anything, I am more, because I don’t feel a need for these things to pro myself up. I don’t care what others think, I don’t wish to compete, for I have no need for it. I am complete in myself. Surely, health, peace, happiness, a loving family and partner and enough money to pay the bills and occasionally treat yourself is all we need? Look around, often the richest people in the world are very unhappy, because they keep spending money buying things, trying to fill that hole in their hearts that cannot be filled. They buy more and more, desperate and needy as they feel emptier and emptier. How come, often the poorest people in the world are the happiest? I would suggest that it is because they are living in the present and savouring every moment. They have a hard time finding food, they often have no electricity, no lighting and few clothes, yet they are happy! This defies our comprehension. I feel it is because they are spending time with their families, they are outside enjoying nature and they are not draining themselves with electronic devices or trying to keep up with everyone else, rushing around in a pointless, exhausting manner, making themselves ill. I would certainly not want to go back to primitive times, but I can see that they have something special that many of us have lost in modern society. I feel that they could teach us a better way of being and, perhaps, it is not them that are backward at all, it is us in Western societies that are backward? After all, what is the point in having the latest electronic equipment if we no longer talk to each other?

Karen King Copyright February 2016

Herbert Eyre Moulton back in 1953, the Elvis year, looking like Elvis, during the time he was stationed at Camp Gordon in Georgia. Herbert was the musical director of the Camp Gordon Chapel Choir back then. Here surrounded by a bunch of lovely ladies, thirteen years before he met my mother, sixteen years before my birth.

High Old Times in the Threadbare ‘30s

By the late and great Herbert Eyre Moulton (1927 – 2005) http://about.me/hmoulton (http://about.me/hmoulton) Considering the perilous state of everyone’s finances during the 1930’s --- at least everyone we knew --- and recalling our own feast-and-famine cycles, the wonder is that we managed to take in as much grand entertainment as we did. But then, I was an only child (born July 1927) and no problem to be taken any where my parents went. Obviously I was also smart enough to grow as fast as I could so that these excursions of ours could grow ever more festive. Before anybody realized it, they consisted of at least one carefully chosen opera each season, plus operettas, musicals, stage plays, and, two summers running (’33 and ’34), the marvels of the Chicago World’s Fair, A Century of Progress. We were determined to miss as little as possible. Damn the Depression, anyway! Naturally, there were the usual sour comments from the local Babbitts: Who did we think we were, anyway? Going to plays and operas, with so many people on relief? “Oh, don’t mind those old horses’ neckties!” my mother Nell advised. “They’re only jealous. Such Slobs ICH KABIBEL!” (She’d once had a Yiddisch speaking suitor.) “Now, let’s see what’s playing next week, what we can afford, that.” Something affordable would always turn up --- there was so much to choose from. And if the tickets cost too much, there was always some way to blarney our way past the Manager. “Honey-Boy, remember, I’m not Irish for nothing!” On such occasions, my Dad, Big Herb, would either look the other way or simply pretend he wasn’t with us. Those were the days of Vaudevill, so we were able to bask in the glow of dying embers. One of my first Show-Biz memories was of Sophie Tucker, all in white, being driven onstage in a white-and-gold open limousine, attended by flunkies in matching livery. They escorted her down to the footlights. “Some of these days/ You’re gonna miss me, Honey”. I was absolutely transfixed. There were, as well, lots of live radio broadcasts originating in Chicago, like W-G-N’s popular Soap “Bachelor’s Children” --- we wrote in and got free tickets several times. Got the cast’s autographs, too, and a write-up in our local newspaper, The Glen Ellyn News. So much for the Babbitts. There were also hour-long radio dramas like the version of “A Farewell to Arms” with no one less than Helen Hayes as Catherine, script in hand, loving, emoting, and finally dying beautifully, all into the microphone. Just think: The First Lady of the American Theater, not ten yards away from us and all the better because it hadn’t cost us a red cent! The same went for the nightly free summer concerts in Grant Park. We took in them all, or some of them, anyway. And Nell got more articles printed in the paper. Living Well is the Best Revenge! On athletics and sporting events we didn’t waste much time --- wrongly perhaps, and I the figure to prove it. (Sorry, Jocks!) I did like to go swimming, with my pals at the Wheaton pool in the next town, riding our bikes and devouring candy bars the whole way. There was also skating on Lake Ellyn, the best part of which was the hot cocoa with marshmallows in it at the boat house. That, and chatting up the junior high school girls. And the Hell with the Hans Brinkers outside falling on their bottoms! We did make an annual pilgrimage to Wrigley Field each summer, mostly to humor Big Herb, an inveterate Cubs fan. They very seldom won a game, but my Dad was convinced they would, and the Pennant, too, if only we’d keep thinking Positive Thoughts. So we did ... meanwhile, the Hot Dogs there - they were just about the best in town. Well, in 1938, Big Herb’s beloved Cubs finally won their Pennant, and, bless him, he hurried home as fast as he could just to tell us the News in person. It wasn’t just “Gabby” Hartnett’s last minute Grand Slam Homer that had turned the tide --- our own good wishes and positive thoughts had also played their part. Right, perhaps they had ... Nothing like keeping everyone on the Home Front happy and content. Like most families, we had our share of seasonal traditions and these we kept religiously. Christmas vacation always meant one thing in certainty: a trip to the Chicago Stadium for Sonja Henie’s spectacular Ice Revue --- breathtaking costumes and orchestrations, Olympic skaters, and hair-raising comics-on-ice like Frick and Frack, and, the peak of the program and always dazzlingly beautiful: Sonja Henie herself, solo, a cherubic blond dream in a short glitzy skirt and spinning and wafting her way through Liszt’s “Liebestraum” --- Man alive! Now that was magic! That, ladies and gents, was a star to conjure with! The Stadium of W. Madison St. was likewise the setting for another family tradition, this one in summertime: Ringling Bros., Barnum and Bailey’s Circus! Three rings continuously alive with clowns and their exploding flivvers, acrobats and tumblers, magicians and live animal acts, and a bevy of pretty ballet girls, fluttering vast butterfly wings a hundred feet up, hanging from the ceiling by their teeth! (Ow!) And at the Grand Finale, having to stop your ears when somebody got shot out of a mammoth cannon. (I never quite grasped the charm of this.) Yet another amicable tradition: celebrating my parents’ Wedding Anniversary every February 27th, getting launched with a three-way “Kram” (Swedish for “embrace” – we called it simply a Hug-and-a-Boo.) Then a slap-up-dinner at a fine downtown restaurant --- Henrici’s or, better, still, the Berghoff, where the Wiener Schnitzel and Tafelspitz, AND the home-made Lemon Meringe Pie are to die for. This would be followed by a stage show, whatever happened to be playing that appealed to us all. One year, it was “The Hot Mikado”, another: “Porgy and Bess”, and the last such occasion in the ‘30’s (“Good riddance!” was Nell’s send-off-comment): the wonderful comedy “Life with Father” with Percy Warum as fulminating Father Day, and Lillian Gish (Yes!) as the gentle, slightly pixilated mother, heading a company said to be far superior to the popular Broadway original. Another season brought Noel Coward’s witty Spook-Comedy “Blithe Spirit”, featuring the deliciously dotty Estelle Winwood of the lace-curtained hair-do, wide-set eyes, and pixie movements, along with Dennis King, old-time operetta idol, and the chic but incomprehensible Annabella. We hoped her husband Tyrone Power could understand her better than we did. A farce my parents loved was “Leaning on Letty”, with the loose-limbed Charlotte Greenwood, whose post-performance display of rubber-legged acrobatics brought down the house. An incredible display, much loved. Then there was the dark andd melancholy Sylvia Sidney in a stage version of Nell’s beloved namesake “Jane Eyre” (her father had been born an Eyre of Eyrecourt in County Galway, where Charlotte Bronte, the author, once settled, taking that family’s name for her own heroine). One reason for Miss Sidney’s melancholy might have been having the show stolen from under her by that delicious character actress Cora Witherspoon in the cameo role of Mr. Rochester’s complaining cook. Another star turn, and one deemed by some of Nell’s bitchier lady friends as quite unsuitable for young Herbert’s innocent ears, was Clifton Webb’s waspish “The Man Who Came to Dinner” --- not for school-boys, and, consequently, relished all the more by this one. We also revelled in “Pins and Needles”, a political revue put on by members of the international Garment Workers Union in New York --- their spoof of an old-fashioned mellerdrammer was achingly funny and remains so in memory today. “Achingly funny” wouldn’t half describe Olsen and Johnson’s zany “Helzapoppin’”, which gave a new meaning to madness, but it sure took a lot of tolerance to reconcile this kind of thing with the dignified Auditorium. What counted was the great old theater was being used as such. It surely was for the next production, which came at the very close “Dirty ‘30’s” --- “Romeo and Juliet” starring the most glamorous and famous pair of lovers of the time, Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh. We all thought it was the most sumptuous and thrilling Romeo possible, but it’s now reckoned the biggest flop of the Oliviers’ otherwise distinguished career. It played in the theater I shall always love more than any other --Louis Sullivan’s masterpiece, and I write about it with a reverance reserved for very holy places. I was and indeed still am deeply devoted to this historic old theater which dates from 1889 and which played such a seminal role in my life. And when it was threatened with demolition in the early ‘40’s, my personal sorrow was so profound that I wrote critic Claudia Cassidy a lament for its apparently inexorable fate. She published it almost in full in her Sunday column in the Chicago Sun --- Fame! And at the tendenage of 15, too. But thank God and a lot of marvellous people, the Auditorium managed to survive after all and is now enjoying a new lease on life as part of Roosevelt University --- restored to its pristine splendor as a protected Historical Monument. It was there that I had my first real theatrical experience, a musical extravaganza in every sense of the word, “The Great Waltz”, music by Johann Strauss the Younger, book by Moss Hart, and featuring the soprano Marion Claire. It was she, as wife of the Music Director of W-G-N, who, in Spring 1953, auditioned and hired me for my first nationwide broadcast, commenting to the others in the control room: “We must find something that shows off his beautiful diction.” As for “The Great Waltz” itself, very little I have seen since --- this was 1936, remember --- has ever approached it for sheer theatrical magic, now, during the introduction to the Grand Finale, the bandstand with orchestra, moved swiftly and silently upstage as far as it would go, crystal chandaliers descended from above and pillars slid out from the wings on both sides. Thus, in a matter of seconds, what was just another set downstage for a bit of dialogue, was transformed into the grandest of ballrooms, crowded with handsomely dressed couples waltzing to the beautiful Blue Danube. This was Glamour. This was Theater. This was an Epiphany, and I never quite got over it. Let’s get down now to the operas my parents took me to in the 1930’s, after a quick glance back to the dark days of October 1929, when, by supreme stroke of irony, the stockmarket crash that triggered the Great Depression, neatly coincided with the opening of Samuel Insull’s brand new, twenty-million dollar, Art-Deco Civic Opera House. This soon came to be known as Insull’s Folly, and for it, his Civic Opera Company had abandoned the historic and still viable Auditorium, home of Chicago opera for four decades. Luckily, Chicago opera is now flourishing again. In the ‘30’s, the only opera being performed at the Auditorium (probably the best acoustics in Christendom) was that of Fortune Gallo’s San Carlo Company, an excellent troupe of first-class artists from home and abroad, performing standard repertory at “popular” prices a few weeks at a time before moving on to the next city. My first opera was their “Faust”, with a nice chubby Marguerite named Belle Verte, and, as Mephisto, the company’s resident bass, Harold Kravitt (these names have been flashed solely from memory). There was even a “white” ballet between the acts. It was all totally new to me and it left me hooked for life. My second night at the Opera, again the San Carlo, was Bizet’s “Carmen”, starring the Russian mezzo Ina Bourskaya. The trouble was that particular Saturday night an American Legion convention was in town, and Big Herb, a faithful, if not fanatical Legionaire, was all set to spend the evening with some of his buddies at Mme. Galli’s Italian Restaurant on the Near North Side --- a rollicking occasion reminiscent of Laurel and Hardy’s classic “Sons of the Desert” convention, which also took place in Chicago. All well and good, but what about my Carmen? I’d been looking forward to it for weeks. As curtain time approached, with the merriment showing no signs of abating, I began to twitch, and then to panic. Was I the only one who remembered our date at the opera? Nothing for it, but to burst into tears and create such a scene that the festivities ended then and there. We got to the theater just in time to miss Carmen’s Entrance and Habanera, but the important thing was we got there, period. And a terrific experience it turned out to be. Besides my tearful brouhaha at Mme. Galli’s, what I remember most about that performance was Act IV and the hardy little band of 5 or 6 supers, got up as matadors and marching round and round in the pre-bullfight parade --- in one side and out the other, then a dash backstage and in again, at least four times, each appearance getting a bigger laugh and louder hand than before. Then, for the final scene --- Brouskaya resplendent in gold lace, tier after tier down to the ground, with a matching mantilla held in place by a jeweled comb and blood-red rose. What impressed me most was the moment just prior to her death --- she made a frantic Sign of the Cross, then turned and rushed upstage to meet her lover’s naked knifeblade --this desperate, dramatic Sign of the Cross, then hurtling hurtling to her doom. Boy! That was Destiny with a capital D!!!

Get Away From Home By Alexandra H. Rodrigues I wrote this years back. Maybe it was 1972. At that time, rules at airlines were still more relaxed. Terrorism had not yet gotten the upper hand. To take a pleasure trip is fun, or is it? I was not in high spirits when, after an eight-hour ocean crossing, the 707 jetliner brought me into Holland. No matter how much some people rave about flying, I am tense when locked in the tube, when my life is at the mercy of a man I do not even know. I am referring to the pilot in the cockpit whose name one hardly ever gets to hear or it is mumbled by a flight attendant who cannot pronounce it properly. The weather was dull. The clouds, irritated by the winds, knocked against the fuselage. It sounded like a car engine knocking. From where I was sitting, which was pretty much in the middle of the plane, I could see the wings bend. How much can they bend? Customs did not bother to check my or anybody else’s luggage. The officer nodded us quickly through and hurried back into his office to escape the draft that was everywhere. I had a reservation at the Rotterdam Hilton Hotel. Imagine spending the first two days of my trip in a first class hotel before continuing to Amsterdam. The best way to get to the city from the airport was by taxi, I had been told. I was not prepared for the 60-minute ride that followed. I had been under the impression that taxi drivers in the Far East, in Mexico or Tehran, ranked first in their eagerness to make good time. The ride into Rotterdam taught me differently. Speeding on a narrow highway, my driver accelerated whenever another car came into sight and stopped short just a few inches behind that vehicle. It worked. The chased car moved over to the right lane and we passed in pursuit of the next one. My driver did speak some English but too busy with his maneuvers he would answer me with monosyllable words. I decided it was safer anyhow not to interrupt his compulsive driving, so I remained quiet. We finally arrived at the hotel, an imposing building in the center of town. I checked in, picked up the key from the concierge and took the elevator to my suite, looking forward to a nice hot shower and a hot chocolate. A cool breeze greeted me in the nicely furnished room and I asked the baggage boy, who did speak English, to turn up the heat. My tip of 2 guilder was obviously too meager as his “thank you” was hardly audible and the door was closed with a bang behind him when he left. A little forlorn I sat down on the couch and with my legs pulled up for warmth; I looked thru some folders and pamphlets introducing the magnificent services of the Hilton Hotel and the excitement of Rotterdam. I ordered my hot chocolate, two fried eggs and bacon. It came amazingly fast: 2 boiled eggs, bacon and tea in a fancy blue and white teapot. I was tired, hungry and thirsty. The tea would have to do. It was still cold in the room. I called down to the porter and asked for help. It took another 20 minutes before somebody came and made it work. The fan was blowing now. Instead of warm air, it was laboriously throwing more of the cold air. Too cold to take a shower, I settled to get some sleep first. At least the quilts looked like they would provide nice warmth. Not to miss the advertised exciting night life of Rotterdam, I left a wake-up call with the operator for 6 p.m. Since I like to dose off with music, I turned on the radio. Four different channels, no music, mostly news in Dutch and even those stations went off the air intermittently. The wake-up call came at 6 and I felt like just closing my eyes again and continue sleeping. But the room felt cozy now, so I got up took a hot shower and got dressed to go out. Under my window a group of young people was singing and having a good time. From conversation in the lobby, I found out that it was inauguration day for the new subway. The main drag was also filled with people. It looked like a miniature of Coney Island. Spinning wheels, bazaars, hot -dog vendors, entertainment all over. I elbowed my way to one of the shooting galleries. For a guilder, you could shoot and win some trinkets. If you hit a lucky number the man behind the counter would give you the prize. I had already played away 6 guilder when a little boy on the left pulled on my sleeve to stop my attempt to start a new game. Although it was in Dutch I did understand what he meant. I had already won several times without knowing but failed to get the attention of the gallery owner. Oh well, the game had lost my interest. I continued to walk along the arcade toward the spot where my map promised me a good restaurant. I found it quickly, but with the festivities in full swing it was crowded and people stood in line waiting to be seated. I tried another one a few blocks away: Same story. The natives were all over. So I went back to the Hilton and into the coffee shop. Even there I was lucky to find a table as other tourists in the same predicament had come back also. The table was so small that the waiter had to remove the little dauphin vase to find room to place the menu. I ordered and got a beer right away. It sure tasted good and cheered me up, so I did not mind to have to wait for food for quite a while. At the table next to me sat a Dutch couple with two children. The little girl, blond with pigtails, had taken to run round and round the table with never-tiring joy, making circles wider and wider till my legs felt a breeze whenever she passed in her pink dress. The happy playing of their daughter extracted laughs from the parents and delighted squeaks from the baby brother. Suddenly my dinner plate landed on my table with a crash, the sauce spilling onto the tablecloth and some green beans dangling tiredly over the rim of the plate. The waiter had collided with the little girl. The mother got down on her knees and tried to pick up some glass that had broken: It was my second beer. The little girl unperturbed continued to make her rounds. Shortly thereafter, having finished my dinner, I decided to go back upstairs. The cigarette smoke in the coffee shop had begun to bother me, and it had gotten quite noisy in the little place. I passed some time writing postcards to friends, elaborate little masterpieces that stated what a great time I was having and how marvelous everything was. I wondered if it is those postcards which all of us are getting from time to time, written by vacationing friends, which awaken in us the desire to travel. Maybe our expectations would not be quite as high if people wrote the truth. I still wrote more postcards during the following days, from Amsterdam, Vienna, Berlin and Brussels. While I was writing these cards, I was thinking of my cozy house on the south shore of Long Island. I was ready to return possibly faster than I had planned. Most of the time when I wrote “It is great” it nearly was ; but I will never forget this first day of my vacation and whenever the house and home seem boring, I open the door to my memory. A train ride to New York City, a boat ride on the Great South Bay or a leisurely walk in the arboretum will quickly satisfy my wanderlust.

Slaves to Society By Karen King

Many of us are slaves in society. We work for a pittance, trying to make ends meet. I have heard that 5% of the world owns 95% of the wealth. So, while the rest of us are struggling to pay our bills, others earn silly amounts of money. I ask, are they so much more intelligent, worthy or more talented than, say, the writing fraternity? It seems it’s easy to publish if you are already famous, but if you are not, then you are pleased if people bother to read your poetry or buy your books. Often you have to selfpublish or publish through a publisher for vast amounts of money. Is this fair when you have so much talent to give society? Many of us struggle to do what we enjoy or, more likely, we have a day job to enable us to afford to write our poetry. Still, poetry is something we have to do and we try and benefit society with our words. Just think, next time you see someone with the latest design gear, ask yourself if this is what life is all about and if you truly think they are happy for, surely, happiness comes from inside through the expression of our soul and not from outside, material goods? They feel that happiness can be bought and do not understand that it just comes about through following your soul’s path. I, personally, feel that many people have sold their souls to “fit in” and “keep up” with other people, like it is some sort of competition. They do not wish to follow their souls and find inner peace and happiness. In a way, perhaps they are also slaves to society?

Karen King Copyright February 2016

Broadway By Alexandra H. Rodrigues

All turns at one point or another into the past. Not so! Not the pulse of a city. It is there before us and after us. While around we add to its vibrancy. Particles of each of us mix with the ongoing river of renewal! In 1963, I settled in Massapequa on the South Shore of Long Island. It is a peaceful suburb of New York City. Living in one of the suburbs near the Great South Bay offers an immense advantage. Within minutes you can bathe in the rays of the setting sun painting the sky from a soft orange to a fiery red. You can find a quiet place in the sandy dunes along the beaches where the ocean roar turns into a soothing melody. You can meditate while sailing along the plentiful canals that cut through the island. You can enjoy looking at wintry bare trees bending their twigs in the wind; they nod like old men with white beards who have no command over their tilting heads. During the summer I listen to the chirping of the birds in my garden. I am happy to know that with only a 59-minute train ride, the Long Island Rail Road could take me to the glittering, buzzing, color-flashing excitement of Broadway, the heart of the city, the center of Manhattan. Theaters, cinemas, high-class restaurants all are within my reach. The Metropolitan and Smithsonian Museums, concerts and the New York Library offer to quiet any hunger for knowledge and culture. What I sensed for the City then has changed little during a lifetime of ups and downs. Out on the Island it has become harder but not impossible to find a truly tranquil spot. The City keeps coming closer and closer. The number of people wanting to live in the outskirts must have tripled. The houses have grown and the properties have shrunk. Storms have caused severe damage on the Island and terrorism has wounded the City. However, the freedom to choose whether to spend one’s days peacefully and calmly at the shores of Long Island or joining into the bustle of Midtown Manhattan remains a given. Year after year the big ball will drop down in Times Square ringing in another year to come. I often wonder about how Broadway must have looked many years ago in its first attempts to spread entertainment. It surely has come a long way since Fred Astaire walked its cobblestones as a young boy. Since Marika played music by Charles Kalman at the Winter Garden. Charles Kalman is the son of the famous Operetta King Emmerich Kalman. Charles was an Austrian film and stage composer in his own rights, who passed away in 2015. Skating at Rockefeller Center was and still is a highlight and an absolute delight, followed by a hot toddy or hot chocolate on the premises. The Old Opera House, built in 1883, was gutted in 1892 by fire, and Lincoln Center is now the home of the Metropolitan Opera. Broadway evokes in me the same feeling as does Hollywood. It is a center of show business. A multitude of stories could be written about the many hopefuls who tried and wished for stardom. Some became starlets but few made it to the top. The ones who succeeded added to the mystery of glamour and riches. What I like most about New York is the choice of where to go and what to experience. Even if you yourself are not the one to have made a career on Broadway, you will always be able to participate in the tingling exhilaration by getting a ticket to a box seat. There’s a calming continuity in ongoing customs. While I was re-reading this essay I saw that a friend of mine was just expressing the same sentiment. She writes “This weekend I visited some of NYC’s great neighborhoods. Carroll Gardens, the meat packing district, East Village and Little Italy. Saw old friends, bonded with some recent friends and made a few new friends. Saw some kick ass music, ate some great food and now I’m off to Jones Beach. All this within 30 miles of my home. I sometimes forget how much I love NY!” I have chosen my residence in Massapequa, where I still live, as starting point for my thoughts and went westward but would like to add that an equally short train ride in the opposite direction, out East, opens additional enchanting points of interest, like Fire Island and the Hamptons. No, I do not mean to ignore the North Shore with its charms. Estates are bigger; the landscape is intriguing with woods and hills. There is no end in possibilities to explore and “boredom” is not a word in my vocabulary. No money for vacation? There’s lots to see here!

Alienated By Thomas N. Hackney There’s an awful lot going on in the universe that people are blissfully unaware of, and it’s probably just as well. If people knew who we share our own galaxy with, for example, a lot of them would probably rip their own heads off rather than see or acknowledge them. There are beings drifting on currents unknown to mortal men, accomplishing things the enculturated mind just isn’t equipped to deal with. Like when twenty-one comets – not fourteen or nine -- smashed into Jupiter over six days in July 1994. Comets have long been thought to augur near future events, usually fairly catastrophic events, like the death of an emperor or of a civilization, a great flood or plague. Montezuma, the emperor of the Aztecs, feared for his empire when he saw a comet around five hundred years ago. It turned out that he was right to be afraid because it wasn’t long before his empire was in ruins at the hands of the Spanish Conquistadores. Of course, such beliefs are considered quaint today. On the other hand, twenty-one comets -- one for each Anno Domini century, by George! -- certainly did portend and mark the approaching 21st century. What a stunning coincidence, though! Was this simply the way the comet-cookie crumbled or was it the amazing handiwork of advanced beings making semiotic comment, as it were, on our last twenty centuries of history? In this author’s opinion the answer to this is both clear and overwhelming, clear because of the abundance of evidence supporting the idea, overwhelming because the importance of this revelation is off the chart. Apart from its obvious allusion to the twenty-first century, the great comet crash of 1994 was the first time anyone had ever seen a cosmic object crash into another such object in space. Designated “A” through “W” (letters “I” and “O” were not used), the fragments of Shoemaker- Levy 9 (aka “the string of pearls”) ranged in size from one or two hundred meters to approximately two kilometers in diameter. The impacts were the most energetic events of any kind ever seen by Man in his solar system, period. The combined explosions were described as being roughly equivalent to fifty million atom bombs. Astronomers assumed that the comets were fragments of a former single parent comet, one that had broken apart due to gravitational forces exerted on it by a previous close pass of Jupiter. This may well be what happened. The only problem is that there is no hard evidence to support the assertion, because the alleged parent comet was never previously seen near Jupiter, nor anywhere else. So if it did happen, then the question becomes how do you miss a thing like this? Scientists generally pride themselves on not jumping to conclusions without firm evidence to support those conclusions. Not this time. Another famous meteor impact that defied the odds in a curiously articulate fashion was the Peekskill meteor event of October 9, 1992. It occurred shortly before the Ames Research Center (NASA) commenced a massive “Targeted Search” for extraterrestrial intelligence on October 12, 1992. The High Resolution Microwave Survey, the official name of the project, was the first congressionally funded and major search for intelligent extraterrestrial life. According to the project’s chief radio-astronomer, Dr. Jill Tarter, more radio-waves in space were analyzed by HRMS in the first few minutes of operation than had been analyzed in all the previous fifty SETI projects since 1961 combined. A writer for the New York Times called it “the first comprehensive high technology search for evidence of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe.” For once in the SETI paradigm’s 30-year history, money wasn’t a problem. According to numerous videos and photographs, a string of seventy meteor fragments scored the skies of the American north-east at a little before 8 p.m. on the 9th, or three days before the launch of HRMS. One football-sized fragment impacted the right rear signal-light of a parked Chevrolet, pulverizing its attenuated right tail-light, and nothing else. This was almost, but not quite, impossible because the taillight of a 1980 Chevy Malibu measures about 5-by- 22-inches, whereas the recovered meteorite measured 4-by-5-by11-inches. Incredibly, neither the bumper immediately beneath the signal-light nor the thin chrome accent forming its upper border was significantly damaged by the impact. This meant the meteorite had to navigate between these chrome borders rather precisely. Ironically, the very words that tumble from the lips to describe this paradox are peek and skill. This could be just a coincidence, of course, but how exactly does this happen in a random and unplanned universe? SETI scientists will tell you that this was simply a coincidence, but I am not convinced. One reason for my skepticism is that HRMS was commenced on no less a date than the 500th anniversary of Columbus’s discovery of the (last) new world, America -- Oct. 12, 1992. Did it not occur to anyone at NASA-Ames that their Columbian symbolism might have been seen as a bit rich by those being searched for? After all, Columbus’s discovery and the old world’s subsequent colonization of America was a catastrophe for the indigenous peoples of that world? How were any neighboring extraterrestrials supposed to let a faux pas like this slide without inserting a word or thought or two in edgewise? Surely, there was a way for advanced extraterrestrials to accomplish this without giving away too much, like their star system of origin, their phenotype, or even their culpability in these events. The Peekskill meteor event was infused with dozens of articulating coincidences, and there is simply no way this was natural or random. I‘ve written two books -- one published in 2012, the other is as yet unpublished -- enumerating and discussing them. There is no space to mention them all here but here are four or five that stand out. 1. The annual Draconid meteor shower just happened to be at its apex on October 9 when the Peekskill meteor went down. Coincidence? Sure, but that’s only the half of it. The newspapers and TV reporters all reported that the fireball was a Draconid. The strange thing of it was that the Peekskill fireball was not a Draconid. Although no one in the press caught on to this, the fact is that Draconids travel from North to South, not South to North like the Peekskill meteor did. What were the odds that the most prominent and probably the largest shooting star that night was a sporadic and not a Draconid? Sporadics are not associated with meteor showers. Why is this important? Draconid meteors get their name because they appear to arrive from the northern circumpolar constellation, Draco the Dragon. Draco was a 6th century B.C. Athenian archon infamous for his cruel and unusual punishments; nearly every offense resulted in death. Indeed, he is the origin of the term “draconian.” Knowing their human history well, the dispatchers of the Peekskill fireball went to a lot of trouble to requisition a 27-pound sporadic meteor that night. A Draconid meteor would have implied a draconian disposition of its dispatchers, and this would never do. (Whew!) Perhaps there is a universal convention which instructs worlds to endeavor to be polite when uncloaking before a naive world. Considering NASA’s rather poor taste in symbolism when it commenced its alien-hunting project on the 500th anniversary of Columbus’s discovery of America, NASA could do well to take this sage advice to heart. 2. A 1994 article in Nature magazine began with the statement: “On 9 October 1992, a bright fireball appeared over West Virginia, travelled some 700 km in a northeasterly direction, and culminated in at least one impact: a 12.4-kg ordinary chondrite was recovered in Peekskill, New York.” (1) When one draws a line to represent that “700-kilometer” flightpath on a map, one finds that Washington DC is parallel to the line’s exact midpoint. How convenient for the U.S. capital that it should occupy the best possible geographic location from which to watch the fireball move like nobody’s business (8 mi./sec.) up the northeast corridor. But then, the High Resolution Microwave Survey was a federally funded radio-astronomy project. What’s more, it turns out the fireball began its 700 km atmospheric journey at a point in West Virginia that is adjacent to the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), one of the main facilities tapped by HRMS. The Peekskill fireball might as well have waved at the SETI scientists as they calibrated their instruments that night. 3. The car the Peekskill meteor hit belonged to Michelle Knapp who turned 18 on October 12, 1992. (2) Maybe it was just a coincidence that this teenager reached her age of majority on that bi-momentous and celebrated day, or maybe it wasn’t. Maybe it was a rhetorical question to mankind: “All grown up are we?” 4. Maybe it was just another happy coincidence that the right or impact-corresponding side of Michelle Knapp’s license plate read “933”, which numbers gave notice of Shoemaker-Levy 9’s appearance in 93/3, or March the following year. Then there is the name of the event, Peekskill, to consider. The fact that a car’s long and narrow signal-light had been pulverized from one end to the other by a meteor, which impact left the bordering chrome on two long sides of the signal-light essentially alone, tends to refute the random nature or cosmic luck theory. No, it was more like “Here’s a small peek-at our- skill, baby.” The remark, if that’s what it was, would have referenced those short videos incessantly aired in 1990-1 during the first Iraq war, the ones showing the Pentagon’s (then) new Patriot missile hitting or missing Saddam Hussein’s airborne SCUD missiles. Now, a single salient coincidence like 21 comets auguring the 21st Century is one thing, a thing that can be forgotten or even laughed off as “one of those things.” But when twenty-five such coincidences happen together, that is certainly something else entirely. What’s interesting is that the ET investigators at Ames didn’t know a whole bunch of “intelligent signals” when they actually fell on them. Did NASA’s ET investigators really miss the (alien) humor? If it makes anyone feel better, it is clear that the designers of these inter-world overtures did not want to make things too easy for SETI scientists. That would have been too simple. It seems that providing less than conclusive scientific proof of their co-existence was very much part of the plan. Offering too much in the way of proof too fast would have changed our world overnight, massively interfering with the natural history of our species. So they’d manage to get their two cents in to whomever would listen, but they weren’t about to change the status quo. I guess when you’ve been tinkering around for one or two billion years, you can get away with this sort of thing (the average age of half the stars in our galaxy is 1.5 billion years older than our Sun). In 2013 the world saw a third meteoritic salvo. The Chelyabinsk super-bolide was even more “in our face” than the 21comet salute of 1993-4 was. It was probably more conspicuous than a five-inch wide meteor aimed at a five-inch wide car tail-light. Shortly after dawn on February 15, 2013, a 60-foot meteor exploded flash-bang style high above the Russian city of Chelyabinsk. The energy released by the explosion was equivalent to about 500 kilotons of TNT, or 2030 times larger than the atomic bomb detonated at Hiroshima. With an estimated initial mass of 12,000–13,000 metric tons, and measuring about 20 meters in diameter, it was the largest natural object to enter Earth's atmosphere since the Tunguska bolide event of 1908, which flattened a remote 770 square mile forest area in Siberia. The Chelyabinsk bolide is the only meteor confirmed to have resulted in a large number of injuries. More than two thousand Russians were injured when the shock wave from the explosion shattered many of the windows in the Russian city. Around 1,500 of them applied for medical assistance. Fifty-two were hospitalized. Although a few came very close to death, remarkably nobody died. Unlike the asteroid known as 2012 DA-14, which was first spotted in February 2012 and nearly grazed Earth’s atmosphere later that same February 2013 day (say, there’s a coincidence involving meteors for you: two record-breaking asteroids in one day!), the Chelyabinsk meteor- bolide was a complete surprise. It blew apart about 18.4 miles (97,400 feet) above the Earth’s surface. Even so, some 7,200 buildings in six cities across the region were damaged by the shockwave. If it had exploded a few seconds after it did, it might have easily killed a million denizens of the Russian city. Indeed, the explosion appears to have been set off with very precise timing, because how else could thousands have been slightly to seriously injured without a single death being caused? Could that have been just luck, or was it a kind of all-knowing skill? The DA-14/Chelyabinsk double asteroid event of February 15, 2013 has never been treated in the media as anything but random and unrelated accidents of nature. As far as I know, I am the only person to ascribe these events, and the two previous ones mentioned earlier, to an extraterrestrial intelligence. A few magazines and radio talk shows have published my articles or interviewed me on the subject, but to no great effect. It’s all a little hard to fathom, I suppose, and none of it is what anyone could call cricket, but facts are facts, after all. So it should be no great surprise that the SETI experts at NASA-Ames weren’t having any of this. Why, it’s not “scientific,” that’s all. With few exceptions, the UFO posse was (is) not all that interested in meteor events for any reason, mainly because no UFOs were (are) involved, or so I imagine, and perhaps partly because we’re dealing here with IFOs, which are reasonably well identified flying objects. Compared to 49,999 UFO cases, these meteor/comet/asteroid impact events are in a completely different class. The alien overtures were made available not just to one or a handful of people, but to billions. The stories were scientifically documented by teams of top scientists, published in mainstream newspapers and magazines, and aired on network TV news shows. They became the subject of documentaries. At least fourteen videos were made of the meteor in flight, from North Carolina to the shores of the Great Lakes. Both the meteorite and the car it impacted were exhibited in the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, one of the great museums of the world. SL9, for its part, became the lead story in almost every television news show in the world for a week. Nobody is raising much doubt about Chelyabinsk/DA-14 actually happening either. There is something thunderously true about these intelligently crafted events. It is as if a million voices – not one of them human -- were trying to make something known to us. But humans are if nothing else an incredulous and self-assured species. We often delight in pooh- poohing and disbelieving evidence even when it is placed in front of us. As I was forced to accept this in the months and years following these events, I knew that I was alone and divorced from the world, though I wouldn’t trade my alienation for anything, because now, at last, I have something to believe in. It is as if a blinding light has reached down from an empyreal height and snatched me from the material world and transfixed me inside a pool of light on some netherworld. Although I am not strong or worthy enough to see into the concealing darkness that surrounds me, I sense that I am not alone, that to every side of me exist vast and powerful presences. There are so many questions: how much of the galaxy or universe do they patrol? Did they create the universe -- our universe, that is? Are we considered a threat or merely a disappointment? Are we being held at arm’s length because we are considered less than civilized? We did murder or kill a few hundred-million of our own last century, to say nothing of other species with which we share the planet. Who is the intelligence responsible for these events, from where do they direct these missives, and for what purpose? Whatever the right answers to these questions happen to be, these ingenious and loquacious beings cannot be allowed to think that we are so blind and half-witted, so self-impressed and indifferent about what goes on around us. It’s not as if they haven’t demonstrated how they might blow up something, or a lot of somethings, if we keep blowing off their “intelligent signals.” It’s simply unacceptable, scientifically, and in terms of risk, for us to know and care so little about the first intelligent nonhuman species we’ve encountered. Surely, such righteous ignorance and incuriosity will be our undoing. Unless I miss my mark, when an alien species decides to uncloak, even a little bit, it is just about the most important thing to happen. So where are the headlines, the documentaries, books and articles on this worldchanging development? Well, they’re a little hard to find but they are out there (they all have my name attached to them). As for the U.S. government, the most you’re going to find in the public domain on this subject is a recent interview of President Obama on the Ellen DeGeneris talk show. In January 2016, President Barrack Obama appeared on television with a six-year-old girl named Macey Hensley. The scripting of the interview suggests that the purpose of the segment was to allow the president to allude to our species having been indirectly contacted by extraterrestrial agencies. The relevant discourse went as follows: Macey: Is there really a book of secrets? Obama: That’s a secret. Ellen: Like what kind of secrets would you like to know? Macey: If aliens are real. Obama: Well, what do you think? Macey: Well, after watching some TV shows, I think aliens are probably real. Obama: Golly, okay. Ellen: Which TV show was that? Macey: I think it’s called “America’s Book of Secrets.” Obama: There you go … Well, the truth is, Macey, we haven’t actually made direct contact with aliens yet. But when we do, I’ll let you know. Did you catch it? “No direct contact.” This leaves indirect contact, which is the main finding of my books, articles, radio interviews and documentaries on the subject. Other than this, I will say that I have been given several plausibly deniable hints by certain anonymous members of our federal government that my discovery is being taken quite seriously, at least by some in the government. The reader will have to trust me on this, because in every instance these grey eminences have been very careful not to leave behind anything I can use. Hey, no problem. I understand. Speaking for myself, and to the aliens in question, let me say that I have really enjoyed our little chats, and hope to pick up where we’ve left off very soon.

End

[1] Nature Magazine (Vol. 367, 17 Feb. 1994) “The orbit and atmospheric trajectory of the Peekskill meteorite from video records” by P. Brown, Z. Ceplecha, RL Hawkes, G. Wetherill, M. Beech & K. Mossman [2] Gannett Suburban Newspaper (13 October 1992) “Meteorite’s landing spot a star attraction” by Bruce Golding

Herbert Eyre Moulton (1927 - 2005) Actor, Author, Baritone, Director, English-Professor, Speech-Coach, Historian, Theologian. Professional photo taken during his U.S. career as a singer for MCA Records. His professional name back then was Herbert Moore.

Making Firefox with Clint By Herbert Eyre Moulton

The bit part I played in Clint Eastwood’s Cold War adventure melodrama FIREFOX was one of Clint's first times out as both director and star. In it he plays an American pilot disguised as an ordinary businessman and sent to Moscow to steal a new supersonic fighter plane. This was Vienna 1981 --- we were living in Sweden at the time, but this didn’t stop me from trundling down to Johann-StraussVille (a.k.a. Vienna, Austria) every chance I got --- for theatre work, school radio recordings, translations, or what you will. This particular assignment was definitely of the what-you-will variety, with myself as a KGB apparatchik hovering ominously in the middle background while “Our Clint” is being interrogated by a cool, polite, and deadly Soviet customs official regarding certain suspicious-looking items in his luggage --- the usual anti-American, anything-to-be-mean hard time those boyos used to specialize in. All I was supposed to do was stand there glowering, but I fear I did considerably more than that, and I’ve got a home video-clip of the scene to prove it. It could serve as a model for all time of how prominent a bit player in the background can be, if he has a mind to, and is sneaky enough to see his chance and take it. My bit being so miniscule, such an old ham like myself --- sugar-cured, hickory-smoked, pineapple-glazed --- naturally felt it could use a bit of fleshing out, which is precisely what I proceeded to do, by the simple expedient of staying right on camera the whole time, naughty, unprofessional, but devilishly effective. All it took was swaying back and forth ever so slightly on my two little cloven hooves, whilst staring into the camera with doubt and suspicion in my eyes, real Spy-Who-came-in-from-the-Cold-stuff ... Powerful, stark, menacing. But not everybody saw it that way, and my performance did not go completely unnoticed. At length one of the camera crew spoke up rather pointedly: “Clint, please tell that gentleman to stand still ... bobbing back and forth like that, he’s making me dizzy.” A tiny reprimand, and it did no good whatsoever. Clint for one, being much too preoccupied with his end of the scene and his interrogation, nodded and went on to say nothing but give me a tiny smile. So, accordingly, there’s “Old Herbie” or “Air-Bear”, as my college friends used to call me, in that key opening reel, beginning 21 minutes into the motion picture and going for another full one-and-a-half minutes (the black-haired and elegant gentleman behind the Soviet military official), swaying back and forth, back and forth, gently, quietly, like a padded pendulum, frowning his FilthyMcNasty-Tovaritsch frown, all the while ... To show you what a fine gentleman and colleague Clint Eastwood truly is, he came over to me afterwards and --- the very pineapple of politeness (to borrow Mrs. Malaprop’s phrase), thanked me for doing the scene with him. Hmm, doing it? Dear Hearts, it looks from this end like I was doing my damndest to ruin it, though I’d swear a great and terrible oath that such was never my intent. Alas, Firefox turned out to be one of the biggest proverbial and monetary duds of Clint’s career. Purest coincidence? As in W.W. Jacobs’ classic horror story “The Monkey’s Paw”, maybe, maybe not. But given my track record before or since, who knows? Mine wasn’t much a part as parts go in “Firefox”, but was it sufficient to jinx the whole operation? If that be the case, sorry about that, Clint. Tough luck that it had to happen at such a vulnerable stage in your endeavors. It could have happened to a worse film and as anyone who reads these chronicles can tell --- could, and did. Were the fates even then getting me warmed up for a pre-destined role as plague-carrier sui generis? Stay tuned. I only knew that in the bad old days they used to toss types like me overboard to placate the angry Gods causing all the shipwrecks: “And Jonah said unto them, take me and cast me forth into the sea, for I know that for my sake this great tempest is upon you.” I guess I’m lucky I’m still more or less intact. Let’s see, how things stand now? I shot my first motion picture in Ardmore Studios in Bray, Ireland, as a seaman, with dear Cy Knapp. Between that film (1961) and Firefox lay three thousand concerts, maybe one hundred stage productions and a few dozen commercials, one or two episodes in a local TV-series, not counting the radio-programs. But as far as the motion pictures go, one vanished into the Bermuda Triangle as if it never existed, the other internationally distributed, but still a moderate flop --- 2 films, 2 flops, a perfect score. Where would the Moulton Menace strike next? The body count continues. Stay tuned. All joking aside, of all the celebrities I have had as colleagues Clint was the most supreme gentleman of them all. Alan Rickman, for his part, was a very pleasant and soft-spoken intellectual, Mickey Rourke the cool buddy-type character, David Warner the friendly thespian, Zsa-Zsa Gabor the temperamentful diva par excellance, Viggo Mortensen the consummate professional. Clint? He was, remains and always will be the prince of politeness.

The Past By Alexandra H. Rodrigues June 2016 By now this is all “The Past.” I wrote this letter in the 1980s but never did give it to my husband. In retrospect I often feel guilty. Was I not required to love my husband – till death do us part? The person I lived with at the time I wrote that letter was no longer the one I vowed lifelong attachment and love to. He had changed so drastically. So I ponder and I forgive myself for my sidestep and change of attitude toward him. He was no longer the person I had married. No longer the ideal husband or great father to our son. Sure, the traits that now surfaced had been already rooted in him when we met. Luckily his good sides stayed in the forefront for many years. He is dead now -- RIP -- I constantly try to organize happenings from my past. It does not really matter any longer. Would I act differently if given the chance to relive where I morally went wrong? I doubt it. One cannot jump over one’s shadow. Life changed, not for the better, when Alzheimer’s and personal weaknesses took their toll. Here is the letter: Dear Husband, I had hoped it would not come to this but I truly do not want to be part of the present set-up any longer. Here are the main things that irritate me: Your drinking (including having a bottle in your briefcase and sneaking a slug when you believe I do not notice). I am afraid to let our son be alone with you or have you drive him after you had had some drinks. Several times I found cigarette butts on the carpet in the living room or next to the garbage can in the kitchen. The TV will be your only choice of entertainment and I have to go upstairs since the music bothers you, the lights bother you. This way the living room is taboo for me after 6 p.m. You do not care to socialize and would not even stay in touch with your family without my friendly reminders. You avoid any true communication and make believe all is well, while even a blind hen can see that it is not. You forget what we tell you and on top of it accused me of not paying for a car repair. You had forgotten that I dished the money out the same evening after you had picked the car up. At this point I had stopped writing this letter. Guess I knew already then that I would not give it to my husband. He could also turn rather violent, and in a way I must have been afraid of his reaction. Where had the good times gone? Why had I not paid attention to earlier signs? Now, when I try to put all the loose ends together many incidents come to mind. Unimportant when looked upon as a singular happening, but fitting perfectly into the big picture of “Changes caused during the passing of time.”

Nasty, Slithery, and Short

By Eduardo Frajman “For the nature of power is, in this point, like to fame, increasing as it proceeds; or like the motion of heavy bodies, which, the further they go, make still the more haste.” Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan Ch. X I am a purple worm. I glide in silence across a two-dimensional surface of black hexagons, powered by an invisible force that requires no propulsive movement, not the undulation of the snake nor the peristalsis of the earthworm. I glide and I eat and I grow. I’ve been in this world only a handful of seconds, grown only a smidgen, when a blue-and-white megaworm lunges before me, forcing me to collide into its body. I die. The time before this I was orange. The time before that I was green. Next time I may be any one of seven colors, chosen at random by the system, but I am always the same worm. My segmented body is perfectly regular, vertically symmetrical, its only salient features the two cartoon eyes at the front end, black circles inside white ones, which move but only slightly in their eternal quest to follow the arrow that is controlled by the mouse that is controlled by the hand that is controlled by me. In every life I guide my worm avatar as it glides across the world, driven by only two goals: survive and grow. My life may end at any moment. It may last mere instants, or stretch to five, ten, twenty minutes. In either case it will be a life of “continual fear” and “danger of violent death,” a life, as Thomas Hobbes would have it, “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” Such it is in this world I’ve chosen to temporarily inhabit, the world of Slither, the multi-player online game I am playing (http://slither.io). It’s the purest, most perfect incarnation of the Hobbesian state of nature I have ever encountered. Hobbes sought to outline the proper workings of society by unveiling the core aspects of the human condition. “Nature,” he surmised, “hath made men so equal in the faculties of body and mind as that, though there be found one man sometimes manifestly stronger in body or of quicker mind than another, yet when all is reckoned together the difference between man and man is not so considerable as that one man can thereupon claim to himself any benefit to which another may not pretend as well as he.” With these words Hobbes did nothing less than launch modernity into the world. We are all, in this sense, his children. Yet, his understanding of human nature was deeply flawed, his political theory reliant on two crucial misconceptions about human psychology. First was his belief in the uncontested supremacy of selfishness. “From this equality of ability,” he claimed, “ariseth equality of hope in the attaining of our ends. And therefore if any two men desire the same thing, which nevertheless they cannot both enjoy, they become enemies; and […] endeavour to destroy or subdue one another.” Second was his notion of human beings as isolated, solitary creatures: “men have no pleasure (but on the contrary a great deal of grief) in keeping company where there is no power able to overawe them all.” In a state of nature, he concluded, without law or society to control them, isolated and selfish individuals would forever be ensnared “in that condition that is called war, […] a war as if of every man against every man.” Thanks to our understanding of our own biology, our evolutionary lineage, our observable behavior, we can categorically state that Hobbes’ view of natural man was incorrect.1 Human beings, like all apes, are social animals, and natural human life, for as long as humans have existed, has primarily taken place within families and kin-based groups. While it is true that humans, like chimpanzees, have always sought to subdue and destroy one another, they have not done so as isolated individuals, but as competing bands, then tribes, then peoples. Hermit loners exist, but they are the exception, as are sociopaths and serial killers. Indeed, the Hobbesian state of nature is all but unimaginable. Recent attempts to portray what a world of constant war of all against all would look like, in post-apocalyptic novels such as Cormac McCarthy’s The Road or films like the Mad Max series, fall invariably short. Even in the bleakest, bloodiest circumstances, loyalty, compassion, and love bloom everywhere. Not so in Slither (which I do not endorse in any official capacity and am not affiliated with in any way whatsoever, per secula seculorum, amen). In this two-dimensional world there are no groups, no family, no compassion, and no love. There isn’t even the self-interested cooperation found in most multi-player games. You move, you eat, you grow, you die. There is nothing else. Hobbes believed that fear of death would eventually force right-thinking individuals into abandoning the state of nature for the state of “the social compact,” but fear of death, while a fundamental element of Slither, for death means you must return to your initial puny form and start over, carries less of a sting when one’s avatar can be reincarnated ad infinitum. The comfort of eternal recurrence, and the safety of the virtual, afford me the opportunity to live in a version of Hobbes’ nightmare. It is an exhilarating, addictive experience. I am yellow now. My worm has a name, which I have given it: EFH. All worms have names in this world. There are many of us. I can’t tell how many. We exist together on the circular plane and never stop moving. The “small beginnings of motion within the body,” declares Hobbes, “are commonly called endeavor. This endeavor, when it is toward something which causes it, is called appetite, or desire.” We all look essentially the same. Many sport solid colors, like me, because we are playing the free version of the game. The rest, who have achieved special status by accessing it through Facebook or Twitter or other some such inanity, have customized worm avatars, painted in simple designs – white stars on a blue background, the American, French, Italian flag – or with a distorted face – one Cyclops eye instead of two, a creepy smiling face, and, most recently and incoherently, the head of a snail. Such accouterments provide no advantage in terms of gameplay. As I materialize there is no one else in the immediate vicinity. Slither does you this small initial kindness, a few instants to get your bearings. The tiny map on the bottom-right corner shows my position in the circular, uniform plane. I am closer to the edge than to the center, off to the top left, the northwest. I head southeast, then, towards the crowded middle region and danger, for I am here to play, as are all the other worms. I’m tiny at first, a tiny yellow maggot. The background of hexagons is littered with shining pellets of different sizes, which disappear as my worm touches them with the top of its head. Each pellet that I consume elongates and enlarges my body. The score is displayed on the bottom left of the screen. The higher the score the larger the worm. Score and girth are one and the same. The score quickly rises from two to three digits. I can sway now, oscillate my midsection. A red worm is here. It’s smaller than I am. If I can see it, it can see me. I have not yet reached the size to intimidate small-fries like this one. It circles me searchingly, judging my response. “Men,” cautions Hobbes, “live without other security than what their own strength and their own invention shall furnish them.” My finger tenses on the mouse. All players on Slither have a power, one and only one, besides their movement and their bodies. Holding down the mouse’s button will make the worm’s body glow and accelerate. Most players use “glowing speed” in bursts, to lunge towards or away from an enemy, to beat it out of a tasty morsel. A few play the entire game at high speed overdrive, Dom Toretto style. I prefer the lower pace, the more cautious life. The red worm has placed itself next to me. We’re moving in parallel lines now, its head slightly ahead of mine. Its intentions are clear. It means to speed up, turn abruptly, and kill me. Of course Red wants to kill me. Although I’m not gunning for it right this instant, I wouldn’t mind it at all if Red died as well. In the state of nature the only good is what is good for me: “The notions of right and wrong, justice and injustice, have there no place. Where there is no common power, there is no law; where no law, no injustice.” I know this and Red knows this and we now the other knows it. If the top of my head touches any part of Red’s body, or any other worm, no matter how big or small, I die. Much like in the state of nature, “the weakest, has strength enough to kill the strongest.” This separates Slither from most other multiplayer games, in which the most skilled combatants are virtually invincible except when fighting against each other. In Slither, as in life, skill and practice will help you, but they can only take you so far. I could lunge towards Red, but that’s not my style. I like to be patient, which pays off more often than not, in my judgment. Red’s body lights up. I press down on the button. My yellow body ignites as well. Red turns, but I’ve got the jump on him. I rush headlong, my body straight, as Red executes its plan. It’s master, man or woman, boy or girl, somewhere, anywhere on the planet, knows what’s coming. It’s too late for Red, who can’t stop its momentum and crashes into my side. Red is dead. Where its body just was, there is now a cluster of multicolored balls of red light. I swing my body towards them and consume them by tapping them with my head. The glittering remnants of dead worms are the priciest sources of nourishment, the primo stuff, that which everyone desires. A single tiny pellet floating in the black is worth three, five points. An ember of dead worm can be worth twenty, fifty, a bushel of them hundreds of girth points. Strike upon the untouched, glistening carcass of a large opponent and you can go from minuscule to massive in seconds. You start out a tiny, pathetic maggoty thing and, as you eat, become a massive, twisting, twirling, slithering monstrosity. A thousand points will earn you a nice, flowing, svelte form. By five thousand the game must shift perspective to allow you enough room to see where you are maneuvering. Reach fifteen thousand and you are one of the big boys in town and the crowd of pipsqueaks to which you used to belong now follows you around to see what you’ll do and have to swerve to avoid your massiveness. They look so small you are tempted to dismiss them as harmless. But they are not harmless. You touch one, no matter how small, and you die. And die you will, eventually. There is no victory in Slither, no lasting victory at least. The game goes on forever. After consuming Red I’m dragging behind me a beautiful thousand-point frame. I wobble my head to make my body swirl like a ribbon. The top right of the screen shows me the top ten current highest scores. Somewhere in this place there are bodies carrying ten thousand, eighteen thousand points, slithering, always slithering across the surface, looking to get larger, always larger. Somewhere, the scoreboard tells me, there’s a gargantuan thirty-nine-thousand pointer, no doubt with a host of pretenders swarming around it, either aiming to kill it or simply waiting for it to make a mistake. I move this way and that looking for them, looking for the feeding frenzies that offer the most nourishment. “In the nature of man,” claims Hobbes, “we find three principal causes of quarrel. First, competition; secondly, diffidence; thirdly, glory. The first makes men invade for gain; the second, for safety; and the third, for reputation.” Reputation, such as it is, entails having your name on the high-score bar, for as long as you can keep it there. Nobody knows who I am, of course, so glory is almost completely internal. I want to be bigger, and bigger, though nobody will ever know it. I want to be the biggest I can be. One time I reached nineteen thousand points, I was on top of the leaderboard, the largest creature in the world. Dozens of small worms hovered around me hungrily, like a pack of hyenas. I swerved and looped to avoid them, I killed one, then another, then a third. Then I died and lost everything. Why play again after that? What else is there? Well, sometimes you see a forty-thousand-level worm, sometimes a fifty-thousand. Once, just once, I saw a red behemoth who, through luck and skill and perseverance, reached eighty thousand points. I spent a long time looking for it, avoiding the attention of the big worms and the gingerly attacks of my peers. I looked and looked until I found it. It stretched endlessly in beautiful coils and curves, too big to ever be fully straight. It went on and on. Someday I’ll be that big, I told myself. I followed Big Red Giant until, inevitably, it burst into countless balls of red, which I, along with a dozen vultures like me, ate with relish. “It is consequent” to the state of nature, Hobbes reminds us, “that there be no propriety, no dominion, no mine and thine distinct; but only that to be every man’s that he can get, and for so long as he can keep it.” A bright-green Cyclops, eight hundred points or so, zips around me, looking for an opening. I twist around myself, using my body as a bulwark against its attack. Cyclops comes at me, undeterred, I spin away again, then again, until Cyclops misjudges a pass, crashes against me and dies. I turn to consume what remains. My score swells to two, then three thousand. My confidence swells at well. Bring on the giants! Once more I point my head towards the central regions, except a rainbow-striped pipsqueak appears out of nowhere and blocks my way. I die. The screen fades to black, slowly though, to allow me a fleeting view of my own remains, purple and sparkling, becoming fodder for other worms, my mortal enemies. What do I learn by living in the Hobbesian state of nature? I learn that life is short and that, though fate doesn’t always favor the bold, only by being bold will you find favor. My daughter plays Slither with the utmost caution. She hides on the edges, away from the crowds. She never kills, not because she doesn’t want to but because she never dares. Her body grows slowly, so slowly. I urge her to enter the fray, to do something, to live. “You can’t blame me for not wanting to die,” she answers, and she’s right. I can’t blame her. She is content with no glory, just living as long as she can, and this is fine in its way. Until she’s spotted, and pursued, and murdered. “That’s so mean!,” she complains to her unknowable assailant. But it isn’t, not in Slither, it’s just life. I try to use Hobbes’ words to counsel her: “because there be some that, taking pleasure in contemplating their own power in the acts of conquest, which they pursue farther than their security requires, if others, that otherwise would be glad to be at ease within modest bounds, should not by invasion increase their power, they would not be able, long time, by standing only on their defense, to subsist.” She snorts. If I’m too old to know anything, imagine how ignorant Hobbes has to be. I am purple again. The pickings are plentiful here. There’s no one around. One hundred, a hundred fifty. I enter into a scuffle with an American Flag, bigger than I, he thinks he’s so hot. I kill him and gobble up his remains. Four hundred. Six. Eight. As I seek more action, I run into an undisturbed cluster of orange lights. Probably a worm that crashed into a giant, who didn’t even notice. Eleven hundred. I’m big now. I have length and girth to protect me. A striped brown bully has encircled a blue, smaller than it, and waits for it to die. A red snail head gets in on the action. So do I. Brown Stripes is dead. We all rush to feed. Snail Head, the biggest of us all, is dead. A Creepy Smile rushes rashly into the fray and dies. So much food, all around me. I get bigger and bigger. Three thousand. Thirty-five hundred. Four, five, six thousand. When the feast is done I extricate myself from the scrum. I’m followed constantly now. Can’t let my guard down. I catch a glimpse of another battle, I rush in again. Again I’m lucky. I feed and feed and survive while so many die around me. Eleven thousand. Fifteen. Maybe this is it, the great game I’ve always pined for, in which I grow endlessly, in which I reach thirty, forty, sixty thousand. Why not? Why not me? Why not a hundred thousand? Two hundred! I’ll live forever. I will, and I’ll get larger and larger, more and more powerful, forever. I am giddy, entrapped by my own desire, “a perpetual and restless desire of power after power, that ceaseth only in death.” About some things Hobbes was undoubtedly right. I glide, seeking glory. I run into a brown giant. We measure each other up, each looking for an advantage. Brown is cautious, like me. We stay close to each other. If I get him I’ll pass twenty thousand for sure. Twenty, then thirty, for the first time ever. He floats next to me in naïve complacency. The moment is coming. I’ll get him. I make my move just as a snail head, a tiny little thing, appears out of nowhere and blocks my path. I die. I disintegrate into shimmering life-giving marbles. My mind is brought back to the non-Hobbesian world. My back aches from sitting. My fingers are cramped. Time to get up. Time to go make dinner. Time to stop playing. I don’t want to, says my desire. I won’t go. “One more life,” I promise myself.

RIGHT! WE'LL HAVE A PARTY! from the autobiography "DAMN THE DEPRESSION, ANYWAY!" Written by my father the late great Herbert Eyre Moulton (1927 - 2005) who worked as MCA-Record’s Show-Star Herbert Moore. He also conducted the Camp Gordon Chapel Choir during the Korean War, toured with his wife, the operatic mezzo-soprano Gun Kronzell, around the world as “The Singing Couple”. This true story takes place in the posh, spiritually rich but financially poor 1930’s. The picture here to the right is of my father many years later, during a party in the 1960’s (how fitting), drinking wine, chatting with his good friend, the famous Swedish opera tenor Nicolai Gedda. Now, fasten your seatbelts. Step into the time machine. Get ready to visit the culturally endowed relatives living the posh life back in the Illinois that was, sometime in the 1930’s. As long as anyone can remember, our home had always been THE HOUSE OF HOSPITALITY. Through thick or thin, palmy days or the Depths of the Depression - between the extremes of my father Big Herb's practicality and Nell's "To Hell with Poverty - we'll sell the pig!" liberality, we always managed to make every visitor feel happily at home. Most of the regulars at this snug little oasis of ours were survivors of a picturesque world that, since the Stockmarket Crash of 1929, had evaporated fast. Their families had once held sway in a score or more of vast old turreted woodenframe mansions which still ornamented the town, left over from the Gilded 1880's, a few of which still stand to this day, plaqued (as they say) as Historical Landmarks. One of these - Eastbourne - had from the mid 1890's been my Dad's family home, last occupied by my Uncle Harper and his peripetitic family - three sons and his great billowing Southern Belle of a spouse, Clara by name, but known to all and sundry (all except us, that is) as 'Honey". They blowsily occupied the old manse until late in the 1930's, when it was unfortunately demolished. To this day it forms a marvelously gloomy, House-of-Usher background for a lot of my earliest memories - fifteen huge, high-ceiling rooms, many with fireplaces. Of these, the room I remember best was the library, a museum really, cluttered as it was with bayonets, shell-casings, dress-swords with sashes, handguns, even spiked officer's helmets from the old German Imperial Army, just the thing for our boyhood extravaganzas inspired by the historical movies we saw on Saturday afternoons. These were souveniers of the time in France in 1917-18 by my Dad Herbert Lewis Moulton and his two younger brothers, Wes and Harp. The rest of this spacious old mansion contained family and servants' quarters, hotel-sized kitchen and laundry facilities Eastbourne had been a popular cross-country inn until my Grandfather bought it to house his lady-wife and brood of six children, plus servants that included at least one live-in nanny. One of them was a wonderful black Mammy, Maisie pardon the lapse! - with her daughter Rachel, my first experience with folk of other colors, and a delightful one or was, too. (Rachel, grown to young womanhood, was my baby-sitter when I was a nipper.) Further amenities included a billiard room, a glazed-in conservatory (south side, of course), and a large lofty attic filled with memorabilia of untold splendor, a porte cochere, and two pillared porches, which Honey in that booming Texan foghorn used to call Galleries, much to Nell’s unconcealed disgust: “Haw-puh! Frank! Leeeeeeeeeeee! What yawl doin’ on that gall’reh?” On the sloping, wooded lawns were the remains of a croquet- and a tennis-court, outbuildings where the cows and the horses were billeted (named Chummy and Princess, and Duke and Lightning, respectively) and by the time we began playing in it, a slightly ramschackle summer house. People can talk all the like about the delight about the ante-bellum Southland, but its post-bellum northern counterpart, based, not on slavery, but on industry and commerce, had a no-nonsense charm of its own. It was in settings such as these that was played out on that long, in retrospect lovely American twilight up to the start of the first World War, which is celebrated in plays such as O’Neill’s “Ah, Wilderness!” – tea-dances, ice-cream socials, masquerades, and amateur family theatricals, with house-music provided by all five of the Moulton boys, with sister Minnie at the piano. After the war, the twilight lingered on spasmodically until the grand old memory-drenched house was sold off and demolished. Even then, in the late 1930’s, we’d gather a carload of friends and drive over on a summer evening to pick basketfuls of the fragrant lillies-of-thze-valley which still flourished in a corner of the original garden. It was the dispossessed heirs of these once proud dynasties, the greying sheiks of yesteryear with nicknames like “Babe” and “Bunny” and “Wop”, with their ex-flapper Shebas, all raucous voices, middle-age spread, and clouds of perfume with names like Mitsouki or Emeraud, who used to crowd our little dining room on Saturday evenings (the table top decked in an old army blanket) for intense penny-ante poker sessions, sometimes using matchsticks for chips, laughing at off-color jokes way above my head and puffing their Old Golds and home-rolled “coffin nails”, while the Budweiser flowed and soda crackers got crumbled into bowls of Big Herb’s special chili-con-carne, to the accompaniament of Paul Whiteman records or Your Hit Parade on the radio-phonograph hard by in the living-room. I loved these gatherings in my parents’ cronies – Big Herb’s out-of-work business colleagues or American Legion (Fortyand-Eight) buddies and their wives or lady-friends. Many of them had been the blithe and breezy Charleston-dancing, hipflask toting young marrieds, who (I was told); used to switch partners on weekend treasure-hunts, and in that still infamous Crash had lost everything but their social stature (whatever that amounted to) and their sense of humor. Thus had John Held, Jr. given wa to the late Scott Fitzgerald. To me these people were as fascinating as visitors from another galaxy, caught in what today would called a time-warp. Authemntic “Twenties-Types” (if one thinks about them now) and I couldn’t get my fill looking at them – everything they did shone with enough of the glamour of lost wealth which set them apart from everyone else we knew (God, was I that much of a snob at the age of nine or ten?). Special fun were those evenings which suddenly turned musical, like the time when a lady with hennaed hair unloosed one of Delilah’s arias from “Samson” in a rich boozy contralto, then huddled at the keyboard with a lady friend to harmonize “Sing to Me, My Little Gypsy Sweetheart”. (Nell later reported that they were both sharing the same “beau”, who happened to be our family dentist. (What a sensation that was!) So the poker sessions rolled merrily along, spiced now and then with one of the men getting sobbing drunk and passing out on the livingroom couch, or one of the married couples indulging in a strident battle which mesmerized me even while being hustled out to my bedroom by one or the other of my parents. Boy, it was as good as having a movie-show right in our own living room. Besides which, they were all exceedingly nice to me, slipping me a shiny new dime now and then or taking time out to show me card tricks or draw pictures, or sometimes work with me on my pappet theater or Erector Set. One of our occasional guests was the cartoonist Dick Calkins – Lt. Dick Calkins, as he signed his Buck Rogers in the 25th century newspaper strip. One Saturday eveing, though half-sozzled, he spent a good hour painstakingly drawing cartoons of Buck and his girlfriend Wilma Deering on facing pages of my autograph book and dedicated to me alone. (Naturally, treasures such as these eventually disappeared – gone, alas, like our youth too soon.) Thee smoky, sometimes emotion-charged pow-wows weren’t quite the proper fodder for the local newspapers, but there were plenty of other tidbits lovingly provided by Nell at the drop of a phone-call.

The Musician By Alexandra H. Rodrigues This is the story that has made its rounds over the years. Again and again I am fascinated with it. It has so much truth to it and always invites to ponder. The locations and timeframes change in the different stories and are of no importance and are fictional. Penn Station, New York City. More than 600,000 people moving through it daily. It is 5 o’clock on a Thursday afternoon. A dreary grey winter day outside. It is not a day to inspire happy thoughts. Till – they rush to catch the train to Long Island that will bring them home after a tiring day of work. Beautiful, classy tones of music greet them. One young man follows the sound. On a blanket, on the floor near the ticket counter, a middle-aged man is playing the violin. The young man stops for a minute, throws a dollar bill into the dish and hurries on. The violinist has made his first dollar for the afternoon. He was playing music from Bach, well-suited for the day. Ten minutes later a kid about ten years old runs up to the musician, his young eyes full of wonder. The mother orders him back and he obeys regretfully. A few other kids stop, but none for long. The musician played for 45 minutes. A few quarters and another dollar bill find their way into the dish. After that, the violinist carefully and with a loving gesture wraps his violin to protect it. There had been no recognition, no applause. The musician had played the identical music to a sold-out house in Washington two days prior. Price per seat: $100. The violin used at Penn Station and also in Washington has a value of $3.5 million. I keep asking myself the same question whenever I stumble anew over the story. The same virtuoso, the same instrument. Why the poignant difference in reception? Are recognition, gained glory and surroundings what make the enormous difference? Is it that the minds of the passersby at Penn Station are not on music at that time? Is it that only the people who truly understand music go to concerts? Questions are manifold and so are the answers. I am still trying to figure out the deeprooted explanation. The how-come and the why. Are our minds on overdrive as we rush through our daily lives? How many opportunities do we miss this way?

Colenton Freeman Atlanta’s Gift to Opera Article by Charles E.J. Moulton

The gift of singing made all the difference in Colenton Freeman’s life. Such chances were not easily obtained for African-American young males in the early 1970s. However, through the grace of God, his family, teachers and mentors, he was able to pursue and achieve excellence. They were short on cash, the Freeman family. It was a simple life, but Ms. Freeman saw how talented the boy was. This was all about the boy’s future and the talented mother supported the superbly gifted young man in his will to succeed. It made all the difference. So it came as no surprise that the single mother in Atlanta, Georgia, supporting her young son Colenton in his endeavors, saw this natural born creativity getting nourished and blossoming into perfection. Accordingly, she allowed the boy to learn how to play the trumpet, the violin and the piano. He sang in the school chorus, played in the school band, received an oil painting set and an Olivetti typewriter, and, along with his sister and brothers, a set of World Book Encyclopedias for Christmas. All in all, the creative little boy, already a skilled academic, became a true Renaissance Man even before coming of age. The mother was not the only one that nourished his talents, however. His grandmother, Mrs. Annie Mae Morgan brought him to the community of the West Hunter Street Baptist Church, where he started taking piano lessons with Miss Deleicia Maddox. This woman conducted the Children’s Cherub Choir, which turned out to be a real treat for the young boy. Colenton sang in all the choirs, even the adult ones and he was damn good at it. So, accordingly, Colenton Freeman was on a roll. As with so many musicians and singers who have made it to the top, the Baptist Church inspired him. He played the piano for Sunday School. So well, in fact, that the Reverend Dr. Ralph David Abernathy decided to make the 16-year old the Assistant to the Minister of Music, paying him the handsome wage of $ 20,00 every Sunday. Not bad for the son of a single, hardworking mother. Not bad even for a high school student back in the 1970s. But there was more. Much more. In 1972, Colenton sang in a University Summer Chorus and met a man named Billy G. Densmore, who was a tenor and sang in this chorus as well. As fate would have it, Colenton was given a seat next to this man. Densmore was an Atlanta City Public Schools music teacher at an elite High School which was 97 % white. The 3% black students were the créme de la crème of prominent and wealthy African-American families. Densmore loved Colenton’s voice and told him that he could develop his already obvious vocal talent if he came to his school. Colenton said no, knowing how excellent his own, all-black high school already was. It had a new building with an excellent, music teacher named Harold Hess who happened to be white and was adored by all. Hess had put on productions of musicals like “West Side Story” and “Porgy and Bess” at the school. Leaving was not an option. Mr. Densmore, however, was persistent. Still, Lady Fortune kept on penetrating the boy with hints. Densmore made it a point to ask Colenton at every rehearsal if he had changed his mind yet. As a result, Colenton started avoiding Densmore at rehearsals, but a man’s destiny is a journey of discoveries. One day, Harold Hess announced that he was leaving Colenton’s high school in order to work on his Masters degree at Indiana University. As a result, Colenton decided to follow Densmore to his school, Northside High, which years later became Northside School of the Performing Arts. Because Colenton’s decision to attend Northside was very last minute, strings had to be pulled in order to get the young boy admitted and the high school student began the journey of discovering Opera, Italian Art Songs and German Lieder. The already fantastic voice developed to include a magnificent high range with easy full-voice high D’s. Through Densmore, Colenton came in contact with famed conductor Robert Shaw, who chose him to sing “Comfort Ye” from Händel’s “Messiah” with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra at a Christmas Concert at the age of 16. With all this going on, the question which college to attend seemed logical. Instead of choosing Julliard, living in the dauntingly difficult Big Apple, Colenton chose Oberlin Conservatory in Ohio. It turned out to be a good choice. He spent the next five years there, studying voice with the great tenor and vocal pedagoge Richard Miller. Later he went on to study at the Indiana University School of Music with the well-known Wagnerian soprano and famed voice teacher, Margaret Harshaw. Colenton, this ambitious young kid from Atlanta, was going to make it, all because his mother had believed in his abilities. At age 25, he worked at the San Francisco Opera with the likes of Leontyne Price, Luciano Pavarotti, Placido Domingo, Leonie Rysanek, Birgit Nilsson, James King, Jess Thomas, Reri Grist, Anja Silla, Simon Estes and Margaret Price. He started out in a leading role in an opera he had sung as a student in Bloomington, Indiana, “The Cry of Clytemenestra” by resident composer and professor of composition John Eaton. Colenton sang the world premiere in Bloomington with subsequent performances in New York. When San Francisco “Spring” Opera decided to produce the piece, they chose four singers from Indiana to come to San Francisco and Colenton was one of the four. It was such a big success that the head of the San Francisco, Maestro Kurt Herbert Adler, requested an audition on the big stage singing standard repertoire. Colenton did and Adler offered him a contract for the Fall Season which included covering Pavarotti as Radames in “Aida”, covering Domingo and Franco Bonisolli as Don José in “Carmen”, singing both Arturo and Normanno in “Lucia di Lammermoor”, two small roles in Shostakovich’s “Lady Macbeth” with Anja Silla in the titel role and the role of the Messenger in “Aida” with Big P. The “Aida” was to be broadcast live by satellite to Europe. What a fantastic opportunity for the young man. Colenton Freeman was both thrilled and nervous at the same time. After San Francisco came a last minute offer from the Hamburg State Opera to come and replace Vladamir Atlantov as Don José in “Carmen”. The gifted tenor did not know what to do, so he called famed bass-baritone, Simon Estes who advised him to go for it. “What should I ask for?” Colenton asked Simon. Simon gave him a price, but added to take it even if they offered less. Simon was flabbergasted that Hamburg without hesitation agreed to pay an unknown singer so much money. The one performance pleased the Hamburg Opera so much that Colenton was offered another show. The enthusiastic young tenor phoned home from his European hotel, calling friends and family about the success. As a result, he ended up paying one entire performance fee of 4000 Deutsch Marks for the hotel and phone bills. How ironic that his loving and supportive mother died in January of 1982, just as his career took off. Brilliant artists are spiritual people, though, and I am sure that Colenton knew that his mother’s soul was there with him on stage when he sang Alfredo in Verdi’s “La Traviata” in Carmel Valley. Because of the evident emotion in Colenton’s voice as a result of his mother’s passing, during a musical run-through of the opera, the conductor came up to him and said: “That is some of the most beautiful singing I have ever heard in my life.” The love Colenton had for his mother filled his voice with beauty and inspiration. Gratitude turned into spirit, spirit turned into artistry, artistry turned into success. After spending the summer with his family, he went to New York to audition for an agent at Columbia Artist. The agency ended up taking him on as a young singer with conditions. The conditions being that they would work together for two years and see how things go. It ended up becoming four exciting, yet difficult years. In fact, like many young singers living in New York, he had to get a temporary job to make ends meet. He was a very good typist and was able to get constant work at Law Offices, Banks, etc. He was offered a permanent position at Chemical Bank, working for a female VicePresident. Colenton’s always honest and sometimes even cheeky attitude came exploding out, reminding him of his mother’s constant reminders to control this honesty. Colenton thanked the boss of the Chemical Bank for the offer, but told her: “You know, you treat me special now because I am an artist and temporary. However, if it became a permanent situation, you would start to see me differently and I could not live with that.” This self-confidence, however, was the attitude that gave him his Carnegie Hall debut singing with two orchestras, making his Carnegie Recital Hall debut, singing with the Santa Fe Opera, Glyndebourne Opera Festival, the Bellas Artes in Mexico City, Opera Orchestra of New York, Chicago Lyric Opera, among others. Still, the work was not enough to live on 12 months in the year. He would be singing these glorious operatic roles for 3 months and then going back to the office. He invited his boss at the International Center for the Disabled in New York to hear him sing the tenor role Calaf in Puccini’s “Turandot” at the Boston Concert Opera. At the office on Monday morning, he told Colenton how much he enjoyed the performance and then added: “My colleague, who came with me, leaned over during the performance and said: how could you even possibly give that man a letter to type?” What was the phrase “Old Blue Eyes” crooned, one that actually proved to match this situation? “If you can make it there, you can make it anywhere.” Colenton not only was making it in New York City. He was turning his success into a triumph. After 4 years in New York and being released from Columbia Artist, because they felt they could not give his career the time and care it needed, he was advised to come to Europe and try his luck there. He won a grant from the Astral Foundation in Philadelphia, which financed an “Audtion Tour” of Germany for 3 months. In fact, the very doctor who had attended the Turandot performance in Boston helped him write the grant proposal. He contacted German agents and auditioned for them when he arrived and was sent on several auditions. A grueling, but exciting experience. Arriving in Germany three months before, he finally got an offer for a “Fest” contract at the Stadttheater Giessen, he brought with him a splendid proverbial treasure chest of operatic gems. Mind you, he had already sung at some important places and the best he could do was a small German theater in the middle of nowhere? On one hand, he was relieved to finally get a job, because he did not want to return to America empty-handed. But, he felt that he should be singing in Munich, Hamburg, Berlin or even Cologne. But, Giessen? Well, he said yes to the offer, thinking he could change his mind later if he wanted to. The tenor returned to New York in the middle of December. After several weeks, the agent from Munich called him to talk about the terms of the contract with the Stadttheater Giessen. She was so excited about the roles they offered. He would make his debut as Rodolfo in Puccini’s “La Boheme”, then Alfred in “Die Fledermaus”, Lionel in “Martha”, the title role of “Idomeneo” Melot in Wagner’s “Tristan und Isolde” and L’amante in Menotti`s “Amelia goes to the Ball” with Menotti as guest stage director. It all sounded good, until she told him what his monthly salary would be. He had really no idea about salaries and life in Germany. Only, the amount they offered did not sound like enough. So, he told the agent, “I want more!” There was silence and then a flabbergasted: “How much more?” The answer: “A thousand D-marks more,” came as a surprise to say the least. “Mr. Freeman, Giessen is a small theater. They cannot pay that kind of salary. And this is your first German contract.” He then said: “Well, I am not coming, if I do not get more money.” Colenton Freeman put his goals and talents on this high roulette-wheel-like bet, knowing that his brilliant abilities would have him win in the end. So, she said she would relay the message. The next week she phoned and was almost hysterically excited: “Herr Freeman, they said YES to your conditions!” Colenton again had won over professional opera directors by being honest, cheeky and self-confident. So, he ended up here in Europe, travelling a long, glorious, exciting and sometimes difficult ride of operatic bliss. This gift of singing made all the difference in his life. Such chances were not easily obtained for African-American young males back in the early 1970’s. Through the grace of God, his family, teachers and mentors, though, he was able to pursue and achieve excellence. He was never taught to feel inferior in any sort of way. He came from very humble beginnings, but always given the very best that his family had to offer. Also, his church family was constantly supporting him morally and financially. Pursuing the operatic road led directly to his international career and his arrival in Germany, back in 1986. In many ways, he is still the little boy from Atlanta, Georgia. Although, he has been fortunate in his adult life to experience life at it’s best, he has remained true to who he is and true to his background. He can sit down at a dinner table with royalty, wealth and power and enjoy a 6-course meal with a place setting consisting of 10 pieces of silverware, eating caviar, drinking Chateau Margaux wine and the next day eat a simple Southern meal of fried chicken, cornbread, collard greens, potato salad, fried corn and squash casserole and be just as happy and content. Today, he sings a lot less. He devotes his life now to teaching young up and coming future talent. He has taught students from all over the world, including Japan, Korea, China, Italy, France, Spain and, of course, Germany. He also teaches those who just like to sing and want to have better control over their voices. He helps to prepare young people for the entrance auditions at conservatories and universities in Germany where he resides. This work is also fulfilling, he tells me, although naturally different from his previous life on the stage. He does not have to worry about his voice anymore. He is concerned about the voices of others. There are two main lessons we learn from the way Colenton Freeman always has and always continues to manage his career: persistence always triumphs in the end. Above all, however, we learn that if a child’s talent is supported by a loving parent, this love can turn a passion, an inner will to blossom, into a glorious future. Parents have the huge responsibility to nurture their children’s talents well. The children will eventually thank them for it in ways they can never begin to comprehend. I can only say, being a singer myself, that having a vocal pedagogue with this kind of experience feels like winning the lottery three times over. During my time working as a baritone in Hamburg, we met at a Voice Teacher Conference at the Music Academy. Colenton, my mother, the experienced international operatic mezzosoprano Gun Kronzell (1930 – 2011), and myself really hit it off and I have kept contact with him even after my mother’s passing. Professional interest turned into a heartfelt friendship and a heartfelt friendship turned into a prosperous collaboration. And you know what? The greatest thing is this: Colenton Freeman is not just a man with a wonderful voice. He is a wonderful person.

A Modern Orpheus - The Making of the film "Dead Flowers" By Herbert Eyre Moulton (1927 - 2005) Written in 1994 “A lyrical film, a flop ...” So wrote the Austrian film magazine DIAGONALE about “Dead Flowers” three years after the fact. And this was really tragic, this flop, one of the few movies I’ve ever been associated with that was truly all of a piece, with no nonsense and no camp about any portion of it. It was only the second work by the brilliant young Austrian writer/director Peter Ily Huemer, who divides his time between his native Vienna and his adopted New York, where he lives and works. Huemer’s first work, the film noir “Kiss Daddy Good Night”, had been shot in New York and was just as much a success as “Dead Flowers”, made in Vienna. Financially speaking, let it be said, it was a failure. It stands today as a thoroughly fascinating modern retelling of the old Orpheus and Eurydice myth, transplante to the industrial outskirts of the city and its robust working class, a totally integrated work, in turns endearingly funny, raunchy, somber, spooky, and disturbing. Huemer, known as a man of understatement, is a thoughtful and indeed lovable “Mensch” of infinite patience and kindness, especially towards his chosen players. And with what care he chooses them, too. His casting sessions are famous for their thoroughness. Mine lasted well over half an hour and consisted mainly of thoughtful pauses and groping for the answers to his many searching questions, some of them personal, some seemingly irrelevant, many of them psychological: What animal would you like to be, and why? What would you do if a child of yours was in serious trouble/ mixed up with drugs/ killed in an accident? What would you do to try and prevent it, if possible? Have you any cruel impulses, surpressed or otherwise? Questions like that, a baffling, mentally stretching half-hour ... and then no word of the results for weeks. In fact, I’d quite forgotten the whole incident when the agent handling it phoned and said I’d been cast as Mr. LeMont, a rich, powerful executive at the United Nations, in some way mixed up with arms smuggling. As a bonus, Mr. LeMont would speak in my own dulcet tones, Chicago-Deutsch and all, without being dubbed later by some lowViennese kraut-head, as so often happens. LeMont’s only daughter Alice is the Eurydice of the tale, who was killed in a traffic accident two years before and comes back mysteriously from the underworld to fall in love with the hero, or anti-hero, Alex. And never has Eurydice had a more unlikely Orpheus, laconic, rough-appearing, almost primitive, but with a huge heart and tender nature, by profession with the harrowing of hell with his shirttail hanging halfway out. Alex lives with his dotty old grandmother (Tana Schanzara, who received an international prize for her delicious portrayal), a grandma who talks to herself when not addressing the image of her dead husband in his illuminated closetshrine. Whenever she happens to stumble, out in her garden, she just has to lie there on her back like a tortoise, squealing and calling out until somebody, Alex usually, appears and helps her to her feet again. Into this odd little household comes my daughter, Alice/Eurydice, whom Alex has picked up one night hitchhiking on the highway, bruised and soiled as if she’d been in an accident. This is a haunting performance by the American actress Kate Valk, whom in the idiotic way of moviemaking I have never ever met, while I was filming, she was onstage in New York. Alice is a figure of mystery, and is already being stalked by a sinister network of agents from Hades, headed by a sadistic creep named Willy deVille, in mauve Liberace-type outfit and dark shades. The flight of the young pair, Alice must be returned to Hades whence she escaped, is packed with danger and excitement and ends up in a truly scary night-sequence in a shut-down zoo. There she gets separated from Alex and is abducted by deVille. Now deeply in love, Alex breaks out in a desperate search which leads first to Alice’s father, who only compounds the mystery. And that’s where I come in, out of the butler’s pantry for once, and into a top position in the UNO-City-by-the-Danube. I’m first seen in the parking lot there, getting into my big expensive car to drive to my big expensive home in Grinzing. On the expressway I’m increasingly aware of Alex tailing me in his van. Once at my place, he gets himself zapped unconcious by a couple of goons in my employ – Blues Brothers types, only evil, and comes to my cellar where I’m enjoying his getting roughed up, that is, until he mentions his quest for Alice. At which, I get up and come forward to inform him that she has been dead these two years now, the victim of a traffic accident, which Alex, of course, finds incomprehensible. After a moment’s consideration, I order my gorillas to set him free. LeMont had only a couple of scenes, but these were as meticulously staged and filmed as if it were a major role in a top-budget thriller. Peter guided me through them with great patience and understanding. For the interrogation in the cellar he took me step-by-step, phrase-by-phrase, until, speaking of my dead daughter, I was almost choked with emotion – this tough, amoral, affluent wheeler-and-dealer. For the chase on the expressway, the traffic was blocked off so that I could race down the wrong way, for a more advantageous shot, the camera whirring away just at my right elbow and Peter directing me from the back seat: “Okay, Herbert, now look in the rearview mirror to see if he’s gaining on you – now speed up a bit – glance at the side mirror, speed up slightly again – shift in your seat – another glance in the mirror – excellent, Herbert, super! That’s it, CUT! Thank you very much!” Alex’s quest culminates in a foggy rowboat-crossing of the Danube/River Styx – Huemer’s screenplay follows the old legend faithfully, and is studded with intriguing details like Alex meeting a dead pal, just recently killed in a train accident involving the express from Salzburg, the “Rosenkavalier”. He inquires how it was that Alex died – Alex tells him he’s only visiting. Then, in an unforgettable encounter with The Boss, who turns out to be a transsexual Bulgarian woman in a dark suit and boy’s haircut, he learns that, in order to get Alice freed again, someone else must die in her place ... This little detail is neatly dispatched by dear old Granny, once Alex gets back to the other side. A fresh viewing of our “Dead Flowers”-video (recorded off the air) convinced me that this is nothing short of a minor masterpiece which deserved a far happier fate than a few prizes and citations from scattered film festivals, followed by a week in a grotty little cinema in Vienna’s 9th district. There, except for a couple of teeny gigglers, my family and I were the only audience that dismal Saturday afternoon – after which it folded up its petals and crept into oblivion. Some days later, wretchedly true to form, advertising posters began blossoming in streetscars and buses and on railway platforms – just one more example of too little/too late, as if purposely being sabotaged by the insensitive slobs in charge of promotion and distribution. No doubt they were already launched on something much more commercial, something reeking of sentimental schmaltz, but profitable. Peter’s only printed comment: “Da ist man schon einige Zeit angeschlagen – You can be pretty hard hit for a while after that.” As for the ultimate fate of Alex and Alice, one can only hope there’ll come another oppurtunity some day to re-live this haunting and fascinating picture. Given half the chance it still has all the makings of a genuine cult-film.

Will there be a David-Bowie-Street in Berlin? By Charles E.J. Moulton They flock in droves to Hauptstrasse 155 in Berlin-Schöneberg, laying flowers on the pavement in front of the

megastar’s former flat. They listen to his music in order to calm down their sorrow. The legend, who sold 140 million records world wide, died on Sunday night, January 10th, 2016, of liver cancer, two days after his birthday. Since then, his Berlin-fans have launched a movement to inspire the city to name a street after the star. Politician Daniel Krüger doesn’t exclude the possibility that this could become a reality, “but first in five years, according to state law”. It would make perfect sense. Berlin meant a great deal to David Bowie. He spent many formative years here that shaped his musical career, recording the famous Berlin Trilogy at the Hansa Studios, changing Rock history forever and still keeping a safe distance to his own fame. On his 57th birthday, his friend Ricky Gervais joked: “Isn’t it time you got a real job?” Bowie mused: “I have one. Rock God!” This wit was Bowie incarnate. He was the intellectual art collector with a brilliant mind and still the tongue-incheek-rebel with a brave heart. The director of Bowie’s Broadway-Musical “Lazarus”, Ivo Van Howe, told reporters Bowie broke down during rehearsals back-stage last year, but still spoke of writing another musical, soon enough. A David-Bowie-Street in Berlin would most certainly make many fans happy, perhaps even give young rockers enough guts to try to make it as musicians.

The Life and Times of Voyager Television Review by Charles E.J. Moulton

We could be watching Harrison Ford running through the wilderness hunted by U.S. Marshalls, we could be following Charlton Heston lost in the future hunted by apes or just following Thelma and Louise on their road toward crime and debauchery. Then again, we might be travelling with Captain Kathryn Janeway and her crew lost 70 000 lightyears from home. However we choose to experience our lust of joining mutual seekers of the journey, the result of that search is the same. The road is the way. We all love seeing people travel, but why are we drawn to stories about seekers? If we don’t travel ourselves, we do so through others. That conveys movement and there’s nothing we love so much as movement. Many people are lost, many people hope to find something real beyond that proverbial rainbow. Then, of course, there is the afterlife. We really belong somewhere else: in heaven with God. Every life we lead here on Earth really brings us back to work on some task or solve some problem. “Star Trek: Voyager” ran for seven seasons and the reason for its success is the fact that it really is an extended road movie. So, here it is: a team of space explorers is sent out on an away mission, prepared to be away a couple of months at the most. Among them are talented prisoners on parole, fresh graduates and experienced veterans. The ship, however, gets catapulted through the galaxy 70 000 lightyears from home by mistake and so the crew has to find another way home. On their way home, they encounter a hundred species, visit hundreds of distant planets and ultimately change the course of time. The fascinating aspect in general is the eternal question we always ask ourselves every time we read a book or watch a film: what if? What would a world based on interstellar communication look like? What might aliens look like? What would their world be like? We know how it is to travel between New York and Rio, but what would a world look like that is based on travelling between planets on a regular basis. Roddenberry continues on a very old tradition that Homer, Voltaire, Melville and Verne dwelled in: the journey. Captain Janeway is a future day Don Quixiote. Encountering barbarians and killers just as much as benevolent philosophers on her seven year odyssey, she perseveres in spite of incredible setbacks. Actress Kate Mulgrew’s uncanny resemblance to Katherine Hepburn got her the job portraying the famous thespian in a one-woman show. It is also Mulgrew’s almost painful and ruthless, Hepburnesque, honesty that keeps the spaceship going and eventually takes the weird and wonderful crew home to Earth, eventually happy, eventually joyous. Robert Beltran’s extraordinary mixture of internal depth with an angry command, as First Officer Chakotay, gives Janeway’s Sherlock her conscience of an eternally wise Watson. In more ways than one, we here have a resiliant team that would not survive as a singular unit. Even when they are stranded alone on a lonely planet, their almost marital team inspires Chakotay’s Adam to create an unusually resistant Eve. Only toward the end of the episode, when Janeway gives in to her quiet seclusion, are they saved to return to Voyager. Adam and Eve again, willingly unwilling, become Bill and Hillary. Robert Picardo breathes life into The Doctor in a role that couldn’t be more different than his most famous portrayal as the Cowboy in “Innerspace”. For those of us who followed Voyager through its journey, the holographic doctor’s love of opera he presents created episodes like “Virtuoso”, where Verdi could be introduced to viewers and aliens alike alongside simple songs like “Someone’s in the Kitchen with Dinah”. The Doctor also becomes an author, a husband, a commanding officer and an advocate of human rights. Wonderfully holographic. I remember seeing Tom Paris-portrayer Robert Duncan McNeill in a Twilight Zone-episode named “A Message from Charity”. Since then, he has come a long way. His matter-of-factway and almost functional form of acting grew in time and became a real jewel of storytelling toward the sixth and seventh seasons of Voyager. McNeill’s very American truthfulness is sympathetic and his cute and constant reparté with Harry Kim in the Captain Proton episodes are worth while to say the least. Jeri Ryan’s looks have been described as worthy of expressions like “Va-Va-Voom”. Although rather sterile a role, she manages to unify moments of tenderness with a cyborg’s hard battle for individuality as “Seven of Nine”. Tender episodes such as “Someone to Watch Over Me” give us that sweet sneak-peeks of viewing other talents emerge other than looks and strong acting. Her duet with Picardo makes the listener wonder what she would do as the vocalist of a big band. Maybe she already is one. If that is the case, a fellow big band vocalist like me would like to hear her perform songs like “Fly Me to the Moon”. No Star Trek-ship is complete without a Vulcan. So it is actor and Blues-singer Tim Russ that gives us his constant concentration as Tuvok. The moments when Tuvok is allowed to step outside his own controlled boundaries, however, are the most memorable. Russ is allowed to become a tender and angry soul, happy and enthusiastic, and we find much more beneath that controlled enigma. Shakespearian actor Ethan Phillips turned Talaxian tour-de-force and Janeway-Alter-Ego Neelix into a weirdly wonderful Pumbaa-like caleidoscope of alien and gastronomical wit. I know he has spent years doing Star Trek, but I also know he is a playwright and the owner of a Master’s Degree in Fine Arts from Cornell University. UCLA-student Garrett Wang became everybody’s favourite little beginner as Ensign Harry Kim. His smart and honest portrayal was believable enough to inspire people to review the episodes in which he played the focal part. He is and remains Voyager’s charming conscience. Roxann Dawson created a feisty, angry character with a sensitive core in B’Elanna Torres. As with many of the portrayals in Voyager, we see the development with the oncoming years. We, as actors, do grow with our assigments. Roxann presented superior theatrical skills even in her first episode in addition to being what you could label as versatile and supremely interesting. Jennifer Lien’s work as Kes unified strength with tenderness. Of all the characters in Voyager, hers is the most feminine, the one with the most thespian introspection. On the surface, Star Trek Voyager is a sitcom, a soap-opera set in space. At a closer glance, it is a deep and heartfelt plea to enjoy the knowledge the ride itself provides. It is the discoverer’s dream, the seafarer’s love for eternal wisdom. As I said, we are all seekers and we all love to see that other enjoy seeking, as well.

Rocking for Christ

By Charles E.J. Moulton “It would be nice to walk upon the water, talking again to angels on my side ... all my words are golden, so have no Gods before me. I'm the light.” Was that a saying by the great St. Francis of Assisi? Maybe that was a quote from a book by Deepak Chopra? I could tell you that was Albert Schweizer. We could tribute Socrates, Plato or St. Paul with those words, the Pope or even the Dalia Lama. All of that sounds plausible, doesn’t it? Well, guess what? It was Alice Cooper, back in 1971, during the hayday of his dark rock career. Wait a minute, rewind the tape. Alice Cooper? The shock-rocker? Wasn’t that the villain of rock ‘n roll, the guy that spent and still spends his life performing explosive hard-rock theatricals filled with electric chairs, guillotines and bleeding dolls? Wasn’t that the guy that agitated more provincial housewives than Charles Manson? What does Alice say about all this? “It’s just electric vaudeville.” Then why do we think rock ‘n roll isn’t just a show? Because back when the music style first launched, it was a rebellion. Ten or twenty years later, academics like Freddie Mercury turned the music-style into a Vaudevillian melodrama. But it doesn’t end there. “If you listen clearly to all of my lyrics,” Alice says, “the warning is clearly written on the box. Don’t follow the dark side. It’s not a good idea. I am just playing the villain of rock ‘n roll. I invented him, like Shakespeare invented MacBeth.” Keep on reading, though. Now it gets really interesting. “As the son of a Baptist pastor, I grew up in the church, in religious surroundings. My father got the whole villain-of-rock-thing. He dug it. He just didn’t dig the lifestyle that went with it. The drugs, the alcohol, the excess. It killed a lot of my colleagues.” The faithful Christian churchgoer Vincent Damon Furnier was born February 4, 1948, a Cold-War-Kid, the son of a preacherman. His social life as a child was centered mainly around church activities. It was this life that made his conciously living Christian soul confess not belonging to this world. Vincent’s creative decision to invent a new kind of Captain Hook in a rocking world of Peter Pan-characters was a testament to his artistic freedom. His show was an invention, mere storytelling, not a credo. Accordingly, Alice Cooper’s original band colleagues were art students. They were academics, just like the members of the band Queen. To Alice and his band, something was missing in other rock concerts of the time: there were no creative theatricals to go with them. So the canvas they painted for themselves, creating the fictitious antagonist-like and character-drenched show called “Alice Cooper”, sprung from a need to actually add some dramatic flair to the popular streamline. The canvas they chose was similiar to the framework the English teacher Stephen King’s chose for his work: the birthplace of the horrific and perilous playground of lost souls: guillotines and ghosts. Maybe the era of the 1960s inspired them. Maybe the pain of Vietnam inspired the escapism, the creative outlet. Cooper’s love of art really came alive when he met the surrealist artist Salvador Dali back in 1973. Dali liked Alice so much that he created a holographic artwork of the rocker, worth $ 2 million today, exhibited in the Dali Museum in Figueres, Spain. Believe it or not, what Alice says about his own show – and about creativity in general – makes perfect sense. As an artist myself, I know that’s what we do. We tell stories. The fictitious tale in itself is a warning: it ends badly. Alice gets punished, Vincent goes home. The actor takes off his make-up, just like I do after a show, and kisses his wife good night. The fact that it’s rock ‘n roll and not opera, heavy metal and not Shakespeare, is irrelevant. Edgar Allan Poe told us about the tell-tale heart, Verdi told us about what happened to the punished court jester, Alice Cooper told us the story of what happened to the extravagant crook. So don’t kill messenger. According to Alice, the theatrical message leads home to Vincent, the faithful churchgoer. “Choose God and not the Devil,” Alice has been quoted as saying. “I created a vaudeville show with a villain. Even the bible has villains. Me? I believe in Jesus Christ. I believe in the eternal soul and in the afterlife.” If it is just a show, then the distinction between what is public and what is private, what is professional and what is personal, becomes an even more important. “If you live the same life on- as off-stage, that’s a really bad sign.” Foreboding warnings from his peers show us the way where not to go. It is where some rockers went in order to make us believe their public personas were private, as well. Canadian talk-show host Jian Gomeshi from Studio Q, who also interviewed Alice back in 2011, mentioned conducting an interview with Johnny Rotten from the Sex Pistols. In that interview, Johnny treated Jian rudely throughout, only to transform into his real and private personality as John Lydon in the commercial breaks. “Was that okay?” John Lydon asked Jian in his Cockney accent. Alice Cooper could only confirm that this two-faced act was a part of the show. He called Lydon’s behaviour “the ultimate rock swindle.” The man who created Alice Cooper learned the hard way how to separate his true self from the on-stage-personality. He had 27 television sets at his house, he was an alcoholic. It was, therefore, all the more amazing that his sober lifestyle came as a complete surprise. During the beginning of his career, Vincent spent lots of time with the likes of Jim Morrison and Jimi Hendrix. He’d never drunk a beer before, but soon he was consuming a bottle of whiskey a day. He called Morrison and Hendrix his “big brothers.” Both are quoted by Alice as “living the same life on- as off-stage,” constantly drunk or high on something. In fact, they thought it was necessary to live up to that rock-star lifestyle. “Somebody is going to die here,” were Alice’s words, “but it’s not going to be me.” Vincent was a constant church-visitor during his spiritual awakening. The pastor seemed, in his mind, to speak to him and him alone, again and again. It was almost a pain to go to church and hear the sermons back in the early 1970s, but Vincent Furnier knew in his heart that he had to go there. His intuition demanded it. The medics called Alice’s recovery, in quote, “weird” and, indeed, “a divine miracle.” When his doctors asked him, in the clinic, how many alcoholic relapses he’d had, Alice could truthfully say that he’d had none at all. “A Christian is a soul who is constantly being sculpted by God,” he admitted, “and given hints by the creator in how to become a better person.” In Joe Cocker’s case, becoming sober was a matter of life and death – and Christian faith helped him get there, as well. Bono, the lead singer of U2, did not need an addiction to find God. He believed, anyway. In fact, he was quoted in saying that his stardom was given to him by God himself. The band, Bono said, simply wasn’t good enough to succeed on its own. God had to have been the catalyst. Bono even continued by pointing out that, “Jesus was his hero.” Vincent, alias Alice, says that becoming sober was “like winning the lottery three times over – it just doesn’t happen.” Not only did Alice Cooper remain sober, he also turned this spiritual renewal into a charitable enterprise, giving other unfortunate souls the chance to change, as well. Today, Alice Cooper’s project “Solid Rock” helps improve the lives of mistreated youths. Underprivilaged children from broken families are taught how to sing, play guitar, bass and drums. Alice goes out and performs with them, live on stage. His belief in Christ, the eternal soul and rock ‘n roll boosts the confidence of thousands of delinquents. How many lives could Alice change if given the chance? Could he have prevented the hospitalization of the elderly busdriver, beaten up by two 14 year-olds, who told them to leave the bus? Could “Solid Rock” have boosted the confidence of the drugdealing teenager, who now serves his second term behind bars? We must unlearn our preconceived conceptions about rock ‘n roll. Rock fans are aging alongside their heroes and even Bryan Adams is performing for a crowd of fifty year-olds. Vincent, the faithful husband, would rather go home to his wife instead of to a strip-club. He claims that “everyone will find Christ eventually” and would “choose God any day”. He plays golf with his buddy Bob Dylan and appears in Christian talk-shows. So what was this about Alice Cooper being scary? Being a Christian, though, he goes on, makes it harder because of the constant pressure to be perfect. Show business is creative, technical and organizational work, but it is not a show reality. If the ideas are sung, painted, written or danced, they are creative outlets, the ideas of the soul at work. Behind the skill, though, we find years of hard work. Out of 10 hours of stage rehearsals, 9 are dedicated to music. Going back to a former comparison, we find Stephen King, the guru of horror stories, whose showmanship is also combined with devout faith. He told the press repeatedly that he has faith in God. A self confessed family man, a loving father and a completely dedicated friend. Mick Garris from Toronto, Canada, in fact, back in December of 2000, wrote: “Few would guess what a happy, childlike, loyal and generous man the Big Guy is.” He goes on to say how hilariously funny Stephen is, a joy to be around, very local, very unaffected and very much just “Steve” to his pals. Not at all the horrific master of the macabre that he became when he writing his books. Orson Wells played Shakespeare’s MacBeth. Playing a bigot villain didn’t mean that he really believed in being incestuous or in practicing witchcraft. Vincent Furnier’s creative choice resembles the choice Sir Anthony Hopkins made when playing Hannibal Lecter. He could go back to Malibu Beach and be a private person, an intellectual or just a beach bum, after the show. A storyteller, the prodigal son that found God in his heart, the good samaritan who helped the underprivilaged and didn’t even ask anything of them in return. I have the advantage of being an actor, an author and a singer. I am, like Alice and like Stephen, a storyteller, as are we all, artists or no artists. So I know exactly where Alice is coming from. People love stories and we love telling them. No more. No less. I know that the roles I play are part of my stage persona. I know that the stories I write are part of my creativity. When I make up a story about a killer voodoo prince, it is just a story. When I portray a villain, it is only a portrayal. Me? I am really a nice guy. I have been in show business since I was 11 years old. That is a career that has been going on for 34 stage years by now. In Bizet’s “Carmen”, I played Zuniga, a misogynistic killer. I was an evil vampire in Polanski’s “Dance of the Vampires”, an egocentric record producer in “Buddy – the Musical” and the mean Uncle Scar in “The Lion King”. That doesn’t mean, however, that I am an egocentric, evil, mean killer in my private life. I have played that killer lion, that bloodthirsty vampire, that psychopathic murderer, that coldhearted husband, that bastard record producer, that evil king, that village idiot, that mean bandit, that butchered deer, that death row prisoner and that mean ghost, maybe just to warn people not to become like that. Maybe that’s the point of art: to point a finger to what is. Nobody would ever think of coming to me after a show and asking me why I wanted to kill Simba. Drama has to meet romance, darkness has to be filled with light, truth has to meet reality, classic has to meet rock, souls have to meet, people have to put aside their preconceived conceptions in order find out what lies behind the surface. We tell gruesome stories, we tell stories that are uplifting and positive. Alice is one of those forerunners who went through hell in order to tell us how he found God. It also goes to show that most of us have a completely different view of what rock ‘n roll was or is to Alice Cooper in the first place. It just goes to show that the people that complained about his performances never really listened to the actual lyrics. “I just play the villain of rock ‘n roll,” he concludes. “It’s not really who I am.” Touché, Alice. Touché. Now go back to church and dig up that undiscovered treasure, turning it into your reality and uncovering what might be revealed as true spiritual gold. Praise Jesus, Alice has seen the light. “Everyone carries a seed of love within them, even villains do. The real secret is nourishing that seed and blessing every other life with its power.” - Anonymous

The Monarch of Human Dignity Article by Charles E.J. Moulton Tony Robinson’s strolls through British history have become a valuable part of the popular education of Britons.

These documentaries are more than just small presentations of little known fact or merely televised outlines of historical trivial pursuit. We are dealing with a consummate artist here and that should give us food for thought. Thanks to YouTube, we are today able to flip on any laptop and consume hours of material on any given subject. There is no reason for ignorance. It is therefore more than recommended that we type in Robinson’s name into the search machine and let him tell us the stories, completely embellishing them with deep truth. Robinson offers us the backdrop of history. He lifts the curtain of intellectualism and dry fact and shows us the action of the true play on the stage of the real past, what really might have happened. That sounds like a cliché, but, in this case, the cliché is true. Swedish foreign correspondent, journalist, author and historian Herman Lindqvist, in his documentaries, has done the same for the Swedish population: he has inspired the masses. Robinson might not be the sole author or researcher of his work here, but he certainly gives his audience that personal touch that triggers inside us what the Germans like to call a veritable “Aha-Experience”. History ceases to be rhetorical or theoretical. It becomes alive, sizzling, vivid, vibrant, exciting. People are exciting and we’ve always been people, haven’t we? Never statistics on a blank page. Moreover, through the likes of Robinson and Lindqvist, we realize that we all are human. All of us, regardless of social stature, are human. Historical personalities were more than just stuffy old codgers on thrones and in palace ballrooms. They were as selfish, as loving, as hating, as confused and as passionate as we are today or ever will be. Celebrities or not, monarchs or not, famous or infamous or just plain ordinary blokes, if we paint the picture of a humane society, we realize that people are always going to be people. The only thing that makes a person truly royal is the shape of his dignity. That is the only true royalty I know. In “Britain’s Real Monarch”, Tony Robinson paints such a picture. Edward IV, according to theory, had to have been an illegitimate child, a bastard son. His father was away in battle during the five week period in 1441 when the conception had to have taken place. If the official version of a conception in May of 1441 is true, we are dealing with an unheard of eleven month pregnancy. Subsequently, the real bloodline of the British monarchy never sat on the throne. Why? The official father couldn’t have been there at the conception itself at all. The House of Plantagenet, if we trace history back to the roots, would be able to claim the full right to rule Britain. So where’s the real King of England, by bloodline? In Australia. He knows he is a Plantagenet. He is a Lord by ancestry, a father, a grandfather, and the inhabitant of a small town downunder. He knows now that the bloodline can be traced to his real origin, but wouldn’t dream of going back to London to fight for the right to reclaim his family’s requisite of ruling the nation. In fact, he wants Australia to become a rebublic. He is no monarchist. He is one of the few republican aristocrats. Now, as Tony points out at the end of the documentary, if history would have granted the real bloodline to remain on the throne, we would have had a King Michael of Plantagenet in the Buckingham Palace. An ordinary Hanover woman named Elizabeth would have been loafing to the supermarket to get her groceries in order to cook dinner for her husband Philip before her bridge-buddies came over for tea. Take that thought and elaborate on it. The divine bloodline of monarchs is an illusion. That doesn’t mean that there shouldn’t be a monarchy. I am a monarchist, a believer in role models. As Whitney Houston sings in “The Greatest Love of All”: people need someone to look up to. There are such things as the DNA-strings of excellence, Mozart and Einstein had them, but give any given person with a normal or above average intelligence a privilaged youth, train them from infancy to become rulers and they will be. Good ones? Who knows? But rulership is learnable. Other things can be acquired, as well. I have heard it said that anyone who experienced the very same things as Al Capone did, under the same conditions, mind you, would also make anyone turn into the same kind of criminal as he was. Is that true? It might be just as true as the privilaged princess who had never seen a poor person or never even knew what it was to be poor. She couldn’t even be blamed for telling her aide that the population should eat cake when they had no bread. The French population, however, went crazy, and beheaded her. Ignorance, is it evil? No, it’s just ill informed. A director of mine, in my capacity as a stage performer, once told me: “When two opposing truths meet, a tragedy is born.” The French Revolution was a tragedy born out of the spark of two very adverse truths colliding. No, it was a train wreck with 20,000 executions as a result. There is, however, no such thing as the divine right of monarchs. History is accidental, hanging by a thread, and singular events such as the conspiracy to cover up an illegitimate king can change the course of that history. Status is won by hard work and sometimes by circumstance. Fame and celebrity are won by situation, they don’t define the integrity of any given person. The true monarch of England could have been sitting on his throne right now. In that case, the person we know as Queen Elizabeth could have turned out to be the normal little lady we passed yesterday on our way to work. I’ll take that thought even further. If we could not all become the best or worst we could become in any of our given lives (yes, read that again!), then what would be the point of it all? Life is God’s workshop that we embark on in order to learn something. The effort counts. There is a bit of Jesus and a bit of Hitler in us all. Mickey Rooney was the biggest star of the 1940’s. Toward the end of his career, though, the greater portion of the public had never even heard of him. Did that mean that he was less valuable a person after his career had dwindled down? No. On the contrary. Rooney remains an icon. We shouldn’t measure our lives according to our current social stature. When Queen Elizabeth II brushes her teeth and goes to bed at night, what does she think about herself? Does she tell herself, every night, I am the Queen of England, I am important because I am a monarch and my people are not important because they are not monarchs? No, she probably complains about a headache. Maybe she had a fight with her husband this morning, maybe this made the day quite difficult for her, maybe she can’t walk as well as she was able to once and long just to sleep. Maybe her supper was delicious and she will talk to her son about it. Maybe she asks herself if she still knows the speech she has to hold tomorrow at the House of Lords by heart or if she has to go over it once more before the breakfast tomorrow. I firmly believe that people first and foremost are private people, that the official picture of a so called famous person is a false one. We all have private thoughts, we are all private personalities, we are all souls. Status is almost entirely circumstantial. We live in a time unbelievably soaked and steeped in the lie that we matter only if we have a thousand likes on Facebook. Only fame makes us truly worthy? Bullshit. Where? Famous for what? That, at least, is the illusion social media is handing us on that tweeting silver platter. But what then did Vincent van Gogh, the gifted loser, think of himself? He sold only one painting in his life. In fact, his brother bought that painting. Nowadays, his work sells for millions of dollars. Was he less valuable as a human being because he had no money back then? After all, he never experienced his own fame. When he shaved himself in the morning, were his feelings less important because his work wasn’t displayed in the Louvre? Franz Schubert, whose songs are now sung by realistically speaking every single academic voice student in the world, died with only 31 florines to his name. In fact, his musical composition of Goethe’s poem “Erlkönig” was sent back, by Goethe himself, to the wrong Franz Schubert with the complaint that the composition was mere trash. Nikola Tesla, whose name today is synonymous with brilliant science, died alone in his New Yorker Hotel room 3327. Did he have fame and success during his own lifetime? Maybe so. That didn’t prevent him from dying alone, though. Robin Williams’s fame and fortune didn’t prevent him from killing himself, either. Fame is no answer to any problem and when it does arrive, life doesn’t change as much as we think it should. Per Gessle of Roxette once said: “We work all of our lives to become famous. When we do become famous, we don’t change at all. Others do, though.” Basing your life on creative endeavor can be a smart move, though. That way, when fame arrives, you won’t be sad if it goes away again. Fame, as Kate Mulgrew (as Captain Janeway) pointed out in the Star Trek: Voyager-episode “Virtuoso”, is fickle. You might think that fame will be there forever once it arrives. You might be wrong. I said, might. In his autobiography “Moonwalker”, Michael Jackson shared with us his experiences of a situation where he overheard fans asking themselves if that really was Michael Jackson over there, before finally coming to the conclusion that it couldn’t be him at all. Why would he be here, they asked themselves? Michael asked himself, why not here? Why not anywhere? He was somewhere on Earth at any given situation, so why not here? There is a photo of Michael backstage with 70,000 fans behind him in the audience, before a show. At that moment, Michael is private, unaware of the camera clicking in his direction. At that moment, we see the real Michael, not the star. Those are two different people. Even Robbie Williams uttered a thank you to his assistant on a CD, claiming that others were as much “Robbie” as he was himself. The idea that famous people are too good to be true comes from the idea that people are unworthy if not renowned. Opera-celebrity Mirella Freni was known to travel to work by using the subway, before singing her million dollar shows as a star at the opera. Luciano Pavarotti walked out unnoticed through the main doors of the concerthall one midday, because no one expected to see him there. Alec Guiness, the man of a thousand faces, was so anonymous as a private person that no one ever hardly noticed him privately at all. Anthony Hopkins is known to stroll about Malibu as a beach bum between projects. We’re all private somewhere. Even Queen Elizabeth II cries from time to time. It must be said that I believe in every person making the best of his or her life, becoming the most he or she can be. I do not believe in the divine right of kings. I believe in the divine right of anyone doing something good or anything good of his or her life. I believe in the eternal soul. There are people who would have become great kings and never got the chance to be so. There are people who were kings and did a terrible job at it. The consensus is that we are all unique, all valuable, all special, whether famous or infamous or not famous at all, and that we all need someone or something to look up to. If we believe in reincarnation, it is likely that we all were in positions of power and fame at some point in some life. If you’re not famous and want to be, work to become so. Just remember that even if you aren’t famous right now, you’re still a special person without fame. You matter, regardless of stature. After all, no one can be you – as good as you are. I am the descendant of the Eyre Barons of Eyreville in Ireland. The last aristocrat to call himself a Baron of that bloodline was Giles Eyre. My father always said, however, that the real aristocrat in that marriage was his wife. Integrity, accordingly, is a characteristic that has nothing to do with royal bloodline or aristocratic ancestry. Like dignity, true monarchy is dependant on one thing alone: dignified compassion.

Price for Freedom By Alexandra H. Rodrigues

Generations pass. Memories turn into history. On Memorial Day many people dig into their families’ background. Facts become legends and are offered to their offspring. While sorting some really old photos, Helga recalled what she had been told by family members throughout the years. The tidbits reached back to her grandfather and here is what Helga remembered. She looked at the calendar. It is now 2016. She is going back generations in time. It was 1938, the year when Austria and Germany merged to yield to the power of a new leader: Adolph Hitler, the monster ruler who became responsible for the death of millions of people. One day, during that year, Otto, Helga’s father, found himself on a big ocean liner, which was cutting the foaming waves with professional grace. He leaned on the railing and stared into the vastness between sky and water. Less than 24 hours ago he had nodded a sad goodbye to his homeland Germany. It had been grandfather’s decision that Otto should leave for America. The news of the growing crisis had quickly reached Otto’s hometown, Potsdam, a quaint little city of Prussian influence adjacent to Berlin. Adolph Hitler was steadily gaining power and fear had mounted that their family, being from Hungary, with Jewish blood on the mother’s side, would come to suffer under the new regime. Already, Otto’s father’s job as an elementary school teacher was on the danger list. Carefree gatherings with friends had turned into hushed conversations with politics the major topic. Otto’s hand went to the pocket of his double-breasted tweed suit. He had been entrusted by his father with a reasonable amount of money and the words:”Get established son so that we may come to join you.” The responsibility weighed heavily on Otto. Once in New York he had found a job in a restaurant. There he met Ellen, Helga’s mother and they had two children. Helga, born in 1941 and Mark born in 1942 Otto had become an American Citizen and during World War II he decided to join the Army. His parents had been able to join him in the States with one of the last boats bringing in refugees. Otto died in combat at Normandy in 1944. Helga, now 75, came across some pictures of the funeral. The Purple Heart and other medals were still mounted above their fireplace, and somewhere in the attic was a carton that held the American flag from the casket. Helga knows that her grandparents had missed their son every day till their own passing in 1961 and 1972. Together with her mom and brother they all would go and visit the military cemetery many times. But they had displayed pride when the talk came to the happenings of those times. Gratitude to have escaped the Nazi regime remained a given all their lives. It seemed as if Otto had felt the need to repay his new homeland with his services. Mom had never married again, she held dad’s memory dear to her heart till her own death in 2001. It had been her wish to see the 20th century and she did. She was 81 years old. Helga’s brother had died during the Vietnam War, a loss that threw Ellen into depression. She had been married for over 30 years and her son George was pursuing a career in politics. Time to try to put all those lose ends together and write them down for my own children, Helga thought, and so she did.

Memories of the War By Alexandra H. Rodrigues The renaissance was the historical period of the 1400s and 1500s. I should know some solid facts about it, but I don’t - and I blame my history teacher in Germany for that. Yes, I do remember his name: Mr. Lipke. He was tall, skinny with a wooden leg and a glass eye. We made a lot of fun of him and now that I am a grown up, I recognize that we gave him a harder time than he gave us. He is the cause for the mental block I have when it comes to history. The year was 1942 it was during World War II when I was assigned to Mr. Lipke at my school in Berlin Germany. History classes were mainly focused on our “Great Leader” Adolph Hitler. I had managed to stay in school thanks to the help by some of our friends, but I knew that any small mistake could have had unpredictable, horrible results on my family’s future. My father was at that time already in France, having had to leave our home in Austria because of his Jewish background. Mother and I had come to Berlin and had managed so far to avoid letting anybody know why my father had left. I got away without having to wear the Jewish star. I am only glad that nobody, not even Mr. Lipke, thought of connecting my failure in history classes to anything but a dumb mind. I did not even prepare for the history classes. Why should I make an effort, waste my time, if I would not get good grades anyhow. The problem ended when in 1943 I was evacuated to Vienna and on my return put into a school in Potsdam a quaint little town near Berlin with the prominent castle Sanssoucci, the former summer residence of the King of Prussia This brings me back to the years shortly after World War II in Berlin. I was 13 years old when it ended.. All of us who had survived the terror of the air raids and the street fights during the last gruesome days, were now yearning for the enjoyments and pleasures of good life. A lot happened though before we could breathe easier. Never will I forget the day when the first Allied troops approached. We heard their guttural shouts coming closer and getting louder and louder. Then we saw them. Chasing ahead like hoards of animals. Filthy, bearded, tired and smelling of manure We tried to hide but did not know where. My aunt and uncle put me in a bed in their dinghy, moldy cellar apartment. They covered me with blanket and when the soldiers rushed in, ready to satisfy their sex drive by raping, my uncle motioned to them that I am very sick. It worked, thank God. Most German women made themselves look real ugly with torn kerchiefs around their head. But the soldiers did not care Raping was going on all around us. My mother came up with a different solution. She dolled herself up in a pretty dress, high heels, lipstick. A high ranking officer claimed her. Treated her well and even provided my family with food. As mean as those invaders were, they were quite nice to children I remember being dressed in a red jumpsuit The red is the color for the Soviets and was to show the admiration for the troops. A group of kids from my street met at the corner and together we marched for about fifteen minutes to the place where the mess halls had been erected. Then we stood in line and some soldiers dished out soup to fill our containers. It was fat and greasy soup, not easily digestible for our hunger ridden intestines but better suited for the inhabitants of the Ural mountains, the homeland of these soldiers. With the fat swimming in layers on top of the soup the dish was still steaming when we got home. It was obvious that these ground troops had no education, no culture All they knew was the cold and mountains of Siberia. Some displayed a childlike curiosity when coming across a novelty. I remember on soldier sitting on a closed toilet seat, my music box on his lap. This blood thirsty, looting and raping soldier suddenly had turned into a little boy in awe with a new toy. Another soldier had noticed the gleaming handle on the toilet and motioned his friend to get up. He opened the toilet seat and pulled the handle. The flushing noise scared both of them out of their wits. To our relief they both rushed away. For many of us, a bicycle was the only means of transportation in those days. Now with the Russians confiscating everything nothing was save. My bicycle was old, rusty but still relatively well working “Put it into the attic and cover it with blankets” my aunt advised but I could not make myself carry it up 4 floors. I still needed it that day. So I leaned it against the house wall, taking my chances. Another group of “Hurrah” screaming soldiers appeared shortly thereafter. Like the ones before they were Mongols. They had come on brand new bikes. Beautiful. Their first way was up into the attic. Instinct told them that it was there where people tend their valuables. They found nothing in our attic, others had been up there before and cleared it out already. They needed a deal. So they took my old bike and left me a shiny new one. Figure it out. Finally Berlin was divided into four sectors and we were lucky to become occupied by the Americans. Among the four groups, Russian, French, British and American we felt like we had won the lottery. The American mess hall had been opened at a coffee shop close to our house, far closer than the Russian kitchen had been. As it was summer, the American soldiers would take their meals inside and outside. Many finished their rations only halfway and left the rest on the tables. We climbed the wooden fence and dumped whatever we found into the paper bags we had brought with us for that purpose. Occasionally the MP military police would chase us away but they never put a hand on us. Surely they felt sorry for us. They could see how under nourished we were. Our spirits got a damper when in 1948 the East was cut off from the West leaving West Berlin stranded like an Island . It was called the Berlin blockade. The American, British and French sectors were surrounded by Russian occupied areas.. The Airlift came to our rescue. Airplanes, compliments of the American Air Force, were assuring us day by day that provisions for our daily needs were flown in steadily. Those planes crossed the air corridor between Berlin and West Germany many times a day. I remember the dried potatoes that tasted like rubber, the powdered eggs, and the dried vegetables. Not really delicacies, but we were immensely grateful nonetheless. After all, it was more and richer than anything we had been eating during the last years of the war. Amazingly we survived on dandelion salads from the yard, homegrown potatoes and pumpkins, rare quantities of goat’s milk and a six-ounce piece of meat a week. I do not remember anybody suffering from obesity in those years. The noise of the airplanes shattered our windows and the boom from the planes breaking through the sound barrier was often deafening,. For us Berliners it was like a sound of music as it assured us of a decent meal each day and gave us confidence that we were not forgotten. I recall having been given my first chewing gum during that time. Never had I seen one before. When I told my mom she asked : “Where is it” “Oh gone, I ate it!” Mom explained to me that I should not have eaten it but she was not mad. We both laughed. Twelve years later, then living in New York after having been sponsored to come to New York and fly for an American Airline, I married an American. He really had been in Berlin during the occupation after having landed in Normandy. He spread the story that he had met me and that I was so cute, with pig tails, that he had promised my mom and me to come back, would sponsor me and marry me once I became of age. “And so I did” he would say to anybody he had told that story too. He was so happy that most people believed him. Although I did not like history when I had to study it in school, I did live it.

We visit the ancient Mayan culture and hear ancient love poetry. In a way, this is also creative non-fiction. A real person wrote this for a real loving heart, very real to the soul, creatively, thousands of years ago.

TO KISS YOUR LIPS BESIDE THE FENCE RAILS

Put on your beautiful clothes; the day of happiness has arrived; comb the tangles from your hair; put on your most attractive clothes and your splendid leather; hang great pendants in the lobes of your ears; put on a good belt; string garlands around your shapely throat; put shining coils on your plump upper arms. Glorious you will be seen, for none is more beautiful here in this town, the seat of Dzitbalché. I love you, Beautiful Lady. I want you to be seen; in truth you are very alluring, I compare you to the smoking star because they desire you up to the moon and in the flowers of the fields. Pure and white are your clothes, maiden. Go give happiness with your laugh, put goodness in your heart, because today is the moment of happiness; all people put their goodness in you.

A depth of memories in the lake by Alexandra H. Rodrigues In Berlin, we lived on a suburban side street that leads from the station, past imposing villas, to a charming lake. I remember walking as a 4 year old child, hand in hand with my mother, around that lake. A nearly 90 minute walk – long and tiring for a toddler. The memories being evoked by this lake are manifold. Here are some of the most poignant and for me unforgettable ones. One chilly fall day, a friend of my mother with her 3 year old daughter, had joined us for the walk. I was about 7 years old at that time. Snowberry bushes were flaunting their white berries, those little balls that make a popping sound when you step on them. So we kids got busy entertaining ourselves, while running ahead of our mothers, down the sloping path toward the lake. Joey, the 3 year old, was so cute and exhilarated. Her little ears red from the biting wind and her eyes sparkling . She was practically hoarding the berries and throwing handfuls at a time on the floor to step on them, giggling with delight when they popped . I had gotten tired of the game and returned to the grown-ups, who had been in no rush to catch up with us. We could see Joey and called for her to wait for us but she had continued running downwards, with berries rolling ahead of her. What happened then was utter tragedy. She had obviously not paid attention to the rim of the lake and – yes, she had drowned. The vision of that never left me. Happy were the years of skating on that lake, in old style with skates you had to screw on to your shoes and if you lost the key to the mechanism you were out of luck. I was a good skater and did both figure skating, by copying other already advanced skaters and speed skating, which allowed me to conquer the lake in 20 minutes. With 16 I got my first professional skates. White, made from finest leather and glistening steel skates with knife sharp edges, all in one piece. I trained a lot, paid money for teachers and wanted to become a professional skater. I had just applied to a chorus skate group in Garmish in the Alps, when I fell and broke my right leg. A miss- diagnosis nearly cost me my leg and needless to say a career in skating was over for me. I did skate till late in my fifties, when I again fell and cracked several ribs. I remember the little sandy beach where we would go swimming; during the war in waters that surely were polluted. I remember the top of the lake colorful from oil spills. As a matter of fact I learned to swim there. I had been morbidly scared of the father of my friend Mary. She was playing in the water with a light, large rubber ball. Jokingly I hit the ball and it floated away. Her dad had gone to get us some food and I feared he would be mad to be told of the missing ball. So I steeled myself and behold, I swam, yes swam with all might and caught up with the ball and returned it… Fear of punishment had overcome fear of drowning. An old ruin of a small castle gave plenty of food to my imagination about ghosts and weird creatures and I always begged my mother to let me play there for a little bit. I doubt that the grounds around the ruin were safe but then, what was safe during the war years? Memories, oh yes, so many ! All bringing back an action filled childhood. To mind comes the time, when I announced in kinder garden, that my mother and I had been picked up the past Sunday by a policeman. I had forgotten to mention that he was my mother’s date and went walking with us at the lake. Just picture the looks of the kids and the teacher. There was the well known garden café The Alte Fischerhuette- (the old fishermen hut), now a hotel, owned by a famous tenor, who once celebrated in Rome, Paris, Vienna and Tokyo, decided to sing only for his guests in this establishment. I used to go dancing there as a young girl on weekends and always on Pentecost. I remember the guttural, victorious shouts of the Russian troops coming across this lake when they invaded Berlin. Our bodies were shaking with fear and relief simultaneously. When I bundle all my memories about this lake together, good and bad, my fondness for it remains. Then life went on! I flew over many waters as a Flight Attendant. The red sea, the dead sea, the Atlantic, the Pacific, the green waters of Bermuda and on and on. Lakes, Oceans and Rivers were surroundings I tried to live close to at all times. One day I will sit down and write an essay with the title “Memories in the Great South Bay” I have fifty years to pick from as I lived here in Massapequa for all that time. Memories are made of good and bad times. The Great South Bay holds many of these for me.



Oracle Earth

By Raymond Greiner Working as an archaeological researcher unveils discoveries mixed with complexities. I was summoned to this institution of learning as an instructor, teaching knowledge I attained from data gathered relating to humankind’s historical pathway. Time and archaeology fuse solving mysteries of the past. The year is 3080CE, and since human conception, changes have been staggering and monumental, comparing past developed cultures has little resemblance to present-day social order. The learning institution I am assigned is Elysium School, located on an island in the South Pacific. It’s a magnificent place, offering isolation from the smoldering remnants of previous eras. I greet new students: “My name is Christopher and I prefer to be addressed using this name. I am not a professor, and disfavor being referenced as such; I am here to learn, as well as teach. We all are students. I am fifty years old and have been an archeological research scientist since age twenty, and have traveled the globe sponsored by an Alliance to seek precise comprehension of the human species during its journey to this place in time, uncovering details associated with historical events, their causes, and overall impact to be used as planning tools for the future. I am genetically engineered, as are all of you. Genetic engineering has become the standard for population expansion, in place for nearly three hundred years, and has proven effective as redirection from historic dysfunctional behavior that previously dominated human habitation. “Our archeological team was dedicated to scientific research and revealed details how human evolution flourished, then declined, and crumbled into chaos. Members of our team have been assigned to communicate knowledge acquired from our discoveries, opening discussion as application toward continual social development. “Our studies disclosed excessive population expansion was influential in contributing to cultural decline and its results. Population had escalated to nearly twenty billion. Currently, global population is under ten million, adjusted by a series of catastrophic events generated by ethical misdirection. “To stimulate discussion, I propose to begin each lecture with student’s questions, designing presentation content based on these questions. If I am unable to answer particular questions it will become our collective effort to research for answers. Today is our introduction day, and tomorrow we will begin in earnest toward understanding and learning. I anticipate our interaction to be a fruitful experience.” The next day I requested students with questions to rise and identify themselves. The first student stood and spoke, “My name is Jerrod. Christopher, our class welcomes you, and the opportunity you offer us. We have lived at Elysium School since age six and aware that as we approach maturity, we will return to our place of origin. We have received curricula exposing historical events that radically altered planetary physiology, causing intense decline and disarray. War-dominating eras and catastrophic cosmic events lead to inability for global social order to find balance, which included loss of food production and distribution. What we seek is clarity, explaining why and how contributing declination factors were initiated and evolved.” I responded, “I should say, Jerrod, your question is complex and may end our questioning period, at least temporarily, because it will take much time to detail what our archeological team revealed that relates to your question. However, I won’t discourage continued questioning, because as details unfold, new thoughts will create additional questions and all inquires must be addressed. “The genesis of the warring era is a good beginning. My colleagues and I conclude as human evolution gained momentum, it opened opportunity for change, which provoked errors, effecting ability for social cohesion. Ancient cultures showed minimal confrontation compared to occurrences after civil redesign, perceived to be a better place. Humans resembling us today are identified as ‘modern human species’ and represent a fraction of the human timeline. The earliest hunter-gatherer cultures were smaller in number and geographically dispersed. Hunter-gatherer models required unity with natural criterion, forming societies sustained by natural earthly provisions. This system worked extremely well for a very long time. Neanderthal thrived in excess of 300,000 years, existing long before the modern human species appeared. Modern civil design changed social course, identifying early historic cultures as primitive. In my opinion the term ‘primitive’ is inappropriate because historically, ancient hunter-gatherers displayed civilized behavior equal to, or greater than, the new approach, which fell away from early human cultural unity. This new direction opened a series of issues forming the beginning of a downward spiral toward social collapse. “The essence of the new societal design was to reduce or eliminate challenges hunter-gatherers confronted. Land ownership and strict border identities were established. Cities formed, generating class distinction and social separation. These changes centralized survival needs and this new, urbanized social profile became dependent on larger scale agriculture as its means of support. “An efficient distribution method was needed. Barter was used in early stages, then money was created. Money’s installation caused radical changes. Housing and land attached monetary values, as a demonstration of wealth, or lack of it. Over time, money’s power evolved into limitless influence. Government taxation of property, goods and services increased the power of money. This original new civil concept became misguided, shifting to governmental ambitions. Money equated into a lever of control, placing the overall benefit of the populace on a lower rung of importance. Government leaderships became manipulative. Fear of border encroachment fostered need for military enforcement, marking the beginning of large-scale warfare. Agricultural tools were reshaped into weapons. Harvesting sickles were converted to swords and hauling carts transformed into war chariots. Sumer had a standing army as early as 3000 BCE. These infused social intricacies and opened new direction that continued for thousands of years into the future, expanding far beyond what early cultures could have ever imagined. “Does anyone have further questions at this point?” A young woman stood and identified herself, “I am Samantha. Christopher, what I obtain from your presentation is the door toward war and convoluted social disorder opened when agricultural development expanded sufficiently to support urban lifestyles, which, by design, lent itself to a need for a monetary system, leading to perceived need for government. Added border instability created predictable results. How could this new social design not recognize potential for chaos this development represented?” “Your comment and question are worthy and I often asked this question. However, beyond the outline presented are underlying forces, causes and reasons why war, armies and power appeared to be in order. Human psychology was not well understood during these times, and much of what occurred was spontaneous viewing confrontation as resolution. Humanity uniformly shares similar intellectual patterns. Archeological findings reveal these patterns were directly instrumental during modern social design development intervals. “Human genes mix compassion with a desire to harm and conquer. The conquest genes surfaced as dominant. The power of money moved to prominence as the wealthy discovered manners to exploit those less fortunate. From this base came war’s manifestation. War intensified, developing more powerful weaponry. As time passed, war eventually reached a point where its psychology turned upon itself, victimizing our species wholly. New countries evolved, spreading geographically, forming separate cultures and establishing new boundaries as intolerance escalated stirring increased conflict. Technologically advanced weapons were developed, capable of killing millions in an instant. Countries became fearful of each other; making it imperative they develop these powerful weapons as a means of defense. Eventually, one of these lethal weapons was activated, and the range of death and destructiveness was a shocking reality, revealing consequences these weapons were capable of. Agreements were then sought to curtail the use of these weapons although governments continued to develop and expand arsenals. “The fear of these weapons created brief lull in war. Then, fanatical leaderships reactivated them. The effects were beyond imagination, and opposing countries were nearly destroyed, as these arsenals were unleashed, leaving minimal survivors. Many died from after effects, which caused atmospheric disruption, radioactive fallout and food contamination. Cancer deaths increased from radiation exposure. The world’s population continued its downward spiral for more than two hundred years, with survivors clinging to life in any fashion they could contrive. Over long spans of time, tribes and clans formed and gained back self-sufficiency by reinstalling agriculture on a lower, more manageable scale to serve smaller population groups. From this point, realization of social errors was vividly apparent. Scattered tribal units unified toward species advancement, recognizing need to redesign human genetics, which was identified as the impetus of war mentality. This was a challenging task, and because of civil reversal, less knowledge was available toward methods for genetic redirection, although the reasoning was valid and this change appeared to be the only hope for species survival. “Decline and social failure was implemented by genetic imbalance, allowing evil and selfish dispositions to gain control. It was clearly evident that genetic restructuring offered opportunity to emphasize compassion as a means for overall betterment. “Any new questions at this point?” Samantha stood again and asked, “Christopher, how did these few survivors engender high numbers of genetically designed people?” “This change was the most compelling of our archeological team’s mission, leading to present social status. Through unification with other surviving groups, an Alliance was formed, designated to seek expansion void of historic domination and control. Psychological and technical knowledge that related to this effort was salvaged from remnants of metropolitan zones. Genetic engineering is not test tube procreation: It develops over long spans of time through careful partner selection, choosing those displaying characteristics offering greater potential for a balanced and harmonious future. Love and compassion genes become dominant. Humanity reacts exactly as all earthly life forms conforming to environmental conditions, which forms foundations for future development. “Prior to our current era, the power of money was the predominant societal influence becoming incorrectly directed by corruptive greed. Land ownership and border encroachment sensitivity initiated aggressive social behavior in a quest to conquer and control, which propagated war environment. Those living within this condition embraced it, viewing war as its tool. As weaponry sophistication advanced, it became apparent war offered no solution only continuation leading to near global human annihilation. The widespread devastation and aftereffects forced survivors to reconnect to Earth’s natural offerings. Land ownership and money had no influence, as they realized their only hope for a continued existence was to discover methods of obtaining water, food and shelter among elements from a natural state, stimulated by recognizing a need for unity with natural surroundings. Urban areas, previously heavily populated, were unlivable with polluted air, soil and water, and new social structure was only possible by distancing from contaminated zones, learning to survive through detachment from previous conditions. Survivors learned the importance of blending with the Earth, complementing its elements in an embrace of frugality, melded with conservation. What the historic failed culture identified as ‘primitive.’ Nature’s perfection is illustrated when studied closely, revealing uniformity and balance, extracting necessities, in an effort to achieve longevity through reproduction. “So, here we are, with a new set of principles unrelated to the previous warring era. Elysium School is your temporary residence, and many similar schools are dispersed throughout the world. Your parents sent you here at a very early age allowing a concentrated learning opportunity from the best teachers available to gain essential knowledge toward assimilation into the society of your birthplace. You are learning the rudiments of life applied in the small villages of your origin. These villages are located in temperate latitudes for ease of growing food, offering abundant rainfall, which is a basic source of life. There are no local roads or vehicle access to the villages. Residents and visitors are moved to nearby locations using Alliance-sponsored transport, and then walking to the village location. Isolation was considered necessary and influential in unison with the original concept’s success. In the beginning early inhabitants carried tools necessary to build dwellings and raise gardens. These pioneers were schooled at an early age in all aspects relating to this challenge. They were educated at Peace School in the central region of what was previously The United States of America. This country no longer exists, destroyed by massive atomic attacks from opposing philosophies with ambition to destroy this country. This occurred hundreds of years prior to Peace School’s establishment. “These early students learned self-sustainability and, as they advanced, gained additional survival skills. They numbered two hundred, equal male and female, all with exceptional intelligence, genetically oriented toward compassion and non-confrontational behavior, combined with specialized physical skills and abilities. These pioneers partnered and raised families, becoming self-sufficient. The Alliance of that era named this group ‘Pilgrims of Tranquility.’ They killed no animals and raised hemp to be processed for clothing. They also learned natural plant food sources. This group worked as a team in every manner. They met frequently planning their future. Solar power allowed communication with the Alliance. In addition, the Pilgrims kept journals, which are required reading for all current students. No prominent leader was assigned and monetary systems were unnecessary. They read books, transmitted electronically. They learned music and played various instruments as a source of entertainment and social interaction. Initially, skeptics viewed this concept as unworkable, but it proved otherwise over time. This model is applied to villages located throughout the world and when you come of age, will return to your respective villages. “Are there any additional questions?” One student stood. “I am Sara, and would enjoy reading the journals of the ‘Pilgrims of Tranquility’ and their lives. Where can I find these journals?” I responded, “They are at the library under ‘archives.’ These journals will give insight I am unable to give as a teacher. “Your group is nearing final stages of your curriculum and from here forward you will engage in counseling, explaining details of the new life you are about to enter. Your parents will be your final teachers and guides and will influence you more than anyone. I am available at any time for any reason to discuss thoughts relating to your venture forward.” Sara found the journals of The Pilgrims of Tranquility and began reading a passage written by one of the pioneers: “My name is Marlene, and I share my life with my partner Caleb. We are among a group chosen to participate in an experimental life pursuit, in opposition to previous design that nearly destroyed itself, driven by orientation toward war. Excessive population growth combined with over consumption caused inability to discover social equilibrium. Our group was formed and educated at Peace School from infancy to young adulthood. Our teachers and guides at Peace School were the main instrumental to our success. “Our number of original participants was two hundred, one hundred males and one hundred females. Males and females lived in adjacent barracks and shared each day studying and working toward a common goal. As we matured we established partnerships. “We settled in five separate communes and continued to learn self sufficiency. No monetary system is used. Our strength and influence comes from applying unity to all phases of daily life. “Globally, many remained in the old social design. Atomic weapons no longer existed but those living in the old culture’s design were entrapped in a system influenced by over consumption, material wealth and social separation. This old philosophy applied the axiom of ‘survival of the fittest,' which was responsible for escalation of war. Our commune life does not embrace ‘survival of the fittest’, which was responsible for the escalation of war. Our communal life does not embrace the ‘survival of the fittest’ logic, recognizing that some will perform to a higher degree than others, but often those who may display weakness in one particular function will achieve efficiency in another. We have witnessed frequent occurrence of this as we developed as a community. “Alliance leaders express we have set an example for future communities similar to what we have proven successful.” Sara was astonished, and reading Marlene’s journal caused her to realize that she and her fellow students are attached to something unique and very important to the future of humanity. My class met for its final gathering. Sadness loomed over students and teacher, both knowing this would end their time together. I spoke, “I am certain you all feel melancholy, as do I, knowing this represents our final meeting. Dramatic change is on your horizon and what you have learned at Elysium School is important, but represents minimal knowledge compared to what you will learn from here forward. Your parents are highly skilled and will guide you into a life of self-reliance and subsistence. You will be impressed at the efficiency of your community. Knowledge gained at Elysium will blend with genetic traits merging with daily life developed over generations among those who have proven a system opposing previous destructive eras. “It would gratify me to receive correspondence describing how your lives are impacted by what you have learned here and what you will learn when you return to your settlements. It will be a grand day when you arrive back to your place of birth. There will be celebration, music, and fine food will be served. That day will never be forgotten. I wish I could share that moment with you.” Sara rose, with tears in her eyes. “Christopher, its important to us that you are aware of our depth of appreciation for your lessons. This bond is felt by all of us and it is my pledge to communicate what occurs as we venture into our new life.” The remainder of the class stood and clapped and I could barely hold back tears. It was a sensuous moment. The students left within a week to return to their respective villages. They arrived at Elysium School ten years ago and had not seen their parents since that time. They corresponded using electronic mail, documenting experiences and progress. Quality academic preparation is a vital contributor toward communal symbiosis, which forms the foundation for communal development. It is imperative that these young men and women approach their future with knowledge reaching beyond raising crops and daily manual work. They are now prepared academically, increasing strength to cope with challenges, which are certain to appear. No cities remain in these current times, and over many years restructuring urban zones has been attempted and always failed. This new simplistic design reconnects components lost during warring and overconsumption eras, plagued with greed orientation and extreme overpopulation. Altruistic rebirth embraces Earth’s reverence, in praise and spiritual synchrony. Growing food, carrying water, gathering firewood for heat and cooking and weaving hemp into fabric heightens social presence, forming a bonding link, enhancing a sense of personal worth lost during previous societal impairment, influenced by excess, and government’s drive toward domination. Confidence is gained through knowledge, framed by desire to become self-sustaining, outlined in opposition to historical failed social formats. Message from Sara: “Christopher: My dear teacher and friend. When you spoke of life’s escalation upon return to our birthplace, I failed to comprehend its magnitude. To imagine the impact of what you attempted to explain is impossible. This experience exposes an entirely different view revealing meaningful direction. In brief, it’s like receiving a beautiful surprise each morning when I awaken. I would not appreciate the worth of this experience without Elysium School’s curriculum learning of the labyrinthine pathway, leading to this opportunity. “I work in our family garden and also contribute tending our communal garden. My brother is a master hemp artisan converting hemp into cloth for clothing. We grow and preserve organic foods and place great importance on meals and their preparation. We have two wells with hand pumps to serve the community and carry water. Our small houses are heated with woodstoves and we have composing toilets. Solar panels provide power for our community center, where we have access to electronic communication used for research and to send messages to the Alliance and also friends. “The most stimulating time is the evening, when village members meet in the communal area as a means of celebrating the day’s achievements, including discussions of daily work and plans for the next day. Everyone plays a musical instrument, and several are chosen each evening to perform. Music creates an ideal mood for the day’s conclusion. “Christopher, I may never see you again and this saddens me. Your teachings penetrated us at Elysium School. I wish you could meet my parents; they amaze me displaying knowledge to gain the most from our simplistic life. “Please write when you have time. I would enjoy hearing from you to learn about your new classes. Your devoted student, Sara” A few days later Sara received a message from Christopher. “Dear Sara: Such a joy to receive your message. I am delighted to hear your life is tracking as it is. Teaching centers my life, offering a sense of value. All those years in the field with fellow scientists culminated to this place and time and I am grateful. Student interaction offers meaning, and the satisfaction and I receive is equal to what I may give. “The Alliance encourages teachers to spend a week each summer visiting community sites to rendezvous with former students and give presentations on various subjects, including status at Elysium School. I plan to visit your community this coming summer, planning to stay a week. It gives me something to look forward to and also a break from academia. “I will give you date and time when the arrangement is finalized. What a grand day it will be to see you, meet your parents and learn of your life. Christopher” Christopher was transported to the trailhead to Aspen Village on the morning of June 10th and Sara was waiting as his guide. “Christopher, I’m over here, I estimated your arrival time. This is so wonderful; I can’t believe you’re really here. I’ll carry your large pack and you carry the smaller pack. It’s a two-hour hike to the village. My parents are beside themselves to meet you. You will stay in the guest room at the community center. Everyone has been talking about your visit. It’s so exciting for us.” Smiling, Christopher hugged Sara. “I am excited to be here. It’s a beautiful place, so many aspen trees.” Sara said, “My parents names are Edward and Sally Morgan. They wanted to come, but I asked them not to because I wanted our first meeting at this place to be teacher and student reuniting. I feel so good about your visit. So much to talk about, to see and discuss with everyone.” The two started up the trail, a slight uphill, and then flattened out. It was a warm day, and many birds and wildflowers were along the trail. Sara talked as they hiked, explaining details of the village and its functions. “Several volunteered to prepare a celebration dinner held at our communal meeting house and a few older residents will speak, expressing appreciation for you arranging time to travel to our village. It’s all everyone talks about.” Soon the village came in view, a beautiful setting. Small houses scattered in a dale among aspen. As they approached a man and woman greeted them, introducing themselves as Edward and Sally. Shaking Christopher’s hand Edward said, “Christopher, Sally and I are delighted you were able to visit. It’s all Sara has talked about for days. You will enjoy this place and we look forward to anything you share with us.” Christopher said, “I am honored to meet you both. This is a rare opportunity and will be a memorable one.” Sally said, “Christopher, we will show you your room at the communal center and then tour the village and you can meet everyone. It’s a beautiful day and we will have lunch at our house. You’ll meet our son William at the hemp shed where he works daily sorting and processing hemp. He’s responsible for tending the hemp field, receiving assistance during planting and harvest.” Sara made introductions and served as tour guide, the residents were abuzz about Christopher’s arrival and happy to meet him. A wonderful celebration dinner was held at the communal center, and after the dinner Christopher spoke. “Greetings! This has been a day to remember. It’s my first visit to a village and it’s exciting for me. “I was never offered opportunity to live in a village. After my education the Alliance assigned me to a team of archeological researchers and I spent thirty years pursing this endeavor, studying the meandering evolutionary road of humankind. Your daily living pattern is similar to mine as an archeologist. Our research group reflected what your village life demonstrates, a complete team effort. “Many contributing events and issues have influenced our direction divulging a central question: How can we, as a species, blend more uniformly with the planet and ourselves? We recognized the need for adjustment, bonding within our environment as opposed to shunning it. As society developed to what was perceived a modern design, it attempted to redirect environmental conditions toward greater personal ease of living, distancing from physical challenges required, coexisting with Earth. “We are cognizant of the series of events causing near self-destruction, and these events clearly stimulated installation of improved guidelines created through Alliance-inspired wisdom. “Our new approach mirrors nature’s design. Ancient cultures also unified with earthly cycles. Typically, credit for our success is given to the Alliance for this new direction; however, Earth’s presence revealed purpose, and the Alliance recognized the importance of its natural rhythms, establishing a philosophical base forming a synthesis as opposed to resistance. Earth knows exactly what it is doing, where it has been, and where it is going. Our planet is our spiritual Oracle as we follow its lead. As with all life forms, we mutate to conditions in an effort to sustain and expand as a species in companionship with Earth. “Near the end of my student’s curriculum, I requested communication describing how their lives unfold as they adjust to new challenges. Many responded, but Sara was especially diligent describing vividly all involved in her daily life. Her communication inspired me to visit and touch your lives in this beautiful village. I am pleased beyond my ability to express and will remain forever grateful for your wonderful hospitality. Thank you all.” The villagers cheered and the entire event was fulfilling and meaningful. Christopher returned to teaching and the village returned to its routines. At this space in time tranquility, harmony and balance have been discovered and longevity prevails. Long ago, when The Pilgrims of Tranquility were beginning to establish this new model, the Alliance and the Pilgrims shared much doubt and apprehension. The complication of large-scale genetic design seemed insurmountable, and no clear course appeared. Many on the planet at that time remained trapped in the old system and its intense, dysfunctional complexities. The Pilgrim’s success by example was the eventual influence that activated expansion. They discovered methods of complete self-reliance, and learned new techniques toward detachment from the old system. Their intelligence expanded creative new ideas and goals. They worked as a unit, pertaining to ambition toward a better world for the future. Christopher sent Sara a copy of the journal describing The Pilgrim’s first year living in their commune. Also included a photo of Caleb and Marlene before they had children. They looked so young and vibrant, standing at the entrance of a domed house. Sara put this photo on the wall in her room. It gave her comfort maintaining her memory of reading of Caleb and Marlene’s life, and formed a higher connection with these two historic pioneers of peace and tranquility. In the days following Christopher’s departure, Sara became more astute to her life and its value each day. She felt more attached to the animals and birds that shared her life. A meadowlark was singing on a high limb of an aspen tree. A doe and fawn, unafraid and accustomed to human presence, were grazing near a couple as they hoed their garden. Sara had been educated at Elysium School but this new classroom was of a higher dimension, with greater purpose, in a cradle of love and meaning that could not be taught in a typical school setting. White, billowy clouds filled the sky, opening with patches of blue. Nearby was a catbird perched in a thorn bush, as a stick bug sat motionless unseen by the keen eyed catbird, all combining to create Sara’s world, as she felt the energy of Earth’s beckoning hand, showing clear direction toward the future.

Music and Me By Alexandra H. Rodrigues Music and me have a love-hate relationship. I would have needed a good ear and understanding for music to fulfill lifetime dreams. At the age of four, I joined a local dance and gymnastics school in my hometown Berlin. I did well. I became my teacher’s pet and already at that oh so young age picked up on celebrity airs. I danced in the Midsummer Night’s Dream and went for a joyride on actor Kurt Meisel’s motorcycle. At age 11, I was accepted to the Berlin Opera and at age 12, I was let go with the comment, “She has no ear for music.” Ouch, that hurt. But I had known it along, just did not admit it. Music lessons at school were demeaning. I could not sing a simple song, could not hold a tune. I got failing marks through all grades. Oddly enough, when evacuated to Vienna – the City of Music -- during the second World War, I earned a B-plus in music. I sang the song “Ein Jaeger aus Kurpfalz” – a hunter from Kurpfalz. I can still remember every word of the song. I love to listen to good music. I attended many opera’s like Tannhäuser and Twilight of the Gods, and concerts by Mozart. I idolized the Schumann’s Traumerei and Schubert’s Forellenquintett. A dear friend of mine was Charles Kalman. He passed away last year. He was the son of the Hungarian born Operetta King Emmerich Kalman. His wife, Charles‘ mother, Vera Kalman was said to be the richest woman in Germany. Charlie was a composer himself. And a good one I might say. This, not based on my knowledge of music, but on the crititiques I’ve read about him. My husband and I socialized frequently with Charles and Gerda while they lived in New York. Gerda was my friend from Berlin. It was through her that I came to meet Charlie. We spent many hours listening to Charlie presenting new and older musical pieces -- mostly his own creations -- for which he asked our opinions. I went by my feeling and Charlie never came to know that I was not a very valid critic. He played on his father’s Steinway concert piano. When he and Gerda permanently moved to Munich, Germany, the piano stayed with us. No problem. It looked quite impressive in our living room in the Bronx. A few years later, we moved to Long Island and the piano came with us. Now it was totally out of place, and we had to squeeze by whenever we wanted to pass it. I let my chiropractor have it with the promise that he would never sell it. We had a big fallout years later and I do not know what has happened to the piano. I have tried to forget about it, but I still get upset when I remember. Gerda Kalman passed away many years back and Charles married Ruth, the widow of Herbert Jarzyk, who composed the soundtrack for the movie Kommissar. Another incident that I relate to the music world was my encounter with Maria Callas, the famous opera star. As a flight attendent, I rescued 50 velvety dark roses from the overhead rack of the Pan American plane. The roses had been given to Maria Callas by the Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis. I had been assigned to serve first class and Maria Callas. When she got ready to leave the plane in Teheran, I removed the roses intentending to hand them to her. She motioned with her bejeweled hand that she did not want them. We had a layover in Teheran, so I took the roses, and while the sun was setting on the mountains near my hotel, I looked at the flowers and wondered about the idiosynchrosies of celebrities. So as one can see, music has had some influence on my life. Surely different than for true music lovers, but it gave me stories to tell. I envy people who are very musical --people who live with and for music. But I have made the best of it. For me, poetry has become music and that will have to suffice.

LET’S GO ROCK SOME OPERA! Essay by Vocal Pedagogue Charles E.J. Moulton The famous mezzosoprano vocalizes before her performance, meditating, warming up physically, training her breathing, making sure that the high notes as well as the low notes are there. She has to reach a range of well over two octaves tonight and the audience is waiting for her to sing. That is reason enough to be nervous, no doubt. Without her vocal technique, though, it wouldn’t work. This is routine. Is this the account of the normal workday of an established primadonna at the Metropolitan Opera in New York? No, this is pop star Annie Lennox on tour, warming up with the excersises given to her by star vocal coach Katie Agresta. Like hundreds of other established pop stars, like Bon Jovi and Cindy Lauper, she has spent hours in the 119 West 88th Street studio performing vocalises. So, why is it that so many of us miss that? Because the cultural education today either is lacking or only partial. A publisher I spoke to recently claimed that, in this informed time, it is superfluous to address the issue because 1) it is evident to all musicians and 2) the categorization can’t be changed. But if all individuals think that way, humanity would still be living in caves and hunting animals with spears. Misunderstandings, false stereotypes, categorization and clichés dominate even, or maybe especially, the artistic field. The problem is that there still is a lack of openness. Culturally active musicians know crossover is common, but raising cultural awareness outside of the field also raises sociological decency. The issue must be addressed. As a baritone working all my life in most artistic areas, I have had the questionable privilage of seeing people making wrong assumptions in both camps. Working with my peers on a vocal arrangement of a pop song, originally performed by the King’s Singers, I saw opera singers grant themselves enough reason to discard the music and laugh at it, just because of the style. However, its merit sometimes outweighed many modern atonal pieces, pieces regarded as high culture because of its established acceptance. Likewise, many pop- and musical-artist speak of operasingers as “fat people who just sing”, whereas operasingers speak of musical-artists as “actors who can’t sing”. These are lies. I am here to tell you that. But the lies don’t stop there. Shows like American Idol claim that anyone can become a singer, but the criteria for singing professionally are so high that these singers never ever could hold a career. So, media helps nourish the lies. The grey zones between the styles are getting bigger. Back in the old days, when rock ‘n roll was new and youth culture meant bubble gum and pelvic gyrations, classical musicians received their gold stars in society’s pretty book. Pop stars sometimes got more attention, but the operatic performers received all the credit. But was it ever really like that? No. Classically trained artists have always existed in every genre. In fact, more pop stars have a classical training today than is believed to be true. That’s why artistic quality can be viewed completely independant of genre. Qualified artists exist in every style. Not only do I believe in this hypothesis, but more importantly: it is easily proven. Musicians, like myself, know that Neil Sedaka graduated from Julliard and that Ravel wrote pop songs under a pseudonym. We know that Elvis Presley had a fully sung two-octave range in many of his tunes and that Caruso had a pop hit during World War I. We have to know the facts. We are musicians and we want work. Accordingly, we sometimes find success in other genres, such as classical mezzo-soprano Reri Grist, who was a Shark girl in the orginal West Side Story, but who also appeared at Covent Garden. That is the problem: these facts stay within our profession. To us, this is so evident that we discard anything else as a cliché. To a person who only listens to opera, the categories are strictly defined and artists never travel between genres. The difficulty is this: they see music as an elitist, hierarchical artform, one where classical musicians stay classical and pop musicians stay pop musicians. These people still regard The Beatles as young people’s music, even though it is fifty or sixty years old. They will only listen to Wagner and they shake their heads when they hear a Gershwin tune. If you are such a person, read on. You are about to wake up. Competition breeds excellence, a financial crisis breeds diversity and invention. That is why, during these hard times where creative work is a rare commodity, there is an increasing need to branch out. Artists need to be versatile in order to survive. Not getting a job as an actor? Do you write? Teach? Do voice-over-work? Dance? Well, have you studied voice? If you have, what genres do you sing? Opera? Classical? Musical? Swing? Pop? Rock? Heavy Metal? This is no joke. If you are good, you do it all. Evidently, the singer that masters all of these genres will get more jobs. The more, the merrier. With a solid classical training, a voice is able to master anything. Not only do the artists themselves feel this way, the theatrical directors are casting musicals like The Phantom of the Opera, Oklahoma or Into the Woods with classical voices. If you work in a repertory company, you have to be able to sing everything. And I really do mean everything. An opera singer will always have several musicals in his theatrical assignment list. There might even be a run of Tommy or The Rocky Horror Show among them. He will probably even be asked to sing a pop-concert for the theatre in addition to his Verdi, his Mozart and the occasional atonal opera. On top of that, opera singers are today promoted like pop-stars. There is no big difference in the PR done for Cecilia Bartoli and the promotion for Annie Lennox. Think about it. Okay, we have established the need for versatility and the rocksingers who study for Katie Agresta. But does this also account for instrumentalists? Of course, the list of pianists with a solid classical training, for instance, is long. Among them are Elton John, Joshua Kadison and Billy Joel. The latter named comes from an old family filled with musicians. His father was a classical pianist, his brother is a famous conductor and Billy himself is credited in warming up with Chopin and Mozart before shows. Rock-guitarist Yngwie Malmsteen has written symphonies for the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra, copies Bach and has recorded workshops for YouTube about the art of studying phrygian scales. Paul MacCartney has written oratories. He even paints, but that, of course, is another story. But classical training among popular musicians goes back an even longer way. Scott Joplin was a classically trained pianist. Here, we enter a grey zone. Joplin’s Treemonisha and Gershwin’s Porgy & Bess, for the most part, have to be cast with opera singers. The demands are simply too high for non-trained voices. Stylistically, however, we are talking about African-American music, jazz and the like. Other artists have entered this grey zone: Leonard Bernstein, with his West Side Story, and Barbra Streisand, with her classical album, are among them. Furthermore: don’t forget that Steven Tyler starts out with a high C in his Aerosmith song Dude (Looks Like a Lady). The high C is naturally not of the same calibre as Pavarotti’s, but Tyler has to sing it two-hundred times a year. Of course, he needs Katie Agresta to survive. Otherwise, you would find him professionally dead. Okay. So, rock goes opera, but does opera go rock? Yes, of course. Wagnerian tenor Peter Hoffman became Germany’s top Musical Star during the 90’s. From there on, he started singing rock ‘n roll. He still never forgot his classical training. Freddie Mercury wrote numerous songs for Monserrat Cabellé during the last century and I am sure she learned how to groove from Freddie. And don’t forget the Pavarotti & Friendsconcerts. Naturally, again, many of the popsingers that sing with Luciano here lack a real classical training and when the tenor sang a popsong he lacked the certain bounce of a rocksong. The point, however, is that the grey zones are widening. Where does one genre begin? Where does the other end? German operasinger Lars Oliver Rühl, leading Tamino at the opera in Gelsenkirchen, started out as a rocksinger. That leads us to a third category. The musicians who are famous for mixing up the two. Norwegian Soprano Dollie de Luxe released a series of recordings in 1984, where she morphed Mozart with the Rolling Stones. The most exotic combination is her intermingling of Verdi’s Rigoletto with the rock-song Sex, Drugs and Rock ‘n Roll. Finnish vocalist Tarja Turunen follows in her footsteps in our age. Much of the preconceived conceptions of music has to do with how old a music style is. A contemporary of Mozart was credited in complaining about how awful “this modern music” was and “Thank God for Bach”. Strawinsky’s Rite of Spring was a disaster because of its atonality, Carmen flopped because of its theme. Of course, it is natural for people to accept the artform that has a few years of history behind it. Remembering that, however, we have to look at how old popular music is. It came to us, in reality, with the Afro-American tradition of the slaves singing Negro Sprituals on the fields. That became Ragtime, Jazz, Swing, R & B, Rock ‘n Roll, Hip-Hop and Disco. In that respect, Lenny Kravitz is playing music that is four hundred years old. Classically trained opera conductor Askan Geisler told me, full of admiration, about the instrumental jazz improvisations in a club. “That’s a whole different thing,” he told me. “They make up this stuff as they long and they never forget their classical training.” We have to remember that music works both ways: Verdi’s tunes were whistled by Italian janitors on the streets of Milano, Mozart’s biggest successes as an adult were performed for a lower middle class crowd. In conclusion, we see that nothing is what it seems. The borders of music are like the borders in life: there are endless grey zones and no one can say where the one style ends and the other begins. The most professional fun I ever had in my thirty years on stage was during my time as 1st cast Big Bopper in the Hamburg production of Buddy. Between two shows, I flew to Vienna to sing Raphael in Haydn’s The Creation. Next time you see a rockstar sing his song, remember that he probably is studying classical voice with Miss Agresta. Instead of discarding him as an autodidactic nitwit, use these words to present him instead: Ladies and gentlemen, tonight’s performance of rock music is presented for your pleasure by our lead tenorial vocalist with a four gentlemen orchestra and a chorus of three sopranos. Change the world of music, use the idiom from one style to describe the other genre. We are left with Duke Ellington’s famous words to round things off: “There are only two kinds of music: good music and the other kind.” How right he was. Let’s go rock some opera!

Lasting Influences By Alexandra Rodrigues It suddenly came to me. Sandy hit and left me with half a house and the loss of many cherished antiques and heirlooms. When going through the house and looking at what was left, my comment to my son was, “This is terrible, but it could be worse.” He had expected me to cry and cuss and it surprised him to see me so relatively calm. Guess having been through the War where my family had lost everything and when I was branded as “enemy of the Volk” because my dad was Jewish, let me see disasters like Sandy with a grain of salt. Also having my son next to me, when experiencing the Sandy disaster, consoled me. In addition, the past had nearly prevented me from ever being a mother. This had nothing to do with war but was caused by an incident when I was about four years old. A happening that imprinted itself on my developing mind. My Aunt Edith died at the young age of 32. I’d heard how she had adored and loved me. Too young to be told true facts about her illness, I picked up only bits and pieces. We had all lived I the same villa, and her boyfriend visited frequently. It was said that he might have been at fault. After having been operated on at the hospital, Aunt Edith had gotten out of bed unsupervised. She fainted and never regained consciousness. Her portrait hung in our living room over a well-worn red leather chair. Her story occupied my mind for a long time. Sometimes I even wondered if maybe she was my mother as there was so much secrecy around this tragedy. While growing up, my mind fabricated the story that she had been pregnant, had encountered complications and after being cut had died. I never was told if what I was thinking had any substance. The topic never came up despite visits to her grave many times. However, due to this tragedy I was consumed by an irrational fear of becoming pregnant. Even after having gotten married, my husband and I agreed not to have children. I never said, “I cannot have children.” But many friends and relatives assumed that to be the case. At 38, I suddenly realized that soon it would not be up to me to have a child. That scared me more than any danger from giving birth. Pregnancy followed and with natural birth being promoted for the first time, I took lessons in La Maze, had an easy pregnancy, and gave natural birth. After that, my fear reverted to avoiding full anesthesia and prefer a saddle block if need be. Amazing how experiences at a very young age can influence a lifetime.

Making Music Reflections over my career and life as an artist Published letter / article to 'STÄMBANDET' - The Magazine for the Swedish Vocal & Speech Pedagogue Association from 2003.

By Gun Kronzell-Moulton

Operatic Mezzo-Soprano, Concert- and Oratorio-Singer , Professor of Solo Voice at the Vienna Academy of Music and the Performing Arts. English translation by Herbert Moulton. Further translations and additions by Charles E.J. Moulton Dear Colleagues! I'm delighted to have a chance to write to you again. It's been over ten years since my last article. At that time I told you about my work in Vienna as Professor of Voice at the State Academy of Music. Now I intend to take you on a little journey of reminiscence, hoping to touch on some of the people who have influenced me most as human being, singer, and pedagogue. During my student time in Stockholm --- up until 1958 --- I was privileged to work with many fascinating people: One of these was ke Nygren, unforgettable for his lessons in Speech Technique, as well as for his uncanny ability to remember each and every student he ever had. Shortly before his death he attended a recital of mine at Waldemarsudde, after which he came back, shaking with laughter: "Have you seen the mistake in the programme?" What they had done was write 'Rangström's The Only Student (Den Enda Studenten)' instead of 'The Only Hour (Den Enda Stunden)'. A fortnight later he was dead from a heart attack. A splendid and unforgettable man. Wilhelm Freund was an unbelievably fine teacher of German Lieder, as well as an outstanding personality. Every time I travelled down to Germany he asked me to bring him some Pumpernickel and Harz cheese. Bernhard Lilja taught Solfeggio Ear Schooling at the Academy and was one of my very favourites, not only for his splendid instruction, but also because his lessons were always so hilarious. We roared with laughter through most of them. From Isa Quensel I learned a great deal --- a magnificent woman full of temperament and a passion for fair play. She was a fabulous actress and speech pedagogue and I know I would never have become such a successful actress as a singer if it hadn’t been for Isa. My final year in Stockholm brought me to the legendary Russian pedagogue Madame Andrejewa de Skilondz: a fascinating atmosphere steeped in Russian culture provided by her two round little sisters, an Angora cat and a Pekingese on a silken cushion. Surely many of you are with the many intriguing tales about the Madame, who, when still very young, sang with Caruso. Torsten Föllinger, my dear old friend and collegue, whom I met during a course being given by Professor Josef Witt in Stockholm, has, with his tremendous enthusiasm and knowledge of human nature, always meant more to me than I can say. Part of my income during my student days came from church music. Often I'd go to various organizations and ask if I could sing at a church service or concert. Many times, especially out in the country, I came home with a sack of coins from the collection! Naturally all the student concerts at the old Academy were worth hearing: almost every week a delightfully mixed program of classics. One concert I recall in particular featured Georg Riedel playing his famous double-bass. Lasse Länndahl is another one. In 1959 a Ruud Scholarship enabled me to travel down to Wiesbaden to study with Professor Paul Lohmann, one of the individuals who influenced me most. I still use many of his exercises in my work. The extraordinary thing is that, after so many years, their meaning suddenly becomes so crystal clear that you know precisely what he wanted from them. Paul Lohmann was a true sorcerer, with a vast amount of humour. With every new engagement I took pains to find a teacher with the wisdom to guide my voice in the right way. In Bielefeld there was Herman Firchow, who, besides being a source of valuable advice, had a family who soon were among my best friends ... and good honest friends are something we all need. Every Sunday during these three years in Bielefeld found me working at Bethel, the renowned institution for mentally handicapped children. This provided a perfect balance with my work at the theatre and gave my life a secure and solid meaning. The four succeeding years at Hanover were the busiest of all, with my repertoire expanding to include many of the great Wagner- and Verdi-roles such as Ortrud, Brangäne, Eboli, Ulrica, Abigaille, Azucena, and Preziosilla . At the same time --- in order to keep the voice healthy and fresh --- I studied Brahms Lieder with the legendary pianist Sebastian Peschko, who had been the regular accompanist of Heinrich Schlusnus. He had me write down everything we did together, and for this I shall be eternally grateful as these notes have been a source of untold benefit ever since. As voice teacher in Hanover I had Otto Köhler, a worthy colleague, then seventy years of age and still singing splendidly at the opera. Sometimes we did vocal exercises for four hours together --- Heaven! Later, when I was engaged in Graz and at the Volksoper in Vienna, I went to Kammersängerin Hilde Zadek, who always came to all my premieres, and has continued to do so to my student concerts in Vienna. Quite soon after our son Charlie's birth in September of 1969, I was asked to create the role of Adriano in a new production of Wagner's RIENZI, with the strongly imaginative Stage Director from Vienna's Burg Theater, Adolf Rott --- a marvellous role and a fantastic assignment, but extremely dramatic and taxing for the voice, especially so soon after my caesarean! So, I turned to Professor Eugenie Ludwig (Christa's mother), whose wondrous head resonance exercises brought the voice clear up to the high C, even with a heavy cold! In Graz we shared a two-family theatre house with the Australian soprano Althea Bridges, and her Danish-born husband. And precisely in September 1969 each of us gave birth to a son at the very time we should have been appearing as Leonora and Azucena in a new Trovatore-production. You can imagine how popular that made us with the management! We spent the ten years dating from 1974 in Göteborg, where I was engaged at the Music Acedemy, and, with my husband, wrote and staged a Children's Play named LONG LIVE THE TROLLS! , where Charlie also had his professional stage debut as the clumsy troll Klampe-Lampe. I also taught disc jockeys on the Stena Line-ferries, as well as teachers to Chinese immigrants. Besides all that, I jumped at a day's notice at the Gothenburg Opera into the role of Ulrica (Mamzelle Arvidsson) in Verdi's MASKED BALL, singing it in Swedish for the first time, after having already performed it in both German and the original Italian. Added to that, there were every summer intensive church music courses, hard work, but fun and rewarding. All these varied activities gave me a ready-made and invaluable backlog of experience when I was made a fulltime Professor of Voice at Vienna's State Academy of Music and the Performing Arts in the autumn of 1984 --- this, after a trial lesson before some thirty voice teachers --- both gratifying and rewarding . At first I was so taken with all the various nationalities around me at the Academy that I took on a class of twenty different students, but with the passage of time I narrowed it down to only those I myself had prepared or who had convinced me of their future potential . Entrance examinations in Sweden are considerably more difficult than in Austria, as we Swedes are a singing people with a singular feeling for speech and song. However, it's also clear that to sing German as, say, Fritz Wunderlich did is indeed wonderful. He once confided that he sang German as if it were Italian! Since the fall of the Wall our problems have been entirely different here. Russians, Poles, Bulgarians, Romanians, Croats, Slovenes, and the like are all extremely talented and musically prepared, but with so little money that the barely come up to the existenceminimum. To return now to some welcome visitors: Torsten Föllinger sometimes journeys down here to help us achieve more vocal freedom, as well as self-esteem. The Russian basso Nesterenko gave a course for our students, an outstanding singer, who also presented me with a book of exercises for the bass voice, which had been used in Russia since 1915. Ingrid Bjoner was also here a few years ago for a seminar and impressed everyone with her depth of understanding, especially for individual students. For a few years I had a brilliant young Hungarian girl as a student, who suddenly became Luciano Pavarotti's right hand and general Girl Friday for a period of seven years, travelling with him the world over. Thanks to her, not only did I have free tickets for his concerts and opera performances, but also had many opportunities to meet with him and attend some of his rehearsals, not only instructive but endlessly fascinating. The positive advantages of living in Vienna are not so much the old-fashioned teaching and traditions, but the enormous bill-of-fare readily available in terms of international concerts operatic performances, theatre and dance events of every possible type. We have also enjoyed several visits by Kjell 'Mr.Choir' Lönnâ and his large, delightful and enthusiastic singing ensembles. Besides performing 'Haus-Musik' in the Swedish Embassy (as I have done numerous times), the success they scored in St. Stephen Cathedral verged on the sensational. Then, too, Stockholm's Radio Orchestra, Drottningholm's Baroque Ensemble, and also the Maestro Eric Ericsson, with whom I sang in the 50's, all of whom have concertized here to great applause. And it's always a joy to meet with any of them are my old colleagues from home. My husband Herbert Moulton has long been associated with ORF School's Radio, as well as with both English-speaking theatres, the International (where he played everything from Shakespeare to Wilder and Orwell and the Uncle in Charlie's Aunt) and Vienna's English Theatre, the latter serving high-quality performances from London (Ayckborn, Shakespeare, Christie) or the States (such as Second City) for large and distinguished public. He has a versatile background in all fields of art: as a playwright and actor , singer of everything from simple folk tunes to 'Grand Opera' and has done commercials and been in films with the likes of Audrey Landers, Alan Rickman, David Warner, Clint Eastwood and Zsa-Zsa Gabor. Inspired by all this and early stage-work as well as years of concerting in his back-pocket, our son Charles E.J. Moulton's career has advanced from theatre projects and small roles in Vienna's Chamber Opera (Offenbach, Gershwin, Vives, etc.) to a two-and-a-half year's run of Roman 'Rosemary's Baby' Polanski's Broadway-destined World Premiere 'Grusical' DANCE OF THE VAMPIRES, written by Webber-collaborator Jim Steinman . At present he is playing the first cast role of The Big Bopper in Hamburg's long running musical BUDDY in Germany, from which he recently took time off to fly down to Vienna for two concerts as bass-soloist in Joseph Haydn's THE CREATION (once in the Haydn Museum, the baroque house where Papa Haydn wrote the piece) then to Sweden for a tour of church concerts with famous Swedish all-round saxophonist Johan Stengård, followed by a most rewarding week at a Master-Class outside Oslo in Norway, a seminar featuring the eminences of Ingrid Bjoner and Håkan Hagegård . He spent a half year cruising the Caribbean and Mediterranean seas as a singing soloist, after which he joined the company of Jesus Christ Superstar in the Bad Hersfelder Festival. Before joining the Dutch Stage Holding Corporation to play Scar and Pumbaa in Disney's THE LION KING in Hamburg, he was soloist with the city’s Mozart Orchestra, performing Rossini and Bizet. One great blessing for me is having had the good fortune to meet and get to know a magnificent Franciscan monk in Salzburg back in 1953. He has ever since enriched my life with good advice and the deep understanding that a true Christian vocation can provide. As a resting-place next to the productive lives that we all have enjoyed, mine is, has been and always will be my home town of Kalmar. This city, with its grand 12th century castle and seaside lifestyle and my many friends and relatives, has been my lifelong summerhome and will always be so. Since my 1998 retirement I have enjoyed not only more freedom as a pedagogue and singer but as a globetrotter as well, travelling not only more to Sweden but to my friends in Germany, Hungary and Ireland as well. Living in Vienna, Austria is, on the other hand, also a blessing. I can, therefore, heartily welcome you here and to my Studio in the second district with all God's blessings. As I think back over my life, I see now how tremendously important it is to never lose sight of why we do what we do. Why we are engaged in Making Music. This is not only a nineto-five job. If it were we might as well stand as cashiers in a mall. It is an attitude, a vocation, a life-style. We search for the deepest part within us and dwell within its mysteries, taming our technique, bettering ourselves as people to make us finer as artists, generously sharing with others the benefits of our experience, giving our public love and joy with it all and leaving our hearers nobler with the experience. Art is calling forth emotions and making people believe in life again. As such, and if done right, this is the noblest of all professions.

What is the Meaning of Life By Alexandra H. Rodrigues I feel like I am working with the “Black Cat Analogy.” Let me quickly quote: Philosophy is like being in a dark room and looking for a black cat. Metaphysics is like being in a dark room and looking for a black cat that isn’t there. Theology is like being in a dark room and looking for a black cat that isn’t there, shouting : ”I found it!”

"Science is like being in a dark room and looking for a black cat using a flashlight." - By Irreverent Monk What are we looking for? The meaning of my life? Of your life? Of my dog’s life? The life of a Dinosaur or of a New York City Rat? We have the habit to believe that the world spins around us, with us in the center and us being the center. Well just think how many worlds it would take to spin around everybody in our Universe. So let’s start again. The meaning of which life is in question? That of a flower? Surely a flower is meant to please us with fragrant smell and vibrant color. That of a tree? Its purpose is to give shade when the sun is too strong, to give wood to make a fire, to give fruit –But stop! It also gave the first forbidden fruit! Was it meant to tempt Adam? An animal? Is the meaning of a pig’s life to be slaughtered and served with an apple in its mouth to be eaten by men? Are most dogs meant to befriend us? What do we mean when we say “It’s a dog’s life.” Who is to judge? There are specks of evolution being passed on from generation to generation striving for the ultimate perfection in eternity. Which is what? As a teenager I read, Kant, Nietzsche and Schopenhauer. Their long winding sentences are tempered with the same question. I was only 16 years old when I worked myself laboriously thru the enormous volumes of those books, not really sure what I was hoping to find. Having finished those enormous works, I did not know any better. Tom Dooley, Mother Theresa, and Jesus are just a few names of non-movie celebrities coming to mind among many who accomplished great deeds. Who or what gave them their drive? Are Meaning and Purpose identical? Maybe we are toys for an Almighty power. Possibly the very earliest attempt of cloning. Is the true meaning of life written in the stars? Still at a loss, I am closing with a saying by Eckhart Tolle: You are the universe, expressing itself as a human being for a little while.

The Rigoletto Caper By the Late, Great

Herbert Eyre Moulton (1927 - 2005)

Posthumous foreword by his son Charles E.J. Moulton When I was 11 years old, my father and I spent our first of three vacations in Copenhagen, Denmark. These trips became gastronomical and cultural highlights for us both. In fact, they were one of the many reasons why I became an artist in the first place. Rossini's "Il Barbiere di Siviglia", Tchaikovsky's "Nutcracker" and an uncut version of William Shakespeare's "Hamlet" in the Danish language: all of these extraordinary pieces became my own experiences, figuratively speaking, by my father's artistic side, because of his happy-go-lucky, natural way of approaching highly artistic pieces. The production of "Hamlet" at the Royal Danish Theatre, though, received its humorous announcement through one of the charming ladies in the box office. When we picked up the tickets for the evening, she told us that "Hamlet" was "a very good Danish play". I grew up, listening and watching Shakespeare plays and the like, at the time. Thus: I, too, laughed. My father reacted in his charming Mid-Atlantic idiom, responding with a charming smile: "Well, Madam, it is also a very good English play." In retrospect, I see that my father was the best of both worlds. His fine combination of high intellectualism and self depricating wit: that was his trademark. The story that you are about to read, written by his own hand sometime in the 1990’s, took place when he was a young boy, newly adolescent, his courage and schutzpah driving the nuns at the Catholic school of St. Cuthbert's crazy. The mixture of high culture and wit, well developed when I was child, was very present already when my father was a boy. His artistic and educated upbringing, nonetheless, came from a genuine parental interest in knowledge persay, not in the arrogant showing off of the same. His mother Nell Brennan Eyre was a eccentric, wonderfully enthusiastic lady, who loved chatting with people over a glass of beloved Irish whiskey. His father Herbert Lewis Moulton's tranquil manner probably gave my father his gentlemanly charm. It made it possible for him to experience becoming the witty storyteller persay, becoming the intellectual bon-vivant that he remained for the rest of his life. He convinced people with self-irony and love, a creative urge and an excellent idiomatic articulation, that art and high culture can be the most fun you've ever had. Art, in fact, is in eye of the beholder. That is why, during our vacations in Denmark, we went to the movie house and saw films like "War Games" (in English, with the computer’s voice in baffling Danish) and "For Your Eyes Only" on the days following our operatic visits. We liked fast food and haute cuisine, high drama and decorative entertainment. Our excursion to see "For Your Eyes Only" was especially witty. We were sitting in our favorite Italian restaurant close to the opera house, when I saw an announcement in the daily paper that Roger Moore's new Bond film was out. I had to do a little bit of convincing to persuade my wonderful father in going to a certain cinema called "Colloseum", but in the end he gave in. So we asked the Italian waiter where the Colloseum was. The waiter answered, surprised: "The Colloseum is in Rome." We assured him that we knew that, but that we meant the cinema. He answered with a sneer: "Oh, you don't want to go there!" Anyway, we got there in the end in spite of Italian arrogance. Even though we accidentally ended up in a wrong part of the complex, watching the beginning of a Terry Thomas flick dubbed into French, we did see Roger Moore as James Bond in "For Your Eyes Only" and we loved it. So, there you have it. My father's legacy: intellectual wit on a global level with Italians in Denmark, Americans watching British movies dubbed into French. He lived culturally and intellectually, telling people to keep their eyes on what character traits are most important when it comes to any form of artistic endeavor. Creativity and inspiration, threefold, fourfold, a dozen times and eternally. I have my mother, the operatic mezzo-soprano Gun Kronzell, and my father Herbert Eyre Moulton, actor and author, singer and teacher, to thank for the fact that I love being creative. Just like they were. Now, sit back and enjoy the ride. We're in Glen Ellyn, Illinois, and the year is 1940. Herbie? Take us back in time. THE RIGOLETTO CAPER Opera freaks are best when taken young. In my case, I was all of eight when this peculiar virus struck, and, for good or ill, it has been raging on and off ever since. Even at that tender age, you learn to cope. Just as your nearest and dearest have to learn, as well. For instance, from that time on, all Saturday activities had to be planned strictly around the Metropolitan Opera Saturday matinee broadcasts, which began, for us in the Midwest, at 1 p.m. That affected eveything everything from my regular household chores (50 cents a week, nothing to be sneezed at back in the 30's) and helping my parents with their marketing (our local term for shopping) for the week, to excursions, to places like museums in town, the zoo, friends you drop in on, and attendance at mega-events like birthday parties, hayrides, and PET & HOBBY Shows. But the real crunch came with the cheery mayhem of Saturday afternoons at our local fleapit, the Glen Theatre. (By some miracle it's still standing!) When forced to choose, let's say, between Lily Pons in "Lakme" from the Met, and --- at the Glen --- something like Laurel & Hardy in "Way Out West" or W.C. Fields in "The Bank Dick", with the added inducement of a Lone Ranger or Flash Gordon serial episode, the choice was too bitterly heartbreaking to be borne. To tell the truth and shame the Devil, as my mother Nell used to say, my precocious operatic know-how wasn't much use to me in those days. On the contrary, it was almost a hindrance, if not a handicap. To most "normal" folks, it set me apart, not "Queer" exactly, but, ya know, "different", even "Snobbish". This, I guess, is why I compensated for it by my constant clowning around around and showing-off. But there was this one occasion --- a day in late Autumn 1940 --- when my Opera Virus led directly to my most shining hour in that crowded, bustling, rather smelly double-classroom in St. Cuthbert's Parochial School in our Chicago Suburb, when I actually won respect from (a.) my peers (Surprise and Enthusiasm) and (b.) my chief adversary and esteemed sparring partner, Sister Gaudeamus (grudging, but genuine). This was a Big Day for me --- serendipity, I guess would be the word, and I've been wanting to use it for a long time --- one of the few tussels, intellectual or otherwise I ever engaged in with "S'ster" and actually emerged the undisputed winner. And all thanks to my Opera-Mania. Now, in order to present as full a view as possible of this more-than-memorable happening, we'll rewind a bit to fill in the background of what I like to call "The Rigoletto Caper"... For all their inexperience in worldly affairs, the good nuns at St. Cuthbert's held very definite opinions about what did or did not constitute suitable entertainment. Almost anything later than Ethelbert Nevin's "The Rosary" or more substantial than "The Lady or the Tiger" was automatically suspect --- either elite, seditious, or high-hat, or a combination of all three. Even Nell's beloved narrative poem "Evangeline" by Longfellow had a prominent position on Sister's Index of Forbidden Books (unofficial, of course), being labelled by her as "purest bouzwah" and "preposterous", insulting if not downright heretical. Poor Mr. Longfellow, just because his heroine loses her lover Gabriel, and after years of unsuccessful searching, takes the veil, only to find him again, dying in a hospice in plagueracked New Orleans. He then expires in her arms, in a scene guaranteed to make the wrestler Bruno Sammartino burst into tears ... Preposterous, maybe. But heretical? No way! Sure it's sentimental, enough to make a totempole weep --- but what's wrong about that, S'ster? Closer to home, our own pre-teen affection for the verve and teasing humor of entertainers like "Fats" Waller and the Andrews Sisters was also shot down in flames: "smut" being the epithet used to describe the boundless joy that "Fats" radiated, and "silly sensuality" for the sprightly melodies and close harmonies of Maxine, Laverne and Patti. "Your feet's too big!" Smutty? "Roll Out the Barrel!" Sensual? Were we occupying the same planet or what? As a last-ditch attempt to stem the rising tide of "Smut" and "Sensuality", a weekly series of "Music Appreciation Lectures" was launched, in spite of the fact that most of us --- our folks, anyway, already appreciated music very much. Never mind! S'ster was a fully qualified missionary to the Philistines, and once her hand was on the plow, there was never any turning back. Armed with a dozen or so scratchy old 78's and the big wind-up Victrola dominating one corner of the classroom, she intended to instill into us Yahoos a knowledge and respect, maybe even an appreciation of the Classics, or know the reason why. We were thus treated to endless snatches of symphonies, and odd scraps of semi-classics, preferably of an edifying nature: the Intermezzo from "Cavalleria Rusticana" or "In a Monastary Garden", each plentifully garnished with S'ster's none-too-accurate program notes. On this particular afternoon, on a day when I hadn't yet been ordered to leave the room, Sister had elected to give us gems from Verdi's "Rigoletto", suitably laundered, naturally, when it came to the Duke of Mantua's more libidinious exploits. Despite occasional wisecracks from the rowdier elements of the class, it was going fairly well --- that is, until S'ster mispronounced the name of the hired assassin Sparafucile, which rolled out of her as "Spa-ra-FOO-chee-lay." Hooray! At last a chance to put my opera-freakdom to positive use, and, by the same token, maybe even the score with S'ster a few much-needed points. My pudgy hand shot up: "S'ster! S'ster!" A weighty pause ... "Yes, Herbert." The tone was weary, resigned. "What is it THIS time?" You got the first part of it right, S'ster ..." (Noblesse oblige:) "Well, thank you very much indeed." "But I'm afraid you made a mistake with the assassin's name. It's not 'Spa-ra-FOO-cheelay', as you said. It's 'Spa-ra-foo-CHEE-lay." "Well, of course," and her sneer was marked with a regal toss of her hood, "you WOULD know." A faint smell of blood in the atmosphere, and the boredom that had drugged the class till then started to disperse. "Yes, S'ster, as a matter of fact, I would." I was in the driver's seat for once and could afford to put my foot down on the throttle: "Strangely enough, I went with my Mom and Dad to an operatic performance last night at the Civic Opera House ---" "Yes, yes, yes. I know where it is and what it's called." The spectators were now on the edge of their desk-seats (not too comfortable), all eager attention. I went on with my advantage: "And the opera happened to be that same 'Rigoletto' you've been talking about --- starring that famous American baritone Laurence Tibbett in the title role ..." All of a sudden, I was a 12-year old Milton J. Cross --- amiable, knowing, professional --- charming millions of fans on a Saturday matinee broadcast. "... with Lily Pons, the lovely French coloratura soprano as his daughter Gilda. The tenor was ..." I was cut off in mid-sentence. "All right, then, perhaps ..." Her tone was both gracious and dangerous, one I knew only too well. "Perhaps you'd like to come up here in front of the class and take over?" "Oh, S'ster, could I?" There was a murmur of interest from the spectactors, now totally wide awake. I waddled up to the front of the room where Sister and I got caught up in a grotesque little pas de deux, changing places. At last, she lowered herself with great dignity into a nearby chair. I perched on the edge of her desk, of her DESK!, while the others in the class, friend and foe alike, all leaned forward to catch every exquisite detail of the slaughter. I looked into the sea of expectant faces --- well, not a sea, exactly, more like a puddle, and I began. "So, as S'ster has been trying to tell you ---" (Loud throat-clearing from Sister's direction) "The court-jester Rigoletto meets this hired assassin one dark night on his way home from work at the palace, a really creepy type named Spa-ra-foo-CHEE-lay ..." Again, sound-effects from the sidelines where the dear lady was now breathing noisily through her nostrils. I ignored these and went on lining out Victor Hugo's dramatic story. My tale grabbed my listeners as nothing Sister ever said could. As I went on, really in the spirit of the thing, I noticed how she was sitting there with her eyeballs rolled back in her sockets, like that famous marble statue of Saint Teresa of Avila in ecstacy. Her face in its stiff linen frame-work resembled a baked tomato about to burst. When I finally arrived at the final tragic moment, when Rigoletto discovers the body of his dying daughter in the sack --- all his fault, I belted out his tearful cry of "Ah! La Maladizione! --- The Curse!" And I gave it my all ... Wild applause from the audience, a few of them, my best pals, naturally, even giving a cheer and a whistle or two. (At this, Sister looked as though mentally taking down names.) Drunk with triumph, I was about to repeat the howl, but was cut off this time quite sharply: "That will DO, Herbert. Thank you." Just then, the recess bell rang setting off the usual stampede out to the playground. Sister waited till it had subsided, then said in a cool, steady tone: ""Humpf, interesting, Herbert. Perhaps you really DID go to the opera last night." I feigned being shocked and hurt. "S'ster! When did I ever lie to you?" She started to answer, thought better of it, then brushed me aside as she started out. "Recess," she said, going forth, majestic even in defeat. From then on, the Music Appreciation Hours grew less and less frequent, and were confined to safe composers like Stephen Foster and Percy Grainger. I myself was never asked to take over a class again, and the subject of opera was avoided altogether. A temporary victory for our side, but only a minor bleep in a long but, on the whole, merry little war --- not to be mentioned with the real one brewing overseas. Ours brought a few, as well.

Good Old Times By Alexandra H. Rodrigues Out of my ever-growing repertoire of memoirs, I picked a time period from 1971 to 1972. I was 38 years old then and my husband Ray was 47. We were expecting our first child after eleven years of marriage and we were happy; with some exceptions. On November 9, 1971, I began to write “the story of my life” to my unborn child. Why? Well, as a child, I had been exposed to the grief that followed the death of my favorite aunt, who lost her life from an ectopic pregnancy. A shock that left me afraid of childbirth. When I got pregnant, I was first diagnosed as going through menopause. This by a young , ambitious gynecologist. An old-fashioned family doctor, our company doctor in Rome, corrected the facts. Both my husband and I were crew members with an international airline at that time. Our life was to change drastically. Here we go. Really I don’t know where to start or how. “Hallo Baby! Right now you are hardly more than an idea, in the very beginning of your being. I am four months pregnant and still in the process of becoming acquainted with the concept of YOU. You have been extremely good till now, although I really don’t know how much you have to do with it so far. I didn’t get nauseous during these four months and my belly is only protruding just a little at this point, just enough for me to be aware that you are growing. I still fit into my regular wardrobe, except those dresses with the tight waistline. This morning I put on my purple wool slacks and a loose purple sweater. Nobody would be able to tell that I am carrying you. Don’t get me wrong, I ‘m not ashamed of you but, I have always been very concerned about my figure. From childhood on I have been watching my mother fighting a battle with overweight. I did anything to stay slim and trim. Anyhow, after I became a stewardess, I had to go for a weight check once a month, and thus kept easily in line. I only stopped flying a month ago. Sorry Baby. I am straying again from what is motivating my outpour. I get lost in all those little details, all those little things I want you to know. It’s quite clear in my mind, why I am sitting down to write to you but it is not quite as easy to put it into the written word. You and I have still a struggle ahead of us, to bring you into this world as a happy and healthy human being. Hope and confidence is what I have to instill in myself several times a day. There are many things that could go wrong. Your daddy is just as worried as I am. If we make it, you and I, then part of it will go to his credit. A big part. I am a nervous person by nature, and I worry if I can carry you for the entire nine months. I can only pray that you won’t be stillborn or have a birth defect. There are several factors stacked against us two. I am already 38 years old and you are my first child. They say that flying does something to your physique. I have been flying for 13 years by now. I smoke like a chimney, and scientific reports keep warning pregnant women of the added danger. Of course, that is something I should not do although I do not inhale. According to my doctor and to his surprise my lungs are clear, still nicotine goes into the bloodstream. You see, you have already to find out that I am not perfect. I did give up drinking. Before I knew about you, I used to have at least three or four cocktails a day. It had become a habit after I forced myself off tranquilizers about five years ago. Drinks became a more acceptable substitute. There I go in details already again. All right, I’ll try to give a reason for what I am doing. You see, I believe that you, as part of me, have a right to know all about me and your father. Not now, that would be impossible, not even when you are very young. Truthfully, I have no idea when you will read this, but I hope that one day you will. It is impossible to predict what the future will hold. What relationship will develop between you and me, between you and your father. Whether all three of us will be alive when you read this. Yet without hope and trust, it would be useless to go on with anything. One always fears the worst but hopes for the best. It is that what makes us tick. Carrying a life, like I carry you within me, is the most creative act in the world. It would be foolish not to have faith. This is followed by 38, narrowly typed pages of an autobiography. A few minutes ago, my son Ray, a 42-year-old, handsome man, left my house to go back to his wife and 7-year-old son. He has no idea about this 1972 letter to him. Thank God there was no need for him to read it yet. God willing I will fiish this idea, to which I gave birth just before I gave birth to you my son, this year 2016. It will be a X-mas present for Raymond and myself as well.

High Old Times in the Threadbare ‘30s By the late and great Herbert Eyre Moulton (1927 – 2005) http://about.me/hmoulton (http://about.me/hmoulton)

Considering the perilous state of everyone’s finances during the 1930’s --- at least everyone we knew --- and recalling our own feast-and-famine cycles, the wonder is that we managed to take in as much grand entertainment as we did. But then, I was an only child (born July 1927) and no problem to be taken any where my parents went. Obviously I was also smart enough to grow as fast as I could so that these excursions of ours could grow ever more festive. Before anybody realized it, they consisted of at least one carefully chosen opera each season, plus operettas, musicals, stage plays, and, two summers running (’33 and ’34), the marvels of the Chicago World’s Fair, A Century of Progress. We were determined to miss as little as possible. Damn the Depression, anyway! Naturally, there were the usual sour comments from the local Babbitts: Who did we think we were, anyway? Going to plays and operas, with so many people on relief? “Oh, don’t mind those old horses’ neckties!” my mother Nell advised. “They’re only jealous. Such Slobs ICH KABIBEL!” (She’d once had a Yiddisch speaking suitor.) “Now, let’s see what’s playing next week, what we can afford, that.” Something affordable would always turn up --- there was so much to choose from. And if the tickets cost too much, there was always some way to blarney our way past the Manager. “Honey-Boy, remember, I’m not Irish for nothing!” On such occasions, my Dad, Big Herb, would either look the other way or simply pretend he wasn’t with us. Those were the days of Vaudevill, so we were able to bask in the glow of dying embers. One of my first Show-Biz memories was of Sophie Tucker, all in white, being driven onstage in a white-and-gold open limousine, attended by flunkies in matching livery. They escorted her down to the footlights. “Some of these days/ You’re gonna miss me, Honey”. I was absolutely transfixed. There were, as well, lots of live radio broadcasts originating in Chicago, like W-G-N’s popular Soap “Bachelor’s Children” --- we wrote in and got free tickets several times. Got the cast’s autographs, too, and a write-up in our local newspaper, The Glen Ellyn News. So much for the Babbitts. There were also hour-long radio dramas like the version of “A Farewell to Arms” with no one less than Helen Hayes as Catherine, script in hand, loving, emoting, and finally dying beautifully, all into the microphone. Just think: The First Lady of the American Theater, not ten yards away from us and all the better because it hadn’t cost us a red cent! The same went for the nightly free summer concerts in Grant Park. We took in them all, or some of them, anyway. And Nell got more articles printed in the paper. Living Well is the Best Revenge! On athletics and sporting events we didn’t waste much time --- wrongly perhaps, and I the figure to prove it. (Sorry, Jocks!) I did like to go swimming, with my pals at the Wheaton pool in the next town, riding our bikes and devouring candy bars the whole way. There was also skating on Lake Ellyn, the best part of which was the hot cocoa with marshmallows in it at the boat house. That, and chatting up the junior high school girls. And the Hell with the Hans Brinkers outside falling on their bottoms! We did make an annual pilgrimage to Wrigley Field each summer, mostly to humor Big Herb, an inveterate Cubs fan. They very seldom won a game, but my Dad was convinced they would, and the Pennant, too, if only we’d keep thinking Positive Thoughts. So we did ... meanwhile, the Hot Dogs there - they were just about the best in town. Well, in 1938, Big Herb’s beloved Cubs finally won their Pennant, and, bless him, he hurried home as fast as he could just to tell us the News in person. It wasn’t just “Gabby” Hartnett’s last minute Grand Slam Homer that had turned the tide --- our own good wishes and positive thoughts had also played their part. Right, perhaps they had ... Nothing like keeping everyone on the Home Front happy and content. Like most families, we had our share of seasonal traditions and these we kept religiously. Christmas vacation always meant one thing in certainty: a trip to the Chicago Stadium for Sonja Henie’s spectacular Ice Revue --- breathtaking costumes and orchestrations, Olympic skaters, and hair-raising comics-on-ice like Frick and Frack, and, the peak of the program and always dazzlingly beautiful: Sonja Henie herself, solo, a cherubic blond dream in a short glitzy skirt and spinning and wafting her way through Liszt’s “Liebestraum” --Man alive! Now that was magic! That, ladies and gents, was a star to conjure with! The Stadium of W. Madison St. was likewise the setting for another family tradition, this one in summertime: Ringling Bros., Barnum and Bailey’s Circus! Three rings continuously alive with clowns and their exploding flivvers, acrobats and tumblers, magicians and live animal acts, and a bevy of pretty ballet girls, fluttering vast butterfly wings a hundred feet up, hanging from the ceiling by their teeth! (Ow!) And at the Grand Finale, having to stop your ears when somebody got shot out of a mammoth cannon. (I never quite grasped the charm of this.) Yet another amicable tradition: celebrating my parents’ Wedding Anniversary every February 27th, getting launched with a three-way “Kram” (Swedish for “embrace” – we called it simply a Hug-and-a-Boo.) Then a slap-up-dinner at a fine downtown restaurant --Henrici’s or, better, still, the Berghoff, where the Wiener Schnitzel and Tafelspitz, AND the home-made Lemon Meringe Pie are to die for. This would be followed by a stage show, whatever happened to be playing that appealed to us all. One year, it was “The Hot Mikado”, another: “Porgy and Bess”, and the last such occasion in the ‘30’s (“Good riddance!” was Nell’s send-off-comment): the wonderful comedy “Life with Father” with Percy Warum as fulminating Father Day, and Lillian Gish (Yes!) as the gentle, slightly pixilated mother, heading a company said to be far superior to the popular Broadway original. Another season brought Noel Coward’s witty Spook-Comedy “Blithe Spirit”, featuring the deliciously dotty Estelle Winwood of the lace-curtained hair-do, wide-set eyes, and pixie movements, along with Dennis King, old-time operetta idol, and the chic but incomprehensible Annabella. We hoped her husband Tyrone Power could understand her better than we did. A farce my parents loved was “Leaning on Letty”, with the loose-limbed Charlotte Greenwood, whose post-performance display of rubber-legged acrobatics brought down the house. An incredible display, much loved. Then there was the dark andd melancholy Sylvia Sidney in a stage version of Nell’s beloved namesake “Jane Eyre” (her father had been born an Eyre of Eyrecourt in County Galway, where Charlotte Bronte, the author, once settled, taking that family’s name for her own heroine). One reason for Miss Sidney’s melancholy might have been having the show stolen from under her by that delicious character actress Cora Witherspoon in the cameo role of Mr. Rochester’s complaining cook. Another star turn, and one deemed by some of Nell’s bitchier lady friends as quite unsuitable for young Herbert’s innocent ears, was Clifton Webb’s waspish “The Man Who Came to Dinner” --- not for school-boys, and, consequently, relished all the more by this one. We also revelled in “Pins and Needles”, a political revue put on by members of the international Garment Workers Union in New York --- their spoof of an old-fashioned mellerdrammer was achingly funny and remains so in memory today. “Achingly funny” wouldn’t half describe Olsen and Johnson’s zany “Helzapoppin’”, which gave a new meaning to madness, but it sure took a lot of tolerance to reconcile this kind of thing with the dignified Auditorium. What counted was the great old theater was being used as such. It surely was for the next production, which came at the very close “Dirty ‘30’s” --“Romeo and Juliet” starring the most glamorous and famous pair of lovers of the time, Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh. We all thought it was the most sumptuous and thrilling Romeo possible, but it’s now reckoned the biggest flop of the Oliviers’ otherwise distinguished career. It played in the theater I shall always love more than any other --Louis Sullivan’s masterpiece, and I write about it with a reverance reserved for very holy places. I was and indeed still am deeply devoted to this historic old theater which dates from 1889 and which played such a seminal role in my life. And when it was threatened with demolition in the early ‘40’s, my personal sorrow was so profound that I wrote critic Claudia Cassidy a lament for its apparently inexorable fate. She published it almost in full in her Sunday column in the Chicago Sun --- Fame! And at the tendenage of 15, too. But thank God and a lot of marvellous people, the Auditorium managed to survive after all and is now enjoying a new lease on life as part of Roosevelt University --- restored to its pristine splendor as a protected Historical Monument. It was there that I had my first real theatrical experience, a musical extravaganza in every sense of the word, “The Great Waltz”, music by Johann Strauss the Younger, book by Moss Hart, and featuring the soprano Marion Claire. It was she, as wife of the Music Director of W-G-N, who, in Spring 1953, auditioned and hired me for my first nationwide broadcast, commenting to the others in the control room: “We must find something that shows off his beautiful diction.” As for “The Great Waltz” itself, very little I have seen since --- this was 1936, remember --has ever approached it for sheer theatrical magic, now, during the introduction to the Grand Finale, the bandstand with orchestra, moved swiftly and silently upstage as far as it would go, crystal chandaliers descended from above and pillars slid out from the wings on both sides. Thus, in a matter of seconds, what was just another set downstage for a bit of dialogue, was transformed into the grandest of ballrooms, crowded with handsomely dressed couples waltzing to the beautiful Blue Danube. This was Glamour. This was Theater. This was an Epiphany, and I never quite got over it. Let’s get down now to the operas my parents took me to in the 1930’s, after a quick glance back to the dark days of October 1929, when, by supreme stroke of irony, the stockmarket crash that triggered the Great Depression, neatly coincided with the opening of Samuel Insull’s brand new, twenty-million dollar, Art-Deco Civic Opera House. This soon came to be known as Insull’s Folly, and for it, his Civic Opera Company had abandoned the historic and still viable Auditorium, home of Chicago opera for four decades. Luckily, Chicago opera is now flourishing again. In the ‘30’s, the only opera being performed at the Auditorium (probably the best acoustics in Christendom) was that of Fortune Gallo’s San Carlo Company, an excellent troupe of first-class artists from home and abroad, performing standard repertory at “popular” prices a few weeks at a time before moving on to the next city. My first opera was their “Faust”, with a nice chubby Marguerite named Belle Verte, and, as Mephisto, the company’s resident bass, Harold Kravitt (these names have been flashed solely from memory). There was even a “white” ballet between the acts. It was all totally new to me and it left me hooked for life. My second night at the Opera, again the San Carlo, was Bizet’s “Carmen”, starring the Russian mezzo Ina Bourskaya. The trouble was that particular Saturday night an American Legion convention was in town, and Big Herb, a faithful, if not fanatical Legionaire, was all set to spend the evening with some of his buddies at Mme. Galli’s Italian Restaurant on the Near North Side --- a rollicking occasion reminiscent of Laurel and Hardy’s classic “Sons of the Desert” convention, which also took place in Chicago. All well and good, but what about my Carmen? I’d been looking forward to it for weeks. As curtain time approached, with the merriment showing no signs of abating, I began to twitch, and then to panic. Was I the only one who remembered our date at the opera? Nothing for it, but to burst into tears and create such a scene that the festivities ended then and there. We got to the theater just in time to miss Carmen’s Entrance and Habanera, but the important thing was we got there, period. And a terrific experience it turned out to be. Besides my tearful brouhaha at Mme. Galli’s, what I remember most about that performance was Act IV and the hardy little band of 5 or 6 supers, got up as matadors and marching round and round in the pre-bullfight parade --- in one side and out the other, then a dash backstage and in again, at least four times, each appearance getting a bigger laugh and louder hand than before. Then, for the final scene --- Brouskaya resplendent in gold lace, tier after tier down to the ground, with a matching mantilla held in place by a jeweled comb and blood-red rose. What impressed me most was the moment just prior to her death --- she made a frantic Sign of the Cross, then turned and rushed upstage to meet her lover’s naked knifeblade --- this desperate, dramatic Sign of the Cross, then hurtling hurtling to her doom. Boy! That was Destiny with a capital D!!!

Watch Out By Alexandra H. Rodrigues

The little church mouse was shuddering as it flitted thru the rooms of the funeral home. Something odd and sad was going on. Sure, this place was never resonating with happy and cheerful noises but today… Two corpses had been brought in yesterday. Both of them had been embalmed and fixed up to look their best for open caskets. One was the fifty-year-old Chief Surgeon of the University Medical Center. He had succumbed to a massive heart attack. There were many mourners in his room. The guest book was filling up and the conversation was held in the commonly hushed tone of this establishment. Flowers were decorating the chapel in abundance. The wife of the deceased was calming a young boy of about twelve years old, while her tears were streaming down her own cheeks. In the other room lay the dead body of a young girl. About 16 years old. Very pretty with brown hair and cute tilted up nose. This room too was filled with people. Schoolmates, relatives and the heartbreaking sighs of the parents made the atmosphere in this room even more unbearable. The little mouse felt bad for all of them. It had heard the story. The surgeon was operating, removing the tonsils from the girl when it happened. The hospital staff panicked and concentrated on tending to the doctor. All the while the girl fought for breath and ultimately choked and died. The mourners from the surgeon’s room made a big circle around the mourners from the girl’s room. It will be difficult to look for justice.

Cells

By Karen King

We must all make sure we are not locked in our personal prison cells, “safely” shut off from the world. It is always good for us to have our own company and recharge our “cells”, but do not lock yourself in a permanent, impenetrable prison cell, where no one can enter and you cannot exit. You will soon become isolated and lonely from your self-inflicted prison sentence. You will be miserable and stuck in the past and your future will only look bleak. Our cells replace themselves all the time. After seven years, all the cells in your body will have been replaced and you will be a completely different person physically. You will more than likely be a very different person emotionally and spiritually as well with all life’s challenges. We all change as life’s experiences shape us and, hopefully, we will become better people as we learn through our numerous experiences. Sometimes it seems that we have too many challenges thrown at us in all directions and we struggle to manage. We can become irritable and aggressive towards innocent victims. This is neither fair nor the best way forward, but it is hard to be objective at times though as life lashes out at us, like relentless rain throwing down. Hopefully, we will release ourselves from our prison cells as our body’s cells change. We will become wiser, emotionally stronger as we evolve into more patient, caring and loving people as we reach out to others and touch their lives. If you look at this world, you will see cell upon cell, row upon row, town upon town and country upon country of cells. People will be looking out from their prison cells, sad, but hopeful, wondering if there is an escape for them. They look out of their dull and smeary windows, desperately cleaning them with their hands, looking for a way out, hoping they will be rescued by something… someone. Isn’t it time that we all throw our windows open, unlock our cell doors and take a step outside to meet each other, before it is too late? Let’s all celebrate our changes, join together and support each other as one as we all learn and grow together. Karen King Copyright February 2016

Open Your Mind By Alexandra H. Rodrigues

I have never seen a sunset so red. This is a ball of fire from within. The heavenly body is on the verge of being immersed into a crusty cloud. – Slowly this spectacular does change with the weakening light, while patches of threatening storm clouds begin to fight for space on heaven’s tent. Fringes surround the clouds and create forms that temper the mind. I see clusters of insurmountable shapes, architectural designs that exceed human imagination. What just minutes ago was a mild breeze erupts into a threatening storm. The sun has fled to other regions letting fierce clouds display their show. My view encumbers all that is engulfed by an ocean of trees. High ones, strong ones, all their crowns covered in heavy foliage. The roots of those tree giants must be enormous Images emerge of leaves, pasted like lace onto a purplish red, velvety background. Still another crown blends into a grayish blue cloud, magically producing the taste of blueberry whipped cream in my mouth. The scenery changes constantly while I watch this spectacular display of nature. The dark clouds glide behind the trees. A dimly winking, azure blue sky showcases feathery rims with pink layers in cotton candy fashion. The sun had spared some of its illuminating energy to perfect this display. The clouds keep moving pushed by the winds and blend with each other into the sky. Then all sunlight is gone and I search for the moon. For now a curtain of solid darkness ends the show. Nature’s actors are busy to prepare the night the. A new cast of actors at the firmament performers of the just ended day. The utter blackness is an intermission that allows one to reflect on the drama in nature. My mind visits with the highest branches of the trees. Intuitively I hear their whisper as they softly touch each other, coming peacefully to rest in the now wind still calmness of the fallen night. They prepare for another day to strive towards heaven. – I too will now go and rest, leaving the moon- show to be enjoyed at another time. The experience that had just tantalized my senses has blanketed me in peace and gave rise to gratefulness for the presents that nature has in store for us .

Forgiveness

By Karen King

This is a hard thing to do and, often, we feel that the culprit does not deserve our forgiveness as they have done us such emotional harm, caused either by physical or emotional abuse. It is, however, something we must do for our own happiness and health or the pain will slowly eat away at us like a Cancer, from the inside out. When we forgive that other person’s behaviour, we are not saying it is acceptable and that we wish to be treated like this again, for we must make sure we put our own boundaries in place to gain the respect we deserve, but we are saying we want to move away from the situation and on with our lives. In this manner, we have all learnt from the experience and, hopefully, the future will be more peaceful and joyful for all parties concerned. If you give yourself and the person the gift of forgiveness and they continue to drain, be insulting or ruin your life, distance yourself from them and the situation. If possible, cut them away from you by imagining cutting chords between their stomachs and yours to add strength to your aura. Ensure the physical distance between them and you is increasing and spend time on your own to heal and become yourself fully once again.

Sandcastles

by Kirk Dodge

“Would you stop throwing that damn wet ball against my clean wall!” Art rasped in a voice marinated in 50 years of Bulleit Rye and Kent Menthols. I smiled at him and waved, “How ya doing Mr. Childress?” As Mom later told me, Art found it hard to stay cranky at me. I was one of those kids who just never thought it was about me. ‘Cause . . . it wasn’t. Afternoon showers soak Grand Bahama Island most every day around 3 p.m. during the summer. In the spring of 1968, Donny and Maggie retreated from the coming storm in Detroit and, with my brother and me, moved into a 12-story apartment building on the beach at Lucaya. At nine years old and being a bit too young for the casinos and beach bars, I settled on a future as a major league baseball shortstop. Knowing that the Tiger shortstop, Ray Oyler, couldn’t buy a hit in a brothel, I figured my future was secure. My preparation began that summer. Art played the role of historian. Hitting a baseball always seemed easier than fielding a baseball. So my tennis ball and I became fast friends. I would dutifully throw it against the cinder block stucco wall that surrounded the swimming pool filtration equipment on the parking lot side of the building. No problem. Every afternoon for hours I would emulate the sharp angle of an infield hit, scoop it up, and throw it over to Tiger first baseman, Norm Cash, for the putout . . . 6 – 3 for you fans scoring at home. The beauty of this little game of mine was simple; I rarely made an error. Not so at our new school, St. Paul’s Methodist. “Humbled” was a verb I came to learn very well that spring. Mom was a school teacher and took a job teaching middle school English at an American Catholic School on the island. Her school, Mary, Star of the Sea, didn’t really fit the Ayn Rand devotee of the late 1960s and yet they hired her immediately upon seeing her diploma in philosophy and classics from the University of Michigan. Sister May Alice had no clue that she had just hired her first radical libertarian subversive. Things were about to get very interesting for the Italian nun from South Philly. Being thoughtful, Mom sent my brother Glenn and me to the British parochial school on the other side of town. She knew full well how hard it could be for kids to have a mom teaching in the same school. Her mom had done exactly that to young Margarethe Bjornson. Schooled in the same building where her mom taught may have been the first of multiple PTSD episodes she endured as a young schoolgirl. Grandma was a tough cookie; tougher than hardened molasses. Maggie was on the receiving end of that setup from kindergarten right up to the ninth grade. She escaped to high school fully hardened to the ways of the world in more ways than one. St. Paul’s Methodist School came as quite a shock to a kid who spent all nine years of his life being told he was utterly brilliant. Methodist, as in the one and only method of schooling the young children of the British Empire, included morning chapel, merit cards and badges, the Queen’s English spoken precisely, and your multiplication tables memorized to 12 unless you wanted to be struck by a tennis ball in the chest if you became inattentive during math class. A morning Bible reading follwed by a thorough indoctrination in the superiority of Britain as a colonial superpower would, on occasion, strike this young Detroiter as fairly preposterous. For instance, being told that the Kingdom stood alone during the Battle of Britain while the Americans sat on their arses didn’t really go over very well for a family born and raised in the Arsenal of Democracy. As Dad liked to point out, if it weren’t for Henry Ford and Rosie the Riveter, these dear sweet folks would be seiging “Heil Hitler” between visits to their departed family at the nearby concentration camp. A battle of patriots to say the least – patriots who all happened to settle on Grand Bahama Island during the mini-boom of the late 1960s. In 1955, the British Parliament had passed the Hawksbill Creek Act. The Act established a port authority which governed the large, natural harbor bisecting the western half of the island. It mandated that there would be few taxes of any kind for 99 years. However, levying a 20 percent duty on all goods (except peas and rice) that hit the docks helped fund the roads, sewers, and utilities that provided the kickstart that the island economy needed. With only a hundred residents in 1955, the island population swelled to over 30,000 by the time our family arrived in 1968. The government funded a series of elementary schools that dotted the small villages of the island. More importantly, the three parochial schools fully integrated themselves racially and religiously from day one.This was free enterprise of the first order. This island represented a refuge for my increasingly cynical parents. The assassination of President Kennedy in November of 1963 traumatized the nation. My parents seem to take it even harder. Dad knew the military from the perspective of a JAG officer in the Army. He became aware of some nasty secrets – stuff they saw in the course of their work. The idea that a social misfit like Lee Harvey Oswald had pulled off the assassination by himself struck this former prosecutor as patently absurd. To both Donny and Maggie, watching the aftermath of LBJ cloaking himself in civil rights and twisting the movement into a government transfer program seemed beyond grotesque. Watching their native Detroit become the laboratory hothouse for a running series of government planning efforts was the last straw. Quite simply, they gave up on America. At least the America that LBJ led into Vietnam and his domestic government planning utopia. By late 1967, our family was fully committed to a pullout – a pullout from America. This is that story. Methodry “Abigail Johnstone” – the name, not the person – appeared at the top left corner of the chalkboard in our classroom. Across the top of the board, Mr. White listed the subjects we’d learned during the 1967-68 school year: arithmetic, reading, writing, etc. Below each subject was a number. The score for each student in that subject was there, out in the open for everyone to see. For the 24 kids in the class, 24 scores in arithmetic, reading and writing. In the aggregate, Abigail was first. I was 21st – not exactly an utterly brilliant performance for the future Tiger shortstop. We arrived in March and I managed, in three short months, to land myself in the cellar, more like a Washington Senator than a Detroit Tiger. The best part? There was no pattern to the ranking of students. You couldn’t group them by race or religion or nationality. There were probably more girls at the top of the list, but there were exceptions randomly distributed everywhere. This was a true meritocracy. By the way, Abigail Johnstone not only sounded Bahamian; she looked it. Lean and pretty with big, bushy pigtails, you could imagine generations of Abigails cleaning their husbands’ catch of the day, steaming up the peas and rice, baking the Johnnycake and making more Johnstones and Farquarsons and Pinders. Except this one would go to college someday. St. Paul’s Methodist School made itself such that the Queen would be proud. Kind of like Americans in the south think of themselves as more patriotic than the average American (horseshit). The Methodists in England came from their “west.” Being so far from London, they seem to work a little harder at being British. Methodists in many ways are like Baptists in America, except they can read. Stern in temperament, knowing how to have fun was not something they seem to master or cared to master. It probably didn’t occur to them. They were too busy perfecting themselves, their children and their workdays. Margaret Thatcher was a Methodist. That explains a lot. She was a Methodist whose father owned a grocery store. Geez, that would have been exciting. No wonder she would lecture her Cabinet on the price of a gallon of milk. Upper crust Tories must have loved that speech. Hell, those guys probably never saw a kitchen, much less a grocery store. It’s no wonder she finally succumbed to a “no confidence” vote. Those Tories had absolutely no confidence in their ability to endure so much fun and laughter. Let’s just say that these Methodists at St. Paul’s came by their stern, exacting personalities naturally – naturally drilled up their backsides one shilling at a time. I used to wonder how they reproduced. Did they schedule time for it during the day? Did they grade it? Did they practice? Could you earn a merit badge? Spontaneous romance and “grinding,” as the Bahamians like to call it, seemed a far off homework assignment for these Methodist teachers at St. Paul’s. It wasn’t enough that you completed your work assignment accurately and punctually and in ink. Cursive writing which was blotted or crossed out earned a terse admonition of “points deducted, young man!” In order to earn the prized merit card, everything must be nothing less than perfect. Five cards in a week earned you a merit badge. The school divided its student body into four “houses” across all “forms” (grades to us Americans). As a nine year old, I entered the second form in March, having just left third grade in America. The four houses derived their names from the most famous of the British explorers: Schackleton (blue), Mallory (green), Hillary (red), and my house, Hudson (yellow). The merit points led to a yellow badge for yours truly, although not as often as I thought I deserved. Every term, the points for each house were tallied and added to the other house’s totals in athletics and drama. Everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, counted for something. Either it was added to your tally or, God forbid, it could be deducted from your total. Morning chapel provided an excellent opportunity for me to have points deducted. It’s not that I rejected the Christian faith completely. It just seemed to interfere with my opportunities to debate the great issues of the day with my buddies. Issues like the relative value of marbles – milkies vs. cat eyes; the superiority of American football over rugby and soccer; who was prettier: Kim Goodwin or Roselyn Abrahams. These were profound subjects worthy of extensive debate. The Methodists disagreed. As point totals went, let’s just say two points forward and one point back seemed to be my natural rhythm. Did I learn? You betcha. When your mother is a school teacher, this whole education thing you do as a kid is kinda the family business. You can’t be a total putz. So, I began to learn my cursive letters a bit more elegantly. I scored high in reading, owing mostly to the long articles in my Dad’s copies of Penthouse and the Miami Herald sports section. Mostly, it was the multiplication and division of fractions that haunted me. I didn’t plan to own a grocery like Mr. Roberts (the Iron Maiden’s father). Why did I need to know how to price milk in pints, quarts and gallons? But learn I did. Repeating this stuff for another year would have been far worse. The more I thought about my name appearing 21st on that chalkboard, the more determined I became. Hell, let’s admit it – by the time we moved back three and a half years later, I was fourth in the form. The methodry worked. Tiger Art Art Childress hailed from the thriving metropolis of Owosso, Michigan, population 14,779 and dwindling by the hour. As for many taxpayers, America was losing its charm and nowhere more so than in the Wolverine State. Art finally waved the white flag of surrender in 1966 and landed a job as the property manager for the Rivera Towers apartment building on the south shore of Grand Bahama Island. Our paths crossed the first time he identified the culprit throwing a wet tennis ball against his pristine stucco wall. You cannot see the irrationality of others until you see it in yourself. Occasionally, Art would caution me to do as my mom would say, “Your mom is not being critical, she loves you. That’s how moms make sure you do right. . . “ Thinking back to that “clean wall”, maybe Art endured more than his fair share of criticism from his mom. I wonder ‘cause he sure seemed committed to keeping that wall clean. As a young boy, Mr. Childress seemed cranky and more than a bit didactic. Still, instead of berating me for making a mess of his wall, he decided to distract me with an oral history of baseball. In his manager’s apartment, his shiny aluminum Philco pulled in the Atlantic Braves broadcasts from West Palm Beach, Florida – their spring training home. With their announcer, Dizzy Dean providing the sound track, Art colorized baseball as few would hear it. Granted, this long-time Tiger brought a certain homespun bias. Best hitter of all time? Ty Cobb, of course. Best second baseman? Charlie Gehringer with his .320 average, 2800 hits and League MVP in 1935. Best catcher? Mickey Cochrane. Best slugger who served his country honorably? Hammerin’ Hank Greenberg. Well, you get the idea. Art saw in me what a priest sees in a soul that might be saved. For me, baseball still hung in the balance with football, and Art simply could not stomach the idea that a young baseball soul might be lost. With the help of the Tigers playing some very, very good baseball in the summer of 1968, Art had his convert. The Braves moved to Atlanta only two years earlier – (part of my education was learning how they migrated from Boston to Milwaukee to Atlanta). Dizzy Dean had played for the St. Louis Cardinals. As the Cards marched to the National League pennant that season on the back of Bob Gibson, old Art couldn’t resist pointing out that Dizzy Dean was the best pitcher but only in the NATIONAL LEAGUE during his career. The Tigers (of course) offered the best pitcher in all of baseball during the World War II era. Harold “Prince Hal” Newhouser, who won pitching’s Triple Crown in 1945, led the Tigers as they beat the Chicago Cubs for the World Series. Each day passed and soon school started again in the Bahamas in September. Art kept me off that stucco wall with his personal narrative on the history of the American pastime. Learning American baseball in the Bahamas was kind of surreal when you think about it but he did manage to keep his wall clean. Eventually, he’d throw those hard infield grounders to me himself. The old coot actually started to like me. In the end, when the Tigers clinched the pennant, I think he considered me his good luck charm. This husky little Tigers fan in-the-making actually could make him laugh as I personally narrated my own stylish fielding and throwing. And Art had forgotten how to laugh. The Tigers spotted the Cards a 3-1 lead in the ’68 World Series; then the two Mickeys took over. The occasionally sober Tiger manager, Mayo Smith, made the first of a couple of brilliant moves. Beefing up the batting order meant moving Mickey Stanley from the centerfield to shortstop. Presto, the Tiger infield batting average instantly made it above the Fahrenheit boiling point. Next, old Mayo pressed Mickey Lolich into pitching the seventh game. This meant Lolich could do something historic. Not only would the Tigers rally from down 3-1, Lolich would pitch and win three complete games in one World Series. Old Mr. Childress ouldn’t believe how good it all was. Late in Art’s life, as he was living with cancer, which I only learned about later, his beloved Tigers won the World Series. Plus, he saved one more soul from Yankeedom. Tiger Art 1 – Yankees 0. Less is More Within ten years of the passage of the Hawksbill Creek Act, the northernmost island in the Bahamian archipelago saw its population mushroom from a mere 100 to over 30,000 sun-kissed inhabitants. How? In a world where we debate endlessly how to alleviate poverty and create jobs, how did this little outpost do it? The natural assumption would be that it was all tourism. This was logical given the sunny temperate weather, cool night breezes and squeaky, white sand beaches. Yet, throughout the ‘60s, as Grand Bahama grew and changed, tourism never reached 50% of the island’s domestic economic output. British Petroleum built a large oil transport center, which employed a steady 500-800 workers. Syntex built a pharmaceutical plant which added another 80-100 jobs to the island. A large cement plant, which predated the Hawksbill Act, continued to employ a steady crew of 50-60. The only other significant employer was NASA, which built the Gold Hill Tracking Station for the Cape Canaveral rocket launches. No single employer or industry explains what happened on this 100-mile long stretch of coral and southern pine. During this time, Daniel K. Ludwig of Denmark reigned as one of the world’s great shipping magnates. He lived part-time on the island, mostly checking on his shipping businesses in the Caribbean basin. Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball retreated to the island frequently in search of privacy and seclusion, yet the wealthy really didn’t discover Freeport/Lucaya in droves. If an economy ever came to be defined by a broad, wide and deep middle class, it was Grand Bahama Island of 1963-71. Maybe the greatest irony for our family arose in comparing it to Detroit during this same time period. Our old home town had grown to be America’s third largest city in 1950 with a middle class powerhouse the world could only envy. Detroit was marked by the highest median household income and home ownership of any major city. What followed can only be described as a seemingly endless string of crony mayors from both political parties who allowed Detroit to become an experimental urban laboratory for government planners of all stripes and persuasions. Urban Renewal obliterated sixty square blocks of stable residential and commercial property owned mostly by long time African-American families. Later known as Lafayette Park, it became another of Detroit’s once mighty neighborhoods reduced to blight and abandonment. "Model Cities" concocted by LBJ’s War on Poverty managed to move the poor into new parts of the city. Meanwhile, another half million Detroiters took the government’s subsidies and simply left. Many would say racism and corporate greed fueled the demise of Detroit. Of course, Detroiters struggle with the idea they carry more racial amicus curiae and avarice than the good people of Chicago or Boston or Pittsburgh. In Detroit, if there was an urban planning experiment to receive funding, they tried it: city income tax, commuter tax, low income housing, the People Mover. If the government funded it, the crony mayors tried it. In short order, the city residents figured out they weren’t welcome, because in fact, they weren’t. As in life, sometimes when it comes to government, less is more. Civil Disobedience Rooted in the writings of Henry David Thoreau and then blooming into the flower of Mahatma Gandhi and eventually Dr. Martin Luther King, our world elevated itself mightily from their common moral high ground. Racial discrimination rightly thrust itself into the American consciousness during these same 1960s. Grand Bahama provided an illuminating and intriguing vantage point despite being just a mere sixty miles off the Florida coast. Slavery predates Jesus of Nazareth. The freedom he offered through the Kingdom of God transcended slavery as chattel. He offered freedom at a deeper level. Freedom from our own flawed humanity took liberation to a new, higher moral and spiritual plain. In every direction, people sought greater freedom and dignity. Breaking out of the shackles seemed all the rage in the 1960s. Everyone got into the act, even the students at St. Paul’s Methodist. What were we thinking? Bologna sandwiches on white bread with butter – and we didn’t love them? “Do you know how little we had during the Second World War?” “Do you know we didn’t even have sugar or fruit or orange juice?” Geez, no, I didn’t and, by the way, that was twenty-nine years ago and you really can’t blame me. I’m eleven! Only one option existed. I’m going to lead these fellow eleven-year olds to some decent food. We’re going to town – to Burger King. Not my best planned act of civil disobedience. When virtually all of the eleven-year olds disappear from an elementary school, chances are high the teachers will notice. It just doesn’t happen often enough to slip past them. So, waiting for us at the front of the line? You guessed it. A direct descendent of the first King of Scotland; our stern, inchoate but loving headmaster, Eric “The Red” Williams. Yep, there he was, all 6-foot-3-inches and 225 pounds (16 stone for you true Brits) smiling at his seventeen wayward Fourth Form eleven-year olds. Caning was reserved for yours truly. You need to plan a crime to feel the full arm of the law. I received it and managed not to cry or yelp. I actually felt sort proud; an odd reaction for the son of a school teacher. I wondered if the real, genuine protestors felt the same way. The year before, it was Dr. King who was shot and then Robert Kennedy, the brother of the slain President. Our parents couldn’t help but question the civil unrest broadcast on TV each night. These people must be partially right – some of this must be justified. Race in America can appear as a two dimensional issue. America mixes race and slavery into a toxic brew that haunts us to this day. Elsewhere in the world, racial discrimination exists. It took America to bind slavery into racial discrimination. Not so in other countries. In the Bahamas, the pecking order works in a simpler way: Bahamians look down on Jamaicans. Jamaicans look down on American Blacks. American Blacks down on Haitians. Bermudians look down on everybody. By 1970, Bahamians seemed intent on gaining independence, but it didn’t involve race and it didn’t involve civil disobedience. It was their country and they were free to do their will. That’s exactly what they did. Foreigners were deported. The island economy came to a standstill. Non-Bahamians saw their work permits revoked. Capital fled. It was now their country – poorer, but free of foreigners. It was all over. The middle class disappeared. In time, you were either a tourist or a Bahamian, or eventually a narco drug lord. Grand Bahama went the way of Detroit. Like a sandcastle, it just washed away. Such a shame – twice in one childhood. Attracted to Risk A twelve-story apartment building on the south beach of Grand Bahama sure seems like the wrong place for a nine-year old boy to play. And it was. Designed like many Bahamian apartment buildings, the front door to each unit opened to an exterior, outside hallway. Problem! Then, the elevator stack was wrapped on the outside with a staircase that candycaned itself to the roof of the twelve-story building. Problem! Probably not the best choice for young families with young children. For moms and dads who dreamed of living on a beach of beautiful, squeaky, white sugar sand, they found nirvana at Rivera Towers. Weekends included all these young families picnicking around the lawn that joined the open breezeway lobby to the beach itself. With seven units on each floor and families in the larger two and three bedroom units, there were lots of kids for play and mischief. Why did that roof seem so interesting? As a nine-year old, I wondered if you could see Florida from there – (that would be a “no”). The locked door at the outside staircase really didn’t slow us down. It did require climbing around the wooden door jam that Art Childress built to prevent residents from doing exactly what we did. That would be climbing up onto the railing and around the outside of that wooden door and door jam. Lucky for us that we didn’t slip or lose hold and fall the twelve stories down to the grass landscaped entrance. That would have been a sight . . . splattered nine-year olds landing right outside the apartment leasing office. I do wonder if my extreme acrophobia might just stem from scaring the shit out of myself and then carrying and blocking that memory into a place that I can no longer access. Sean Connery wrapped up the filming of “Thunderball” in 1965 with the help of the divers from UNEXSO about a mile down the beach from Rivera Towers. Few movies stimulated scuba diving like “Thunderball.” Moviegoers watched Connery and Claudia Auger canoodling among the sea fans and coral and assumed they could do the same with a few lessons. Dad and I took to scuba quickly and completely. Starting with the twelve to eighteen foot reef dives and graduating to wreck dives on sunken ships and grotto cave dives. Donny and I tried them all. Only when the depths exceeded 100 feet did Dad bow out and let his now eleven-year old son keep going. Guided diving trips on Grand Bahama from UNEXSO replaced Little League and Boy Scouts. Below one hundred feet, double tanks allow you twenty to thirty minutes at depth to explore and then to fully decompress as you rise. Off Grand Bahama, beginning at eightyfive feet, the ocean floor begins to noticeably drop until at approximately one hundred ten feet, it goes vertical. Going over that edge gives you the feeling of being suspended over the pitch dark ocean floor and provides a very genuine rush of adrenalin. That euphoria makes the dive worth the hassle of decompression. Dad disagreed. Also, we decided not to tell Mom about the sharks, that poor woman had enough to worry about. Let’s talk sales. The kid needed some walking around and scuba cash. Selling newspaper subscriptions door-to-door would be the slow, safe way to win a sales contest. The top ten subscription sellers won an autumn weekend in Miami to watch the Dolphins host the Cleveland Browns. I opted for the accelerated sales strategy, writing all of my parents’ and grandparents’ friends in Detroit and suggesting they might want an off-island subscription (worth three times as much in sales contest credit). Let’s just say I won this trip going away . . . and pissed off all the older newspaper boys. I did enjoy every last envious smirk. Photographed at the top of the stairs for the Air Bahamas flight to Miami, I needed to stand on my tippy toes to appear as tall as the other winners. Memories of that weekend with the Dolphins at the old Orange Bowl seem dim. The Browns dumped the ‘Phins 28-0. What I do remember was fellow newspaper man, Harry Palm, upchucking his eleven twelve-cent burgers from the White Castle hamburger joint onto the moving escalator at Jordan Marsh in the North Miami Beach Mall. Watching the poor janitor chase the befouled escalator step rising, rising, rising and then disappearing again and again is a memory I probably should block. Winning remains the best part. With winning, came confidence. Perhaps, I developed too much confidence. I don’t know how to sail. Even a rudimentary understanding of sailing escapes me. Therefore, the decision to sail our friends’ sunfish to the west end of the island seemed highly suspect, particularly for an eleven-year old. Compounding matters, I chose the week of my parents’ annual anniversary vacation for this poorly conceived sailing excursion. Not content to drive my parents a little cuckoo, I gave my grandparent babysitters full-on angina. When they couldn’t see their grandson on the southern horizon, the shit was definitely going to hit the fan. And I knew it. How did I manage to reverse tack my way to a half mile off shore? I didn’t know how to sail on a whole new level. Let’s just say Grandpa Don, with the wrath of Hades, greeted his favorite grandson upon swimming the sunfish (with the rope line in my mouth) back to the Rivera Towers beach. I guess my only fear was of my grandparents’ reaction once I solved this self-created problem. Grandma Sally usually overlooked my transgressions, but not that night. What was the attraction to risk? Probably the completely irrational mindset that nothing bad would ever happen to me. As fate would have it, that changed later. Back to Mom, our first subversive libertarian radical. While Dad chummed up the Bahamian officials in the process of strategically selling them his new condos, Mom would occasionally stand in the Winn Dixie parking lot changing Bahamian money into American dollars for the Haitians. Dad’s protection from his Immigration and Customs buddies gave him little comfort when Mom was loudly challenged at one of their weekend cocktail parties. However, this didn’t stop old Maggie. Her mission wasn’t subverting the value of the Bahamian currency. No. Rather, she saw in these poor Haitians a proud people who simply wanted to send American dollars back to their families. "You risk taker Mom.....carry on, Maggie!" Dad had a knack for naming condos. Fairway Manor seemed a touch too baronial for what he actually built on the 16th hole of the Ruby golf course. Seriously, Dad? Edelweiss Chalets? Let’s try that one more time. He really hit his stride with the Edelweiss Chalets at the corner of Santa Maria and Nina Boulevards. This drew in the local government officials who never thought they would live in an neo-Austrian condo project on the beach in the Bahamas – a regular marketing impresario, that old Donny. If your two favorite stories are “The Sound of Music” and “The Godfather,” you are psychologically predisposed to name your landmark condo project Edelweiss Chalets and fill it with croupiers and mildly corrupt local officials. “Bless Our Homeland Forever.” “Keep your friends close, keep your enemies closer.” Such was the attraction to risk. As I write these memoirs of childhood days in the Bahamas, a small, copper boating tub with a makeshift sail made landfall in front of The Delano Hotel on Miami Beach. Five bedraggled, sunburned Cubans and a frightened teenage girl, still dazed from their 36-hour journey, sat next to their makeshift craft. The bar maids from The Delano served them water and non-alcoholic mixers, while tourists with iPhones snapped pictures of the sailors’ grinning mugs and their crazy little craft. It reminded me of the Haitian shipwrecks Dad and I explored with scuba gear in the Bahamas, mailboats with too many Haitians on board that made it close enough to the beach that these risk takers could swim or walk the rest of the way. In many ways, the world sees this every day. In short order, American politicians will condemn these beneficiaries of our “Wet Feet – Dry Land” policy for Cubans seeking asylum in America. Some politicians will demonize them as illegal immigrants. Others will wait until they’re multi-millionaires and vilify them for their financial success. I prefer to admire their attraction to risk and a country that rewards it. God Bless America and every damn risk-taker who found their way here. We wouldn’t be America without them. We’re lucky. (C) Copyright Kirk Dodge 2016

Slaves to Society By Karen King

Many of us are slaves in society. We work for a pittance, trying to make ends meet. I have heard that 5% of the world owns 95% of the wealth. So, while the rest of us are struggling to pay our bills, others earn silly amounts of money. I ask, are they so much more intelligent, worthy or more talented than, say, the writing fraternity? It seems it’s easy to publish if you are already famous, but if you are not, then you are pleased if people bother to read your poetry or buy your books. Often you have to self publish or publish through a publisher for vast amounts of money. Is this fair when you have so much talent to give society? Many of us struggle to do what we enjoy or, more likely, we have a day job to enable us to afford to write our poetry. Still, poetry is something we have to do and we try and benefit society with our words. Just think, next time you see someone with the latest design gear, ask yourself if this is what life is all about and if you truly think they are happy for, surely, happiness comes from inside through the expression of our soul and not from outside, material goods? They feel that happiness can be bought and do not understand that it just comes about through following your soul’s path. I, personally, feel that many people have sold their souls to “fit in” and “keep up” with other people, like it is some sort of competition. They do not wish to follow their souls and find inner peace and happiness. In a way, perhaps they are also slaves to society? Karen King Copyright February 2016

As Time Goes By By Alexandra H. Rodrigues In front of me is a letter from the Department of Veterans Affairs, Long Island National Cemetery, Farmingdale, NY 11735. It is from November 8, 1993, directed to Mrs. Del Zappala, 222 Sullivan Street, New York, NY 10012. It reads: Dear Mrs. Zappala: I have enclosed a map of the cemetery with the section and grave location of your husband, Richard A. Zappala. The burial was conducted on November 4, 1993, and the remains placed in grave 1378A. The information you provided on the ‘Certificate of Monument Date’ will be utilized to order the headstone. Once the headstone is received in approximately 0-12- days it will be installed. We will mail you a post card once the stone has been installed. If we may be of any further assistance please contact Annette Bianco at 516-454-4949. Sincerely, Mike Cariota, Cemetery Director. This letter was in a file, which my husband Raymond Rodrigues, had kept. He too has passed on in the meantime. As a matter of fact, he too is buried in a Military Cemetery, but he is at Calverton, New York. I would have preferred him to be in Farmingdale, as this is much closer to my residency; however in 2010 there was no longer any space available in Farmingdale. “Do the dead know when we visit them?” One day in the future I will join him at Calverton. This is a thought which is not exactly pleasant to me and oddly erroneous too. I am not even an American Citizen; I came from a country, Germany, where my husband won his medals of war, including the Purple Heart. Just like my entire life can hardly be called traditional, this too falls under the heading “Idiosyncrasy. “ Richard Zappala was my husband’s nephew, the son of his oldest sister Hilda. When I met him, he was already in his second marriage to Del Zappala. He had gotten hurt during a maneuver while in the Service and thus was buried with Military honors. I remember Richard as a pleasant personality, heavyset, a smoker and drinker and always full of jokes. I knew him for nearly 30 years but only met him at family gatherings, maybe once or twice a year. Del his wife was a charming Blonde, a good singer and somebody nice to have around. As I understand she was many years older than Richard, maybe about 15, and she was the bread winner. She loved Richard dearly and gladly accommodated his aimless lifestyle. In old times Richard was said to have been on road shows as an actor, but I cannot remember him ever working while I knew him. His failure to make a living obviously contributed to the break-up of his first marriage to Sybill. He died at the early age of 53, succumbing to a heart attack while food shopping. Del died many years later. During my last phone conversation with her she mentioned that she was working on her blood pressure, which was at stroke level and that we would get together when she felt better. Well she did have a stroke shortly after this call and died several months later. Her body was sent to her family members someplace at the outskirts of Pennsylvania. At this point nobody, being that there is only Mary, my sister-in-law, who did not know the answer when being asked, knows the address. Unfortunately, Mary Petit, my sister-in-law had a fall-out with her son and their connection has broken off. Mary’s daughter, Diana passed away July 2011, following a devastating fire in their house in Jersey and also suffering from Liver cancer. Richard Zappala also had had a sister, Dorothy. She too died from cancer a few years after him. There are no offspring from either Richard or Dorothy. Mary’s son Mark however has two children, Tiana and Garrett, and I am contemplating to possibly send them a copy of this write-up in the near future. I myself am of advanced age and the term “In the future” will be chiseled into “Near future” by me from now on. In the “very near future” I will compose a write-up about my own family. Luckily I have kept pictures, letters and hearsay anecdotes since my early youth. Maybe my grandson, Adam, now 7 years old, will one day take the notes into his hands and venture on a trip into the past. People and happenings, otherwise forgotten, will live on in the written word!



From: THE OWL

A Chapter from Raney Tables’ Booklet on the History of FLORA’S ISLAND:

WHY SASSACUS IS SIGNIFICANT!

By David Seerman There were others: fearless, unrepentant. But there, too, were more others: peaceful, patient. However, there was only one who pitched his teepee at both outposts and that was none other than Sassacus. It made him a heroic leader, a powerful sachem. History’s slimy scribes firmly suggest he was motivated by greed and bloodlust, a strong suggestion that he bore a distinct hatred of the British settlers and the contesting Mohegan and Narragansett tribes. He is portrayed as an avenging butcher, a patriarch of a rather large, amorphous band of vicious heathens. Like your typical scapegoat, he was sensationally demonized, a beaded, blackhaired savage rising head and feathers above his fellow cutthroats, inspiring tribal usurpations and initiating surprise attacks, brutally killing then desecrating the bodies of beaver traders and missionaries and renegades and British envoys and brigands for no other reason than this kind of mundane, serial butchery remains sui generis to the indigenous cultures of the Old Land . A small registry of sane voices object to such incendiary language an indictment by Richard Mather almost 400 years ago that the Pequots were the accursed seeds of Canaan, being a typical call for genocide but the historical perspective at the time was exceptionally clear: a holy war in the costume of a holy pogrom was necessary to cleanse the New England coast of the singular blight blocking British upward mobility, British trade and traffic, British forts and settlement, and that blight was Sassacus and the Pequots, an old Algonquin phrase meaning, ironically, the Destroyers. Sassacus befriended the Dutch when necessary and worked with the British, being a principled position of last resort. It was one thing to instigate tribal warfare or to shear away Pequot lands and to put a strangle hold on fur trading, but it was quite another thing altogether to put a whomp on the wampum that was the Pequot pride and source of their power. That there was a lot of cutting going on in those days went beyond irritation. Those steel drills applied by the British in small Massachusetts Bay manufacturing plants cut quickly through the white whelk and purpled quahog shells and cut the value of wampum to an unacceptable level. Yet another Smallpox epidemic, this one in the winter of 1634, right smack in the middle of his command, cut the population of the Pequots nearly in half, and deals cut prior and during Sassacus’ short reign were either ignored or broken. A great strategist, how many options did Sassacus have in a cage? In a pinfold? In a fire pit? He tried making one last deal. In October 1634, sensing trouble from the subservient Narragansetts and from the Dutch, he sent an emissary out to his British competitors to talk about relinquishing land, attaching 400 fathoms of wampum for good measure. But today’s defeat was yesterday’s betrayal . And so how much free will can he exert when the enemy is closing in from all sides? When there was no one to trust or turn to? His nephew, Uncas, and his reformed wolf pack, the Mohegan breakaways, were cutting into the holy dance, the bands were disbanding, new alliances were forming favoring the British, souring on the Dutch. What’s a responsible leader to do? How does one make the cut, keep the faith, pool the dwindling resources of a pragmatic people being given the squeeze by ally and alien alike? This writer believes a conspiracy was at play in the large woodland playgrounds of Southern New England. Sassacus was the sole impediment to the British form of a final solution and the British found a way to execute their plans by planning to execute all that they found. It was no surprise that religion championed their Public Relations pitch, a holdover from European wars of late, or that cash and acreage crowned their connivance. The great cook off, May 26, 1637, needed a commemoration. The torching of 400, some say 700, Pequots, mostly the infirm, the women, the children, like all great birth dates, required a candle to set the festivities in motion. Governor Winthrop’s journal crystallizes the event, the Pequot slayer cake serving as the centerpiece of a major American holiday. Forget the damned turkey, put away the silver, hide Rockwell under a rock, put the candle into position, one candle, plus one shiny, decorative epistle of human transgression, a clear missive of what we all were about to become: ....was ordered to bee kept a day of publicke thanksgiving to God for his great m'cies in subdewing the Pecoits.... The man couldn’t stop he couldn’t help himself. The word M’cies, Oh, the sanctimony of all that we hold dear was out of the bag: A day of thanksgiving kept in all the churches for our victories against the Pequots, and for the success of the assembly.... Free enterprise was not free. Somebody alway has to pay and pay. Winthrop wanted Southern New England for his own playground, including Flora’s Island. It was Sassacus’s role in the annals of history to pay for this white outreach with his life, his subjects to pay with their lives and their freedom and, yes, even their name, henceforth illegal and subject to severe penalty if ever uttered among the Pequot slaves held in dire servitude for decades after. To imagine your name, what you are, where you came from: verbal contraband. There were so many other firsts or close seconds it’s hard to find a place to start. Identity theft as we’ve begun to identify with it may have started here slavery as we’ve fondly come to understand it in America may have started here Regional genocide has a place at this table as well. Thanksgiving, too, as we’ve come to treasure it in all its hypocritical rotgut may have started here Mass penury, i.e., homelessness, the homegrown variety, may have started here. Indian reservations, as we’ve come to accept it, may have started here as well. It all boils down to Sassacus, his unique courage, his unique stature, his unique way of holding 26 tribes and their sachems together, if ever so briefly. My fascination with Sassacus is a small token of depreciation in comparison to the overwhelming homage, brutal in its full flower, garnered from the likes of Governor Winthrop right down to Uncas, with every other settler and Indian mashed in between. Historical documents clearly identify Sassacus as one of the bad guys ( a malignant, furious Piquot ) and later, more erudite scholars, clearly point to him as one of the good guys (a renowned warrior and a noble and highspirited man.) But history aught not make assignations in such a topical manner. It’s an insult to the caliber of the subject. We’re not, after all, determining placement in a tribal popularity contest. Most likely to succeed: Sassacus. Most likely to be tallest: Sassacus. Most likely to scare the shit out of peers and pawns alike: Sassacus. Most likely to kick British ass: Sassacus. Most likely to be beheaded: Sassacus! History’s all askew. Let’s look at it from a more piquant summit. Like Albert Camus says about old Sisyphus: One must imagine Sassacus happy. Alone in his element, the primeval forest, the largehorned buck, the branching rivers, the eternal sea, and then not alone, surrounded by his kin, his heritage, the supple encouragement of his Dutchslaughtered father, the great sachem Tatobem. I see him traversing the tight Mohawk trails looking for sympathy, any kind of familial support. But I find it impossible to imagine Sassacus and his brother and a small band of survivors in semisupplication, Asking for help from higher beings of a lower order or lower beings from a higher order. It didn’t suit him. He was hardly one to solicit help from others. I prefer, and I have no reason to doubt, that he took his fleeing band of warriors to safe retreats. Why he would end up begging for refuge with the Mohawks makes little logistical sense. I’ve no doubt the probability of his death at the hands of these royalist loyalists wins the percentage game. I do have doubts that Sassacus was so desperate that he lost his head, so to speak. But he was more clever than that. I must give him credit for that. I must see him in that light. Given the great rivalries that existed and his broad knowledge of tribal customs and dangerous liaisons, I suspect he might have disappeared into a more invisible world, a world later conjectured by Cotton Mather to be rooted in Doemons and Witchcrafts , though more likely he could have just traipsed off deep into the thick forest and far, far away from history itself living outside the collection plate we know as time. He would have been hunted down had he done that of course. He knew he wasn’t to come through this maelstrom alive, especially after escaping from the Fairfield Swamp Fight that decimated most of the remaining warriors of his tribe. Under cover of a great and surprising fog, he and few ragtag stragglers escaped, but could they escape from history, elude time? He was destined to be murdered. He knew about the ordinance of fate and welcomed its approach. But it had to be on his own terms. The Mohawks. How easy it becomes for history to roll out the simple, logical fact that he was beheaded as soon as he arrived. It’s hard to buy. Why didn’t he escape to Flora’s Island? He could have lived out his last remaining days in relative calm with relative ease. He visited the Island frequently. The best shells for making wampum came from the northern shores of eastern Long Island. The Pequots were given annual tribute of thousands of fathoms of wampum by vanquished tribes to defray the cost of trade with the Dutch. Some texts insist that Sassacus tried to find refuge with the Metoacs of Northern Long Island after the carnage, but the subservient Metoacs (the Montauks being the largest affiliate tribe) were so ingrained with resentment, they offered no quarter. In this writer’s estimation, I think Flora’s Island would have been a perfect refuge, a last ditch stand for the last standing free East Coast Indian until King Phillip tried his hand to handle the glad handers decades later. Through the fog of war, the actual fog, I see Sassacus hauling up his remaining canoes onto the Island’s dark sand at Rosabella Beach. I see his small but fierce campaigners, brutally decimated and marginally alive, scoring bloody indentations on the beachhead, weary but proud, trekking towards higher ground. Finally, I can see them in counsel somewhere along the peak on Barton’s Hill, planning their next move. Sassacus is smiling. He knows this is the end. The Owanux have won, and this is the end. Through the deep mist of a warm spring evening, he hears with perfect clarity the thrum of waves crashing along the shoreline of the beach below. He holds, loose in his mammoth hands, the wampum he at one time hoped would secure their escape, but any idea of an escape to Sassacus is now but an ephemeron. There is life and there is death and after, there is the great world of imagination which is the one true release where escape is truly possible. Long after, I imagine him following me along the water’s edge. I walk further up the slope and then I turn to face him. I see him it is him. Majestic. Calm. Tall....so very tall. The invitation is clear, the possibilities of historic verity free from corporeal conditions. The sheaths of wampum are draped in his upturned hands. I accept the offering, break the seal. “Are we so very different?” I ask. He remains silent, solemn. The articles of faith lay shimmering in his dark and upturned hands.

Mental Illness By Karen King

There are many forms of mental illness – depression (often as a result of bereavement from the loss of a loved one, loss of a job or relationship), anxiety, claustrophobia (fear of enclosed spaces), agoraphobia (fear of large, outdoor spaces), PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder), autism and anorexia to name but a few. Our brains can no longer function properly. It can be like we are trying to function through a sea of mud. All of these forms of mental illness are a challenge in our lives, making the most mundane of tasks difficult to complete. Some of these mental disorders have to be worked with as they are part of the sufferer’s lives. This includes someone suffering from Autism (a mental disorder which makes the person “different” from the rest of society. Autistic people be very intelligent if on what is known as the “higher end” of the Autistic spectrum. This is known as “Asperger’s Syndrome”. Often, these unusual individuals say things in a most unfortunate manner with an aggressive tone of voice. They cannot relate to others and do not react in a “socially acceptable” manner. They might pull faces or make noises when they should be keeping quiet. They might ask questions at inappropriate times. They do like routine, get confused easily and tend to be slow. These unusual individuals, when they find their niche, fly high and do extraordinary well in life. They are often good at the more technical side in life, such as IT, Maths and Science, where extreme detail is needed. Some conditions can be worked with and, in time, the side-affects will become manageable and the condition may disappear altogether. These conditions can be treated in a number of ways, sometimes by medication or by a less invasive way, such as therapy. Hypnotism, Reiki and acupuncture are good example of giving the patient a sense of well-being whereby the trauma is no longer experienced and the symptoms are also treated, thus ending the suffering for the client. Anxiety, depression, claustrophobia, agoraphobia, PTSD and anorexia are into his category. All of these conditions are often triggered by something else. For example, the person suffering from depression can become agoraphobic or suffer from anxiety. If you are suffering from depression, you will lack motivation to conduct everyday tasks. It is hard just getting out of bed in the morning as you dread the day ahead, wondering how you are going to cope and how challenging it will be. Our brains feel foggy, you feel in shock and unable to concentrate. A state of misery can follow us around all day and cannot be shaken off. We find it hard to function properly and may stay in bed or around the house for extended periods of time to escape from the world. The sufferer may eat or drink to excess or rely on prescribed medication in order to number their pain. In extreme instances, suicide could be attempted in an effort to escape from the world, other people and ourselves. Mental illness can destroy our lives and, if left untreated, can lead to dreadful consequences. It is a disease which tends to be taken more seriously these days. Many people suffer from this debilitating condition, often as a result of the pressure from society. Too much is expected and too soon. This could lead to serious illnesses, such as cancer (the disease most prevalent in society due to undue stress, unhealthily foods, alcohol and tobacco) and possibly death. We are not achieving anything by rushing around, apart from making ourselves physically and mentally ill. I think we need to be more patient and kinder to each other and ourselves. We will then feel happier, healthier, more peaceful and better able to cope with the challenges in life. It is time for us all to wake up and start communicating with each other, meditating, enjoy time being creative and get outside in nature to find our true and already complete selves. Karen King Copyright February 2016

At the Airport By Alexandra H. Rodrigues

Planes, planes, planes – People, people, people. Metallic, disembodied voices announce arrivals, departures, or, more often than not, delays over the loudspeaker of the International Terminal. At the ramps, all types and sizes of aircrafts run up their engines before they swing up into the air and wing through the sound barrier. People don’t walk; they hustle. Some hurry toward the entrances, others rush toward the exits, from left to right from front to back. They push and pull suitcases and cabin luggage ahead or behind. If you take the time to watch closely, you will find myriad emotions hidden in the ongoing commotion. The airport is a stage for drama stored up till finally being released, right here, where thousands of people part and meet. Near a check-in counter, kneeling on the stone floor, a small boy blonde and blue-eyed is happily playing with a toy plane. He’s unconcerned that people might trip over him. The father is busy with filling out travel documents. Only now and then he shoots his son a stern glance. The cheeks of the little chap are flushed with excitement. Soon for the first time he will be in a real airplane. Together with his Daddy he will fly to see Grandma. What he doesn’t know yet is that he will have to stay with Grandma for a long time. His parents have gotten divorced. His mother is in prison and his father does not have the time to raise him. Coming down the steps of an airplane, just arrived from Lisbon, a Granny disembarks. She is shakily stroking the pleats of her black native costume. Her wrinkled face shows the stress from an adventure so different from her usual rhythm of life in Calleta, the quiet fishing village at the outskirts of Madeira. Her frail, shrunk body trembles with excitement and expectation. She looks around timidly, searching. Momentarily her faded water-blue eyes light up. A husky man lifts his Texan hat from a receding graying hairline and welcomes her with outstretched arms. Her son! Her little Juca! Tears of joy enhance her weathered face while the man places a soft, tender kiss on her wrinkled face. At the departure gate, a young couple lingers in tight embrace. The girlish figure of the woman shakes with hysteria. They’ve only been married for one month and now he has to go into the service. A kiss and yet another kiss is exchanged while they cling to each other. Then the young man tears himself away. Straightens his youthful shoulders and walks stiffly to the gate. She remains glued to the large window, her nervous breath painting ringlets on the glass while she watches the plane disappear on the horizon. Tears begin to wet her face. At the gift counter, a flaming redhead is sampling gold bracelets and sure enough an apparent sugar daddy, pulls out his wallet. It says “Bermuda” on their baggage tag. The young lady knows the odds. She is going to get as much out of the trip and out of him as possible. There is scene after scene starring on the airport stage. The noise of the planes becomes mere background music to the performance of human emotions. During my 25-year career as flight attendant, I was often asked, “What is your favorite place?” My answer was and is, “Massapequa. Long Island, New York.” It is there I spent the best hours of my life. It is where I rooted myself after much turmoil in my youth and where I now live with my memories.

Mother-in-Laws By Karen King

These can be so annoying. If you are a woman, you are very lucky if you get along with your Mother-in-Law because, usually, no one is ever good enough for her Son. If her Son is her only child, she may want him married off, for fear that he will not be able to look after himself on his own. You will have to come up with the goods – the perfect Wife, Mother and housewife... If not, she could well come between you and cause trouble. If the Husband doesn’t keep this under control, it could end in major problems and, possibly, divorce! The Husband will have to put you first if he wants their marriage to work. If you are a man, you will probably not understand the close relationship between Mother and Daughter. You may feel jealous or confused. You may not understand how they can talk about so much or even understand what they are talking about! It could be something you wish you had with your wife and you might start to wonder what is wrong with your relationship. Or, you might simply be relieved to have a break and have some time to yourself or with your friends. Either way, remember that all family is important, but you mustn’t let anything get between the bond of Man and Wife or things will start to falter and could break down forever if not discussed and quickly remedied. Once the thread starts to fray, it may become irreparable and, very likely, break forever. So, please take care, remember your promise and do your best to work through your problems as a couple together for nothing is perfect all the time and some things are worth fighting for. Karen King Copyright February 2016

This is a typical German Kaffeeklatsch. The translation, literarily is coffee gossip. The beginning of the “Real Housewives?” My mind is delving into:

Thoughts on Conversation



By Alexandra H. Rodrigues I do remember the event that took place in our house once every month. My grandmother would make sure that every pillow was in place. Four settings of cups, saucers and cake dishes were tastefully arranged around the table where my Grandma and her three guests would sit. At 2:30 the kettle with water was put on the gas burner and the pewter coffee can with the grounds to be brewed put on the counter next to it. A platter with yummy pastries was awaiting the guests; it invitingly but still covered teased the senses. My grandma’s friends, Lenchen, Mieze and Martha were expected at 3 p.m. The youngest of them was 63, and my grandma was the oldest at 69. From 2:30 on, Grandma would stand at the window, her nose pressed against the glass, looking down the street in front of the house. This way she would see the three expected ladies coming from the train station. This Kaffeeklatsch, also called Kraenzchen, the endearing version of wreath, meaning a wreath of close knit friends, took place every week. Each of the ladies was offering their house once a month. They were always happy to see each other. They talked about family, about their aches and pains, and about matters that had given them pleasure or grief during the past week. Nowadays, when I see the Jersey Housewives show, I am reminded of those gatherings. Not much has changed, but the world seems to have gone more public. To me it does not appear that we have abandoned vocabulary. In order to know the abbreviations we have to know the words first. Shorthand was very popular in the past when it came to transcribe thoughts quickly. Just like any business, take airlines, the medical society and other establishments have their own bagfuls of abbreviations, now the general public also has their own. Why not? Don’t you remember when you were a kid and you sat at a table with grown-ups, that you were told, “Children are to be seen but not heard. Go and find something to play with.” Voila, now the kids play their computer games. We grownups asked for it. I was first introduced to TV when I came to the States in 1959. Black and white, with just a few channels. It was a great tool to brush up on my English. I imagine that a foreigner coming to the States nowadays will do the same. The only difference is the now existing variety of channels. The iPad, FaceBook, Twitter, Fax and Email make us more independent and selfsufficient. Just think I do not have to bother my son at work or my girlfriend at the gym by interrupting her weightlifting just to get the answer to a question. All I need to do is to go to Google. True, eye-contact makes for a good conversation but cannot a good book also be a good friend? The materials that are offered on social media nowadays are overwhelming. Whatever your interest, you will find a large group of like-thinking people by going to Twitter. It took me a long time to come to this conclusion because I had not tried. I had avoided it by believing that it would be too cumbersome to get the hang of. I regret the years I have wasted by holding on to that belief.

FBI’s Least Wanted by R.J. Fox

A couple of years ago, I ventured into Detroit for a scouting expedition for what I thought was going to be my first feature film – a gritty, crime drama using Detroit as a backdrop. We were in search of the most run-down, decrepit locations imaginable – which is something of unfortunate abundance. Accompanying me on our mission was an international crew of immigrants and fellow Americans – a Polish storyboard artist, a British director, an American location scout and my fellow American producing partner. It was a dangerous undertaking for four white suburbanites, venturing deep into inner city Detroit and into abandoned structures in various degrees of decay, ranging from neglect, to arson. Although it may have looked like we were traversing on a grand-scale, postapocalyptic movie set, we know full-too-well that we were miles away from a Hollywood ending. Well past midnight, we ventured into the infamous, virtually desolate Delray “neighborhood” of southwest Detroit, running concurrently along the Detroit River. We approached the entranceway to the man-made, industrial wasteland of Zug Island, which resembled the skyline of Gotham City. Although I was vaguely familiar with the island, I had no clue what actually happened there. I was naturally curious and rolling in the safety of my “crew”, I decided to take the plunge and see for myself. “Let’s go check this out,” I said, turning onto the gravel driveway leading to a one-way bridge leading to the island. “What is it?” my director asked. “Not really sure,” I said. “But just look at it. We have to have this in our movie!” “Yeah, but it says no trespassing,” said the storyboard artist, referring to the enormous “NO TRESPASSING” sign posted on the bridge. “Guys, think about it,” I began. “What do you think we’ve been doing in all the other places we went to tonight?” “Well, this isn’t abandoned,” said the director. “And they didn’t have ‘no trespassing’ signs on them. “But it was still trespassing,” I said, holding serve. This point seemed to do the trick, as everyone finally agreed to “Fuck it” in the name of art. And when it was all said and done, in the face in of stupidity. We traversed onto what resembled a post-apocalyptic, industrial wasteland of an island, we observed what was at least 100 cars in the massive parking lot wrapping around the endless Habitrail system of a factory. Despite the cars, there wasn’t a single human soul in sight. It seemed unfathomable that any human life could possibly survive – let alone work – on such a God-forsaken island For those fortunate few who somehow managed to escape from the island had one possible outcome: death by cancer. This, theory, of course, assumed that there was any human life on the island at all. It was becoming increasingly apparent that we were in the human-less domain of robots – soulless cyborgs – hell-bent on destruction, programmed to wipe out any sign of life. As we drove deeper into the abyss, none of us said a word, as though in mutual fear of voice-activated robot snipers. Or, as was more likely the case, we were paralyzed with the realization that robot snipers were already targeting our car. From a distance, the flaming towers of Zug Island resembled an enormous, scrambled pipe organ. Up close, the island resembled the gateway to hell, as enormous flames gushed out of industrial smokestacks, accompanied by the cacophony of various clicks and clanks, bleeps and bloops of whirligigs, gremlins and what-not overlooking an industrial wasteland devoid of human existence. “Welcome to Cyberdyne Systems,” my co-producer said. “Cyberdyne?” I asked. “You know … where Terminator and its ilk are manufactured. Skynet and shit.” “Oh, yeah!” I said, realizing, as flashing lights approached us from behind, seemingly out of nowhere. I couldn’t help but think of mind the driverless police cars in at Bradbury story. A human voice (or something programmed to sound human) commanded: “Pull over at once. I repeat, pull over at once.” Since it was clear we were the only humans in sight, we had no doubt that the command was intended for us. Since we were traversing across a parking lot, there was really nowhere to “pull over” so I just stopped the car, awaiting my final moments on earth. The cop car’s spotlight was blinding and nobody was coming out of the vehicle. “What the fuck is happening?” the Polish storyboard artist said with genuine panic in his voice. “Great idea, Bob,” my producing partner said. “If we go to jail because of this, I will destroy you.” “I’m sure we’ll just be asked to leave,” I said, trying to remain calm as any captain of a ship should, simultaneously shitting my pants. “What is this place?” the British director said. “Zug Island,” I said. “That’s all I know.” “But I mean, what goes on here?” “I honestly don’t know,” I said. “But I have a feeling we’re about to find out.” The fact that we didn’t find out only deepened the mystery and intrigue of our trespass. After five excruciating minutes, a figure finally emerged from the vehicle, swallowed by shadows. If it weren’t the cop from Terminator 2, it would be Robocop. This was Detroit after all. Finally, a grim-faced, human-looking security officer approached my window, draped in a jet black security uniform, adorned in a red shield on his shoulder that read “Zug Island Authority Patrol”. “May I ask why you are trespassing on the premises of Zug Island?” the officer asked, with a steely gaze and eyes that seemed incapable of blinking and emotion. “We’re scouting locations for a feature film. We come in peace.” “IDs please,” the soulless officer said, not buying what its programmer downloaded into his memory as a bullshit excuse. We produced our IDs and Officer Android disappeared back into the blinding light of his vehicle. We waited 10 minutes for him – it – to process our data. Once again, nobody said a word. We were frozen in fear. While we waited, it dawned on me that in my car was a Polish national and a UK national. On the surface, nothing overtly suspicious, but just off-kilter enough to alert at least some suspicion. The droid officer finally returned. “Do you have any cameras on your person?” “Yes,” I replied. “How many?” “Two, I think. Right guys?” ‘Yes, two.” “Please hand them over. We turned our cameras in and I felt deep despair in the pit of my stomach, as I thought about that hundreds of personal photos from various vacations and family events that I would probably never see again. The cop pocketed out cameras, before handing us back our IDs and issuing a stern warning. “If you come back onto the premises of Zug Island again, you will be arrested. Do I make myself clear?” “Yes,” we all replied in unison. “Now go. Leave the premises of Zug Island at once,” leaving me fully convinced that we were communicating with an automaton. “Can we get our cameras back?” “No. Your cameras are now the property of Zug Island.” “Just curious,” I began. “What exactly goes on here … on the premises of Zug Island?” The cop simply glared at me with his beady, soulless robot eyes, before heading back to his car. It was clear to me that he wasn’t programmed with a response to this particular question, which made perfect sense. He then proceeded to follow us right off of the island until we were safely back on the mainland of inner city, abandoned Detroit. “Well, that was fucked up,” the British director said. “Yeah, probably a dumb idea on my part.” “You think?” said my producing partner. “But so worth it!” “Was it?” the director said. “I think so.” I would later change my tune on this assertion. At that moment, however, I assumed that this ordeal was over at that point. I also knew sure as hell that I would not be returning to the premises of Zug Island … ever … again. When I returned to the safe confines of my domicile, I immediately Googled Zug Island in an attempt to uncover just what exactly was so top secret about it. The only thing I could find was a vague reference to “top-secret government projects”, which – in its ambiguity – clearly explained the tight security and confiscated cameras. The lack of specific details made the mystery even more confounding. A few days later, my theory that it was all over was proven bunk when I received a phone call from my mom, which served as yet another reminder why being named after your father has its disadvantages. “The FBI left Dad a message on his work phone,” my mom began, filling me with dread. “They want to interview him about his trespassing incident on the premises of Zig Zag Island … or something like that. Do you know anything about this?” “As a matter of fact,” I told my mom. “Yes.” “What did you do?” she asked. I explained to her what happed. She questioned my judgment, then gave me the number to the FBI Special Agent awaiting my phone call. I’m not quite sure why they contacted my father to begin with. Sure, we shared the same name, but not the same address. Yet somehow, they tracked him down at his workplace. Shaking in fear, I called the number, already envisioning my future life on Guantanamo Bay. “Hello, this is Robert Fox. I’m calling about trespassing on the premises of Zug Island. You guys called my father, but it was actually me.” “Oh, yes. Mr. Fox. We need to talk.” “Am I in some sort of trouble?” I asked. “We would like to question you regarding your involvement trespassing on the premises of Zug Island. Can we come to your place of residence at your earliest convenience?” My convenience? Are actual terrorists given such courtesy? I definitely hoped not, while simultaneously grateful in this particular instance. Realizing I really had no choice, we arranged a meeting for the following afternoon, imagining myself slowly turning into a character out of a Kafka story. The FBI had me pegged me as a terrorist suspect. This was my new reality. Fuck. I immediately called my international “crew” to see if they, too, were contacted. They were not. I was sure that it was only a matter of time. “What do you mean by the FBI?” my co-producer asked. “What do you mean, what do I mean?” I asked. “The F-B-I. The one and only.” “This is the last thing I have time to deal with.” “Well, hopefully, I can clear the air and everyone else will be off the hook. “ “Just like you said we wouldn’t get in trouble for trespassing to being with?” “Yeah, well ..” He had a point. “Right now, it’s only my fish to fry.” “It better be.” Click. Subsequent conversations with the rest of my crew followed a similar script. I scratched my head over this, asking myself repeatedly … why just me? And then it dawned on me. I lived in Dearborn, Michigan. Dearborn is home to the largest Muslim population outside of the Middle East. Not only did I live in Dearborn. I lived in east Dearborn, where over 90% of the largest Muslim population outside of the Middle East called home. Having a (now ex) wife from the former Soviet Union certainly added to the suspected international espionage. However, if that was the case, then why weren’t my international crewmembers also being spoken to? The only explanation I could discern was that I was the driver. My passengers, on the other hand, could have been held captive, against their will, for all the FBI was concerned. I decided it was probably a good idea to let my wife know that the FBI was planning on stopping by. “What?” she asked, equally stunned and annoyed. “The FBI. They’re coming to talk to me.” “Why? What the fuck did you do?” “I trespassed.” “Where?” “On the premises of Zug Island.” “Where’s Zug Island?” “In Detroit. I’ll explain later.” “Why does this type of shit always happen to you?” I had no clue what she meant. Nothing even remotely close to this had ever happened before. But I didn’t have the time, nor the energy to inquire further. “Everything is going to be fine,” I said, suddenly realizing that his conversation was in all likelihood wiretapped. It was only a matter of time before I would hear the whirring of a helicopter. “I have to get back to work,” I finally said to my wife, realizing that I was now more afraid to tell her about our confiscated camera more than I was the FBI. I continued to feel a growing sense of paranoia, despite my rational self being fully aware that I had absolutely nothing to incriminate myself with, aside from a simple trespassing violation. Yet, somehow, I couldn’t help but feel that I was a marked man. That my topsecret life as a terrorist was so top-secret, that not even I knew that I was a terrorist. These are the overriding thoughts one has when the FBI IS COMING OVER TO INVESTIGATE YOU! After work, I rushed home and prepared to meet my maker. I still couldn’t shake the feeling that I somehow guilty beyond a simple act of trespassing – that I was truly a terror suspect. It was similar to the irrational feeling I get in airport security lines. I am overcome with the paranoid sense that security is on to me and therefore, I start looking guilty, which only makes me look even more suspicious, giving them an actual reason to suspect me, rather than the imagined one in my mind which kicked off the whole thing. It’s a vicious cycle. As I was straightening up my flat, I reminded myself that acting nervous and jittery wouldn’t help my cause, but this thought was only making me more nervous. No amount of deep breaths or medication could help me now. And then it dawned on me that it probably didn’t help my cause that my walls were all bare in preparation of a paint job we were about to do, creating a sense that my living space was simply temporary, a terrorist cell awaiting activation So I did the only thing I could think of to neutralize the situation: I put a nail into an empty hole and grabbed my crucifix from my bedroom. It was my only defense. With over an hour to spare, I sat down in my La-Z-Boy and turned on Fox News to appear as patriotic as possible when the SWAT team arrived. I tried to take a nap, but it was no use. Time continued trudging on in a slow drip. My hour of reckoning finally arrived when the doorbell rang, alleviating my fear that their entrance would be heralded with the abrupt, crashing of windows. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad, after all. Maybe I would live to see another day – that I wouldn’t be stripped of both my freedom and my dignity. I let the two agents in, trying with all my might to appear as calm as possible, despite my rattling nerves. I politely offered them a seat, as well as something to drink. They sat down, and politely declined my drink offer, likely fearing a ricin attack, or an apartment full of explosives. The two agents seemed nice enough and far more “human” – not to mention humane – than the emotionless, droid officer from Zug Island. Agent #1 was tall and thin, with an almost scholarly demeanor. Agent #2 was short and stocky like a prototypical blue collar beat cop and probably reported to Agent #1. Neither agent fit the profile of the stereotypical FBI agent that I envisioned, nor did I resemble the stereotypical profile of a terrorist. Then again, my olive skin tone from my half-Italian heritage might lead one to suspect that I was of middle-eastern descent. Once we were settled, the interrogation process began. I tried to remain as calm as humanly possible. Other than the uncontrollable, repeated wiping of sweaty palms on my pants, I think I did okay, considering the surreal, nerve-wrecking circumstances. If I was this nervous being an innocent man, how does an actual suspect keep it together? Agent #1 did all the questioning, as agent #2 scribbled down notes. “So, what were you doing on the premises of Zug Island?” “Scouting locations for a feature film.” “A future film?” “A feature film. And, I suppose, future film.” “About what?” “A gritty crime story set in Detroit.” “Sounds interesting.” “Thanks.” “Have you ever been involved in terrorist activity?” “No.” “Are you affiliated with a terrorist organization?” “No.” “Are you aiding or abetting a terrorist organization?” “Have you ever conspired with a recognized enemy of the United States?” “No.” “Okay, I guess our work here is done. Thank you for your time.” The agents stood up, in perfect, synchronized unison. “Wait, that’s it?” I asked, realizing that I sounded disappointment that my interrogation was over so quickly. “Yes. We had to interview you as a formality, but we weren’t really worried,” Agent #1 said, as he handed me his business card. And then he threw me for an even bigger loop: “By the way, since you live here in east Dearborn,” Agent #2 began. “We’d appreciate it if you could be our eyes and ears around here.” And just like that, I was no longer a terror suspect…I was a quasi-FBI informant. God bless America. “If you see anything suspicious,” Agent #1 began “Let us know immediately. And whatever you do, stay off of the premises of Zug Island.” “I can assure you of that,” I said. “But what exactly goes on those premises?” “Not even we know,” Agent #1 said. “Any chance I can get my camera back?” “We’re afraid not,” Agent #2 said. And he meant it. As I led the agents to the door, I still couldn’t believe how easy I was let off the hook. I was never more relieved, despite the lingering paranoia the whole experience left behind. I never saw anything suspicious lurking in my neighborhood, so never had the need to call. But it sure felt pretty cool to have a direct connection to the FBI. I still have the business card till this day. Despite the unfortunate misunderstanding, I continue to experience minor inconveniences at the airport, but nothing that leaving early doesn’t rectify. Call me paranoid, but I’m pretty sure my brush with the FBI has at least a little bit something to do with this. Regarding the future, feature film that was indirectly the catalyst for this experience, it is still yet to be produced, but I remain as determined to get it made, as I am to get off of the FBI watch list. Of course, if I had my druthers and had to choose one outcome versus the other, my dream takes the cake.

AT 3 A.M., IMAGINATION IS NOT A GOOD THING By Mike Taylor Tap. Tip tap. Tap tap tap tap … tip tap. Whatever it was, it was behind me, though I couldn’t see it. A blanket-like, 3 a.m. fog had settled over Baldwin Lake, its outriggers oozing across the road like tenebrous fingers, wrapping themselves around half-buried tree roots, obscuring the decaying remains of autumn’s expired leaves. Caught in a dank breeze, leaves scudded across the shrouded pavement, etching out sounds like death watch beetles — chitinous, skittering. Tap. Tip tap tip. Definitely behind me. Closer now. I stopped and stared back into the darkness, trying to pierce the fog. The tapping suddenly ceased. I waited, but it did not start up again. I thought of my bed, waiting in my apartment on the other side of the lake. Cozy. Comfortable. I should be there now, I thought, not out strolling through this abominable, impenetrable fog! Insomnia or no, what was I thinking? I started walking. A few steps and I heard it again, faint but unmistakable: tap, tip tap, tap. The next street lamp was 500 steps ahead, a tiny, glowing pocket of light in this misty, musty blackness. I wasn’t exactly scared. Not yet. This is Greenville, not 17th Century London, not Transylvania. A nice, quiet neighborhood, nestled up to a small lakeshore. Bad things don’t happen here. Not REALLY bad things. And though I’m older than dirt I can — or could, at last check — still bench nearly 300 pounds. I’m not helpless. But … tap. Tip tip tap. What WAS that sound? I stopped again. Tap tip tap t— It stopped, too. I waited. Nothing. Then … tap … then nothing again. Why hadn’t I brought a flashlight? I often do when walking around the lake after dark. But this October night was unseasonably warm and inviting. When I had set out 30 minutes earlier, the fog had seemed sultry and secretive, an opportunity to spend a little time in my own private, late night world, all alone. Except … I wasn’t alone. Someone was out here with me. Behind me. Keeping pace with my steps. The streetlight still seemed a long way off. I thought about calling into the fog, “Is anyone there?” But what if nobody answered? I knew someone was behind me. Following me. Walking when I walked, stopping when I stopped. Pacing me. Stalking me. If they didn’t answer, what would that mean? That they didn’t WANT to answer? And if not, why not? Gooseflesh rippled to life on my arms, crawled up my shoulders, traced stealthy, cloying fingers over the back of my neck. Tap. Tip tap. I walked faster. It didn’t escape my notice that the cemetery was coming up on my right. I sometimes walk there, under the light of a noonday sun. Even then it seems pleasantly gothic, a throwback to the days before the sterilization of death, to a time when the dearly departed were laid to rest beneath imposing monoliths of granite and stately oak trees. It’s a cemetery to which the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come might accompany Ebenezer Scrooge, or from which Igor might harvest a few human organs for the experiments under way back at Castle Frankenstein. On a sunny day, the cemetery is pleasant and peaceful. On a foggy night, with something tip-tapping in your wake, it becomes stage dressing for a B-movie horror extravaganza, one in which you are to be the ax wielding maniac’s next victim. But at least the cemetery’s entrance is near the street lamp. I halted beneath its glow and waited. Here, I decided, I would make my stand and face down whatever it was that tip-tapped behind me. Tap. Tip tap tip. Closer now. From within the billows of fog, a shadow detached itself and moved forward. Tap. Tip tap. T- It stopped. Less than 20 feet from my feeble circle of light, something stood still. Tall. Dark. Waiting. Then, when I thought the standoff would go on indefinitely, it lurched forward, its right arm held stiffly forward. “I’ve got mace!” Not the guttural growl of an ax wielding maniac, but a quavering, tremulous contralto. Out of the fog stepped a slender young woman, maybe 30, vaguely pretty, led by a small, leashed dog of indeterminate genus. The dog’s toenails clicked against the macadam. Tip tip tip tap. “I thought you were an ax wielding maniac,” I said as she passed. I meant it to be funny, but she didn’t smile. She clutched the dog’s leash like a lifeline and hugged the opposite side of the road. As she disappeared into the fog ahead of me, the tip tapping gained speed and soon faded. I breathed out, back in, out again. I started walking. One by one, the muscles in my back unclenched and I relaxed. The streetlamp’s glow fell behind me and I was again swallowed by the fog. In any decent horror movie, I realized, it would be at precisely this point that SOMETHING would reach out of the fog; something with gnarled, misshapen hands, with perhaps too many fingers, or too few. And those hands would not caress, but grab, rend, squeeze. That last mile home seemed to take a long time.

Risen By Alexandra H. Rodrigues

It is Spring 2016. There is still none of the silky, velvety touch in the breeze that one does expect at this time. It was a hard winter this year on Long Island and spring seems to be afraid to take over. I pull into my driveway and get out of my, by now already seven-year-old BMW. My mind ponders about the passing of time and things. I grab my cane, a dancer once I now have problems walking. Alongside the driveway and my neighbors’ fence is a flower bed. It has been there ever since we bought the house in the 1960s. We were a young, freshly married couple, ready to live the American dream of being owners of a little house with a white picket fence. My husband Ray and I were then both flying as cabin attendants for the International airline, Pan American World Airways. “Gone but not forgotten” is the motto by which it is still remembered by many after going Chapter 11 in the late 1980s. I notice that weeds gleefully try to take over, and an old lilac bush is laboring to produce bloom. It too was young and pretty once. It is here, and it is giving its best. I startle – what is that? A flaming red, long stemmed, straight and lush tulip has caught my attention. Now really memories overwhelm me. During the first years in our new house we had planted one hundred hand-picked tulip bulbs which we had personally selected in Amsterdam at one of their famous tulip fields. We had been on a layover on Flight 72 from Idlewild, now JFK, to Amsterdam and Berlin. During the first and second year after we had planted the tulips, we were highly rewarded for our efforts. When those plants bloomed in the month of May, in multiple colors, proud, straight and in abundance they had been the talk of the neighborhood. With time, as the years went by the display got less and less note-worthy. Fast forward and only a few measly tulips stubbornly remained. Finally, after several Nor’easter storms, they all were gone. Now here it was, one survivor. Yes, I am sure it is a flower that has risen from the original crop. It has risen after having been buried for decades. Possibly it was pepped back to growth, when Super Storm Sandy caused the town to dig into this part of my yard. What a heartwarming moment. I quickly got my camera, took several pictures of that amazing flower and gratefully acknowledged the surprises that life sometimes has in store for us.

Colors By Alexandra H. Rodrigues

With the display of colors that spring again will have in store for us, Thoughts and words around coloration buzz! Songs, stories and poems could accompany each individual design Here are some of mine: Red – Soviets, the Russian flag. World War II. . Me, as a child of 12 wearing a red pantsuit to please the Russian soldiers who were attending their mess halls. Greasy, fatty soup. Our starved stomachs not prepared for such treats We could not keep it down. The red of roses. Found at every occasion where love is celebrated. White only when all has come to an end. Blue. “You have beautiful eyes”. I have blue eyes. The Pan American planes and uniforms During 20 and more years with the airlines I saw mostly blue, blue, blue. The Ocean, its waters always blue for me even if there are days when they are anything but.. The only exception is Bermuda, the waters of Bermuda are so startling green with coral reefs peeking out of them that they cannot ever be mistaken for blue. White. My wedding dress. Hand- made white lace. Tailored after a Vogue pattern. 1200$ in the store but $ 75 in Hong Kong. Still remember the tailor’s name, Milwani. All Flight crews had their wardrobe done there. All we did is supply a magazine with a picture and voila within 48 hours, our usual layover in Hong Kong, it was ready for pick up. They even brought it to the hotel for us. Pure, newly fallen snow, inviting to take a sleigh ride before stopping at an inn for a hot toddy. Green. Ireland. The green meadows. The Blarney Castle. Hesitantly leaning backwards out of the window with one of the attendants holding me by the feet. Doing that would make one receive the gift of gab. I could not let that go. Scotland. The magnificent golf course on the water. My first putting. Arnold Palmer in all his glory. A reason I still watch the golf opens and Tiger Woods nowadays. Yellow. The sun. My hair when it turned yellow while it was meant to get ash blond. A nice ripe banana. “Yellow looks good on you” I hear a lot. So maybe I should make yellow my favorite color. Black. The processions ,along the cemetery in Berlin. One was to wear black. All black even black stockings. I spent many hours in the park- like resting place as my family, although big, had mostly older people in it and they went one by one within a very short period of time. To end on a happy note. My grandson, seven years old who used to call blue his favorite color has now changed to Orange, the color of his soccer uniform. There is Purple,( yes the purple heart given to my husband) Indigo , Brown, Grey and other colors but the above are the ones that come to mind usually first.

Rich By Karen King

Are you rich? Are you worthy? Do you count in this materialistic society? Sorry, but if you are a woman and you don’t care for the latest designer dresses, handbags and shoes, you don’t count! If you don’t have the latest hairstyle, you don’t count! If you don’t go the most exotic places, you don’t count! If you don’t have the latest designer kitchen and equipment, you don’t count! If you don’t have the latest décor in your house, you don’t count! Sorry, but if you are a man and don’t care for the latest designer jeans, you don’t count! If you don’t travel to the most exotic places, you don’t count! If you don’t have the trendy car, you don’t count! Sorry, but I don’t care for the latest designer dresses, handbags, shoes, hairstyle, exotic holidays or the latest equipment and décor in my house! Does that mean I am less? No, I don’t think so. If anything, I am more, because I don’t feel a need for these things to prop myself up. I don’t care what others think, I don’t wish to compete, for I have no need for it. I am complete in myself. Surely, health, peace, happiness, a loving family and partner and enough money to pay the bills and occasionally treat yourself is all we need? Look around, often the richest people in the world are very unhappy, because they keep spending money buying things, trying to fill that hole in their hearts that cannot be filled. They buy more and more, desperate and needy as they feel emptier and emptier. How come, often the poorest people in the world are the happiest? I would suggest that it is because they are living in the present and savouring every moment. They have a hard time finding food, they often have no electricity, no lighting and few clothes, yet they are happy! This defies our comprehension. I feel it is because they are spending time with their families, they are outside enjoying nature and they are not draining themselves with electronic devices or trying to keep up with everyone else, rushing around in a pointless, exhausting manner, making themselves ill. I would certainly not want to go back to primitive times, but I can see that they have something special that many of us have lost in modern society. I feel that they could teach us a better way of being and, perhaps, it is not them that are backward at all, it is us in Western societies that are backward? After all, what is the point in having the latest electronic equipment if we no longer talk to each other? Karen King Copyright February 2016

This week's "Creative Non-Fiction" is devoted to the magical fairytale of life itself. In some ways, we are all magical creatures, our creativity inspires and changes the world. Therefore, we should all believe in magic, in unicorns and fairies and in trolls. Our lives are constantly blessed by magical events. There is proof everywhere of amazing events that signify our daily lives. We just have to read the signs to see that this spiritual truth defines us. The Japanese folk tale about the fountain of youth is followed by three pieces: Jack Scott's amazing and lengthy poem about "Birth" and Karen King's two pieces about "Youth" and "Old Age".

The Fountain of Youth Japanese Folk Tale Translated by Lafcadio Hearn LONG, LONG ago there lived somewhere among the mountains of Japan a poor woodcutter and his wife. They were very old, and had no children. Every day the husband went, alone to the forest to cut wood, while the wife sat weaving at home. One day the old man went further into the forest than was his custom, to seek a certain kind of wood; and he suddenly found himself at the edge of a little spring he had never seen before. The water was strangely clear and cold, and he was thirsty; for the day was hot, and he had been working hard. So he doffed his huge straw-hat, knelt down, and took a long drink. That water seemed to refresh him in a most extraordinary way. Then he caught sight of his own face in the spring, and started back. It was certainly his own face, but not at all as he was accustomed' to see it in the bronze mirror at home. It was the face of a very young man! He could not believe his eyes. He put up both hands to his head which had been quite bald only a moment before, when he had wiped it with the little blue towel he always carried with him. But now it was covered with thick black hair. And his face had become smooth as a boy's: every wrinkle was gone. At the same moment he discovered himself full of new strength. He stared in astonishment at the limbs that had been so long withered by age: they were now shapely and hard with dense young muscle. Unknowingly he had drunk of the Fountain of Youth; and that draught had transformed him. First he leaped high and shouted for joy;-then he ran home faster than he had ever run before in his life. When he entered his house his wife was frightened;- because she took him for a stranger; and when he told her the wonder, she could not at once believe him. But after a long time he was able to convince her that the young man she now saw before her was really her husband; and he told her where the spring was, and asked her to go there with him. Then she said:-"You have become so handsome and so young that you cannot continue to love an old woman;-so I must drink some of that water immediately. But it will never do for both of us to be away from the house at the same time. Do you wait here, while I go." And she ran to the woods all by herself. She found the spring and knelt down, and began to drink. Oh! how cool and sweet that water was! She drank and drank and drank, and stopped for breath only to begin again. Her husband waited for her impatiently;-he expected to see her come back changed into a pretty slender girl. But she did not come back at all. He got anxious, shut up the house, and went to look for her. When he reached the spring, he could not see her. He was just on the point of returning when he heard a little wail in the high grass near the spring. He searched there and discovered his wife's clothes and a baby,-a very small baby, perhaps six months old. For the old woman had drunk too deeply of the magical water; she had drunk herself far back beyond the time of youth into the period of speechless infancy. He took up the child in his arms. It looked at him in a sad wondering way. He carried it home,-murmuring to it,-thinking strange melancholy thoughts.

Birth By Jack Scott, Poemystic 1 Nests are not thrown together, but carefully assembled , knit together piece by piece, knots on a string of choices a snippet at a time, a straw, a twig, slips and strips of yarn and threads, feathers, down and seaweed, stems of weeds and flower headsindustry and patience yoked together toward common end. No drawing board, no architect or plan, no preconception evident ; this hatches from its own intelligence, its own egg, this idea of nest, to begin this duet of certainty to flesh these ideas out. Predestined partners in this now, basketweaving Yin and Yang absolutely bound to coincide. In their flights of Maypole spiraling he selects the territory, she the site. In their magic how do they know when nest is done? When the egg is in it. Some say god is in the details, stepping stones to excellence; others say the devil’s there to seek or cause the finest flaw and thwart the scheme of things. The essence of the universe, might be the sum of details. What’s a person or an egg, but a smaller sum of all of these? 2 So it is beyond these fences within broader boundaries enclosing more that can’t be weighed or measured in tangibility. Sweat, for instance, between two bodies slippery in their heat, careless in the transience of their lust. She can’t hear the skeins of sound loosed by their embrace- she’s deaf, but he is deafer to things far subtler than sound, the silent sire who first begot and then was not. 3 Vacationing from pain, as far away as she can get, self-medicating doctor explores by eye horizon across the Belfast Bay from her chair upon the porch, scans the nearer islands, enjoys her stereopticon of reverie: images as brief as blinks blended with the butterfly effects of all her history. 4 “Tea or coffee, Miss?” asked deaf Alice with a voice like cracked parchment or burnt skin, as if she’d practiced sound from reading letters only, or ordered from a catalog without ever having heard a word. She hadn’t. Ever. Her attempt at speech a willful feat; how stubborn no one knew but her. Interpreting, the doctor ordered, with soundless lips while pointing at the menu. Hearing with her eyes the waitress turned to fetch the tea with sugar and with lemon having clearly in her mind a picture of the three. As Alice set the service, the doctor asked with gestures: how far along was she? Five fingers, then three followed by a bent one made it clear enough. Two weeks or so to go and she looked it; she was very round. Compelled by curiosity and an educated guess, the doctor sought the manager indulging a suspicion forming in her mind. “Unmarried, true, her second such, destined for adoption, too. A good employee, honest, cheerful, hard working, sober when she is, all of that is why I hired her and why I’ll keep her on when this is over. No, no kin I know of except her baby soon , and she’s not up to that, not for lack of love, I’m sure, but hers is such a heavy handicap, misunderstood and borne alone, it’s all that she can carry: her own, of course, and the burden of the child.” The doctor listened carefully, asked more questions, guessed the size and weight of her speculation. Of the mother’s siblings, she learned, two of three were deaf at birth as well. Unanswered and unanswerable: will the baby hear? When she’d made her phone call, once she’d passed the story on to her childless friends further down the map the deal breaker loomed larger than the hope within the deal . Time, so eloquent and final, will tell- about the hearing; it always does. 5 The childless couple in a maze of desperation, once the news reached them, entered it in haste, too keenly feeling incompletion, already tensely aiming at one target, another baby they’ve been negotiating for, due later by a month or more. They’d now have a choice of two. First on the calendar, Maine child with impetuosity is now first in line, but with the cast iron caveat: it must hear perfectly. Now, so much to do: lawyers and impending mother, clear contract with no maybes, with provision for return , obstetrical arrangements, weighing the hospital’s pros and cons, assuring good postnatal care, arranging payment of each bill as due. Picking out a wardrobe? Too early. Patience, patience. The baby will remain in residence until its health is verified and stable, its hearing certified by audiologist, and unknown things overlooked unexpected, or forgotten as they come.. 6 Birth can be sad when mother wakes and baby sleeps right on in separate beds, in separate rooms. A child is born into this dreamlike day. The mother wakes -her job is done, but hasn’t seen her little one, and won’t, she has agreed it’s best for all to form no further bond that must be further broken. The baby wakes in thin October light and cries because it is so bright. Does she know her mother isn’t there? Does she feel like something’s missing? One cord’s been cut, one more remains. She’ll never be this small again. This is her time- purely, before others enter in. Birth is bookend one, tombstone date the other; of a pair, a half. Her lifestone lies at the very heart of time to come . No message here in the space that follows, no borrowed verse expressing pride: of name, of marriage, parentage, of property or roots, of profit or its fruit, of loss of others come and gone before, or the hope to join them, only unspoken, unwrit, implied: hello, to all that is to come. One more thing upon it. Dusted on with chalk by poised hand; her certificate of birth pending ink and final naming. Those who will not sail it are not to name the boat. Baby Doe, her maiden name. She lies within a borrowed wrapping. How could she own, she has not earned. Chrysalis statistically: one hand clapping. She does not even own her name, it will be taken from her, exchanged upon her transplantation. 7 This baby girl born at the stony throat, of scrawny neck of Belfast Bay, high upon a hill where summer folk played while wild fragaria and bleuets were in season, red and blue, then departed frost-driven as southward as their money flowed. The summer folk were relatively rich and few and when they blew and went kerchew they contained themselves with handkerchiefs the locals washed and ironed, the mother being one of them: maid of all work, a domestic factotum capable as well of heavier odd jobbing like working in his boatyard with her pa. Often nanny, good with children, loved by them for her good heart and gentle, caring ways. 8 The hospital appears to be at the edge of century; though it’s had its share of time it’s sounder than it seems to eye of first time visitor. It’s time for it to don before the coming winter another coat of “Old Oyster White” to trigger hunger or desire, a name the color or enticement? Looks like oyster, smells like paint thinned out with turpentine redolent of wind bent pine another local flavor. The trim: “Sea Bottom Black”, another merchandising whim, delineates the woodwork trim, and that’s the black and white of it. Not too cold to paint outside if the paint can dry in time. Seashell walks and lobsterpots, kelp, some flotsam and some jetsam, compete with trees and shrubbery to set the stage for tourists consistent with the rest of town presenting what it always was along with what it is: props set for the tourists, to show them what they want to see and put them in the mood for buying it: memento, knick knack, souvenir, to make them want to take it home as treasure to be hidden in plain sight upon a dusty shelf or buried in a treasure chest, with no hope of future treasure hunt. Half disrobed for the season so intimate in detail across the crystal space the far shores seem so near todaymagnified, precise, pristinethat they could rest in one’s opened hand compelling one to see what one had been before merely looking toward instead of at. Between, the gently ruffled water lies in rows, as if blue plowed liquid field, or ornate ceiling of lobsterland above a floor, imagined seabottom black. 9 On her porch the mother rose crossing to its railing she realized an edge of cliff, a shock she quickly backed away from because the vision was too sharp, the danger more immediate than her inner pain, too tempting to be reconciled today. Procrastination was an easier abstraction, lying beneath her lowered lids, and inward. Even so, what she sees is less than what she feels yet startlingly more evident than what lies beneath her lowered lids, inward and behind them. No locked cell, in lemon linen private room high atop asylum. She’s sad, not mad. It’s not that kind of prison, more a refuge, a retreat, a safe alternative to street. What she did was not a crime although she suffered punishment in her own mind. What is the kinder word, less likely to offend: impecunious, impoverished or just plain poor? Now that’s incarceration . . . This mother is all that and more. Bringing that to bear on this: she has another child which she didn’t have before. She had decision, not a choice, what depth of feeling is involved only she could say if she would speak. Born deaf as stone, her eyes work well and she’s not dull. She can read and write, communicate without handicap with pen and ink on paper; how portable is that? Untrained, she drew the birds she loved and fed by handon her own time. Her mind, translated through her hand and eyes, has discussed, stated, “listened” and responded. Settled without duress, This is equation’s only balance. She’s accepted that, she knows what is and isn’t, she comprehends impossible she knows what penalties stubbornness would cost her daughter. Like mothers everywhere who care (there are some who don’t) she wants her baby, to become, to have better, to find comfort affordably, to have goals and reach them, to prosper. There may be altruistic genes, more likely enlightened self-interest cast against the wall of probability as dice to offer better odds, at least ones that feel better. 10 One of those odd buildings appearing larger inside than out the hospital has two stories, three on the right above the original structure, taking about a third of its width. Alice is in one of the higher rooms facing east toward the Bay and beyond a vista permanent in her blood and in immediacy the reality became a cliff that once drew her near, then into retreat from imagined floor of lobster landsea bottom black. Turning, facing her room: a door, a single bed, a rack to hang a few things on, a dresser with a looking glass looking out, its drawers discretely closed, a tray with wheels, upon it: jars adorned with fleur de lis, a pitcher and a stoneware bowl, mismatched wash cloth and towel, a plate with egg upon its face, an empty coffee cup, a glass with milk upon its lip, a vase to put some flowers in, no rug upon the floor, sandpaper clean, the only window at her back fortunate to catch the morning sun, beneath the bed a relic chamber pot, (her bathroom’s just around the corner.) alarm clock to awaken her, but she’s been awake. She knows she’s had a child (how could she not?) and some of why and how; she’s not a medieval maiden. She has not seen it. but knows it’s there somewhere. She has of course not heard it. She packs everything she brought with her, prematurely, from the dresser and the rack, then stiffly rests, not supposed to use her feet just yet, but restless, rises, confronts the mirror explores it: no flowers in the room, a card, no, two, one letter and a telegram, under the bed the other shoe beside the antique chamber pot, redundantly competing with a bed pan and adjacent bathroom. All is as it should be according to the plan. What’s missing is her baby. She cries at that from time to time, it tugs at her. A fertile woman without strings and wanting none, we think, though she tied a knot or two. 11 Put the first stone in the scale, You who weigh her here: round and usually jolly, short and often puckish a loose woman so-called back then with a fun loving reputation, a free spirit as seen by some, by others, freer than she should have been, wanting all that she could get, not knowing how to pay for it, she took it as it came. Smart and impish, a sometimes silly prankster, occasionally a vagabond, sometimes with a man. In short, a character in the good sense of the word, animated, mischievous- and sad for what she didn’t know that she was missing. To whom could she confide, with whom seek counsel? You have to know who writes when you open book to read. One size does not fit all, it takes knowledge to know where to look and recognize what’s found. She did well with what she had, beneath our notice, all that weight with so little light shone on it. 12 Her daughter drinks a lot gets high on milk, coos and gurgles when she’s held, or passed around from eager hands to the welcome of the next, cries when she doesn’t get what she knows not how to ask for, is in all ways unhousebroken, untamed it might also be said, demands attention, cannot decide to smile, but seems working on the knack of it, has nothing yet to dream (we think, but do not know.) She is too tiny to break anything yet with her temper alone, has nothing of her own to break. 13 One road out of here squiggles northward toward Canada and the Upper Pole, can been seen from her window fading into that distance now that the leaves are down. Beyond that little-traveled road: a land increase more than a hill a modest mound of evergreens Spruce and Fir and Hemlocks. This Northern road leads shortly past a wooden sign: “You are now exactly halfway between North Pole and Equator.” Awesome and deceptive, leading toward belief that there are only two ways to go, and one to stay. How can that be? Equator? North Pole. Too vast for the imagination or too local while sitting before a wood stove or a fireplace, imagining stars and galaxies? 14 Look down, madam you can see your toes now without bending over; you’ve shed a watermelon. Relief or an increase in girth: the dilemma. You fought against abortion, or was that battle fought for you? That was decision number one which led to number two giving time for thoughtfulness and realization of inevitability: some problems do not go away. If there were winds upon the hill to sweep the chill inside to emphasize this drama to make this transplant take grafting living skin on living doubt. No room for doubt! Done, done, done and done, it’s done. Without the wind it’s warm enough to take the baby home with it: cold enough to leave it But there is no wind today, only the lingering of faint indecision. Done! 15 The stork returned a fortnight hence, with steel wings and occupants, a barren wife, infertile, the pilot husband, and the doctor of it all, she who could not save herself, came North approaching Winter descending from the Southern sky parting geese to land and claim the child at who knows what a pound to become a passenger, a family member. Then the silver plane turned round and those within left the town. 16 You gave the least a mother could; you gave your daughter motherhood Where is your baby now? Flying southward toward Equator as do birds and kings for winter. You can’t afford a ticket and won’t buy a stamp. You’ve closed that door, now to nail it shut.

L17 ®Copyright 1973 Jack Scott. All rights reserved. From Poemystic.com

Youth

By Karen King

Once we were young and time was on our side. We knew nothing of middle or old age, when time speeds up in ever-increasing circles. We knew of becoming forgetful, or when our bodies don’t look or feel the same anymore. Youth has a vigour and beauty all of its own. The youth are enthusiastic, radiant, joyful and full of energy and lust for life. The world is at their feet. They feel they can do anything. They look good, you feel good. Yet, sometimes, they struggle with who they are, where they are going and what life is all about. They question things and struggle with their confidence at times, particularly when out of their comfort zone. Then, energy and zest start to dwindle as we get older, we don’t look or feel as attractive anymore. Life seems to get harder as more and more life’s responsibilities take over, draining you and dwindling your resources. It is hard to be enthusiastic at times as life’s troubles drag you down. It takes more effort to look and feel good. Yet, if you stop for a moment and think about your life, you will realise how far you have come. Life has changed you, you will be more confident through your experiences – both good and bad – and you will have become your own person. You will be more considerate towards others, but care less about what others think of you. So, time would have given you the gift of experience and resulting confidence. Perhaps we have the confidence to try new things as we become less embarrassed by who we and happier to stand out and be ourselves. Our real selves should start to shine, connecting us to our truth and to the rest of humanity as well. Karen King Copyright Feburary 2016

Old Age By Karen King

It creeps upon you when your back is turned. You used to think you had all the time in the world, but you became engrossed in the banalities of life and didn’t see the bigger picture. You lost years of your life, stuck in the worries of your own world and the past whilst losing the moment and trying to forget the future. It’s time to stop your apathy and start living and enjoying the last few years as best you can before it is too late. Your body might not look or feel the way it used to; your mind has moments of forgetfulness. Even mundane tasks now are a challenge. Still, face the right direction, appreciate life, your family and friends before it is too late. Enjoy your remaining time on this earth. The simple things in life are what counts – nature, the outdoors… Savour the sunsets, the tremendous tress and the beauty of the butterflies. Enjoy the present, so make the most of it before your body is buried in the ground or your ashes blow, lost in the wind forever. Karen King Copyright March 2016

“You can’t Judge a Book by its Cover” By Karen King

Many of us have heard of the saying, “You can’t judge a book by its cover.” Just in case you don’t know, this means, don’t feel someone is worthy just because they’re attractive and “perfect” in your eyes. “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder” after all! Very often you will find that the people who don’t instantly catch your eye are more interesting and have more depth. The gorgeous, muscular man at the gym quite possibly knows he’s attractive, thinks he is God’s gift to women, probably sleeps around and really only loves himself. You may well find there is not much grey matter there. His priorities will probably be the size of his biceps, maintaining the correct body weight at all times, shaving his body to show his perfect physique and maybe even having a fake tan to maintain an amazing appearance all year round! If you talk to him, you may well find he’s an intelligent man with many thoughts on a variety of subjects. He may be more than he appears! The beautiful and slim woman may well care more about her appearance, how many pairs of shoes and handbags she can possess than having a genuine relationship. She could well enjoy manipulating men and getting as much as she can financially from them as their mouths drop open in wonder and lust at this wonderful woman! She could, however, be a beautiful person inside as well as outside. Perhaps if you get to know her, you will find out for herself. Sometimes, we are lucky and we can find someone who looks attractive to us as well as having depth and being attractive on the insides. After all, beauty is only skin deep and it can be changed in an instant by a horrific car accident or through the effects of time and gravity. Does that make any of us any less worthwhile as people? I think not! We need to look within, for that is what really counts. Is this person kind, caring, funny and trustworthy? Do you enjoy their company? Does it just “feel right” with this person. Is there a spark there? If the answers are “yes” to these questions, then you should be happy for you would have learnt not to “Judge a Book by its Cover.” Karen King Copyright February 2016

AT 3 A.M., IMAGINATION IS NOT A GOOD THING BY MIKE TAYLOR Tap. Tip tap. Tap tap tap tap … tip tap. Whatever it was, it was behind me, though I couldn’t see it. A blanket-like, 3 a.m. fog had settled over Baldwin Lake, its outriggers oozing across the road like tenebrous fingers, wrapping themselves around half-buried tree roots, obscuring the decaying remains of autumn’s expired leaves. Caught in a dank breeze, leaves scudded across the shrouded pavement, etching out sounds like death watch beetles — chitinous, skittering. Tap. Tip tap tip. Definitely behind me. Closer now. I stopped and stared back into the darkness, trying to pierce the fog. The tapping suddenly ceased. I waited, but it did not start up again. I thought of my bed, waiting in my apartment on the other side of the lake. Cozy. Comfortable. I should be there now, I thought, not out strolling through this abominable, impenetrable fog! Insomnia or no, what was I thinking? I started walking. A few steps and I heard it again, faint but unmistakable: tap, tip tap, tap. The next street lamp was 500 steps ahead, a tiny, glowing pocket of light in this misty, musty blackness. I wasn’t exactly scared. Not yet. This is Greenville, not 17th Century London, not Transylvania. A nice, quiet neighborhood, nestled up to a small lakeshore. Bad things don’t happen here. Not REALLY bad things. And though I’m older than dirt I can — or could, at last check — still bench nearly 300 pounds. I’m not helpless. But … tap. Tip tip tap. What WAS that sound? I stopped again. Tap tip tap t— It stopped, too. I waited. Nothing. Then … tap … then nothing again. Why hadn’t I brought a flashlight? I often do when walking around the lake after dark. But this October night was unseasonably warm and inviting. When I had set out 30 minutes earlier, the fog had seemed sultry and secretive, an opportunity to spend a little time in my own private, late night world, all alone. Except … I wasn’t alone. Someone was out here with me. Behind me. Keeping pace with my steps. The streetlight still seemed a long way off. I thought about calling into the fog, “Is anyone there?” But what if nobody answered? I knew someone was behind me. Following me. Walking when I walked, stopping when I stopped. Pacing me. Stalking me. If they didn’t answer, what would that mean? That they didn’t WANT to answer? And if not, why not? Gooseflesh rippled to life on my arms, crawled up my shoulders, traced stealthy, cloying fingers over the back of my neck. Tap. Tip tap. I walked faster. It didn’t escape my notice that the cemetery was coming up on my right. I sometimes walk there, under the light of a noonday sun. Even then it seems pleasantly gothic, a throwback to the days before the sterilization of death, to a time when the dearly departed were laid to rest beneath imposing monoliths of granite and stately oak trees. It’s a cemetery to which the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come might accompany Ebenezer Scrooge, or from which Igor might harvest a few human organs for the experiments under way back at Castle Frankenstein. On a sunny day, the cemetery is pleasant and peaceful. On a foggy night, with something tip-tapping in your wake, it becomes stage dressing for a B-movie horror extravaganza, one in which you are to be the ax wielding maniac’s next victim. But at least the cemetery’s entrance is near the street lamp. I halted beneath its glow and waited. Here, I decided, I would make my stand and face down whatever it was that tiptapped behind me. Tap. Tip tap tip. Closer now. From within the billows of fog, a shadow detached itself and moved forward. Tap. Tip tap. T- It stopped. Less than 20 feet from my feeble circle of light, something stood still. Tall. Dark. Waiting. Then, when I thought the standoff would go on indefinitely, it lurched forward, its right arm held stiffly forward. “I’ve got mace!” Not the guttural growl of an ax wielding maniac, but a quavering, tremulous contralto. Out of the fog stepped a slender young woman, maybe 30, vaguely pretty, led by a small, leashed dog of indeterminate genus. The dog’s toenails clicked against the macadam. Tip tip tip tap. “I thought you were an ax wielding maniac,” I said as she passed. I meant it to be funny, but she didn’t smile. She clutched the dog’s leash like a lifeline and hugged the opposite side of the road. As she disappeared into the fog ahead of me, the tip tapping gained speed and soon faded. I breathed out, back in, out again. I started walking. One by one, the muscles in my back unclenched and I relaxed. The streetlamp’s glow fell behind me and I was again swallowed by the fog. In any decent horror movie, I realized, it would be at precisely this point that SOMETHING would reach out of the fog; something with gnarled, misshapen hands, with perhaps too many fingers, or too few. And those hands would not caress, but grab, rend, squeeze. That last mile home seemed to take a long time.

A Fellow MEETS His DAD Way BEFORE He HAD Kids

A look at The BACK TO THE FUTURE-Trilogy By Charles E.J. Moulton Small town, America. 1955. A young boy saves his friend from a car accident, who thanks him by simply jumping on his bike and driving off into the sunset. Sounds like pure soap opera, fifties style. Yes, but with a twist: the hero is his son and they are both 17 years old. Huh? What was that? 17? Both? Rewind the tape. Marty McFly’s friend, the much older Doc Brown, has invented a time machine with the help of plutonium-smuggling Libyans. During a demonstration, Marty McFly is accidentally catapulted thirty years back to a time when his parents were in high school. Oops. The only problem is that he never expected to stand in their way. He interrupted with his parent’s first meeting and now Marty has to get his folks back together so he can be born. At first, it doesn’t work at all. His Dad is a complete wimp, mobbed by the local bully Biff, and his own mom is in love with… Marty. So it takes a whole lot of courage and pain and playing of love songs on proms to get them back together before he can by the help of a lightning bolt go back to the future, only to find out that he changed his parents: his formerly drunk loser parents are now prime yuppies out for tennis speaking like rich middleclass people. Who are better people? Losers or phoneys? Is the loser more honest because he lost? Wait a minute, there is more. In the second picture, old Doc Brown travels back from the future, 2015, to tell Marty and his girl that their kids are in trouble. They go there to save them, but Marty is tempted by the dark side of the force (sorry, Mr. Lucas). He is chased on a hovering skateboard by Biff’s grandchild when he buys an almanac that reveals all sport results of the later half of the 20th century. Doc prevents him from taking it back with him, but evil things lurk in the minds of men and the entire story becomes a very Shakespearian parody. Old Biff steals the book and takes the time vehicle back to the past and gives himself this desirable object. The result is a 1985 Hill Valley Gambling Hell with Biff as the rich devil replacing his murdered father. They accordingly go back to the past to fix this present in the past. They do succeed, run into themselves a couple of times, before burning the book and saving the future. You think this is over? Not yet. Doc’s car was struck by lightning and sent back to 1885. Marty has to travel back there, against the Doc’s wishes, because he finds out that the Doc was murdered by Biff’s great grandfather. He does so, in the process letting Indians rip the fuel line. The result is that he meets his ancestors, his grandpa even pees on him as a baby, in order to find a home in his own town a hundred years back in time. He gets into a fight with Biff’s grandpa Buford “Mad Dog” Tannen (“I hate that name!”), who challenges him to a duel. The Doc, however, has fallen in love and after the victorious duel he elopes with his Miss Clara Clayton, whilst Marty pushes up to high velocity by a steam train into the present. But there is hope yet. Doc returns with a new invention, prompted by the hover board from the future. He is now the owner of a time steam train. Sound like fun? Yes. It is. Fast, furious and funny. But let’s look a little behind the scenes, shall we now? Having read two of Michael J. Fox’s biographies, I am a little smarter. He tells us that his now very evident Parkinson’s disease comes from an accident in the hanging scene of the third movie. “Accidents are temporary, film is forever.” These were his exact words. However, we must admire a man who so bravely left Canada to become a star and decided to work day and night on two projects while doing the movie. What about the characters in the film? All Marty’s family are losers made winners in the movies, through Marty’s timely doing. Biff’s family are winners made losers in the movies, also through Marty’s doing. There is thus a reverse side to the movies, with Marty undoing ill and doing well. Is it too bad that Marty and Doc are not together at the end? Yes. But Doc was always lonely and now has a family in the only place he ever really truly loved: the old west. Looking at them as a whole, with all of their reversible fun of characters meeting themselves and changing lives, the most interesting part of it is still how the characters can change personality wise according to circumstance and situation. Marty’s mother is a drunken housewife who, completely and utterly resigned to a dull poor life, really has given up. But because of loving a man of heroics (Dad prompted by Marty) she turns into the fit, self secure and hip mother in 1985. The hip mother, however, turns into a rich, silicon pumped and frustrated wife in the alternate reality just because wealthy Biff murdered her husband and married her. Biff is a pure sleaze, who has been used to winning all his life and therefore does the same thing he did in the fifties and even gets away with it because no one tells him otherwise. But the fact that Marty’s father has the guts to retaliate in 1955 he turns Biff into a meek and shy car mechanic thirty years later. Receiving the book from himself in 1955, moreover, turns him into the evil man we all love to hate. Marty’s father is a shy loser in 1985 because no one ever told him he was a capable man. But by receiving the right courage he dares to take the risk he needs and becomes a successful author and eventually a happy, rich grandpa. Marty’s problem is that he never lets anyone call him coward. And so he gets into an accident in 1985 that ruins his life. But by the actual intervention of Doc he changes his mind and is able to not get into the accident and thereby make himself a future with his girl without being a loser. TIME magazine was once quoted as saying that these films are like a fugue improvising on the theme of the previous movies. Interesting point, this. A man might change his life if he makes the right decisions. What are the right decisions? Being strong and feeling strong. Having the guts to say: “Man, I am so talented. I can handle this, all right.” Marty travels close to hundred and fifty years in time to find out that it isn’t the main thing to defend yourself against people who judge you ignorantly. Defending yourself to save your soul from ignorance might be the main thing. The main thing is not holding on to your past mistakes and letting your intuition lead the way. Is that what Marty does? Time is illusive and strange and maybe that is what the movies want to teach us. That going on with your life and working from the moment is the most important thing. Don’t keep reminding yourself that you did a mistake. Make sure that you don’t make the mistake again. Don’t be a bully like Biff or as quick in the draw as Marty. Be as good as you possibly can be. Sail through time in your own speed and with your own elegance and eloquence. Don’t be intimidated by past mistakes. Don’t be so sure that you cannot learn anything from a movie just because pop corn and coke is labeled on the cover of a motion picture. Surprising truths can be found at the backsides of cereal cartons. This little extravaganza about time tells us that hotheads do well in not following grudges. BACK TO THE FUTURE: Three Motion Pictures (© 1985, 1989, 1990) Director: Robert Zemeckis Music: Alan Silvestri Actors: Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Lea Thompson, Crispin Glover, Thomas F.Wilson, James Tolkan; Producer: Steven Spielberg.

Youth By Karen King

Once we were young and time was on our side. We knew nothing of middle or old age, when time speeds up in ever-increasing circles. We knew of becoming forgetful, or when our bodies don’t look or feel the same anymore. Youth has a vigour and beauty all of its own. The youth are enthusiastic, radiant, joyful and full of energy and lust for life. The world is at their feet. They feel they can do anything. They look good, you feel good. Yet, sometimes, they struggle with who they are, where they are going and what life is all about. They question things and struggle with their confidence at times, particularly when out of their comfort zone. Then, energy and zest start to dwindle as we get older, we don’t look or feel as attractive anymore. Life seems to get harder as more and more life’s responsibilities take over, draining you and dwindling your resources. It is hard to be enthusiastic at times as life’s troubles drag you down. It takes more effort to look and feel good. Yet, if you stop for a moment and think about your life, you will realise how far you have come. Life has changed you, you will be more confident through your experiences – both good and bad – and you will have become your own person. You will be more considerate towards others, but care less about what others think of you. So, time would have given you the gift of experience and resulting confidence. Perhaps we have the confidence to try new things as we become less embarrassed by who we and happier to stand out and be ourselves. Our real selves should start to shine, connecting us to our truth and to the rest of humanity as well. Karen King Copyright Feburary 2016

Mediumship By Karen King

The people who talk to the dead are called “mediums”. They walk between the living and the dead and deliver messages to those who remain on the earth. These messages can be deep and meaningful or quite banal. Either way, they make a great difference to those who remain on earth, offering them hope and a reason to go on living. They will feel peace, joy and a deep connection with those they have lost. They will have the much-needed proof in the continuation of the soul. It will make them think deeper and about the possibility of re incarnation for, surely, we don’t just drift around for the rest of our lives in the spirit world? There must be a reason for all this? Is it to come back and try again until we get it right? I, personally, believe this is the case. I also feel that the souls that have passed will feel both relieved and delighted to be able to send their messages of peace and love to their relations and friends, thus proving their ongoing existence and continuous love for the loved ones they have left behind. Sometimes, the spirits have repeatedly tried to contact the living by making noises, moving things around or even touching their relations, to no avail. The spirits are relieved to be able to find a medium who can make the necessary contact and a bridge between the souls. I think that there will be an ever-increasing need for mediums as the world starts to wonder about where their lost friends, relatives and loved ones have gone. So, the medium, provides such an important role in both this world and the next, uniting the earth and the spirit plane, promoting peace and harmony throughout both worlds. Karen King Copyright February 2016

Christine de Pisan

The Book of the City of Ladies (1405) {1}One day as I was sitting alone in my study surrounded by books on all kinds of subjects, devoting myself to literary studies, my usual habit, my mind dwelt at length on the weighty opinions of various authors whom I had studied for a long time. I looked up from my book, having decided to leave such subtle questions in peace and to relax by reading some small book. By chance a strange volume came into my hands, not one of my own, but one which had been given to me along with some others. When I held it open and saw its title page that it was by Matheolus, I smiled, for though I had never seen it before, I had often heard that like books it discussed respect for women. I thought I would browse through it to amuse myself. I had not been reading for very long when my good mother called me to refresh myself with some supper, for it was evening. Intending to look at it the next day, I put it down. The next morning, again seated in my study as was my habit, I remembered wanting to examine this book by Matheolus. I started to read it and went on for a little while. Because the subject seemed to me not very pleasant for people who do not enjoy lies, and of no use in developing virtue or manners, given its lack of integrity in diction and theme, and after browsing here and there and reading the end, I put it down in order to turn my attention to more elevated and useful study. But just the sight of this book, even though it was of no authority, made me wonder how it happened that so many different men - and learned men among them - have been and are so inclined to express both in speaking and in their treatises and writings so many wicked insults about women and their behavior. Not only one or two and not even just this Matheolus (for this book had a bad name anyways and was intended as a satire) but, more generally, from the treatises of all philosophers and poets and from all the orators - it would take too long to mention their names - it seems that they all speak from one and the same mouth. Thinking deeply about these matters, I began to examine my character and conduct as a natural woman and, similarly, I considered other women whose company I frequently kept, princesses, great ladies, women of the middle and lower classes, who had graciously told me of their most private and intimate thoughts, hoping that I could judge impartially and in good conscience whether the testimony of so many notable men could be true. To the best of my knowledge, no matter how long I confronted or dissected the problem, I could not see or realize how their claims could be true when compared to the natural behavior and character of women. Yet I still argued vehemently against women, saying that it would be impossible that so many famous men - such solemn scholars, possessed of such deep and great understanding, so clear-sighted in all things, as it seemed - could have spoken falsely on so many occasions that I could hardly find a book on morals where, even before I had read it in its entirety, I did not find several chapters or certain sections attacking women, no matter who the author was. This reason alone, in short, made me conclude that, although my intellect did not perceive my own great faults and, likewise, those of other women because of its simpleness and ignorance, it was however truly fitting that such was the case. And so I relied more on the judgment of others than on what I myself felt and knew. I was so transfixed in this line of thinking for such a long time that it seemed as if I were in a stupor. Like a gushing fountain, a series of authorities, whom I recalled one after another, came to mind, along with their opinions on this topic. And I finally decided that God formed a vile creature when He made woman, and I wondered how such a worthy artisan could have designed to make such an abominable work which, from what they say, is the vessel as well as the refuge and abode of every evil and vice. As I was thinking this, a great unhappiness and sadness welled up in my heart, for I detested myself and the entire feminine sex, as though we were monstrosities in nature and in my lament I spoke these words: Oh, God, how can this be? For unless I stray from my faith, I must never doubt that your infinite wisdom and most perfect goodness ever created anything which was not good. Did You yourself not create woman in a very special way and since that time did You not give her all those inclinations which it please You for her to have? And how could it be that You could go wrong in anything? Yet look at all these accusations which have been judged, decided, and concluded against women. I do not know how to understand this repugnance. If it is so, fair Lord God, that in fact so many abominations abound in the female sex, for You Yourself say that the testimony of two or three witnesses lends credence, why shall I not doubt that this is true? Alas, God, why did You not let me be born in the world as a man, so that all my inclinations would be to serve You better, and so that I would not stray in anything and would be as perfect as a man is said to be? But since Your kindness has not been extended to me, then forgive my negligence in Your service, most fair Lord God, and may it not displease You, for the servant who receives fewer gifts from his lord is less obliged in his service. I spoke these words to God in my lament and a great deal more for a very long time in sad reflections, and in my folly considered myself most unfortunate because God had made me inhabit a female body in this world.

A Trip to the East By Alexandra H. Rodrigues

Since I had left New York, I had been traveling for over 30 hours, while the Boeing 707 covered 14,000 air miles. Finally we had arrived at Bangkok Airport at the outskirts of Thailand’s capital. Step by step I had become acquainted with the East. With a route-map on my lap and a travel guide in my hand, I had followed our route carefully and I was grateful to the captain of our plane, who took the time to point out many places of interest. Approaching Istanbul, our first stop in the East, I had gotten a glimpse of the Golden Horn, the Bosporus and St. Sophia, the nearly 500-year-old mosque of Turkey. In the transit lounge I admired Turquoise jewelry and the inlaid cigarette cases. We took off over the Marmara Sea and crossed the Mediterranean into the Paris of the Middle East: Beirut, Lebanon. The airport shop here carried a colorful display of hassocks, camel saddles and pigskin travel bags as well as gold jewelry including Omega watches. In the air again now high and above over the city of Beirut, which in ancient times was the home of the Phoenicians. Despite of darkness rolling in, I managed to follow the outlines of the cedars, of ancient Heliopolis, the city of sun, now Baalbek. We passed Damascus, the oldest inhabited city in the world, till we reached the black dessert. Flickering lights reminded me of Irwishes marking the always disputed oil line. I must have taken a short nap because, when I looked out of the window the next time, the picture 30,000 feet below was still the same. My guide mentioned Bahrain, which stands on a spit of sand, where takers load up the oil known as black gold. Hours later we descended into Pakistan’s Karachi Airport. Through the white moon light I saw some colorless sandstone buildings, an isolated street light here and there but otherwise nothing. The long flight was starting to tell on me. My muscles were stiff from sitting so long in a cramped airplane seat, and I felt drowsy. But I did not want to miss anything. I disembarked during transit and went into the terminal. A sleepy attendant, clad in a white suit and with a red turban on his head was waiting for customers to buy some of the ivory inlaid furniture. Like other passengers, I inquired about the price of some pieces I thought interesting although I had no intention of buying. Our next stop was New Delhi, India. I read in my guide about the holy river Ganges and although I did not see it, my imagination produced a perfect picture of it. I was so close to it, I could sense it. It was in New Delhi that I felt the heat for the first time. Leaving New York, the first snow warnings had been issued, while in India the thermometer showed 92 degrees Fahrenheit and that at 7 o’clock in the morning. Ivory again for sale in the transit hall but here it was worked exquisitely into carved figures. I could not resist and bought a golf ball sized Taj Mahal with all its manifold minarets. It was carved from ivory, a perfect authentic reproduction of one of the 7 Wonders of the World. I admired Saris and ran my fingers over their cool, fine silk. Maybe on the way back I would treat myself. During the next part of the flight, three and a half hours to Bangkok, sleep got the better of me and I missed Calcutta, the Bay of Bengal, Burma with its famous golden Pagoda and the well known Mandalay. Yes, I did read up on it afterwards. It was noontime when we went with a steep descent into Bangkok. My first impression was that of approaching a country under water. Then I distinguished that what I had thought to be water, were numerous, waterlogged rice paddies. The stewardess announced that the temperature was 66 degrees but when I disembarked I was ready to argue that. The humidity in the air was at least 80 percent. After a few minutes of reprieve in the terminal, I was standing on the street, my mink jacket over my arm in mockery of the heat. I was planning a theatre tour in London on the way back, and in Britain it surely would be cold. In Bangkok the transportation means range from rickshaws to scooters to Mercedes cars. I took a bus. It was not air-conditioned except for a draft coming from the opened windows. My New York hairdo flopped within seconds and would have done honor to a rag doll. We drove along the main street. This was the only road leading into town as I was informed by my bus companion, a hotel surveyor. It had been built only 4 years ago. On both sides of the street were winding canals. The brackish water was so low that shiny backs of water buffalos were clearly visible. Boys were fishing. The older ones wore primitive trunks, the smaller ones were stark naked. My neighbor rounded out the scene by mentioning that less well-to-do natives used these canals for their morning bath and also to clean their teeth. We came to the entrance of town, marked by the big monument of King Rama (1853 -1910). Now the scenery became lively. Thai people were rushing about like ants. They are small of stature, about 5 feet, very fragile and dainty. It amazed me to see women in dark pajama-like outfits doing hard manual labor. They were digging heavy cement blocks and were carrying them without bending their little bodies. Here I was sitting in a comfortable seat, doing nothing but sweating while they looked quite cool and fresh. Little wooden shacks, the private homes of some of the richer Siamese, flashed by. They were decorated with toy pagodas. The tingling of bells in the yards filled the air with strange sounds. The purpose was to chase away ghosts and let the souls of ancestors rest in peace. Water lilies, pure and white were floating on the water surface in startling contrast to the muddy canals. The foul odor which had been only slightly noticeable before was now getting overpowering. It mingled with a sweet scent from gardenias, which like in Hawaii, are the most popular flowers in Bangkok. Yet as bad as the stench was, as lovely was the picture of the flower stands on every street. We had arrived in the city. Local shops were praising their goods: hard wares, various household items, cotton material, wooden sandals and more. In front of food stores Siamese men were munching away on what seemed to be pork and cucumbers. It did not look very hygienic and I made up my mind not to touch any local food during my stay. Nevertheless I later ended up with an attack of dysentery. After the bus driver had made his way for about another ten minutes thru the come- first, go-first traffic, I sensed that we were close to the hotel. I would stay at Siam Intercontinental, which had been finished in 1966. The shops now were sheer tourist traps. My travel partner noticed me staring at all the magnificent shades of silks and he advised me always to bargain, should I intend to buy. We turned into a big driveway. There it was! The pictures I had seen of it, the descriptions I had listened to, all surpassed by its splendor. I was entering a castle of the fairytales. Built like a pagoda, a Siamese temple on the royal palace grounds, it gave me the impression of an oriental castle of sleeping beauty. Finally in my room, I took a nice shower and fell into a blissful sleep. Monks in orange robes and the expectations of new experiences to come the next morning dominated my dreams. Composed about 1970, edited 2016-02-17

An American Author By Karen King

An American author of, “The White Bear” and “Solomon’s Gold”, great poet, salesman for real estate, accountant and a master of meteorology, you were one of those men who was larger than life. You were spiritual and a lover of nature. Everyone loved you as you were so caring. It feels you passed too soon. At sixty-eight, you had only just completed your latest book about your parents and your younger years. You liked fishing, your walking stick, your whisky and you were a lover of the finest cigars. I remember reading in your book, “The White Bear”, about how you loved visiting Nevada. You loved to watch the salmon jumping in the stream, while their colours glistened in the light. You enjoyed taking your walking stick to the mountains, along with your flask of whisky and a cigar, to smoke in those special spots of beauty – the top of a mountain or valley, whilst you surveyed the beauty of the landscape and, if you were lucky, a black bear or one of the bald eagles (also known as the sea or fish eagle), known to live near the rivers amongst the mountains and the tall trees in Nevada. I had a strong feeling that I had to talk to you as we had drifted apart, so I managed to catch up with you one night. You told me that you were sorry you had to wave goodbye to your latest writing of three years, which also waved goodbye to your Mum and Dad again, when you had carried them with you for so long. You were unable and unwilling to move forward with your life. We had a good chat, but you seemed lonely and lost. You told me you were going to relax and have some red wine and whisky to relax. The next day, in the early hours of the morning, I just happened to see your Son’s message on Facebook. His devastation and despair glared at me from the page, as if calling me from another world. I told him I had been concerned about you and he told me you had died two mornings before. The neighbours had found you, sprawled on the floor. You had hit your head on the table and bled from internal injuries. The moral of this tale is, listen to your intuition and always think and stay in touch with friends and family, for we all feel isolated at times. We are so busy communicating using social networks, we forget our neighbours, friends and family. We never know when our time is going to run out. Life has so many twists and turns and anything can happen at any time. Always expect the unexpected! It’s never too late to catch up with loved ones, or you may regret it forever. Karen King Copyright February 2016

Fairbanks, Alaska By Alexandra H. Rodrigues Massapequa

It is a truly cold morning, here on Feb. 13, 2016 in NYC. They are expecting record setting cold temperatures by to-morrow. Two degrees minus Fahrenheit last had in 1916. Plus a wind-chill factor down into minus 20 degrees F. Inside my house the bright sun mocks this news as it warms the carpet where its’ rays are concentrating. Stay inside, the radio warns. Why not? This does give me the leisure to reminisce. It must have been about 1962. We landed, with a 707 Boeing, one of the first jets, in Fairbanks Alaska. It was also February then, I believe. In Alaska, which is the gateway to the Arctic Circle, the temperatures from Oct. to March vary from minus 2 degrees F up to 14 degrees F. A ground crew, dressed in Eskimo attire, had come to meet the plane. They labored to put up the old fashioned, metallic stairway, with the platform on top where it reached the cabin door. We, the crew, had to wait for their knock at the front door before removing the emergency shoot attachment and opening up. One door only was to be opened, no matter how many passengers on board. The reason was to minimize the amount of freezing air rushing into the cabin of the plane. Immediately after the door was opened, crew and passengers were supplied with heavy parkers, wooly face covers with ear muffs and furry gloves.. Cars, powered electrically were attached with immense wires to loading stations that looked like parking meters. In them we were taken to a motel near the airport. I recall it was only a few steps from the room, across the parking lot, over to the cafeteria. Nevertheless one had to bundle up, in order not to get frost bites. These are experiences I will never forget. They make today’s temperature here in New York feel like a day in spring. It is at least six months the norm in Alaska, while we are looking at two days the most here in New York and vicinity There is plenty of beauty in Alaska too. At some times during the year, mostly in June, July and August it can be pleasantly warm. There had been trips to Fairbanks, when I would take walks at a nearby lake and wore nothing but a short sleeved dress. Alaska is also known for a Midnight Sun Festival in June, when the sun never sets. This spectacular I unfortunately missed but can picture it vividly in my mind. Nowadays cruises to Alaska are in fashion and I am sure they are an exciting and delightful experience.

The 9/11 Syndrome Article by Charles E.J. Moulton

I had a quarrel with a friend this morning. The discussion escalated out of nothing, really, the reason for our differences a very small detail, indeed. What saved the situation was something simple I said. Something I never would have thought could have resolved the issue. “I take half of the blame for this. You’ll have to take the other half!” That was more than anyone could ask. We went to the dance rehearsal we had originally cancelled because of our differences. The situation was far from perfect, but we were on speaking terms. Eventually, the situation went back to normal. We learned a few very important things through this experience: human beings defend themselves when they are attacked. Secondly, you only have to take half of the blame for any fight that erupts between you and any adversary. No more, but also no less. Telling another person that you are partly to blame gives him or her the chance to like you. You are not withdrawing from the situation. He or she knows that you know you hurt his or her feelings. Empathy is instrumental for a peace treaty. Without empathy or sympathy, a heated discussion will never cool down. If you don’t talk it out, it will inevitably turn into a disaster. We’re all human. Our human feelings are the cornerstones of every problem that arises. Whether we’re dealing with small petty differences or huge world wars, it’s all the same. The bigger and more impossible difficulties emerge when countries attack other countries or groups attack other groups. One million people who hate another million people, will they ever resolve their differences? They’re building defense towers to protect other defense towers. Those initial towers were built on lies, misunderstandings and accusations. So, how could you ever resolve a misunderstanding that was founded on a lie? That’s why I am writing this article. The idea for it came yesterday. I sat on the couch, calmly, my wife watching a movie, my daughter snoozing in her bed. I don’t know why I began researching the web for information about the events surrounding September 11th, 2001, but I did. I ended up sitting there for two hours, flipping webpages, trying to make heads or tails of both sides of the story. I wanted to start writing this thing already yesterday night. I sincerely do believe, though, that fate provided me with this little minor dilemma this morning in order to show me how to formulate my idea: the human issue I would like to label as the 9/11 syndrome. The opposing forces within us and between us fuel this syndrome and keep it thriving. Hate fuels disaster. There are now more conspiracy stories in circulation that deal with the cataclysmic events of that day than any other event in history. These conspiratorial explanations include alien invadors wanting to take over the world, senators sending their rocket missiles on the Pentagon and wealthy oil barons with greedy hearts bringing down their own creation just to collect the insurance money. The culprits are as varied as our world is vast and incomprehensible. Dozens of websites are devoted to 9/11-related illnesses, psychological, psychosomatic and physical in nature. The firefighters that lived through that day are now either retired or dead. There is even a little boy that claims he is the reincarnation of a firefighter that died in of one of the towers as it collapsed on 9/11. The events of that day were a human holocaust. Few modern day events have had such an impact on the minds of the world population as this catastrophy. Not even the Vietnam War or the assassination of John F. Kennedy terrified people as much. I remember the day vividly. Exactly 16 days later, I was flying to Barcelona to board the cruise ship M/S Arkona for a term full of vocal show work. The six weeks prior to that were filled with work. We were rehearsing 7 two-hour shows, learning 116 songs. We were five actors that were about to perform artistic cavalcades while cruising the world. I was headlining most of the shows, so my director summoned me for a solo rehearsal. We were going to rehearse some dialogue. That plan soon disintergrated into oblivion. As soon as we heard that a plane had flown into the World Trade Center in New York City, we quickly shortened the rehearsal. At first, I could not even comprehend what really had happened. Was this a small private plane that had lost itself in Manhattan and somehow crashed into the building? The issue turned humungous quicker than we believed to be possible. It seemed to influence all of what we thought was given and natural. Safety was a thing of the past. Nobody stepped into a plane without fearing never to land again without crashing. The world had turned into a terrorist’s filthy playground. Flights were cancelled, airport security became vicious and people with Arabic names were thrown manually off Boeings. The story became more and more incredible as it unfolded. A million questions appeared in my mind. Things just did not add up. I researched the subject to a great extent and found information all too incredible to be true. The alleged phone call that Barbara Olson made from Flight 77 was intensely described by her husband Ted Olson on Larry King Live. If there had been a passenger seat phone at Flight 77 in the first place, which there wasn’t, she couldn’t have made it because she apparently did not have her credit cards with her. Furthermore, cellular phones have been proven useless at such speeds and altitudes above 2000 feet. Later on, FBI released a a statement that Barbara never had made the phone call at all. In fact, Barbara had only made one single unconnected call within the plane. Ted changed his story three times and was then described as a liar. So, what are we supposed to believe? That Ted Olson lied to us? If that’s true, we have to ask ourselves why he lied to us? Who was he protecting? The Pentagon? In fact, Ted Olson has admitted on previous occassions that the government lies. Now the lawyer lied himself. The most astounding piece of information comes from the hijackers themselves. They were all proven to be miserable pilots, men who couldn’t even fly small planes, let alone huge ones that needed massive amounts of disclosed tutoring. They took over the planes with box-cutters. It has been said that such a take-over could be regarded as ludicrous, given that the passengers all had luggage with them which they could beat the hijackers to death. The FBI also knew all their names almost immediately after the attack, because Mohammed Atta obviously left a conveniently complete list of all 19 hijackers in a forgotten bag in Oregon. That sounds fake already. Why did U.S. intelligence ignore all the huge amount of leads that told them what was going to happen and where, but find Atta’s bag in such as remote place as Portland within hours of the attack? The horrible thing, yet again, is that people were talking about the attack for years before it happened, even pointing at the towers and saying they would come down in 2001. Hundreds of international leads were practically handed over to American intelligence and completely ignored. Sometimes, these leads were even pushed away with deliberate aggression. Flight 77 vanished completely after it hit the Pentagon. The part of the Pentagon that was struck was also partly closed for renovation and the only available evidence for what exactly hit the Pentagon, video tapes filming the attack, were confiscated by U.S. Intelligence. Seasoned commercial airlined pilot Russ Wittenburg reported that uneducated pilots like the hijackers would be physically unable to fly those planes into the towers or into the Pentagon. In fact, the data recorders read that Flight 77 flew 300 feet over and not into the Pentagon. Something else did hit the Pentagon. Flight 77 didn’t hit it. The hijackers didn’t reset the altitude device and the didn’t know how to operate the auto pilot. In fact, I will repeat this, these people were not even good enough to operate a small plane. Commercial planes like that carry tons of fuel, luggage and 300 people. They are not as flexible as smaller planes. They are unable to fly into towers, according to Wittenburg. The Pentagon attack left no wreckage, no motors, nothing of any kind. Even the hole of the Pentagon didn’t match the description. There should have been at least one more hole in the Pentagon from the one wing that had not fallen off. At the speed, as well, there would have been a great chance that the entire Pentagon would have been destroyed in the process. The hole? It looks like the hole made by a missile. Retired Intelligence General Albert Stubblebine, who spent his entire life studying intelligence photography, agreed with this assumption. He told a reporter that a plane could not have hit the Pentagon. There should have been plane marks. There weren’t. Stubblebine goes on to say that the free press have now ceased to be free. They are told what to report. That coincides with the journalist that resigned from his profession just this year, because he could not live with having to spread lies. David Ray Griffin’s compelling book “The New Pearl Harbor” summarizes the accusations, outlines scenarios, describes the many problems in the storyline, addresses problems that exists within the official accounts. Anyone interested in researching the issue should try first reading this book. Another controversial novel is Steve Alten’s “The Shell Game”, which outlines a certain reality that might come true one day. Here we find supposedly official reasons for the fake attack. The information blaming the government for the attack ends up flabbergasting any reader or viewer. The information flow is so overwhelming that it threatens to drive you insane. One can really not see the forest for the trees. That triggered a need in me to look at the other side of the story. One of Osama Bin Laden’s confession letters outlines a reason for his alleged revenge on the United States of America. He saw tens of thousands of his countrymen die in American attacks. Most prominently were his memories of seeing two towers fall and burn in his homeland. He wanted to destroy two American towers as a revenge. He claims that only a small amount of people died in the attacks in Manhattan. In his country, thousands more died. The question is if the government really is as bloodthirsty as the conspiracy says it is. We don’t really want to believe that, do we? But if the cover-up is so thinly disguised, holes really everywhere with absolutely no aim to try to keep the implausabilities a secret, then a million people will become suspicious. Most websites that debunk the myths don’t give much evidence. They show the official films, tell the official stories, claim that everything is what it seems. The only real evidence comes from people who question the official story. Eye witnesses claim to have seen a military plane with no windows at all flying into the first building. Milton William Cooper, former CIA-agent and author of the conspiracy-book “Behold A Pale Horse”, announced a statement on 6/28/2001 that a terrorist attack would be carried out in September and that Osama Bin Laden would be blamed for it. He knew. He also knew that the people planning the New World Order would be behind it. He said that Martial Law would be declared. It cost him his life. He was shot and killed by the Apache County Sherriff Deputy on November 6, 2001. Milton William Cooper will be sorely missed. There is hope. As strange as it seems, there is hope. Why is there hope? Because, as of yet, no martial law has been declared. FEMA has not taken over the world. There is Windows 10, that is claimed to be a spy program. There is Facebook, which is claimed to be a conspiracy. There is the Islamic State, which is claimed to be the reason the New World Order is seeking to plant and detonate an atom bomb within the American borders. But the I.S. is not going international, as little as the Ebola has gone international. If I understand the conspiracy right, 9/11 was created by the government in order to get the permission to invade Iraq. To do what? Get oil? I don’t know. Maybe someone was really afraid that America was going just as much down the drains as Rome did. It’s getting there. No superpower has ever lasted. Go through history. Every huge empire eventually fell. I just know that the whole conspiracy thing fell to smithereens. Nothing down there in Iraq turned out the way it was supposed to turn out. Trying to control the world by creating cataclysmic events is like trying to predict the weather. Let’s say you live in Angusville, California. Your local meteorologist says it’s going to rain on Tuesday. The low pressure could be influenced by a sudden gust of wind, though. The raincloud could change course. That is what happened with 9/11 and the proposed effects of FEMA martial law. You can’t predict people. You can’t predict life. We are seven billion people here on this planet. We all know that things turn out differently than we plan them to turn out. The critiques of conspiracy theories claim that they are ill informed and make up stuff as they go along. In this case, bro, the conspiracy theorists are more informed than the friends of the official account. The ones sticking their heads in the sand are the official storytellers. That is not the point, though. A part of the 9/11 syndrome is that, although we have a common cause, we act like we are enemies. This has become more a case of being in the right than actually being right. Bill Cooper did predict 9/11. We have to be on our guard. But I knew people who thought the world was going to end in 2012, because the Mayas allegedly predicted something the could not have known 5000 years ago. I knew people who were extremely nasty to me because I told them they were in the wrong. I knew people who told me that Operation Desert Storm in the first Gulf War was the beginning of the Third World War. Political Conspiracies are as old as time. They’re not new. They have just turned a little bigger, a little more technical. The people who plan them pretend they’re God. They’re not. Believe me. They eat, drink, laugh, cry, love, hate, read, write, think, feel, make love, shit and pee like the rest of us do. No matter how rich you get, you’re still a person. You’re still a soul. When the conspirators up there again in front of God’s throne, after they die, God will ask them, honestly and kindly, what the hell they thought they were doing down there? They’ll have to go back here in their next lives and they will have to make amends, seriously and honestly. The 9/11 syndrome is the mentality that we have to be enemies, build camps, complain at each other and tell each other that the other one is wrong, if we’re right or not. It is the mentality today’s lawyers present. They say truth is irrelevent. The only thing that matters is how you present your client’s case. We believe that everyone has the power except us. But I have news for you. You have the power over your own life. The politicians don’t. They don’t know you. They will never know you, even if they will hear about you in the papers or in the internet or even if you become more famous than Robert de Niro. You have a family, you have a home, you have a life, you like certain things, dislike certain things, you eat, drink, laugh, cry, love, hate, read, write, think, feel, make love, shit and pee like the rest of us do. And there is no one on the Earth like you. Be proud of that. The President of the United States, the King of Spain and the CEO of Microsoft are just as unique as you, their souls are just as eternal, they cry just like you do. They don’t control you. They can’t. They have no power over you. Laugh at them. Live your life. Do not follow the crowd. Life is not the 9/11 syndrome. Life is ALL about soul. The politicians and the conspirators are just people with incredibly cocky and very annoying attitudes. There are good ones, but there are also bad ones. Believe in your own soul. That most important thing in life is not how big your checkbook is. It’s how big your heart is that matters. The important thing is that you are faithful to what and who you love. The only thing that mattered to the conpirators was the size of their wallets. Unfortunately, they were so preoccupied with money that they forgot that their hearts had gaps in them. The gap in the heart of the main 9/11 conspirator was as big as the hole the missile made in the corner of the Pentagon. Be honest, be fair. God will reward you for it.

“Dark Night of the Soul” By Karen King

We all have darkness within us that we try to hide, pretending it isn’t there. For some of us, it comes to the fore as we experience the “Dark Night of the Soul”. This comes about when we have ignored too many negative aspects of our lives and we are stuck in limbo, both unwilling and seemingly unable to move forward. It is often easier and “safer” to stay stuck in the past than it is to move on. It is a scary thought to have to start again in life, like tipping your toes in the ocean of the unknown. This ocean can look dark and threatening at first or if you start worrying about how far you have to travel towards your destination. Perhaps there are too many sharp shells and too much shingle on the beach, making you wince with every step? Perhaps unknown creatures are lying in wait in the rock pools under the dark and hidden crevices of the stones? Maybe there are lethal, lurking insects under the sand? Please just start the journey and take little steps at a time, for you never know what life has in store. There will be lighter and brighter days waiting for you to eliminate the darkness from your soul. Try and change your state of mind, expect the best and act like everything you could wish for has already arrived. Your subconscious mind will not know the difference. It will accept your “imagined” reality as your reality. Light will start filtering through the darkness, like shafts of sunlight burning through the mist in the early mornings. We often have to experience a “Dark Night of the Soul” to want to change our lives as we do not want to stay stuck in our misery anymore. We realise we are stagnating or regressing, especially when our negative mind thoughts, which are being held in our chakras (spiritual centres of our bodies) and around our aura (the magnetic, energy field around our bodies) start to manifest themselves physically as they try to highlight what we can learn from our experience. We need to try and move on to become the whole, spiritually enlightened beings we are naturally supposed to be. So, we must move on, despite our anxiety and nervousness. The way forward is to reach out in the way that suits you. First of all, take little steps. Go out with a friend, go for a short walk in the countryside or pamper yourself. Treat yourself kindly, patiently and gently. You will gradually relax and become happier. Your body will start to vibrate at a higher frequency and more light will be drawn to you; happiness and peace will prevail. The right people and circumstances will “magically” appear at the right time. Follow these paths to the light as they will enable you to become your true self as you follow the guidance of your soul. We are all already complete. Our talents already lie within us. We just need to wake up to our selves. We just need to dip our toes into the ocean and start swimming in the mysterious waters for the riches within us prevail in our lives as this is the destiny awaiting us all when we eventually let the light come into our lives. Karen King Copyright February 2016

Anger versus Love By Karen King What is anger? Is it the opposite from love, generated from disappointment and frustration when a situation is out of control and seems to be reaching a foregone (and unwanted) conclusion? Are you angry at them or yourself? Are you angry at what life has thrown at you? Isn’t life unfair! You feel it bubbling up inside you, like a witch’s brew, except this is not a positive, curing, magic brew; it is violent and destructive! A sour stench pervades the atmosphere, heat and sparks leap from your skin and you look like a fiery furnace. Your head and heart hammer and pound. Anger is a negative (and wasted) energy, but can be hard for us to overcome and eliminate from our persona. Perhaps some of us are not yet spiritually advanced enough to deal with this emotion in a constructive manner? There is nothing wrong with having emotions, for we are all human! Love is a good, positive, all-embracing emotion to have. It brings all nations, races, sexes and religions together as we appreciate and celebrate our diversity. Love is a constructive emotion that overcomes all and enables us all to move forward in our lives, but anger is destructive and holds us all back in the same place. The negativity of anger is catching and brings everyone down. It causes disease and destruction to people’s lives, first mentally, then physically. So, next time, someone angers you, take heart and a deep breath and breathe love onto the situation. Karen King Copyright February 2016

Glandular Fever By Karen King

It burns you up, it leaves your breathless, weak and fragile in body and spirit. It destroys your life. Your mind and body want to do so many things. You want to go to the cinema, see pop concerts, go out for meals, go out with your boyfriend, take photos, go out for meals, go to country pubs, ride your motorbike and do exercise. Yet you can do nothing! You lie in your bed, too heavy to move. You force yourself out of bed and move around the house. You feel heavy and hot as you go, grabbing at tables, chairs, door frames and the wall to try and keep your balance as the room sways, like you have had too much to drink. After you have got yourself another glass of water to replace yet more fluids that you have lost, you manage to take yourself to the toilet before limping back to bed. How many more weeks, months, years will this go on for? It has already been a year… You are only seventeen, you should be living your life to the full, yet your life has twisted around by “the kissing disease” and is laughing in your face in a menacing manner. When you speak to the doctor, he laughs, shrugs, says it is nothing and it could be gone in for a few weeks. He does not take you seriously and you feel embarrassed, humiliated and rejected. I think your doctor thinks you have an overactive imagination. You try to be strong mentally and physically. You undertake exercise when you feel better, but you are soon forced back to bed, feeling weak, sweaty and dejected yet again! Your bedclothes have to be washed every few days as they are wet with sweat. It makes you feel depressed and despondent! Your glandular fever turns into M.E., leaving you desperate and wondering if there will ever be a light at the end of the tunnel. You continue to force yourself to undertake exercise – weight training and cycling mostly and, when you feel well, you are becoming increasingly fast and can exercise for longer. Unfortunately, however, after your workout, you are exhausted and your body is unwilling to do any more and it takes about a week to recover until you are able to try again. Your body, however, becomes increasingly stronger. Your stamina also increases and you steadily became fitter and fitter. I think the moral of this tale is, don’t give up, never give up, but you can’t force things to happen before you are ready. Just keep trying, be positive, open your heart and connect with others and you will be able to cope with your challenges (problems) as you will feel mentally stronger and be more balanced spiritually. Go with the flow, all things will happen when the time is right. We all have challenges to face in our lives where we can learn, grow and become complete, full of light and love to spread to each other, across time and space. Karen King Copyright February 2016

Possessions By Alexandra Rodrigues A possession is something you own. An item you cherish or you would have gotten rid of it. My home is cluttered with chachkas collected during my travels all over the world while flying for an airline. Valuable carvings from Africa, oil paintings by upcoming or now longforgotten painters on the streets around Montmartre in Paris, inlaid tables from India, carpets from Persia, Meissen dinner sets and Hummels from Germany. In the yard, tulips grown from bulbs hand carried from Amsterdam Holland. Crystal glasses in every color, shape and form bought in Belgrade and Vienna and more and more and still more. Each piece is connected with a memory. I should also mention all the heirlooms, the $3,000 Louis XV clock that chimed for me since the day of my birth. It did chime before that for my mother and grandmother and now stands in my living room and still chimes. Many such pieces can be considered possessions. Some did not survive Superstorm Sandy. I miss them, but did not lose tears over them. I wrote them off to “Gone with the wind” literarily! Then , a few years ago , I was made aware of what I truly consider my most valuable possession: It is my eyesight! The means which allow me t delight in the spectacle of color; The tools that let me enjoy and see waves of the Ocean, the peaks of the Mountains. I had been to my eye doctor to have a Schirmer Test. This test is given to check one’s field of vision with the upper eyelid taped up. Right after the test, my right eye began to hurt, and the assistant gave me some eye drops to calm the stinging. By the time I came home, my vision, mostly in the right eye had become blurred. Warnings about connections between blurred vision and stroke began to upset me. I washed my eye carefully, tried to cry and pulled the upper lid down over the lower one, a remedy I had learned as a child to get rid of some dust in the eye. Nothing helped. It was getting dark and I panicked. I had heard about somebody going blind because of losing fluid from the eye and about other tragedies connected with blurred vision. Back in the bathroom, I pulled down the right lower eyelid. An about-three-millimeter round, white something became visible. With my index fingertip I carefully touched it and it adhered to the finger and came out. The problem was clear now. The nurse had left a piece of the paper used for the test mistakenly in my eye and it was cutting into my eyeball. In addition, she had not bothered to clean my eye lid and the glue of the tape had caused a veil-like film to blur my vision. In conclusion, I was happy to have figured it out. And, yes, definitely my eyesight is my greatest possession.

What's So Fascinating About Pirates? By Charles E.J. Moulton We have our pop-corn, our coke, our chocolate bars, maybe even our 3D-glasses, we're sitting in our comfy seats. Then we're off to the Caribbean, watching Johnny Depp swashbuckle with the best of them. We revel in living the adventure, seeing doomed men twist and turn, flashing skulls at our faces. Many decades ago, it was Errol Flynn and Douglas Fairbanks on those screens. The names change, the journey remains. Before the cinematographical experience, novelists took us on our fascinating trip to other worlds. Before that, there were always the townsfolk storytellers, the travelling jesters and jugglers. They all told us the same story in different ways. But why do we love pirates? We love the unknown, the exotic, seeing the outsider leave the organized infrastructure in order to make his own way, seeing the world as it once was. The urge to step out of society, claim a piece of the world for ourselves, is rooted deeply into our souls. We are here to rediscover our world like we did as children. We need to be fascinated. The story helps us fulfill that dream. The dream, however, outshines the reality. We believe pirates managed to live lives that stepped outside the boundaries of society, but they were the lawless criminals that took what they wanted and left. The reality was harsh. The myth became romantic. We even believe they hid their stuff in X-marked holes on Caribbean islands. And why not? But was that just Robert Louis Stevenson's mythical story creation in "Treasure Island"? The fact that the myths of the pirate have been patched together out of a thousand stories is one thing. The story, the archetype per se, is exciting. The reality the pirates experienced was another. Week long, even month long, on sea made the oceanic journey extremely difficult. That they share with most sailors of their time. Poisoned or rotten rations soon turned the healthy crew into a very ill bunch indeed. When an enemy ship arrived, speed was of the absolute essence. The tired crewmembers were catapulted out of their uncomfortable beds, forced to shove heavy cannonballs into extremely heavy machinery. When the enemy did arrive, it was a battle that conjured up hell itself. Not only were the real 17th century pirates vicious criminals, they became feared culprits in every political game. But the mystery remains, the allure, the fascination of just leaving society, embarking on the mythical journey toward the horizon to see what no man has ever seen before. We might be dealing with a myth here, but it is a myth with a method: it symbolizes or need for the experience, only that we should transform that need into a globally positive community, whether we climb the Mount Everest or write out first novel. It's the journey, isn't it? That's why we love "Star Trek", as well. If we look at that franchise, we are regarding a world full of space pirates. The dream is alive and the stories we make up inspire millions. We are all discoverers at heart, travellers who have to internalize our own feelings into a positive and uplifting inner experience. Our life is a journey that mixes humane freedom for all with a necessary responsibility. At hearts, we are all pirates. We love the unknown adventure.

Short Essay about the Supreme Court Vacancy By Patrick Bryant Michael The GOP has lost any common sense if they have had any in recent years. They are making false claims about the Constitution in hopes of not allowing Obama to make a nomination which is his duty quite clearly according to the US Constitution. It's the Senates duty to hold a vote up or down on Obama's nomination. Even Reagan claimed it was his duty when he nominated Justice Kennedy in his last year in office. In 1802 the Supreme Court was suspended because of such a situation. If that were to happen again, the people would have no choice but to vote the scoundrels out. The lies being perpetuated by the GOP are simply cowardly! If they lose the Senate in the upcoming National Election cycle, and the Presidency as well, they will get a more liberal nomination and have no power to stop it. Such lunacy is ruining this country.

Love

By Karen King

What is love? It seems to be something we are all obsessed with. When I go through the poetry in my groups, I am amazed by just how obsessed we are with this subject matter. Are we obsessed because we feel a certain something missing in our lives, are we just lustful or romantic? I, personally, can answer it is all three for me. I sometimes feel like there is something missing, there is a hole in my heart and an aching in my stomach (not because of something I ate!) I have to say, of late, the gap in my heart and soul has been filled up with poetry (both reading and writing) and reaching out to you all on here. I cannot believe some of the connections I have made to people all over the world. My soul is happy with my poetry and the time I spend in nature. Fill your soul with something that speaks to you and you will find some inner peace and joy. There is also love for our family and friends. Many people have the love of God in their lives, whether they worship by attending a place of worship or they see God in nature, in other people and themselves. I would say, whether you believe in God or not, just send love and understanding to those you meet and appreciate your environment; the animals and the plants all around. Everything is for a reason, the person who is awkward that you bumped into in the shop probably has some inner demons that he or she needs to vanquish. Or, maybe they just got out of the wrong side of bed and everything just feels wrong for them? Perhaps, if you stopped for a moment and smiled at them, the anger and despair they are feeling would be lessened for that one moment and, possibly, give them strength for the rest of the day? That would be your gift to them. Maybe you would start talking and then realise you have something in common with this person and you can actually help each other, even if only in a small way? Just reach out and connect and we will all feel more loved. New friendships can form in unexpected ways. Never take anything for granted, for life is a miracle in itself. Appreciate the sun rising for a new day in the morning, the setting sun in the evening. Appreciate the simple moments of your life that make it all worthwhile. A child laughing while it splashes in a puddle. A baby when it looks at you and sees your soul. An elderly couple, still obviously in love after fifty or sixty years. The rainbow which is a pot of gold, for its beauty is a miracle in itself. The rainbow, reflecting in the lake, long bands of colours cheering up the dark depths of the water. Each colour sends out healing and a rainbow is the colours of life. Look at the dogs that pass you by as you walk; appreciate their loyalty to their owners and the love both owner and animal share. Look around you, appreciate life and see the love that is all around if you just start seeing the special secrets that life holds. Yes, there is romantic love too, but do not expect someone to come along and solve all your problems. That is your responsibility. Your true love will love your lighter and darker side and support you, but let you find your own way. You have to love yourself first before someone else will love you. Remember, we are all perfect and complete and no one is lacking. Just start believing in yourself and don’t judge yourself so harshly. So, you see, there are many forms of love. We are all capable of giving and receiving love in all its shapes and forms if we just reach out towards each other, to nature and to the animals around. Reach across the seas and oceans to other races and connect, for we are all here to live our lives as best we can. We are all here to love. Go one, try it today and you won’t look back, this I can guarantee. Karen King Copyright February 2016

My Niece Who Came Too Early By Karen King

She couldn’t wait to come to this earth. Born at 26 ½ weeks at 2lb 6oz, she came into this world very suddenly. She has certainly made her mark! She took us all by surprise by her sudden arrival and my Brother, Sister-in-law, her Mother and Brother, my Mother and I were so worried about Mother and child. Jane was on oxygen as her lungs hadn’t developed properly. My sister-in-law expressed her milk, which was expressed to my niece intravenously. My Brother and Sister-in-law were able to touch Jane through the holes in the Perspex incubator Jane was lying in. They had to wash their hands first with antiseptic gel and very hot water. I remember Mum and me touching her once, which was a most spiritual and special experience. Jane lay in her incubator in the special baby unit, wearing her tiny woollen hat to keep her head warm and an oversized nappy as she, hopefully, waited for her life to really begin. She was fighting for her life as she lay there, her lungs gradually becoming stronger as she slowly put on weight. Although this special being was only the size of the palm of my hand, her presence was all-encompassing and her sudden appearance had a massive impact on all our lives. My Brother and Sister-in-law decided to get married while Jane lay in the hospital as they wanted a good future for their tiny treasure. On the day of the wedding, they were told that Jane had a stomach infection, her temperature was raised and there was a high chance she could die. They continued with their wedding, trying their best to be positive, despite the circumstances. We all bumbled through the reception, whilst putting on brave faces. Jane survived that day, the next day and, by the next day, we were told that her body had fought the infection that she was fine. We all breathed a sigh of relief. My Sister-in-Law gradually started feeding Jane with a bottle full of expressed milk. Jane stayed in the hospital for six weeks. After six weeks of suffering, strain and anguish, she could go home. My Sister-in law felt a mixture of relief and worry. My Brother bought a special monitor for her breathing in case she stopped breathing, for she had only been breathing on her own for a couple of weeks, her breathing was previously being undertaken for this little being. Several times, Jane stopped breathing in the night and she had to be awakened to alert her body, whereby she started breathing again. After several months, the equipment was no longer needed as Jane was breathing strongly on her own. Jane slowly became a “normal” baby, despite her early challenges and having a weakness in her lungs due to her early entrance into this world. She has excelled at school, has a good group of friends and she makes us all so proud. She is a warm, attractive and loving young lady. She is currently doing her “A” Levels and she has many talents. Jane hope to go to University in September. Her talents include cookery, photography, science, photography, drawing, German, Maths and sewing. Jane is an extremely special young lady and is like the Daughter I never had. I believe she is an old soul as she is certainly very wise and has taught my family patience, perseverance, faith and wisdom. She has also taught us that life is worth fighting for and that, sometimes, people touch our lives and we never look back. Jane is a blessing and, indeed, a gift to the family. Karen King Copyright February 2016

The God Within By Charles E.J. Moulton I have a feeling that humanity is caught in a sociological trap, avoiding obvious truths. Truths that indeed could set them free. I have heard it said that the universe is filled with wise beings that have found their way past these sociological engulfments and are able to see life for what it is. I also have the feeling that people think they have to limit themselves to their sociological positions, such as creed, gender, race or religion. But none of these things define who we are, who we really are at the bottom of our hearts. Answer these questions truthfully: What was before the beginning of the creation of the universe? If there is an end to the universe, what lies beyond it? What connects you to friends and loved ones? Why do people turn around when you look at them from behind, even through thick glass? Aren't your own emotions linked to your own eternal soul? Why are there millions of recollections about previous reincarnations? Why are there hundreds of recorded out-of-bodyexperiences daily? Why do people sometimes overcome fatal sicknesses in spite of or maybe because of laying off medication? Do you really think an eternal creator would limit himself to one religion? Do you think God has anything to do with religion? Does God play favorites? We were born as naked as the animals, why then do we have a problem with nudity? If sexuality is the means with which we prolong our species and create our children, and if we have to like it in order to survive, why then do we laugh at it and consider it impure and a sin? Isn't disrespect the real impurity? The real sin? Why do we not see the thousand spiritual consistancies that surround us on a daily basis? Why don't we see the angels, the visible and invisible ones? Why is it that things start working out well when we begin trusting ourselves and others? We have a situation in the world where a lot of people have become more secluded, dogmatic and partisan than ever, even with the connecting dots that is the massively influential internet. The second movement in the world, though, is open, positive and does not close or exclude anything. It opens doors. We have to be wary of our emotions, what we are feeling or allow ourselves to feel. Are we closing doors on people or opening doors FOR people? Imagine yourself sitting in the subway with a friend. A peaceful, but weird looking guy walks in. I deliberately say peaceful, so that you unterstand that there is no threat involved. The man sits down in his corner, consumed by nervous tics. Your friend points at the man and shakes his head. Ask yourself honestly if you haven't also been so unfair. Unnecessary prejudice. What would possibly be the reason for anyone to subject a fellow human being to slander and disgrace? Would it bring you further if you spent the rest of your trip pointing finger at him? Do you want to change that man? Why should you try? You can't. You are awake enough to notice if he becomes a threat. If he is not, why worry? The problem, as I see it, begins when we try to impose our view of the world on others. Then we are no better than the crooks who behead people in Syria. We want to be good people, right? "Everyone should believe in Jesus, or else ..." is just as intolerant as "Everyone should believe in Allah, or else ..." Jesus didn't make differences between people, so why should we? Next question is: has the Christian church, or any church at all for that matter, been doing Jesus any favors by selling free-bees against sin, calling people witches just because they cured people with herbs and flowers, exterminating civilizations just because they call God something else, screaming at people who want to spend their lives loving people of the same gender, when there are plenty of priests who feel the same thing? If we think the modern crooks in black who scream about global rule are bad, we just have to remember what happened during the crusades. These guys beheaded far more people than the other guys ever could. We have to stop solving problems with violence. Period. We have to stop thinking that God has anything to with any organized religion. Period. We all have something in common: we all believe in the eternal soul, we all believe in the afterlife in some way. Period. God is not of this world, why should he care what you call him? Period. Why should he require your money? Period. Hey, even Jesus said that. Even Buddha. Always ask yourself this: does a person, a friendship, a love-affair, a job, a career, a decision open you up or close you down? Furthermore, does it open up or close down anyone else? Imposing anyone else with your view will you close you down, as well. You're both going down the tubes. Because if it opens you up and closes someone else, it will not be beneficial to anyone. Trust me on this. Faith counts. Art, creativity, music, painting, any form of creative expression, is more than entertainment. It should free us. That doesn't mean we have to impose our view of creativity on others. We shouldn't. If they haven't heard of Hamlet, we can tell them about him. But if they don't understand why the play is legendary, let it be. Everybody doesn't have to like the same thing, no matter how famous it is. Fame is not the issue. Another thing, if something challenges you, tests you, might create new possibilities, make you a better person, at least consider that it might be a good idea to try it. But follow your heart on that one. Bottom line: if you think you can't change the world, you're wrong. How tomorrow turns out is up to you. There is fate. Things are meant to be, but God, that eternal spirit, is not just that bearded guy on the cloud. He's inside you. Your heart, your spirit, your soul leads the way. This is the time to look beyond the horizon onto a new paradigm shift and a new world. What are you feeling? You're not a stereotype. You're a being. Have faith. Be more than a man, more than a woman, more than a sociological cliche. Be an eternal spirit living in a fantastic body, no matter how it's formed. That's the next thing: we don't all have to look like Barbie and Ken. We still can be worth loving, anyway. Use your feelings to look with better eyes than that. On top of that, a little extra effort goes a long, long way.

A Miracle Son

By Karen King

Soon after my Husband at the time and I were married, we went on a conference to enable me to sell more diet products as I was self-employed selling diet produce at the time. It was a very boring conference, which seemed to consist of the people bragging about how they had been on the streets and how rich they had become. They all seemed to be saying the same thing and everyone was roaring, uncontrollably, like lions at the zoo. Hysteria seemed to be the name of the game, almost like this was the secret code to their success. My Husband and I didn’t understand and we just sat there in fits of hysteria, while we waited, impatiently, for the speeches to finish. Once the first half of the show was over, they offered us special fruit teas in the interval. We politely said no, then dashed off to find the bar and, luckily, we managed to escape the thong of tedious people. We ordered some drinks. He had a beer and I had a cider, accompanied by a hearty English meal. Soon, the over-excited hangers on dashed back inside while we ate, drank and laughed about these crazy people. They couldn’t all have been rescued from the gutter and now have big houses, super cars and riches galore. The funny thing was, the same company had done a “conference” rather like this before, which made it seem even more like a “show” and not realistic at all. All they seemed to say was how their lives were miracles and, somehow, none of it rang true! After our food and drink, we decided to go to our room and find our own entertainment, which we did. Funny how it was so much more interesting and enjoyable it was than the events downstairs! I remember us not taking precautions that night or the next morning for the first time and wondering what would happen. Two weeks later, I had my answer. I was pregnant. My Husband and I just looked at each other and laughed. Well, something good had come out of the evening after all. There is a reason for everything it seems. While the people downstairs were delivering their speeches, I would soon have my own miracle to deliver. My miracle is Vincent, who is now fourteen years old. Life has its twists and turns and this was a very special twist, which I will never forget. I have told Vincent the story and he finds it particularly amusing. Karen King Copyright February 2016

Life Lessons By Karen King

We never stop learning our life lessons. Just today, I learnt one. I expect too much too soon and am overly critical of people. I suppose I judge others the way I judge myself and then I wonder why I always end up disappointed. No one could ever possibly meet the criteria and unrealistic expectations I set for them. I am also far from perfect. Everything takes time and needs work. Nothing and no one is perfect all the time. There is no such thing as a short cut and patience is key. Sometimes, we just need a key to unlock the door. There are many doors to unlock – just tonight I was given the door to patience to unlock. I have unlocked this door and dared to peer in and have found a room dripping in glittering gold, sparkling sequins and dazzling diamonds in the form of words and love. He stopped me dead in my tracks, in my desperate race to I don’t know where. Sometimes, we just have to take the time to re-evaluate, to think, to have patience and to learn from our mistakes if we want to get off the merry-go-round of life and become who we are supposed to be. We are all in the classroom of life, all teaching and all learning. It was my time to learn tonight and for that I am grateful. I believe we meet people for a reason and, often, we know them from previous incarnations. They come back to meet us again to help us learn, to become more spiritual and to help us in our growth. I am so grateful for this gift from my friend. Karen King Copyright February 2016

RIGHT! WE'LL HAVE A PARTY! from the autobiography "DAMN THE DEPRESSION, ANYWAY!" Written by my father the late great Herbert Eyre Moulton (1927 - 2005), who worked as MCA-Record’s Show-Star Herbert Moore. He also conducted the Camp Gordon Chapel Choir during the Korean War, toured with his wife, the operatic mezzosoprano Gun Kronzell, around the world as “The Singing Couple”. This true story takes place in the posh, spiritually rich but financially poor 1930’s. Now, fasten your seatbelts. Step into the time machine. Get ready to visit the culturally endowed relatives living the posh life back in the Illinois that was, sometime in the 1930’s. As long as anyone can remember, our home had always been THE HOUSE OF HOSPITALITY. Through thick or thin, palmy days or the Depths of the Depression between the extremes of my father Big Herb's practicality and Nell's "To Hell with Poverty we'll sell the pig!" liberality, we always managed to make every visitor feel happily at home. Most of the regulars at this snug little oasis of ours were survivors of a picturesque world that, since the Stockmarket Crash of 1929, had evaporated fast. Their families had once held sway in a score or more of vast old turreted wooden-frame mansions which still ornamented the town, left over from the Gilded 1880's, a few of which still stand to this day, plaqued (as they say) as Historical Landmarks. One of these - Eastbourne - had from the mid 1890's been my Dad's family home, last occupied by my Uncle Harper and his peripetitic family - three sons and his great billowing Southern Belle of a spouse, Clara by name, but known to all and sundry (all except us, that is) as 'Honey". They blowsily occupied the old manse until late in the 1930's, when it was unfortunately demolished. To this day it forms a marvelously gloomy, House-of-Usher background for a lot of my earliest memories - fifteen huge, high-ceiling rooms, many with fireplaces. Of these, the room I remember best was the library, a museum really, cluttered as it was with bayonets, shell-casings, dress-swords with sashes, handguns, even spiked officer's helmets from the old German Imperial Army, just the thing for our boyhood extravaganzas inspired by the historical movies we saw on Saturday afternoons. These were souveniers of the time in France in 1917-18 by my Dad Herbert Lewis Moulton and his two younger brothers, Wes and Harp. The rest of this spacious old mansion contained family and servants' quarters, hotel-sized kitchen and laundry facilities - Eastbourne had been a popular cross-country inn until my Grandfather bought it to house his lady-wife and brood of six children, plus servants that included at least one live-in nanny. One of them was a wonderful black Mammy, Maisie pardon the lapse! - with her daughter Rachel, my first experience with folk of other colors, and a delightful one or was, too. (Rachel, grown to young womanhood, was my baby-sitter when I was a nipper.) Further amenities included a billiard room, a glazed-in conservatory (south side, of course), and a large lofty attic filled with memorabilia of untold splendor, a porte cochere, and two pillared porches, which Honey in that booming Texan foghorn used to call Galleries, much to Nell’s unconcealed disgust: “Haw-puh! Frank! Leeeeeeeeeeee! What yawl doin’ on that gall’reh?” On the sloping, wooded lawns were the remains of a croquet- and a tennis-court, outbuildings where the cows and the horses were billeted (named Chummy and Princess, and Duke and Lightning, respectively) and by the time we began playing in it, a slightly ramschackle summer house. People can talk all the like about the delight about the ante-bellum Southland, but its postbellum northern counterpart, based, not on slavery, but on industry and commerce, had a no-nonsense charm of its own. It was in settings such as these that was played out on that long, in retrospect lovely American twilight up to the start of the first World War, which is celebrated in plays such as O’Neill’s “Ah, Wilderness!” – tea-dances, ice-cream socials, masquerades, and amateur family theatricals, with house-music provided by all five of the Moulton boys, with sister Minnie at the piano. After the war, the twilight lingered on spasmodically until the grand old memory-drenched house was sold off and demolished. Even then, in the late 1930’s, we’d gather a carload of friends and drive over on a summer evening to pick basketfuls of the fragrant lillies-of-thze-valley which still flourished in a corner of the original garden. It was the dispossessed heirs of these once proud dynasties, the greying sheiks of yesteryear with nicknames like “Babe” and “Bunny” and “Wop”, with their ex-flapper Shebas, all raucous voices, middle-age spread, and clouds of perfume with names like Mitsouki or Emeraud, who used to crowd our little dining room on Saturday evenings (the table top decked in an old army blanket) for intense penny-ante poker sessions, sometimes using matchsticks for chips, laughing at off-color jokes way above my head and puffing their Old Golds and home-rolled “coffin nails”, while the Budweiser flowed and soda crackers got crumbled into bowls of Big Herb’s special chili-con-carne, to the accompaniament of Paul Whiteman records or Your Hit Parade on the radio-phonograph hard by in the living-room. I loved these gatherings in my parents’ cronies – Big Herb’s out-of-work business colleagues or American Legion (Forty-and-Eight) buddies and their wives or lady-friends. Many of them had been the blithe and breezy Charleston-dancing, hipflask toting young marrieds, who (I was told); used to switch partners on weekend treasure-hunts, and in that still infamous Crash had lost everything but their social stature (whatever that amounted to) and their sense of humor. Thus had John Held, Jr. given wa to the late Scott Fitzgerald. To me these people were as fascinating as visitors from another galaxy, caught in what today would called a time-warp. Authemntic “Twenties-Types” (if one thinks about them now) and I couldn’t get my fill looking at them – everything they did shone with enough of the glamour of lost wealth which set them apart from everyone else we knew (God, was I that much of a snob at the age of nine or ten?). Special fun were those evenings which suddenly turned musical, like the time when a lady with hennaed hair unloosed one of Delilah’s arias from “Samson” in a rich boozy contralto, then huddled at the keyboard with a lady friend to harmonize “Sing to Me, My Little Gypsy Sweetheart”. (Nell later reported that they were both sharing the same “beau”, who happened to be our family dentist. (What a sensation that was!) So the poker sessions rolled merrily along, spiced now and then with one of the men getting sobbing drunk and passing out on the livingroom couch, or one of the married couples indulging in a strident battle which mesmerized me even while being hustled out to my bedroom by one or the other of my parents. Boy, it was as good as having a movieshow right in our own living room. Besides which, they were all exceedingly nice to me, slipping me a shiny new dime now and then or taking time out to show me card tricks or draw pictures, or sometimes work with me on my pappet theater or Erector Set. One of our occasional guests was the cartoonist Dick Calkins – Lt. Dick Calkins, as he signed his Buck Rogers in the 25th century newspaper strip. One Saturday eveing, though half-sozzled, he spent a good hour painstakingly drawing cartoons of Buck and his girlfriend Wilma Deering on facing pages of my autograph book and dedicated to me alone. (Naturally, treasures such as these eventually disappeared – gone, alas, like our youth too soon.) Thee smoky, sometimes emotion-charged pow-wows weren’t quite the proper fodder for the local newspapers, but there were plenty of other tidbits lovingly provided by Nell at the drop of a phone-call.

SUCCESS By Alexandra H. Rodrigues What is it? Nothing comes to mind. Big Success, small Success. I am drawing a blank. I had been hired in 1958 by Pan American World Airways; among a handful of chosen ones, competing with about 700 applicants. I recall waiting with other candidates in the luxurious lobby of the Kempinski Hotel in Berlin Germany. It was an open invitation for a first interview, which had been advertised in the newspaper. My nerves were much on edge. What made me think I could have even a small chance to make it to the next interview? Every one of the other girls seemed to be slimmer, prettier and younger. The hiring age was from 18 to 25. I was one month away from my 25th birthday. By coincidence I overheard two friends whispering with each other. The one who had been already inside the room were the panel was holding court, said to her friend:”They are asking what is the capital of Alaska” The last iota of confidence I had faded. I wanted to leave. I did not know the answer! Then I got an idea. My father, he would know! I rushed to the open phone booth and dialed his number. Exactly at that moment I heard my name being called. I rushed back. Suddenly I was calm. It was over, so nothing more to lose. They asked the expected questions; Why do you want to be a stewardess? Do you like people? What languages do you speak? And then: “Do you know what the capital of Alaska is?” I smiled, shook my head and stated: “I just was on the phone to get the answer from my father, when you called. No I do not know” Laughter! They told me right then and there that I had gotten the job. They were impressed by my initiative. By the way the capital of Alaska is Juneau. Of course you knew that. So I had been successful but it was plain luck not Success. Another time I gave a party for Ray, the man I had fallen in love with. We had met some months ago on a flight to Niagara Falls on American Airlines. We had been scheduled to pick up a charter there to fly to Lisbon. We did have separate seats. So we told the Flight Attendant that we are on our honeymoon and she got seats next to each other. We held hands the entire flight to live up to our pretence and so it started. We had flirted with each other, spent time together and yes slept together. He never mentioned marriage. So together with my room- mates, Flight attendants too, I gave an Engagement Party. The guests were let in on the scheme . Ray even was asked to pick up some of the invites. Everybody congratulated him. I finally confessed that it was my doing. What was kind of a joke turned into reality. Several months later we got married. Was that Success? I would call it good fortune. I had many wonderful things happen in my life for which I am grateful but I believe Success is still waiting for me. A good feeling!

Why I write By Alexandra H. Rodrigues

This sure is food for pondering and I am eager to hear the perceptions. Reasons can be manifold: To inform somebody officially To share ideas on paper To exchange letters To translate To become known and maybe get famous and rich To document happenings To create something permanent And on and on and on. All of the above make me sit down to write since 5th grade. To me writing is therapeutic. I cannot sing, cannot paint or draw and missed out on becoming a professional dancer or an actor. So writing is my creative outlet. In High school I wrote an essay about a small evergreen among a woody patch of tall stately trees. The big trees were cut down for X-mas to celebrate X-mas in the city. The little tree felt insignificant and cried. The big trees were used during the festival and then thrown out or burnt. The little one was dug out, taken to the yard of a cute private home, was planted and maybe is still growing there today. I got an A+ for the story and from that day on I was convinced that I could write. Years later I took a writing course by mail and got critiques and compliments. Having left my native country to fly for an airline, I wrote about 12OOO letters to my mother during the years 1960 to 2000. She collected them all and now that she is gone they are in my possession. My mother had written nearly as many. I only kept a few. They were written in German. Most of the people she wrote about are dead. My son would only look at those letters as a burden and I am at an age when one needs to learn to part with people and with reminders of the past that no longer have a connection to the living. Will my letters have the same destiny? I have read parts of the Bible, a small part only. It is THE BOOK and although known all over the world, I wonder how many people know the authors. An ancient collection of writings, comprised of 66 separate books, written over approximately 1600 years, by at least 40 distinctive authors. Personally I only know a few of these authors by name. So now I keep on writing as it gives me pleasure and I leave it up to destiny into whose hands some of my writings will fall one day.

Anorexia

By Karen King

Your collar bones are coat hangers made from cold, hard metal. Your face is gaunt, like a prisoner of war victim. Your skin is sallow, due to the lack of vitamins and fresh air. Your clothes hang, hideously, off your body, like a limp apology. You look in the mirror, but you don’t see. Blanket upon blanket is piled upon your bed to combat your almost lifeless rake of a body, while you try to sleep and forget the constant hunger pangs. Will you wake up to this daily destruction or will your soul soon leave your former self, forever? Karen King Copyright 24 January 2016

Underground Train By Karen King

You bombard, like a tornado, into the dreaded darkness as it envelopes you as you enter at breakneck speed, screeching through tunnels of blackness and bleakness. You then emerge into the artificial light where swarms of people, like tiny ants, shove their way inside you. These sardines sweat in the stifling heat as they listen to music, play with their phones and read the Evening Standard; any distraction is welcome to avoid interaction! They are slammed from station to station, tumbling and tripping over each other. How many will return tomorrow to face it all again? Is it worth it? Karen King Copyright 24 January 2016

Coma

By Karen King

You lie, unmoving and vacant, with tubes connected to you; one pumps saline solution into you, the other removes your urine. The machine’s beeps are regular; a constant reminder of the fragility of the human body. You had been free and full of life as you rocketed down the lanes on your Harley, before you flew through the air and hit your head on the wall. Your brain now knows only darkness, yet your mind is drawn to the light. Your brain and mind continue to fight, yet your soul already knows the outcome. The machine continues to beep, hopefully. Karen King Copyright 24 January 2016

The Making of Attack Squadron Article by Herbert Eyre Moulton (1927 - 2005) The first movie I was ever involved in that actually gave me a proper --- well, fairly proper -- speaking role was a little number entitled Attack Squadron. It was shot in less than a week in November 1961 at Ardmore Studio in Bray, Co. Wicklow, a few miles from the coast from Dublin, where I was living and working at the time. If nothing else, it offered proof positive that the human spirit is truly indestructible. Attack Squadron was set on a fictitious U.S. Navy cruiser during World War II and was the brainchild of an aging Hollywood Hot-Shot left over from the 1940’s by the name of Cy Knapp: producer/ director/ undertaker, a real Renaissance-Man. He was also Central Casting’s idea of a Hollywood eccentric, from the baseball cap and tennis shoes to the well-chomped cigar-butt and raspy Edward G. Robinson bark. Our first meeting, a casting session of sorts, took place in the only hotel open in Bray at that time of year, and was constantly interrupted by Knapp’s expansive “I’m having lunch with Herb Moulton here.” Fine, except that he was the one having lunch, while I had to make do with a cold cup of coffee, which, if memory serves, I ended up paying for myself. Of course, I took the damn job, no matter how miserably it paid (Cy Knapp could easily have been Dickens’ original model for Old Scrooge). It might be a good experience (Oh, that most amorphous of terms!) and it might also provide us with a few laughs and a bit of gas (Dublinese for fun). One could always use a bit of gas. Well, we got gas all right, but it was produced by the bill of fare at the studio canteen. Misery loves company, so they say, and mine was shared with a half-dozen or so other castaways --- Irishmen trying to sound American and Americans trying to be John Wayne gung-ho. This cross-section of the old “Race-Creed-or-Color”-syndrome featured a San Francisco-actor and manager named Jack Aronson, who recently immolated himself on a tour of southern Ireland with Moby Dick in the open-stage adaptation by a friend of his, Orson Welles. Many of us in this current gig had also been aboard the doomed, imaginary Pequod as it foundered and finally sunk, leaving the survivors to contemplate the possible existance of a genuine Cap’n Ahab Curse. That Moby Dick misadventure is worth a paragraph of its own. It was a very modern, scaled down production that relied on quick changes, recorded sound, invisible props, and energetic, not to say hysterical miming on the part of all hands. At one point-ofcall, the audience consisted of two bewildered farmers in the front row, who took all the miming and shouting with stoic patience up to the point where we were all pulling on an invisible rope (“Pull, babes! Pull, sucklings! Pull! Pull!”) Whereupon one of them said aloud to his mate, “Arrah, what in the name of Jayzuz are they at? Sure, there’s fook-all there!” With that, they arose, put on their caps, and left. You see what I mean about a Curse? In this case, it might easily have been the dreaded Curse of the Seven Snotty Orphans of Dublin. Moreover, as the fella said, “You ain’t heard nothin’ yet!” To return now to our Race-Creed-or-Color cross-section --- Jack Aronson played the ship’s Commander, who also happened to be Jewish. Horrible Herb here, the Illinois pariah, was cast as O’Brien, devout Irish-Catholic bead-roller --- the religious element was absolutely essential --- while the color part --- Canada-Lee-“Lifeboat”-damage --- was supplied by a delightful black American named Ferry, who had been snagged for the assignment while passing through. It was a horrendous time for us all, a week that truly tried men’s souls, with Cy Knapp ever more obsessed with cutting expenses, and the entire workforce of Ardmore sniggering behind his back. (Come to think of it, Cy was giving a pretty good performance of Captain Ahab on his own.) To add to my own weight of woe, I was playing Leopold, the singing headwaiter in the operetta The White Horse Inn, in downtown Dublin. This naturally led to logistic problems of horrific proportions, adding to threats, recriminations, and on-set confrontations that were already raging and have since become a part of Irish Theatre Legend. The entire week was one long screaming row, with no quarter asked or given, and no one spared. In these halcyon days I was as yet unmarried --- what the Irish call Fancy-Freeand-Free-to-Fancy, and the state of my health was always a bit dicey. This led to regular eruptions of painful boils on one or the other portion of my anatomy. Naturally, my Attack Squadron installment had to show up, in glorious wide-screen Technicolor, on one side of my nose, altering all of Cy’s camera set-ups and making it necessary to film only one side of my face, like Claudette Colbert --- or, as Ferry put it, Claudette without the jugs. Kindly amnesia has blocked out all but two episodes of that strife torn week --- (1.) the sequence where each of us dis-able-bodied seamen were leaning over the ship’s railing (actually a none-too-taut rope) deep in thought of home and just spoilin’ for a flashback. For that magical effect, Cy came up with a truly ingenius idea. One of the Ardmore workerbees crouched on the floor at our feet, holding a pan of water with a light trained on it, causing rippled reflections on each face, or, in my piteous state, in my Job-like boil. African-American, Catholic, Jewish, a touching and wonderfully multicultural essay in homesickness and patriotic sacrifice, get it? Then a quick segue into the past --- in my case, to our cut-glass, lace-curtain dining-room at home, complete to crucifix on the wall (Cy thought of everything). Nostalgia-Time, Folks, and thoughts that lie too deep for tears. It was those home-thoughts that detonated the other episode (2.) still vivid in memory, a shot heard round the Republic of Ireland, or at least the County of Wicklow. In this tender vignette (the Gospel according to Cy), I was supposed to be explaining to my little brood how it was that we American-Catholics always have suffered such heinous religious persecution in our daily lives at the hands of our bigoted non-Catholic fellow citizens. At that point the manure really hit the fan (“Bullshit! Ballocks! Balls!”) Dammit, I was once a Catholic growing up in a midwest community and never for a second had I ever, ever, ever known one instance of religious prejudice, let alone persecution. It was a vicious, pernicious libel, and I refused to be any part of it. But old hotshot Knapp, for the sake of dramatic tension, begged to differ. Tension? Differ? While O’Brien here and Cecil B. DeKnapp wrangled loud and furious, the cast and crew took themselves off to the canteen for an attentuated tea-break. I recall, at one juncture, our make-up-girl Maureen repairing my streaming mask and my painfully blossoming boil, whilst murmuring. “Keep it up, Herb, for as long as you can! We’ll run overtime and he will have to pay us for an extra day, the bloody old gomshyte!” Finally, to break the deadlock and get me to the stage in time, a compromise was reached, the defamatory diatribe toned down, and filming allowed to continue --- the filming and the austerity. By then, ever the kleenex and the paper were all being recycled. How we got through to the end of the week remains a mystery inside of a miracle. I only know that for myself it was Schizoid City, what with juggling Leopold the Alpine Lover in town and O’Brien of the Boils down in Bray, and shuttling back and forth on the coastal train or occasional studio-van loudly begrudged by our gracious and generous Renaissance-Man. One of the few joyous moments of the whole devastating experience came with Ferry’s cheery wrap-up: “I hear that Cy Knapp’s next epic is gonna be The Nine Commandments. He’s leaving one commandment out: Thou shalt not steal.” Dear Ferry --- I wonder whatever became of him. Even more to the point: whatever happened to Attack Squadron and old Cy Knapp? Picture it: Dublin 1961, Jack Aronson, dynamic actor-director son-in-law of the great Irish actor-manager Anew MacMaster, over from San Francisco, to play the ship’s commander of, not one, but two doomed enterprises: Moby Dick’s Pequod, and Attack Squadron’s USS Anonymous --- with rugged fellow-seaman Airbear M. complete with beard for the shipwrecks ahead. Ah, Golden Days! Anchors Away! Note: in the text, Cy’s last name has been changed in the unlikely event that the old hot-shot is still alive.

I am a Work in Progress By Charles E.J. Moulton

The virtues of patience and faith cannot be overemphasized. For life is like the broken zipper you think cannot be repaired. But then you sit down, focusing, remaining calm, Suddenly, after trying several times, you repair it. You say: “Wow, it works!” It isn’t strange, though. Your feeling led the way. You say that you had nothing to do with it, But you did. You created the possibility for it to succeed. Your spirit. The divine part of you. If you created your own possibilities Like you fixed that zipper You would create a paradise. You say you can’t, That you have no control over life, But you do have the control. Focus on what you want, Remain calm, Believe in the positive outcome, Tell yourself that everything will be fine, That God will help you, And he will. Now, imagine how wonderful this world would be If we all did that. Life is like the knotted shoelace: You think the knot will never be re-opened, But when you realize there is time, No matter how stressed out you are, Or how few minutes or seconds you think you have to do it, If you remain calm, Staying centred, You realize That all you need is a few seconds To solve the problem. A nervous hand, Agitation, Trembling fingers, Bad eyes, All of them make fast become slow. So, be slow and you will solve the problem faster. That’s a paradox, sure. But we humans make the huge mistake Of looking at the things the wrong way. We never trust ourselves. We should. Yes, God exists. I’ve always known that. Your soul is immortal. Your body dies, sure. It won’t rise from the grave. Your soul is eternal, though. God is inside your emotions, Inside your deepest feelings, Inside friendship, Laughter, Trust, Faith, Hope, And Love. And he is a concious spirit. You see that when you think of a friend And he calls you. You see that when you look at someone And that person turns around. You see that when you talk about your favorite song And then hear it on the radio. You see that when you embrace an enemy in your mind And that person smiles at you the next day. If you think those are coincidences, You are just being silly. Life is the bus stop, Where one hundred people wait, Ninety-nine people give up, Because the bus that leads to glory is late. The one guy that had patience enough to wait Gets there and wins. There are many roads, But if you keep trucking You’ll get there eventually. Just don’t stop walking, Believing, Having perseverance. Dreams are not illusions. They can come true. Reality is an illusion. Reality is God’s dream. Anything is possible. Giving in doesn’t mean losing. Letting go of a fight, Letting others walk away having the last word, That just means letting them have their own opinion. You have yours, too. They can’t take that away from you. No matter what they say or what you say. Tell them they win. They’ll be happy. There are different truths. Ask different people what the most important thing in life is. The musician will tell you: “Music!” The accountant will say: “Money!” The cook will say: “Food!” The baker will say: “Bread!” The doctor will say: “Health!” The priest will say: “God!” The policeman will say: “The law!” Who are we to disagree with any of them? So, let those people have their way. Tell them that are right. They win. But you win, too. Their truth is not your truth. You can still live side by side with them, Even though they have a different opinion. The world is not factory. We are all individuals. I have to think of Monty Python’s “The Life of Brian”. The only one in the crowd that said: “I’m not!” was the actual individual. That’s cute, isn’t it? Late careers? Loads! Famous people who realized their dreams after 40. Actor Alan Rickman, aged 42. Painter Grandma Moses, aged 78. Dancer John Rowe, aged 92. Author Harry Bernstein, aged 96. Car Salesman Henry Ford, aged 45. Comedian Rodney Dangerfield, aged 46. Naturalist Charles Darwin, aged 50. McDonalds-founder Ray Kroc, aged 52. Little-House-on-the-Prarie-Author Laura Ingalls, aged 65. Whoever said, it’s too late for a career? It’s up to you. I have more news for you: Having a career does not have to interfere With a positive and prosperous family life. You can be happy and your family can, too. In fact, that’s the only right way. You just have to dream it. So who says dreams are not reality. All it takes is patience, faith and perseverance. Don’t tell your kids not to dream. Tell them to dream, But also tell them to act on their dreams, Making sure that their dreams benefit everyone. I am a work in progress. I use my soul to sculpt and enhance my spirit. Being able to let go, Understanding that having the last word Has just as much to do with winning As the fruit named date has to do with a rendezvous Or a sandwich has to do with The Wicked Witch of the East Dancing on the sand. One simple rule, though: God gave you feelings, Trust them in order to find him, So they can benefit us all. Religions are not God. They are only the phonelines we use to contact him. But we don’t need phonelines to find him. He gave us the spiritual intercom we call intuition. Amen.



Divinity By Norm Tedford See divinity in the tiniest of things: the sacred geometry of a bird's nest; the iridescent splendor of a single drop of rain, which is almost a vibrant microcosm unto itself; or, the humble perfection that is a spider's web. The handiwork of God is all around you, if you are ready to see it. It is more primordial than the most ancient of galaxies, and closer to you than your own breath. You cannot take a step without being fully immersed in an ocean of awareness so all-encompassing and transcendent, that it defies our feeble attempts to put into words its staggering, heart-wrenching beauty.

The Spirituality of Sex Article by Charles E.J. Moulton

I’ve published this article here before, but I am publishing it again. It says a lot about what I feel about the issue at hand. Watch out. You’re sitting in the hotseat. What we’re about to deal with here probably contradicts what you have learned or have been taught, but let’s face it: this is a new age. Sex is a sacred, procreative and divine act and it is not a sin. Celibacy really is redundant, even for Catholic priests. If they were allowed to marry, we could put an end to a lot of pain. A new age? Well, I mean that both in the sense of the religious movement in question as well as in the sense that this actually really is a new age. No, not a new world order. We are not talking about the Illuminati here. This is the evolution of humanity at work. We have to look reality straight in the eye, using our souls and not necessarily our brains. Our emotions lead the way and, in that sense, the truth really shall set us free. We might think that a discussion like that is outdated, but look at what we believe, what our society tells us. We think sex is dirty. We are taught that we can only be holy if we are chaste, but if that were true why are so many good people parents of so many children? If that were true, why are there hypocrite virgins or people who have no sex but commit crimes? The result is that young people battle between liking sex and finding God. God actually lives within their souls. There is a great tragedy in such an act, because they can have both sex and find God. In fact, they should have both. They are fertile souls put here in bodies upon the Earth to procreate and love each other. I have good news for you: God wants you to have fun during sex with someone you honestly love. That’s what it was meant to be: fun. When we make love to the partners we love, we should treat it as a sacred act between equal partners and an act of utmost tenderness, but we cheapen it and treat it as a sin. Disrespect, hatred, arrogance, theft, murder, bigotry, ignorance, injustice, those are sins. Forcing celibacy upon clerics has created wars and famine and hung, drawn and quartered thousands of innocent people. Do you know how many lives have been ruined because of that kind of behaviour? I am about to scratch the surface of a very old wall nourished by a very old muse. One that defends a tradition that we have accepted as true – but isn’t. The fact that nobody actually has checked the facts is a sign that people accept what is preached to them by anyone in power. People don’t want to make their own decisions for fear of making the wrong decisions. So, most people will let other people make the wrong decisions for them. That way, if something goes wrong they can blame him for the catastrophy. God exists, God is inside you, God is everything there is, God loves you. He gave you your emotions. Use them to improve the future of humanity. I stress that I, too, am a bible reader and a religious man. I am also, however, a soul, a husband, a believer and a man that loves sex. I know also what problems have been created through the anti-biblical and quite misunderstood and misinterpreted requirement for celibacy. Fidelity, certainly. Respect, of course. Gender equality, naturally. Celibacy, not really. Having lots of respectful, equal levelled, faithful sex is a part of who we are. You heard it, I said: “faithful.” Faithful is real. So, does the bible actually say that sex is a sin? No. I’ll give you some quotes here before we go to the facts: St. Paul, in the bible, in 1 Timothy 3: 1 – 13, assumes, to begin with, that many deacons and bishops will be married. In Timothy 3: 2, 12 and in Titus 1:6, he even states that a cleric must manage his family well and that his children must obey him with proper respect (1 Timothy 3:4, Titus 1:6). So, we see that the bible only loosely recommended celibacy and sometimes even recommended priestly marriage. The Catholic Church, however, has turned celibacy into a real problem that began only as a power-tool. If that is true, how come that celibacy has been given the stamp of being so diabolical an act? If it was never a clerical requirement stated in the bible to begin with, when did that begin? The initial requirements concerning the celibate life of priests appeared at the Councils of Elvira in 306 A.D. and Carthage in 390 A.D. That it was a discussed necessity prior to these meetings is not the issue. The real reason for the inclusion of celibacy in the clerical profession was to omit any nepotism. Anyone who has studied Renaissance history will know that Alexander VI, the BorgiaPope, frequently passed professional torches of sorts to his children and was even reputed telling his son Cesare that he would see that he would become pope one day – by his father’s own hand. Celibacy was a way to avoid that. The hypocrite political agenda of Alexander VI shows us that clerics found ways to promote nepotism and overcome celibacy anyway. I am willing to bet Alexander VI would never have become so bigot a pope, if celibacy had been banned. Also, the patriarch-oriented and masculine bureaucracy of the church was simply a powertool to keep the power where the power was stationed. Men were stationed on the battlefields. It didn’t take long for the regal leaders and the clerics to cooperate to keep their kind in power. The crusades were examples of this kind of cooperation. It was a bigot attempt to crush any other way of obeying God by forcing everyone to be as masculine and as westernized as them. Let’s be honest here: no woman would ever have gone on a religious crucade in order to kill muslims just to get back land, holy or not. Jesus knew that his kingdom was not of this world. Jesus chose a woman named Mary Magdalene to spread the message that he had been resurrected and he sure wouldn’t have killed anyone to make a point. So why should we do the same? Shame on the inquisitors, crusaders and the clerics for forgetting what Jesus taught to begin with. Jesus only told his followers to be faithful. Did Jesus ever kill anyone, avoid prostitutes, call sex a sin? No. He told us to be honest, faithful, kind, loving, sincere. Female priests would’ve used their brains and their vocabulary, not weapons. The male population knew that and they were afraid of it. Many clerics are still afraid of female sincerity. The male dominance factor within the priestly profession was and is only a power-tool. In a way, we all are and can be or could be priests of God. The presence of fear for female honesty included Paul, who in the Corinthians spoke of women required to be silent in church. It should be noted that I believe that if women would have been used as the main religious leaders of clerical tradition, not one drop of blood would have been shed. Women are creators to end all creators. We know that, don’t we, guys? If the body is the beautiful house of the soul, why can’t we enjoy that house? Tizian, Rubens, Caravaggio, Boucher and Michelangelo painted naked bodies. Their art is considered divine. So why should real nudity portrayed in a respectful way be any less? We can even go back to the very beginning of the Old Testament to find another real truth. Adam and Eve’s downfall was never that they were seduced to have sex by any old snake. It was never even once stated that sexual practice was a reason for any destruction. What is stated, however, was that Adam and Eve were ashamed of being naked. Accordingly, their own shame was their downfall. Are the animals ashamed of themselves for being naked? To them, there is no such thing as “naked”: they are what they are. It would be highly impractical for us to strip naked and wander about town with nothing but our birthday-suit on. But the fact remains: if we had the honesty animals possess, we would be better off. Look into the eyes of a faithful dog or a friendly horse and tell me that they have no souls. I heard a friend of mine say that animals have no eternal souls. That, fortunately, is a lie. They do, indeed, have souls. And are we not more or less worthy than they? If we look at the Renaissance alone, we have countless examples of sexual perversions inspired only by celibate supression. Clement VII and Alexander VI were two of the many popes that had illegitimate children. Nay, they had entire dynasties of offspring and mistresses, conducted orgies and perversions without end going on within the walls of the Vatican. Behaviour like that scared people away from the church. We would never have created atheists, though, if we had realized that God and the church only remotely played the same ballgame. When we see what Alexander VI did in God’s name and how the religous wars ravaged Europe, we witness the tragic logic of a missed oppurtunity that created today’s secularized world. Accordingly, also because of the abnormal celibate dictatorship, the church did more harm than good by being so concentrated on celibacy. The prude era of Victorian England was compulsive in its strictly gender-based society (not unlike some other countries today where educated women with degrees are expected to stay home and cook). The woman was a mere decoration and the man was the workhorse that came home to take her for walks and show her around. The dark dungeon-like catacomb of that infrastructure, however, was a capital that created 200 000 prostitutes and a killer nicknamed Jack the Ripper. Can you imagine a world that did not label sex as a sin creating such perversity? If sex and nudity would have been a natural thing people accepted and talked about the husband would certainly have gone home, respected and made love to his equal wife and not gone out and shagged someone else. That conflict between the natural feeling of lust and the abnormal requirement for celibacy persists to this day. How many witch hunts, inquisitions, trials, executions, acts of torture, illegitimate children, homosexual affairs and perverse acts of sexual conduct could have been avoided within the clerical community if this unnatural act of celibacy had been lifted? After all, man is a rebel and he wants to be free. Forbid him to do something and it becomes interesting. Sex is interesting to begin with. Give him the freedom to have it and he will act responsibly. If you still disagree with me, ask yourself why God would create something that we need to do in order to survive and then ask us not to do it? So, that being said, I wanted to say that I believe in the eternal soul and I believe in God. I also believe that God created sex. Of course he created it. If we didn’t like sex, we wouldn’t have a species to begin with at all. Liking sex is a part of who we are. That doesn’t mean we have to sleep around to begin with. In fact, we shouldn’t sleep around. Fidelity is a necessity, but supressing sex only makes matters worse. History should show us that. If it doesn’t, boy, are we in trouble. We are procreators. God is a creator and like he created us we, as individuals, are put here in this world to create something of our own. We create art, music, dance, literature, inventions, machines, new worlds, just to praise him/ her/ it/ the divine spirit – and yes: we create babies to praise him/ her/ it/ the divine spirit. If we didn’t like sex so much, we wouldn’t feel drawn to having it – just for the fun of it or for creating beautiful new babies that can keep praising him/ her/ it/ the divine spirit in any way we choose. We have to like it. In a lot of ways, sex actually saves us. As I said, that doesn’t mean we should go and have sex with everyone. In fact, being faithful is a sign of necessary respect for any partner. You sign a contract of sorts and you are expected to follow it. Sex, though, is not just a procreative thing. It is also a symbiosis of souls, a union of emotions, a wonderful moment between two people. It is not a power tool. Never ever. Again, I am a deep believer. I am first and foremost a soul living in a body. God lives inside me, outside me, within me, without me, before me, in front of me. Respect each other, love each other. Lust and sex in its most beautiful form is a triumph of emotions between two loving, consenting adults who just enjoy expressing a faithful sexual unison. It is time we stopped pretending it is not part of our lives or that God doesn’t want it. What he doesn’t want, though, is for us to cheapen it. Guys, there is a whole lot of cheap sex out there. We have to stop that. Enjoy each other and by all means: use your dignity. I am willing to bet that if the church had not brandmarked and devilproofed sexual lust with such adamancy we would not have such a clerical history of secret lust. This is an ongoing story that lasts to this day. Of course we must point out that most priests are deepthinking, trustworthy and actually celibate people. The fact remains, however, that celibacy was implemented to avoid nepotism and was based on a biblical misunderstanding. I firmly believe that even the atheists believe in God. In my mind’s eye, I see one thousand people raising their eyebrows now. We must remember, though, that God lives within us and that God is everywhere. We can reach God in many ways. Going to a church, a temple, a mosque or a synagogue are ways to find God, but by no means the only ways. How do I figure? Even the most adamant atheist has emotions. Maybe he falls in love, even though he will blame it on endorphines. He will wonder why he is angry at a friend who betrayed him once, even if he blames it on neurons. He will feel these emotions inside and deep down he knows that he believes in justice or equality or truth or faith or hope. He might even believe that good will can move mountains. All of these things are spiritual characteristics that have nothing to do with the human body. In that sense, even the atheist believes in God. If he didn’t, why does injustice upset him? If God did not exist, nothing like that would matter. We all relate to beings in a noncorporeal way. Friendship has nothing to do with the body. The key is emotion. You even hear agnostics say: “Funny that you should call me right now, I just thought about you!” or “What a coincidence! I was just speaking about you with a friend!” In my mind, there is no such thing as luck or coincidence. The atheist might say that he does not believe in God, but maybe he believes in love, hope, justice, friendship, hope and faith. These things, my dears, belong to the spirit and the spirit is God. Have you ever heard the expression: “God is love”? Exactly. And what is sex but an expression of love? Now for the biggie: God expects us to act responsibly. He has given us assignments. Everyone has a mission. It is our job to find out what that mission is. God has one address: he is inside your emotions, inside what you feel, inside your most tender love, your hopes and dreams and faith. If you find God while making love to your wife: well, hey, that’s great. Where two people meet and pray in his name, God is with them. That is true for prayer, so why shouldn’t it be true for faithful sex. Sex, after all, is a form of amorous prayer. As long as you don’t sneak out in the middle of the night and copulate with another woman, you are okay. In that case, you would actually be working against God. If you feel attracted towards another person besides your spouse, keep it platonic, write a poem about love and lust in general, paint a painting, write a song, do a dance. Be creative. There are a thousand other ways to get rid of your lust. Don’t do what some men have done, creating havoc: exploding out of their frustrated marriages, leaving their families for some younger bimbo, leaving an unemployed wife and two children who wonder what hit them. In more cases than we know, we can make it work. In fact, we should definately try. Having now held my sermon about fidelity, I will add that God gave us these feelings of sexual lust because it binds us together and explores who we are. If Catholic priests were allowed to marry, can you imagine how many young lives that would have saved? It would put many therapists out of work. Express your love. Enjoy your love, just be faithful about it. Make a decision that benefits everyone. If you let your soul be your guide, you can never go wrong. God is real. The seemingly endless universe, the intricate system born into every single individual, the telepathic reality of chance meetings, out of body experiences and correct recollections of proved past lives: those are all parts of a puzzle that we can use as evidence in actually proving God. God really has nothing to do with the church. Not really. You can find him there. Most certainly. I know you can, I grew up going to churches, temples, synagogues, mosques. After all, I found him there, too. Remember that my parents were singers who sang loads of church concerts a year. They were deep believers, deep thinking people who prayed with me at least once a day. But they didn’t care what church they went to or in what church they actually sang. My mom Gun Kronzell, besides being a successful operasinger, spent half her career singing oratories in churches. Churches, to me, were free for all, because faith and belief was, as well. Churches were potential employers for singers who wanted to get jobs. My dad Herbert Eyre Moulton was a cantor in a synagogue during his army days in Georgia, for crying out loud, and he wasn’t even Jewish. He studied to become a priest for four years before returning to his regular profession as an actor, but that didn’t stop him from going to the evangelic or even the orthodox church afterwards. I, for my part, discovered that there was such a thing as church taxes at all when I had my first official theater gig. Paying someone money for believing in God? Excuse me? My divine belief is my personal issue. It is not of this world, guys. I will conclude my sermon of sorts here by mentioning the film “Basic Instinct”. The public reaction to the film back in 1992 showed me that we still have a long road to walk down before we can be as truthful, as respectful and as gentlemanly as we should be. People were more concerned back then that Sharon Stone showed the audience her vagina than the fact that she was a brutal murderer. Think about that for a second. What is worse? Sex or murder? It is my hope that we one day will live in a society with people that know that we are souls, living in bodies, that are allowed to enjoy embracing one another, loving each other a bit before we move on to the next world. Maybe we can then just stop the sexual excess of modern media and be just what were: faithful and emotional human beings that just love to love each other. After all, aren’t we all clerical advocates of our loving God?

How Sex Can Be A Portal to the Divine By Kim Anami Growing up, I always had a strong sense of my sexual energy (http://www.mindbodygreen.com/0-4036/Sex-Your-Power-Source.html). I could feel it. I was intrigued by it. I wanted to explore it. I also had the intuitive (http://www.mindbodygreen.com/tag/intuition.html) sense that my sexuality (http://www.mindbodygreen.com/tag/sex.html) was some kind of portal: a gateway to another dimension. After a few years of experimenting, I read an article about Tantra. The author described sexual energy as being tangible and real; something you could exchange with a partner. He suggested an exercise: when with a lover, imagine moving energy between you. Not with words or touch, but just with your feelings and imagination. I had a very sensitive and aware lover at the time. I decided to try the experiment, without telling him what I was doing. I imagined (http://www.mindbodygreen.com/tag/visualization.html) shooting out energy from different places in my body, into his. From my heart, to his heart; from my head to his head; from my genitals to his genitals. Something curious happened. Without my hands on him at all, he moaned. I visualized moving energy into his thighs. He writhed. I knew I was onto something. I wanted more. Shortly after, I moved to Byron Bay, Australia. If you haven’t been, Byron Bay is a small, very alternative town on the country’s east coast. It is meant to be an energy portal, sitting at a converging point of powerful ley lines. Almost everyone you meet there is on a path of personal growth: acupuncturists (http://www.mindbodygreen.com/tag/acupuncture.html), energy healers, vegans—I even met my first breatharians there. I immersed myself in the study of every healing (http://www.mindbodygreen.com/tag/healing.html) modality that interested me. I studied herbs (http://www.mindbodygreen.com/tag/herbs.html)—with a special interest in plants that stimulate the mind and the genitals—and homeopathy, instinctively rejecting allopathic and pharmaceutical medicine. I became vegan (http://www.mindbodygreen.com/tag/vegan.html) (I was already vegetarian (http://www.mindbodygreen.com/tag/vegetarian.html)), bought only organic food, and stopped eating white sugar and white flour products—all of which gave me mental clarity and greater energy. I hit the beach every day at 6am to surf bigger and bigger waves—I liked pushing myself and the feeling that there was always another level to get to. I quit smoking and drinking. I realized that I had been using psychotropic substances to reach altered states that I could now reach through meditation (http://www.mindbodygreen.com/tag/meditation.html), yoga (http://www.mindbodygreen.com/tag/yoga.html), and exercise, so I stopped using them. I also realized I could reach higher states through sex. When I fell in love for the first time, I combined emotional vulnerability with the ability to abandon myself sexually—and I upped the potency of each. The sex amplified the love (http://www.mindbodygreen.com/tag/love.html), and the love intensified the sex. I reached highs that outshone my best drug experiences and left me permanently opened and transformed. I remember spending an isolated weekend holed up in my family’s summer cabin with my boyfriend, my first love. We never left the confines of that space. Having the entire weekend without any distractions gave us a chance to expose ourselves emotionally without holding back, which resulted in even more powerful and cataclysmic sex. He fucked me open—on every level. When I returned to work on the following Monday, I was carried by an energy and a lightness: I was smarter, wittier, happier, more compassionate, patient, and charming than I could ever remember being. People gravitated to me. Men lingered at my cubicle, finding excuses to talk to me. I had a clear answer for every problem that came my way, and I felt as though I fit in the flow of life. This is the essence of conscious, powerful sex: using our intimate connection to transform our lives. Fast forward almost twenty years from that first experience with moving sexual energy and now I can make love to my partner without even touching him. I can have an orgasm from the sound of his voice. I can feel his touch when he is on another continent. My sexual experiences have become so deep, so life-changing, that I’ve dedicated my life’s work to show others how the same is possible for them. And it is. They are possible for everyone. If you haven’t experienced anything like this before (and many people have; they just haven’t had a label for it), try the exercise I described at the beginning: imagine moving energy between you and your lover. Go inside and tune into your subtle sensations. The more you practice, your awareness will grow. It’s just like strengthening a muscle. Your super-sensory, mega-Kegel, love-and-awareness muscle. I’ll arm wrestle you with it anytime.

Renaissance in Nature By Alexandra H. Rodrigues Snow? It had been a long winter! But no – what looks like snow, are white, velvety petals with minute pink edges, floating down from my gigantic cherry tree. This tree is over 30 years old and some of its upper branches are now knocking against my windows on the second floor. It seems that it wants to prove the victory of nature’s beauty over the grotesque devastation that had been caused by Sandy the Monster Storm. This storm had put the grounds in my yard under 12 feet of water and soaked the roots of any vegetation trying to sprout. There was good reason to doubt that anything in my yard would survive. Now, to my surprise the cherry tree was thriving and is in full bloom. The shower of the blossoms is so outrageously picturesque that I rush to my camera to hold the beauty forever. The apple tree, of the same age, about 14 feet away from the cherry tree , was not quite so lucky but fighting not to give up either. Last fall, a year after the storm, I had cut its entire top as it had shown little life and had not been too generous with its foliage even before the storm. For several years now I had been able to count the apples on one hand. Their size barely exceeded the one of golf balls. I had meant to have the stump removed also but fall had come too early, and snow and frozen earth had decided against it for me. As if wanting to reward me for letting it be, it suddenly is producing about 20 healthy shoots with luscious green leaves sprouting out of the stem. They are neatly shaped, pleasing to the eye. Voila, I now have an apple bush. It definitely has earned itself the right to stay. Last year about this time I was just completing all the restorations that would allow me to stay in my house. I had no ambition to work on the garden. Frankly I can hardly remember what it looked like. Not good for sure. The street continued to get flooded and the town was working on it to improve the drainage. To do that, they had to rip open the sidewalks and demolish whatever grass patches had sprung up. My ducks, which I had religiously fed for many years till the day of the storm, felt neglected. Dry bread crumbs is all I threw out for them. I had neither time nor money to get fancy bird food. The majestic white swans would not even bother anymore to come down the canal to visit my bulkhead. For years we had planted and pampered rose bushes. Different colors, different heights, one prettier than the other. Every year in June, my birthday month, I would get one or two additions. Last year I did not even pull the weeds around them. My mother had always said, “Roses want to grow in aesthetic surroundings.” Nothing was pretty where the saltwater had hit and brought floating debris with it. Like waking up from a nightmare, I look at the plots with full awareness. The weeds have grown into mini woods of beach grass with poisonous plants right in the middle. To my surprise I see some budding roses with dark green foliage peaking out of this unruly growth as if calling for my attention. Suddenly I know that I will be able to save several of the species and I will ask again for one more rosebush for my birthday, this month. Nature sure has a way to revive itself. I am grateful to have the opportunity to observe this ongoing re-birth I hope that the waters of the Great South Bay will embrace its beaches this year and in the years to come in a calming and healing way. I bet on Nature.

Catherine – the Faithful Queen Dowager By Charles E.J. Moulton

The daughter of Gustaf Olofsson Stenbock and Brita Eriksdotter Leijonhufvud was like so many other 16th century aristocratic girls: she became the victim of the political willpower of her parents. What she felt was unimportant. In 1552, 56-year old Gustav Vasa had been King of Sweden for almost three decades. When he came to ask for Catherine Stenbock’s hand in marriage, the 16-year old girl ran away from him and hid behind a bush. She was already engaged to be married with another boy, a boy also named Gustav, but the engagement was broken off so that the king could have his chosen Queen. After all, it was said that a Stenbock family member marrying into the Swedish royal line again would greatly benefit and strengthen the friendly Stenbock alliance with the Vasa-clan. The church and the clergy were not amused. Catherine was King Gustav Vasa’s former wife Margareta Leijonhufvud’s niece. According to the bible, that was incest. The intertwining of these two bloodlines exists to this day. A lady friend of mine from south Sweden can show off her decendance to two prominent Swedish Queens. Vasa, true to fashion and very much like England’s Henry VIII, insisted on the liaison and got his way. He had never cared what the church recommended or felt and he didn’t care now. Back in the 1520’s, he had forcibly obtained precious treasures from the churches of Sweden, melted them and handed over the remains to his German allies in order to pay back his war debts. He only acted according to his own custom. The 40 year age difference between Gustav and Catherine was not the only problem. Catherine had an image to fulfill. After all, the third wife of Swedish King Gustav Eriksson Vasa had two very tough acts to follow. The king’s first wife, Catherine of Sachsen-Lauenburg, had been the daughter of protestant German aristocracy and chosen to strengthen the political relations between Germany and Sweden. Although the marriage itself was everything else than a success – it had been violent, silent and spiteful – her only son Erik XIV turned into one of Sweden’s most culturally gifted noblemen. Not only did he paint and draw excellently, he also played several instruments, spoke several languages and turned into an eccelent sportsman. This knowledgable personality gave him a haughty air and a regal attitude. It inspired him to create a family tree that traced his own lineage back to Adam and Eve. Be that as it may, the folly was founded on a certain status that Catherine of Sachsen-Lauenburg had acquired, in his mind, over the years. When Gustav’s first wife died, one day before her 22nd birthday, she was buried in the Dome of Uppsala, where she lies to this day. Catherine of Sachsen-Lauenburg’s successor, the king’s second wife Margareta Leijonhufvud, a name that means Lion’s Head, belonged to one of the most powerful noble families in Swedish society. Among the 10 children she gave birth to, all of them King Gustav’s, two became Swedish kings and at least one of them married into prominent German nobility. The fact that the king had chosen Margareta as a second wife had been a logical decision, due to the first wife’s German origin and the unhappy liaison. It was considered an advantage to now choose a Swedish Queen. In effect, Margareta became popular with the court and the country and subsequently a great negotiator. She also managed to control King Gustav Vasa’s violently aggressive temper, something that had gotten him into great trouble in the past. He had executed people for not obeying him and written superbly angry letters in order to crush any rebels against the crown. When Margareta Leijonhufvud died of pneumonia on Monday, the 26th of August, 1551, there was talk of a solar exclipse and about people remembering her last words. She excused herself for not having been worthy of her position and pleaded for the family to try and get along. She left her carnal existance with phrases of a regal gratitude to the country. If one believes that or not, clear was that she left a large void in King Gustav’s life. Margareta had been the love of his life. Less than a year later, this void led him to Catherine Stenbock. Now, one can afford to speculate why the king chose such a young wife. A 56 year- old man with so many ailments, leg troubles and massively chronic tooth pains, would maybe think of marrying a woman young and strong enough in order to take care of him. Catherine Stenbock became that royal and nuptial nurse: peaceful, worthy, resilient – and, at first, reluctant. The coronation took place on Sunday, the 23rd of August, 1552, one day after the expensive wedding in Vadstena. Events, that were seen as evil omens, gave the royal courtiers a cause to worry. A plague was sweeping through the country, parts of Vadstena and the city of Turku burned down after the coronation and people also thought they saw evil signs appearing in the sky. The marriage was not proving to become a happy one. Not at first, at least. What saved the marriage was Catherine’s poise, how she handled her fate. The sickly king was not a contemplative loner. Celebrations continued, regardlessly. Almost three months after the nuptial feast in the ravaged Vadstena, Vasa ordered a honeymoon to take place in his favorite castle in Kalmar, one of his 16 exquisitely renovated palaces. A logical choice. After all, he had named the castle “the key to my kingdom”. This stronghold against the sworn Danish enemies on the other side of the border, at the time only 25 miles away from Kalmar, was Gustav’s pride and joy. He hoped that the honeymoon would present the relationship with a necessary foundation. Queen Catherine could only obey her master and act according to her position. Her initial fear of Gustav couldn’t overshadow her sense of purpose. The omens proved wrong. The young girl impressed everyone with her sense of duty. In November of 1552, Catherine and Gustav arrived with 365 courtiers, preparing to wallow in culinary wealth for a course of three months. Catherine also prepared to enjoy Kalmar during those months, engage in light conversation, make a political decision or two, behave how she thought a Queen should behave and learn something about Kalmar in the process. She knew that “he who wants to invade the kingdom from the Baltic Sea or the South must take Kalmar first”. After all, Kalmar Castle had been and would be invaded 22 times, protected successfully by 287 cannons. The fortress was strong and so she felt protected with its walls. Renovations of the king’s castle had been going on now for three decades and would continue throughout the coming century. So, it could very well be that architects and builders spent time here during the festivities. By fireplaces filled with burning logs – to the sounds of estampies and saltarellos played by old instruments such as quill plucked lute, rebec, and aulos – Queen Catherine filled her belly with food in what today still remains Scandinavia’s most well kept Renaissance palace. An assembly of local ordinary citizens arrived, from time to time, invited to watch the royals eat. Catherine didn’t much like the fact that some of the noblemen chose to throw food at the peasants or that they tickled their tongues with feathers, just so they could empty their bellies in order to eat more. She concentrated more on her official duties as a Queen and in keeping warm. The winter months must’ve been cold, to say the least, with only clothing and fire as heating utilities. The guests, Catherine included, probably wore several layers of fabric to warm up their bodies in that 50°F chill, in spite of walls that were at least six feet thick and green lead glass windows overlooking the whitewalled courtyard with its snowy cobblestone ground. No efforts were spared in providing the entourage with good entertainment and spectacular gastronomy during Gustav’s and Catherine’s honeymoon festivities. As many as a thousand spent their days here during these three months, because of the political allies and relatives that came their way up until February of 1553. There was a total consumed intake of 228 000 litres (60 231 US gallons) of beer between all of them. The political ally Germany had lost in Swedish royal significance, but maintained its financial position as trading partner and exporters of good ale and mead. The 16th century Kalmar beer, in actual fact, was classified as “undrinkable”. The inventory list of slaughtered live stock kept the kitchen working day and night. The festivity cooking list looks like the annual report of a major franchise: adding it all up, thousands of animals were served on the palatial banquet tables, beef, lamb, chicken, rabbit, peacock, swan and pork, the number reaching up way over two thousand animals, not counting the half thousand barrels of fish served. All of this was spiced and peppered and salted. So richly, in fact, that liquids like beer almost seemed life-preserving. This introduction to royal gluttony only accentuated the young girl’s opinions of the importance of behaving in a sympathetic and regal manner, staying away from abusive and useless celebrating. Eventually, then, reality ran up Catherine’s spine and she became Queen for real. During the rather quiet 8 years and 30 days of her royal reign, Catherine’s nobility of endurance became renowned and respected. Especially since everyone knew of how mismatched a royal couple they were. Catherine talked in her sleep about her former fiancé, “Gustav Tre Rosor” (“Three Roses”), not being able to conceal her suffering: “King Gustav is very dear to me, but I shall never forget the rose.” King Gustav understood that they had almost nothing in common and tried to implement a law that proclaimed that no older person should be allowed to marry a younger person. It is then especially impressive how dear and caring she was toward him. On several occasions, there were signs of pregnancies, but no official announcement was ever made or confirmed. In 1555, she spent a longer time in Finland away from her husband, but returned to the king in good health. Her good relationship with her stepchildren gave her a good regal position, though, two or three of which were her own age. When one of the children, the wild child Cecilia Vasa, got into deep trouble with an adulterous count during a party in Vadstena in 1559, Catherine became one of those responsible people who succeeded in negotiating the matter. She could not have been more different than Gustav’s first and very temperamentful wife, Catherine of Sachsen-Lauenburg, who had been her own age during their unhappy marriage. Queen Catherine matured as a regal leader in a way that impressed even her enemies. During King Gustav’s last days, as he lay sick and tired and aching in his bed, she sat by his side, waiting day and night for a positive sign of betterment. But her willingness to sacrifice her own peace of mind made her sick, as well. Finally, she asked her courtiers to bring her a bed and position it next to her husband, so that she could lie next to him until his final hour came on Sunday, the 29th of September, 1560. Before his last moments, he summoned his chancellors and his children and asked them to remain united. This fact was especially important to the king. After all, he had driven out the Danish occupants back in 1521 and literally created this new strong country out of the bloody ruins and ashes of a difficult war. After the king’s death, Queen Catherine became “The Queen Dowager of the Realm”. This Swedish premiere title was one she kept for her 61 remaining years of mourning, always wearing black, never remarrying and probably always remembering her first lover, whom she nicknames “The Three Roses”. This was now a more mature woman, one whose representative assignments included opening festivities and acting a political mediator in nuptial negotiations. Her prominent place as Queen Dowager, guesting at balls, walking first in line in processions and attending festivities gives us the image of a well liked public personality. One of the few unfortunate battles she became involved in concerned the escalation of events between her late husband’s sons during the late 16th century. It was Duke Karl, the later King Karl IX, who denied her the right to live in her own mansion. Apparantly, her homestead lay on his grounds. The protestant Duke Karl pulled her into the middle of a religious feud between himself and his Catholic nephew Sigismund and accused her of taking Sigismund’s side. The situation was resolved by Karl’s brother, King Johan III, but not for long. Luckily, she managed to pull out as mediator before Karl invaded Kalmar and executed several of Sigismund’s courtiers, throwing Sigismund out of the country and crowning himself king. Surviving many of Gustav’s sons by a large number of years, her perseverance gave her the winning card. Devoting much of her time to charity, she gained a great deal of respect as a spokeswoman for the destitute. So much so, that it was said of her of her, when she died in Strömsholm at age 86 on December 13th, 1621, that “the poor have lost and friend and the orphans their mother.” She was buried alongside her husband in Uppsala Cathedral, without a monument of her own. Her real monument, however, was the position she upheld and the respect she gained as an honest, intelligent, softspoken and sympathetic Queen Dowager. Initially reluctant, finally conscientious. Catherine’s greatest legacy was taking the unfortunate initial circumstances of her marriage and turning it into something quite extraordinary. Her attitude was so exemplary, in fact, that people still talk about her four hundred years after her death. Not bad for a teenager, who hid behind a bush when her royal husband came to ask of her hand in marriage. She was royal, not only in position or stature. First and foremost, she was a royal soul.

THE GLORY OF THE INVISIBLE By Norm Tedford I for one, am a firm believer that there wondrous things entirely hidden away in the velvety folds of the fabric of reality that cannot be seen by the human eye. This does not make them any less real; only that in order to be able to see into the invisible realm where these spectral visions make their home, one must have a clarity of perception that only is realized when one is using the inner eye to see. I am talking about phenomena like parallel dimensions, space-time singularities, fairies and elves; angels and demigods, and many other wondrous things too numerous to catalogue. Our perceptions become clouded over when we are no longer able to muster enough faith to believe in the unseen, and because we cannot do this, we will be wholly unable to see the glittering strands of sacredness out of which the entire universe is woven. And this is tragic, for our potential for joy greatly decreases when we cease gazing with awestruck eyes into the multifaceted jewel that is the transcendent. We must look long and penetratingly into the very heart of the universe with a clear and discerning eye, and we do this by becoming intimate with the holy innocence that dwells in the center of our being. There are many things in this invisible kingdom that are more solidly real than anything in our so-called “real” universe. You know this, without a shadow of a doubt, when you look into the eyes of a young child, and see the effervescent magic that lies therein. Or, when you ponder the starry skies on a motionless night, and feel a inexplicable bond with these distant suns. There is a whole kingdom of wondrous things we will be able to see if only we cleanse our perceptions, and when we do, we will become quite overcome with immense joy, and then, we will be stunned when we discover how unimaginably sacred and holy creation really is. We must always remember, too, that Nature is a cathedral, and to be able to see the invisible choir of blessed beings who fill the forest air with joyful hymns, you need to bring a profound reverence with you into this peaceful place. When you do all this, you discover that the universe is much more beautifully alive than you could ever possibly hope to understand.

The Renaissance Effect By Charles E.J. Moulton

When Leonardo da Vinci drew the picture of the so-called Vitruvian Man somewhere around 1490, his aim was to depict the ultimate human formation of the antique ideal. He displayed man as what he could be: physically proportioned with ideal measurements, wise, knowledgable, full of hope. That picture was to art what, roughly speaking, Bach’s Das Wohltemperierte Klavier was to music. The point is not when the Renaissance happened, but that it happened. Like with Michelangelo’s David, a sculpture that was created a decade after the Vitruvian Man, it later became the symbol of the Italian Renaissance. This, in ink, feather-drawn picture is the metaphore for a movement, whose effects we still enjoy and try to control to this day. It is what I would like to call The Renaissance Effect. Adam looks at himself in his proverbial mirror, calls Eve over and says: “Look, I think there is more here than meets the eye!” To me, that is what the Renaissance is. Man redefines himself. He is reborn. He realizes the sins of his youth, the years of worry and chaos, and reaches out, claiming his right to rediscover his childhood: the antique ideal. He realizes that he can depict other things in art than just tales read to him and told to him in the bible. He now realizes that a little bit of God in himself. That, in fact, God is in everything he has created and that we, ourselves are creators. We carry the package of fate within us and lay the seeds before us like a reverted Hansel for a lifelong Gretel. The symbolism is evident: our fate is given to us in our souls before birth and we simply collect our “seeds of spirit” as we wander our way through this journey that we call life on Earth. God sees himself in us and our creations here in evolution are his yin to our yang. Art is discovery, discovery is evolution, evolution is future, future is art and the circle is complete. In that sense, Columbus’ trips to what he thought was the West-Indies was a work of art, even in all its cruelty and bigotry. That sounds perverse and sinful, but if you look at it, Columbus had no idea that what he was doing was very right and very wrong at the same time. Cortez and Pizarro’s egotistical escapades in The New World were dark chapters of sinister human art. Enlightened art would be Van Eyck, Botticelli, Raphael and Orlando di Lasso and those were men that fed the human soul with emotion. Art, with them, was pure glory. The main point is that man during the Renaissance embarks on a journey that starts with knowledge and a plethorian array of possibilities and ends where we are today: in gluttony and conceit. Noble spirit became arrogance. There is more information in one current Sunday Edition of The New York Times than one average 12th century man could sport having taken in during an entire lifetime. The question is: are we wiser for it? Or have we forgotten what we were back then? Knowledge-hungry wisdom-crackers. We eat the fortune cookie and hope that the wisdom that we reveal make us rich. Fast. Today, that average man has now become not hungry for knowledge, but lusty for satisfaction. He needs kicks to be happy. Alcohol, special effects and play-station games. Man is not hungry for wisdom any more. Man is living in a huge playground. It is a Las Vegas Show with a cast of 7 020 673 780 actors. Let’s recap where we have been going for the last 600 years: in Firenze, Italia a movement starts that redefines man. Antique ideas are rediscovered, man redefines his world, composes new music and creates cities that look like nothing else that before has been seen. Artistically, this is a process of rejuvination. The Opera is born at the end of the 16th century and less than a century later the artform that we label Ballet sees the the light of day. Baroque churches are built and palaces so grand are built from scratch that the redefine humanity. Simultaneously, man becomes cocky. I see that all the time. As soon as the innocent becomes established, it loses some of its purity. That happens to man after the renaissance. He kills indigenous peoples from newly discovered lands in order to live there. Old empires fall, others rise. Wars are fought, because of protests from people that contradicted the established church. After all these religious wars, man misunderstands God, thinks him responsible for all that and makes the doctor and the scientist the two Gods of the human condition. The atheist is born. He is a man that never realized that the concious creator God also exists, existed and always will exist in himself as well as in the world and in heaven. Art recreates the human condition, social infrastructure destroys it. In Sweden, the king is empowered. Just about when the king redemands the throne there, the people take it away in France. The industrial revolution revolutionizes the world and it commences a pathway that skyrockets the population, drives man to rob the Earth of all its assets and makes man concentrate his entire life on having fun. Fun, fun, fun. What became of the Renaissance Man? He became the Satisfaction-Fan. Why did The Renaissance Effect turn Adam into such an ostrich-like pleasurefreak? Lack of control. God doesn’t turn this back. Man is free. God listens. God waits. God will there to give man as many chances as he needs, before he understand evolution. Yes, we have the Global Movement, we have New Age, we have the New Spirituality. More and more people live out their concious inner change. Many people are still Renaissance-Individuals. The Vitruvian Man is still there in the archives of the Galleria all’Accademia in Venice. The picture stands for the finest attributes of the human spirit: intelligence, wisdom, spirituality, love and knowledge. Man always moves forward, outward and beyond. Sometimes, his independance leads him astray. He realized when he looked in that proverbial mirror that he needed to rediscover himself. Rediscovery, however, needs self-control. Renaissance-Knowledge became Industrial Conceit. That lead to the biggest dance routine at the PC – Internet – WLAN – Bash. Now, we have to see how we pick ourselves up and dust ourselves off. The best way is to go back to da Vinci and learn something about the original feelings he had when he rediscovered himself and looked at himself in that proverbial mirror. But then, when gluttony knocks on the door, we can’t go eat immeasurable amounts of fast food or dig the ground for non-existant oil. We then have to go out into the country and look at the clouds. We learn about each other’s souls and we have a picnic in the grass, we paint, we sing, we dance and know that we are renaissance-people with a new addition: we take responsibility for our actions. Just like The Vitruvian Man.

Short Essay on Infrastructure By Patrick Bryant Michael We've watched over the past 15 years, maybe longer as problems with the infrastructure come back to bite us in the ass! An Interstate Highway Bridge collapsed in Minnesota several years ago, in 2007, killing 13 people, due to needed repairs that had been let go too long for lack of Federal Funding. Hurricane Katrina was far worse, also due to lack of Federal Funding and poor planning, thousands were left scrambling to find their loved ones, while the White House showed little real concern. Now many states are having even worse problems with floods and crumbling hillsides, especially in the Midwest and California. I only mentioned some events that most people have heard about.

There are far more all over the USA as well as the world in general. More and more places are being hit with catastrophes that rival or exceed the worst in history. The recent floods in the Carolinas are a result of lack of sound planning, while climate change deniers take a wait and see attitude. Not enough consideration had been given to increasing both Federal and State funding for infrastructure repairs and improvements. The GOP is mostly responsible for withholding funding. The House has that responsibility and has failed miserably. If the voting public remains ignorant and returns these irresponsibly congressmen to office, then our country will continue to crumble!

Renaissance By Alexandra H. Rodrigues

What comes to your mind when I say the word Renaissance? This is the question I put to friends and strangers and the answers were various. Here are some: Oh, it has been so long since I heard that word in school. (This the comment made by a 70-year-old woman. Guess her statement is true. About 90% of what we learn in school, we forget. Yet a residue remains, and it sparks a glimmer of recollection in memory.) Myself? Well, the first time I heard the word Renaissance mentioned was when an old chest in our foyer was pointed out to me. I must have been about 12 years old then. “This is a real antique,“ my grandma said. She thought it might have been made out of walnut. It was gilded and had a quite intricate surface. Later on I preferred the more dainty style of French Baroque. An authentic cabinet from the Louis XIV period has been with me from childhood on, till the day of the Superstorm Sandy, here on Long Island in 2012. Flooded by 5 feet of water in my living room, I had to let my cherished possession go. Scott Thomas Outlar, an author friend of mine offered these words on: Poets, philosophers. Teachers, healers, musicians, craftsmen, painters. Prophets, carpenters, sculptors, shamans, and all variety of creative individuals, casting off from the confines of this corrupt and decadent modern culture to help bring about a spiritual renaissance and artistic revolution. Some shorter comments were: To begin anew @ anything. - Unwashed masses -Read and Pray – It makes my brain update about the phenomenon of revival of art and letters in the 14th through 16th centuries in Europe. I have read a book about it 6 months ago. The word Renaissance is French and literally means “rebirth.” It first appeared in English in the 1830s. Knights of the Round Table. Men fighting for hearth, home and love. A time when men fought for something right. Poetry that could make a man weep and risk his life. Paintings that could bring you to your knees. Higher ideals. Simpler time but a more enriched way of living. It brings so many things to mind. (This by Jenny Cannon Mc Cain. An inspiring writer and good friend of mine.) Here are more comments I received: People with visions. New – beauty. A woman posing for an artist – going back to the Roman and Greek paintings. Further come to mind famous names of active artists in that time period. Evolved from the Medieval times of the dark ages. – Renaissance Art – The Mona Lisa, The Last Supper by Leonard Da Vinci. The Sistine Madonna by Raphael. – The evolution of Visual Arts. – John Melton (no not Moulton!) Shakespeare. As well as the composers Josquin des Prez, Palestrina and Dufay who exemplify the progression made during that time. Astrology and Astronomy turned prevalent. All this advancement was eventually followed by the Baroque period about 1700, and in 1800 by the first Industrial Revolution. The Renaissance started as a cultural movement in Italy during the Late Medieval period, and later on spread to the rest of Europe. It is also called the beginning of the Early Modern Age. Renaissance architecture reflected the rebirth of classical culture, replacing the Gothic style. Proportion became the most important factor of beauty. Harmony, clarity and repose signified the structures of the High Renaissance. The Elizabethan era also falls into the time of the Renaissance (1558-1603). It is the epoch in English history marked by the reign of Queen Elizabeth I – called by some the Golden Age of English History. The significance of clothing was immense, as the status of a person was recognized by their dress code. The fashion of the upper class was quite elaborate. Padding – girdles – quilting and bustles – a stress on creating the image of a small waste – were the trend. Nowadays, we continue to look at the Renaissance as a time period of a new beginning.

Night time serenade By Rob Kingston

An emporium full of visual delights, moonbeams bounce and dance, around a pitted cloud clear site. A shooting star shining, a whooshing sound if heard, lights the sky as it blazes bright, starting in the east accelerating, disappearing out of pleasured sight. Stars blaze illuminating dark, the galaxy forming its magical map of horoscopes in this glorious orb, Its North Star guidance for some who navigate upon our planet earth be it on land air or under the sea, a million or more miles the distance should we achieve the ability to or want to go see up close these glowing planets of rock, gas and ore. Dying stars growing in their brightness as if, a last attempt of holding life Glowing brighter than before their internal charges disperse, fading no longer able to ignite. Dancing colours in the north and south, painted great abstracts wide and far Hues of fusing reds oranges yellows greens across dark blue, Spectacular moments for those with time to sit observe and view these magical electrically charged special dancing hues. Reflections distorting down below hues shading, appearing blushed as oceans gush and light rides upon a moonlit magnetic heaving tide, a tide awaiting, a stage set for two Only you can see the magic being created in front of misted, barely woken if open eyes, Only you can see the rising spirits coming up to play upon the core of sphere, Under the kaleidoscope twinkling melee filled bustling sea and sky Rise up, a beckon, a call to you, come join this light filled orb of invisible tunes, Where a piano plays a serenade and the orchestra complements with Soft sounds of Trombones, cello’s, violins, tuba’s, drums and flutes A tempo set to sweep excited people off their seat and on into their dancing shoes Rise up in your sparkly dancing dress and shoes for you are floating Imagination growing with every timeless move Twinkling stars blinking approval, reflections in the agreeing tide as it ebbs and flows. Rise up, move, dance, sway, step and jump to those imaginary magical tunes A prince of darkness, a dreaming queen A loving scene, a glory electrically charged night time dancing dream. © Robert Kingston 18.10.2014

THE TALE OF A MISSING LINK FROM INDIANA An analytical review of the five films known as THE PLANET OF THE APES-Series By Charles E.J. Moulton

We all identify with folks of all generations and eras and how they flock to see dragons fly into strange territories and strange creatures in spaceships ruling topsy-turvy worlds. Let us be honest, science-fiction-fans can be categorized into three groups. There are those who dress up in the clothes of their idols, speak the language and collect the items. They attend the congregations and sing the songs. Then there are those who see everything as pure entertainment, popcorn-fun below all Shakespearian tradition. Between the two lies a group who would gladly consider themselves analytical. Their chief characteristic is looking at the real background of the piece and are thus probe into the story like a gold miner looking for a treasure. Many films are there for distraction, but within that pursuit one can find a very solid message. A few films throw the message in your face with a bang and with some you have to look for the message with a magnifying glass. The original five Planet of the Apes-Films (dating from 1968 to 1973) are works where the message sometimes is so evident that it hurts. The dialogue is so strikingly a parody of all things human that it is daunting. All things civilized and racist seem imbedded within it in litmus paper and it is a wonder that the movies are not discussed at sociological seminars. Current civilization is taught that dressing up is for fun and certainly anyone who dresses up as a monkey is not to be taken all too seriously. In one sentence: these people are wrong! In the story, human astronauts from 1972 are frozen through deep space to arrive in the year 3955 on a planet ruled by monkeys. Only one survives, Taylor. After torture and persecution he discovers that he is back home on Earth and the apes have simply taken over Earth after a nuclear catastrophe. There are human survivors of this holocaust and they have worshipped the ultimate bomb for millennia. Taylor is witness to how the monkeys invade their underground city and ultimately destroy Earth by exploding the ultimate bomb. Three apes escape in Taylor ship, arriving back in 1972 and find they are being treated the same way as Taylor was back home, only worse for it comes with intrigue. The one ape is pregnant and by fooling the police, she manages to rescue the baby, who grows up to start a revolt to found the Planet of the Apes. The story is a vicious circle: A travels to B and creates havoc, which sets off a time warp that sends off A to B again. It is probably the most famous one in films. Had not Taylor decided to travel into the future, the apes would never have been able to travel to the past to found the future that Taylor discovered. Ultimately, the proverbial dog chases his own tail until we sit there, blubbering and cooing like, well, a monkey in a tree. But what does all this mean? It means that Man (in reality and fiction) ultimately works against himself. He discovers something that he ultimately destroys. He won’t listen to truth because he is too caught up in his own desires and lack of honesty to admit that he has done things wrong. To put this bluntly, he cannot let go of his own past mistakes. He regrets them so much that he lives not to better himself but to try to better his mistakes. If he could let them go, he would never have to fight the foes that arose from this action in the first place. Some interesting dialogue from the film proves my point and how it is put across in a twisted manner. Take, for instance, the Gorilla General’s word in the second film. Centuries of slavery ring in his words: “I am not saying that man is bad just because his skin is White. I am saying that the only good Human is a dead Human.” It is protest in its purest form. You cannot critique humans on their own level like this (replace “Human” with “Negro” and “White” with “Black” and you’ll see what I mean). But you can put a human in a civilization of a different race and see how he reacts to this, thereby letting man point his own finger at himself. The problem is that people don’t hear between the lines because the munching of the popcorn is too loud in their ears. “Ignorance is Evil” Doctor Zira says in the same film and mirrors the kangaroo trial that occurs in the previous film, where Colonel Taylor is held before a tribunal that only exists to hang the chimpanzees (who think he is a missing link) & the court (who won’t believe that he comes from Fort Wayne, Indiana). Neither side, however, is right. He is from humankind’s own past. The fact that the Gorilla-Army is blessed by priests in the movie & halted by pacifist chimps should be revealing to us humans. We have two parables here: the flower-powergeneration who burnt their own draught cards & finally Nazi Germany, church blessing cannons. So, the characters in the movie have the same problem as the human beings watching the story. They don’t listen. The characters in the movie are so caught up being mad at each other’s folly that they keep doing the same mistakes over and over. The people paying to see what they are doing, pay their popcorn and walk out just as oblivious to the countless divorces and badmouthing and intrigues that they are responsible for, not really interested in looking below the surface because they only do so in society-approved things of shiny surface and university approved dogma. But there are signs that try to help them, if they listened. Shortly before the fourth film there was a racist riot in a city called Watts. Director J. Lee Thompson remodelled these riots, making the leader of the riots the Monkey Revolutionary whose parents were futuristic space travellers and thereby made him responsible for the proverbial dog we mentioned earlier chasing his tail in his own never ending vicious circle. But we find a positive energy flowing from the remaining words of film 5: “Life is like a highway. A driver in lane A might survive whilst a driver in lane B might not. By foreseeing his own future correctly he might plan his life better and change it.” Accordingly, we see apes and humans sharing their lives at the end, giving us a possible hint that things maybe are not as bad as they look. The responsibility lies only in following your own good intuition. It is up to you, dear reader of this article. Next time you go to a movie or a play, try to find messages within the storyline. Look closely, for you might find more than you think. Even if it is only the interesting analysis behind the bad acting. Within everything … lies a message. PLANET OF THE APES: Five Motion Pictures (20th Century Fox, ©1968, 1969, 1971, 1972, 1973) Directors: Franklin J. Schaffner, Ted Post, Don Taylor, J.Lee Thompson; Actors: Roddy McDowell, Kim Hunter, Charlton Heston, Maurice Evans, Ricardo Montalban, Paul Williams, Sal Mineo, John Huston; Based upon the book “Monkey Planet” by Pierre Boulle; Make-Up by John Chambers

Hope By Alexandra H.Rodrigues Massapequa

Hope to me is a waiting for a positive outcome of a future happening. When we say “I hope” it really does not change anything. There is no substance in that word as we have no control over it. Albert Einstein said: ”Religion is an attempt to find an out where there is no door.” So do we HOPE there will be a door someday? Do we HOPE to push with the head thru the wall without getting hurt? Ellen had left her home in Berlin in 1959 and hoped to come back one day in the future. She had hoped to rekindle familiar feelings when back at the place where she had spent her childhood. She had hoped and waited for this moment for 38 years. Now she was here, back in Berlin. Home, if even just for a visit. She disembarked from the big airliner which had just arrived from New York. There was nobody waiting for her to welcome her back. Tired from the Ocean crossing but full of anticipation to see again the charming suburb and the house she had left from so long ago, she waved a cab. When the cab let her off at Zehlendorf , the local train station, she stood rooted to the cobble stones for a while. 38 years seemed to slide away and she felt again like the girl of 14. Waiting for her mother who would arrive on the train come squealing into the station and hand in hand they would walk to the villa where her mother and Ellen both were born. In a daze Ellen crossed the place with the little pond and turned into the street where they had lived. On this clear autumn day the air was so still only ones breath seemed to stir it. The multicolored leaves on the majestic oaks that lined the street filtered the sun. Jumpy ringlets shadowed the sidewalk. Housewives loaded with groceries were rushing home to prepare dinner, Ellen’s lively blue eyes searched for a familiar face. How futile. People called out friendly Hellos to each other but not to her. She was now a stranger here and an odd sadness creped into her joy of being back. She bent down and picked up an acorn. Did the trees remember her? To her left, nearly hidden by weeping willows, she recognized “The haunted house”. As children they had climbed the now rusty fence many times and only when Mrs. Hanstein brandished her cane and croaked at them had they quickly scurried back over the fence onto the street. Her husband had been a famous writer who had died at an early age and left her to get old and eccentric by herself. Ellen’s steps faltered. There it was, her home of the past. Still flaunting the picket fence, where she had managed to squeeze thru the spaces as a child. Wow she must have really been skinny. Well nobody needed to diet during the war. Ellen also remembered a trick she used to open the gate. She was tempted to try if it still worked but thought better of it. Across the street was the Villa Froehlich, a well known movie star at the time, and the lake where she had learned to ice skate and admired a young skating star, who came to meet Mr. Froehlich occasionally. Ellen leaned against the fence that separated her from the fresh lawn and from the ebony portal with the stained glass louvers.. From the imposing staircase leading to the lobby; she could still visualize the tapestries and cozy leather chairs. How she had anticipated this moment. She was wondering if the back terrace still was covered with a multitude of red geraniums and she thought she heard the rattling glass door. Ellen dabbed off the tears that had moistened her cheeks. Her plan had been to talk to the present owner. Most likely the house had changed hands several times since her family had sold it. Yet she did not ring a bell. At an impulse she turned abruptly, hailed a taxi and drove off. She did not want to see the new influence upon a place so dear. Now truly tired and exhausted, longing for a hot shower at the Hilton Hotel, the awareness crystallized that it was the spiritual home she’d cherished all along. Its image would never be spoiled. The actual remnants of what was had no longer any meaning. Home now was Long Island, New York. The city with its glitter and business. The Great South Bay with the moonshine over the water on sweltering summer nights and her family growing in a new generation.

Childbirth thru the Ages By Alexandra Rodrigues

Since the times when the Three Holy Kings, Balthazar, Casper and Melchior followed the stars to bring gifts to the newborn child, Jesus, procedures used for childbirth have changed, yet in principle remained the same. To give birth can be exciting, dramatic, joyful or even traumatic. I, myself was born in Berlin, Zehlendorf, a suburb with a well to do society .It took place in the villa which my grandfather, a banker, had built in 1902. I was born in the same bed, in the same room where also my mother saw the light of the world, in 1914, for the first time. A midwife had been at my grandma’s side to give help and attend to the immediate needs of the newborn. My mother was the youngest of four kids’ .One of the babies was stillborn. Grandma was 40 years old when she gave birth to my mom Contrary to that, my mom was only 18 years old, when she gave birth to me. I was born on a Sunday, at only seven months and had been lucky to survive. Guess I had a purpose to complete on this earth. Despite a midwife attending to my mom, there was also a medical Doctor assisting at my birth. – No tubes – no hospital. Nature had been allowed to take its course. I was 38 and I was pregnant. My husband and I had agreed 11 years ago not to have children. Our marriage was unique. We were the first married couple in the airline industry allowed to fly together as cabin attendants. The president of our company, Mr. Juan Trippe, also the founder of Pan American World Airways was on a flight my husband worked. He had asked my husband on this flight to Bermuda, “When are you going to get married Ray?” And my husband had the intuition to answer, “When you let me fly with my wife.” To our surprise the response was, “I don’t see why you shouldn’t.” Breakfast in New York, lunch in London and a night out in Paris became our lifestyle. We spent 24 hours a day together. We met people like Maria Callas, Yul Brunner, Nancy Kwang, Alex King, Ted Kennedy and Igor Stravinsky. We socialized among the highsociety when abroad and were happy to be alone, back home, on Long Island NY. August 1971 I missed my monthly cycle for the first time. “Could be the onset of the menopause. Flying can do that to you,” my doctor said. Two weeks later, when on layover in Rome, I fainted over dinner in a trattoria. I came to before Ray could put a wet cloth on my forehead.Pan American had a doctor on call wherever flight crews were scheduled for a layover. The company doctor examined me. He was a 47-year-old man, like Ray, and a father of five. He chuckled and said, “Alexandra, you are pregnant.” Alone again, we sat on the bed in the stuffy room of the Hotel Metropole. My hand was shaking when I lit a cigarette. “How did that happen?” Ray asked. That question made me laugh! A romantic evening on our houseboat flashed through my mind. It was after the Fourth of July and we had stayed overnight at Zack’s Bay. “Sex Bay,” I said and now we both laughed. Ray suggested, “Let’s go downstairs and celebrate.” We ordered a bottle of champagne and soon found ourselves making plans for three. Abortion was never mentioned. Nature had made a decision for us. I stopped flying immediately. Luck was with us. Only a month before the airlines had received a court ruling to let mothers fly. So I did not have to quit on the spot. For hours we sat at the kitchen table of our Long Island home and talked about that third person, on the way, to share our lives. I was sure it would be a girl – Monique – we would name her. During that time, we also had our first arguments. The spell of only thinking about each other was broken. We now would have to think for three. I had a deep-rooted fear of childbirth. An aunt of mine had died when giving birth. I was 13 years old then and it had upset me terribly. By the time I was six months pregnant, this fear strongly surfaced. I had visions of Ray and our child alone. I began writing to Monique. About my childhood, my parents, how I had met “Daddy,” and our wonderful feelings for each other. First I had felt self-pity thinking of my child reading my outpour when old enough to understand. But soon writing gave me relief and joy. I had finished 400 pages by the time I gave birth. “Dear” friends volunteered tales of retarded children born to older parents. That was when I decided I wanted to give natural birth. “I’ll go along with whatever you want,” Ray said. Natural birth would spare our child exposure to anesthesia. Also my fear of giving birth increased with the thought of having to go through anesthesia. I chose the “Lamaze Method” with instructor Helen Miles. I asked my doctors’ opinions. Three of them ran their practice together. I didn’t feel comfortable with any of them; not that I doubted their professional skills, but I was glad they had picked up obstetrics instead of psychiatry for their profession. None of them was interested when I mentioned natural childbirth. Around February 20th, I signed up for a Red Cross course in baby care. By then, my apprehension turned to panic. Would I have enough time to study the method about natural childbirth? I felt relieved when Mrs. Miles told me she had a course starting March 6th, and that four weeks of instruction would suffice. My due date was to be April 14th. I had never held a baby in my arms. Even on the airplane, when a travelling mother needed help, I called on one of my co-workers. I was afraid to hurt those little creatures. I counted strongly on my husband’s help for the future. When he picked up one of those little ones, they would coo and finger his handsome face. Mrs. Miles had an opening in a course starting March 6th and assured me that four weeks of instruction twice weekly, would suffice. When I mentioned the doctors did not support my enthusiasm about Lamaze, she cheered me up. “Have your husband attend the course with you. Then in the end you might be strong enough to go through it yourself.” Ray adjusted his flight schedules to be home for the classes. For the first time in our marriage, I was alone when he went on flights. Our life had begun to change. I coped easily with the physical aspects of Lamaze. I had gained a mere eight pounds; 12 years of running up and down the aisles of airplanes had kept me fit. It was the breathing techniques I had problems with. A different method for each phase of labor. The idea is to focus steadily on an object and time your breathing at exact intervals. This concentration is the secret of Lamaze. At home, I practiced: calm breathing – choo-choo breathing— panting – blowing – combinations of it all. Ray would supervise with a stop watch in his hand and encourage me not to give up. On March 17th, I was told by Dr. P that my cervix was ripe, “The baby is in good position: I wouldn’t be surprised to see you in labor by tomorrow.” I panicked and was thankful to Helen Miles when she gave me instructions about phase 2 and 3 of labor over the phone. We even practiced the pant/blow breathing over the phone. Nothing happened! One week later, the same doctor said to me, “No change.” Another week later, now only a week away from my due date, Dr. W very dryly stated, “It can be any time this month. Anyhow if the slightest complication comes up and that includes being two weeks late, you get a section. All you do is close your eyes and let us do the rest.” When I shyly intervened: “What about the Lamaze Method?” He nearly shouted :” To hell with Lamaze and all those fringe benefits. You came here to have a baby right? At your age, we have to make sure the baby is born.” I came home and cried. My husband had a hard time to calm me. I didn’t practice Lamaze breathing anymore. All seemed hopeless. Even if I didn’t get a Caesarean section, it was unlikely that my husband would be allowed even as far as the labor room. All three doctors had indicated that much. Including Dr. B. He was the only one who at least had promised me therapeutic support if I wanted to go along with Lamaze without my husband. On the evening of April11th, I had a bad backache. On the evenings of the 12th and again on the 13th a slight pressure on my back. Each time, my hopes mixed with fear, rose and each time -nothing --. At 7pm of the 13th, Ray and I walked our dog and once again there was that backache. This time it was “bothering” me. We came home and for the third evening in a row had cocktails and then played cards till 9pm. Again I felt nothing while we played and had to tell my husband, “False alarm.” Afterwards, I took a hot shower and got undressed. Once in bed, the backache started again. I felt my belly to check for contractions but couldn’t quite tell. The discomfort got stronger by 10pm and I mentioned to my husband, “If that’s false labor and the slight discomfort they talk about, I hate to see the real thing.” By 10:15 I decided it could be the real thing after all. We began to time what we now called “possible contractions.” To our surprise, we found a pattern established. Every six minutes and lasting about 30 seconds. To make sure and remembering what Helen Miles had told us about real contractions, I got up and walked around. The pattern remained, but I still did not feel a real increase in pain. My husband went to shave just in case. I looked through the bag I’d packed for the hospital and got the lollipops for my survival kit from the refrigerator. By 10:45 I mentioned again, “If that’s the real thing and only the beginning, I’ll never be able to go through with Lamaze.” I was convinced it was too early to even use the deep-chest breathing but I did it anyhow. At 11:10, my water broke. I had a slight bloody show and diarrhea. And now we knew. The fact that it had happened like clockwork an hour away from my due date encouraged me. I was amazed at the amount of water that poured out of me uncontrollably. I did use the accelerated breathing while Ray got in touch with the doctors’ answering service. I got dressed; that is, I threw on socks, put a towel between my legs and pulled a shift dress over my head. We were told to be at the hospital at 11:55. Dr. W would be there. Out went my renewed good intention for Lamaze and staying at home using it as long as possible. Off to the hospital we went. We arrived there at exactly midnight and drove up to the wrong entrance first. During the car ride, I used all kinds of breathing. How could I concentrate with nothing to focus on, no way of timing and my back pulling as if it wanted to break? At the hospital I had to sign some papers and ten minutes past midnight, I was wheeled up to the labor room. Again I used the blow/pant method and between contractions tried to explain to the nurse what I was doing. Her face indicated she thought me to be a little cuckoo. Upstairs she made me sit on the bed and said, “Dr. B will be here shortly.” I was glad to hear it would be Dr. B. During the very short intervals between contractions I’d decided I would ask for anesthesia after all. Without Ray even those first pains of labor or rather what I still believed to be the first stage, thinking the frequency of contractions was due to back labor proved to be too much. To make it worse, my survival kit was still with my husband. The nurse gave me a vaginal examination. I asked, “How much am I dilated?” Obviously she had not heard me or did not realize how important it was for me to know. Instead she said, “I have to shave your pubic area. Then we will give you an enema. And there are also some questions you will have to answer for me.” With that she left the room. I continued to choo-choo, which is part of Lamaze breathing. Since I’d given up on going through with Lamaze, I could see no harm in doing what eased my pain best. Another eight to ten, or more hours of that? No, not for me! I didn’t time, didn’t focus, I was suddenly panicky. The nurse came back with the equipment. At just that moment I felt an intense urge to move my bowels. This was the first time it dawned on me that possibly I was much further advanced in labor already. I recalled: Panic, weepy, hardly time to collect your thoughts during contractions, and now that urge to push. Transition? Impossible! “Nurse, I feel like pushing. Please examine me again.” She did and I heard her murmur, “Oh, my God!” Again, I could get no information, how much I was dilated because she ran out into the hall and shouted, “Dr. B! Dr. B! Hurry!” So Dr. B had arrived. It must have been around 12:15. Was something wrong? Why did the nurse get excited too? I felt a nearly constant urge to push, and I blew and blew and blew. Dr. B came in. I heard the nurse say, “She’s fully dilated.” I computed -- fully dilated? So I could expect to give birth within one or two hours. I couldn’t quite remember what Helen Miles had taught us about this. It takes longer in first labors for the baby to push through the birth canal was all I recalled. “So you want us to give you anesthesia or a saddle, or do you want to continue with Lamaze?” Dr. B asked. Now the decision was put to me. I tried to make Dr. B decide. “What do you think?” He replied, “You’re the boss.” I was very, very uncomfortable because I had interrupted the breathing in on order to answer. Pure intuition made me ask, “How much longer?” instead of saying, ”Put me out.” The nurse came in with a stretcher. Another doctor in green uniform appeared. Dr. B turned to me, “About 15 minutes.” The nurse said, “Let’s rush her to the delivery room before she gives birth here.” I asked, “May I push?” and was told, “Wait, wait.” I blew and blew, and suddenly it registered, only 15 minutes more. For 15 minutes, I could take anything. I could tell the transition was completed because the contractions did not quite upset me any longer. Of course, I didn’t take a pillow with me. I remembered Helen Miles advice, but I didn’t have the energy to cut through the busy preparations of the staff. They didn’t have time to shave me. On the delivery table they tied my hands. “Please don’t,” I pleaded. No answer. Everybody was too busy getting ready. With the preparations finished, Dr. B did untie my hands and I was satisfied. I was then told when to push and when not. I concentrated hard, inhale, exhale, inhale, push, don’t push, blow. “The head is out.” I saw it in the mirror and didn’t believe it. 12:48. “Wasn’t your husband to be here with you?” Fine time to ask. 12:51. April 14th. It’s a boy! Raymond Alexander was born. I’d done it. A miracle! Forty-five minutes or less after I’d come upstairs I’d given birth. I was proud to have insisted on natural childbirth as all went without complications. My blood pressure was taken. Then A lengthy process to sew me up followed. I had gotten a local for the episiotomy and never felt it, but I did feel the stitching. When it was all over, I got shaky and a warm blanket was brought to me. It helped. My baby was shown to me. Beautiful! I could hear Dr. B on the house phone telling my husband that we had a boy. I laughed at the mere thought of Ray’s surprise. He too would have a hard but pleasant time to believe that it all had gone so fast and so well. A new phase of our life had begun. My son is married and his wife, Lori, became pregnant in 2008. She gave birth at age 35, to a healthy, 8 pound boy. Although she had to have a caesarian delivery, all went well. She had had a normal pregnancy with some discomfort. Such as getting sick whenever she even saw any eggs or smelled eggs. She had made it to the hospital in due time and all modern functions had been at her disposal. Yes, giving birth has become easier with the advancement in medical science. The excitement and a certain fear about the unknown, has remained.

The three wise men By Linda Palmer I’ve read about the gifts the Wise Men (Magi) gave Christ. For years I have been under the impression that the value of the gifts was the emphasis. I naturally assumed that because they brought Him gold, the frankincense and myrrh must have been quite valuable as well. I have been wrong all these years. The gifts were not only commonplace in that time and era, but extremely practical as well. Frankincense is a white milky resin extracted from the genus Boswellia, which grow in areas of the Arabian Peninsula around India and East Africa. The most aromatic of the species is called the Boswellia Sacra, a small tree found in Yemen, Somalia and Oman. They have a white flower with a yellow or red center. Myrrh is a reddish resin that comes from a species of the genus Commiphora, native to Northeast Africa and along the Arabian Peninsula. Commiphora myrrha is a tree used to produce myrrh and is found in the shallow rocky soils of Oman, Kenya, Saudi Arabia, Somalia and Ethiopia. To put it delicately, in that day a daily bath was unheard of, so these fragrances were used to make people smell better. Considering that the Holy family was in a barn – actually in a manger next to a barn – the gift was appreciated I’m sure. There is also a symbolic significance to be considered. Frankincense, when burned, symbolized prayer rising to the heavens like smoke. Myrrh was used for burials and symbolized death. As you recall, while Christ hung on the cross, a mixture of wine and myrrh was offered to him. So, would a modern-day wise man choose to buy perfume for almost $13,000.00 per ounce? I used to think he would. Now, I’m not so sure. I think those Wise Men gave just the right gifts. That’s why they were called Wise Men, right? Wink! ;-)

The Death of Auschwitz By Karen King The poor victims of war were stuffed into cattle cars on trains. Jews, homosexuals and special needs people who were not considered perfect, were rounded up like sheep and herded onto these trains. Upon arrival, they were organised into two lines. The left-hand line was for immediate death and the right-hand line meant hard labour. Families were callously split up, alienating those lost souls even further. The left line was always killed. It could be by the firing squad, carbon monoxide poisoning or, later, the gas chambers. These unfortunate souls were told they needed to be disinfected and deloused for work and they needed showers. In the ante room, men women and children were told to strip naked. Then they were moved into a larger room with fake shower heads from the walls. This room held about one hundred people. These were the gas chambers. They had no windows. In September 1941, the first proper gas chambers were built. These were productive as, originally, only ten victims could be exterminated at once! Four were eventually built, the largest one murdering approximately two thousand victims a day. Zyklon-B was the poison of choice! The doors were shut, a couple of Zyklon-B pellets were pumped into the room by the guards on tall ladders through small openings high up in the ceiling where the gas could be released. The optimum temperature for the gas to be released was 26C. Death took about ten minutes. The desperate victims realised they were dying and clawed at the doors, desperately, until their fingers bled and they eventually died. The room was aired out, the victims removed and then searched for gold. Ten thousand people were murdered a year. It was an extremely efficient process! The right line was “dehumanized”. All clothes and personal belongings were confiscated. A striped prison outfit, a badly fitting pair of shoes, prisoner number tattooed on their arm and their hair was shaved. These starving souls were weak and made to work extremely hard. This form of slow torture was known by the Nazis as, “extermination through work”. Originally, the corpses were taken to the city crematorium, but then they were put in ovens at the camp, the first two being built in September 1940 in the main camp where three hundred and forty bodies could be cremated a day. The stench pervaded through the camp as black smoke belched from the chimneys. Later on, after their death, the bodies were burnt in open pits, up to a hundred at a time. Then their bodies were burnt. Rags were thrown in that had been smoked with paraffin to try and speed up the burning. The process took six to seven hours. The smell of burning flesh could sometimes be smelt around the camp if the wind blew in the right direction. Freezing cold, persecuted and tortured, punished for their religion, these were just some of the poor victims of war. Some gave up hope soon after arriving at the camp after discovering the fate of their loved ones in the left-hand line of prisoners. Some children were born to this misery, their Mothers already arriving pregnant or raped by the soldiers. In this well-known Prisoner of War Camp, these souls merely existed, their souls temporarily departed as their bodies barely functioned. They went through hell as, on a daily basis, medical experiments, mental and physical torture was inflicted upon them. Some survived, but their souls have never been whole again. Their bodies have survived. They are physically there, yet part of them remained in this monstrous place. There was too much damage and this can never be reversed. A living hell for thousands as so many families and friends were lost and homes and prized possessions were lost forever! More than a millions lives were lost in these camps. Karen King Copyright 26 December 2015

DEFENDER OF THE FAITH By Herbert Eyre Moulton (1927 – 2005) Written for the Information Magazine in June of 1958 Foreword by Charles E.J. Moulton My father Herbert Eyre Moulton (1927 - 2005) lost both his parents during that year of 1958. His father and my paternal grandfather Herbert Lewis Moulton, a World War I veteran whom everyone called Big Herb, died of a heart attack. After that, my father's mother must have been distraught. She got run over by a train on her way to work. This was a very poignant and very fitting for this feisty and strong Irish lady: she died standing up. It is then amazing to see how intellectual and calm my father seemed to be when he wrote the following piece for the Information Magazine in June of 1958. When his girlfriend died of cancer, my father, desperate and emotionally drained, left America on a two week vacation in his ancestrial home of Ireland. This stay lasted for seven years and brought him at least as much success as he the success he had experienced in the United States. This stay eventually led him to Germany, where he met my mother, operatic mezzo-soprano Gun Kronzell. The rest, as they say, is history. This is my father's article from June 1958. My mother Nell was an ardent Catholic all her life and something of a Revivalist at heart. She believed in standing up and being counted, and she never sat down again. That is why, whenever I read about the new look along the sawdust trail, I wonder what she'd have to say about it all. It's a cinch Nell wouldn't recognize the old Gospel Train in its Madison Avenue streamlining. She liked her religion straight, thank you, liked it as well as she liked a good fight. Come to think of it, her one encounter with militant unorthodoxy may have helped bring on the present era of soft voices and cushioned condemnation. Nell approached belief with wide open emotion and when said she'd gladly die for the faith, she meant it. To her as to many an Irishman the saints were cronies, especially the Blessed Virgin. Our Lady didn't live next door to us - she had moved right in to help with the housework. This Catholicism, however intense, was no impediment to respecting those outside the fold, providing they were sincere. Nell never condemned anybody - she loved them and felt sorry they were missing so much. As for prejudice, it was the Devil's work and anybody who practiced it was, in her own words, "a hypocritch of the first water." My father Big Herb had no official religous status, but he was better Catholic Dad than many in our parish, and his family was of vigorous if diverse Protestant stock. There were Presbyterians and Episcopalians and Transcendentalists and Free Thinkers and Swedenborgians and even a Quaker or two in the middle distance. Nell wanted me to know all about all these demoninations, what made them "other" and how they got that way. We must have toured every church and temple in the vicinity, guided by astonished beadles, custodians and janitors. Nell always called these personages "dear", and made sure they locked up afterwards. Religious toleration didn't stop at the vestibule door. Everybody was welcome in our house. If they were atheists, if they didn't revere the Blessed Mother as Scripture says we should, if they were agnostic or fallen away or just indifferent, they were wrong and Nell never tired of belaboring the point. But as long as they were people and in our house, they got the full treatment, and even in the rockiest depression that meant anything from hot toddies and sherry-soaked fruitcake to a seven-course meal. It was during those hard days of the 30's that our bungalow began taking on the aspects of a soup kitchen. Impoverished spinsters with cats and cataracts, an artist on relief, a retired handyman named Peter the Indian, an unemployed barber (two bits for a kitchen haircut and I can still feel the pull of those handclippers) any number of down-and-outers crowded our table. None of them ever left without a shopping bag crammed with jars of jelly and fresh soup. No matter how bad things got, we were never of relief and they were, and that made all the difference. As long as there was a WPA, a PWA or any practical nursing to be done, Nell worked to help Big Herb while that gentle soul plugged away trying to sell insurance, appliances, anything to help supplement Big Herb's modest income. We always had more than enough, somehow. We had parties and battles and pets and a second-hand car born 1928, a Studebaker named Henrietta. We packed lunches and went off to the opera, the World's Fair, zoos, ballparks and museums. One weekend we started out for a short ride (we lived in a suburb of Chicago named Glen Ellyn) and ended up at Niagara Falls. Everybody cut corners and everybody had fun. Friday night we went to the movies, lured by Bank Nite, free dishes and good shows. Because prices changed from fifteen cents to a quarter at 6:15, people hurried through dinner and read the evening paper in their seats before the feature. Our milkman delivered his own vino with the dairy products. Big Herb continued to make homebrew beer in the basement long after Repeal, and his men friends rolled their own cigarettes. The women knitted and crocheted, while the more ambitious hooked rugs or entered contests, did each other's hair or tried their hand at short story writing. We kids gave puppet shows and pageants, fell out of tree-houses and fought. Saturday night there were crowds of poker players, not a one of them with a dime to his name, and during one slump when ours was the only house with the light and the gas still turned on, they carted home bushel baskets of coal to heat drafty old mansions left over from Palmier Days. We were the happiest people we knew. It was into this kingdom of raffish good will towards everybody that two woebegone missionaries wandered one rainy Saturday. Nowadays, as I said, gospel harvesters plow the fields and scatter with such gentility that you hardly know they're around. But a couple of decades ago you couldn't miss them. This particular brood barnstormed for the Lord in an antique limosine painted white and plastered with signs proclaiming the imminence of Kingdom Come. As if this weren't enough to scare the daylights out of anybody, a nest of loudspeakers topsides saturated the target area with glad tidings of approaching Armageddon, hellfire and judgment. "I'd like to know what these people think they're doing," Nell mused from the front window. "The man and woman in that goofy car. I've never laid eyes on them before, have you guys?" As usual I was presiding at a levée for urchins, all of us dressing up to play King, The Prince and the Pauper, or whatever we had seen at the Glen Theatre the week before. The evangelists didn't seem to be doing too well, according to Nell, who was never nosy unless something really special were afoot. They had tried every door on the street, finding nobody home (and everybody was) or getting a reception chilly enough to freeze Gehenna. "Well, I think it's just awful about those poor slobs," Nell worried. "The least somebody could do would be to ask them in, no matter what they're peddling." It never occurred to her that these might be religious rivals. She wouldn't have admitted the existance of any to begin with. At last the discouraged Lost Sheep (which is what we called them ever after) approached our porch. Nell was ready for them. She flung open the door with a bountiful, "Come in, come in, and get dried off!" The Lost Sheep looked at her and then at each other. "Oh, come on. You look like the Grapes of Wrath." Nell was an inspired improviser. With one of her "non sequiturs" dropped casually into the conversational works, she could jangle all talk to a standstill, and her enthusiastic misquotations were worth their weight in double takes. Now was no exception. The Lost Sheep turned their unbelieving gaze back at her and beyond to the warmth of the house. Then they bolted inside where we could get a look at them. The man was gaunt and shaggy and he scowled all the time. The woman was whispy and chinless and very much ill-at-ease. There was something pathetic about them as they flapped their magazines our way. “Never mind about that now,” Nell blocked the tactic. “What you need is a good hot cup of tea.” The Lost Sheep damply agreed. “How about a little something in it?” “Perhaps a spoonful of sugar,” the woman hesitated. “I mean, a little something to take the chill off.” “Lemon?” came the nervous suggestion. “Oh, skip it,” said Nell and she pottered out to the kitchen, abandoning us all to an eternity of embarrassment. Finally she returned with a loaded tray (and I choose the term “loaded” purposely). It was just like her to spike her teacup with a little something to take the chill off. Only with Nell you could never be quite sure. “Now then,” she beamed, ever the hostess. “What is it you’re selling?” The female Sheep gasped like someone reviving after a neardrowning. “Have you found Christ?” she asked. “I never lost Him,” was Nell’s reply. We wanted to cheer, but the woman pressed on. “I mean, do you have him in your life?” “Of course I do, dear. Don’t you?” There was a murmur of approval from the gallery and Nell continued briskly: “I go to mass and communion every Sunday of my life. And Herbert here is an altar boy.” The couple exchanged another look. The interview wasn’t going according to the book. “You see that picture over there?” My mother indicated a Raphael reproduction. “The ... that woman?” the female Sheep looked as though she were gnawing a quince instead of one of Nell’s delicious cookies. “She’s the mother of God!” Nell saluted. “Now what can I do for you?” The Sheep set down their teacups and began a faltering pitch, but their hearts were not in it. “If it’s money you’re after,” Nell interrupted, “I don’t think there’s a nickle in this house.” She cast about for her pocket book and proceeded to empty it onto the coffee table. Rosary, Novena book, keys, family photographs, compact, comb and curlers, a jar of hand cream, a can of tooth powder and a denture brush, newspaper clippings, her lower plate, the dog’s collar and a bottleopener all clattered forth. At each item the eyes of the Lost Sheep widened and their mouths contracted almost in disappearance. Now they both looked like they were sucking quinces, or possibly alum. “Well, I’ll be jiggered!” Nell reported triumphantly. “I do have some change!” She counted out eleven cents (a nickle and six pennies). “It isn’t much, but God knows you’re welcome to it.” She pressed the coins into the woman’s palm. “Oh, don’t bother with any of that stuff,” again she waved away the proferred literature. “I haven’t even finished ‘Gone With The Wind’ yet.” But the Lost Sheep prevailed and presently were effecting an escape, their benedictions all but lost in the alleluias of “God love you!” from my mother. She closed the door and heaved one of her great sighs. “I want you brats to get out of those crazy duds now,” she suggested at length, “and I’ll go see about the potatoes.” No matter how many guests I rounded up, lunch was always hearty, generally consisting of baked potatoes, peanut butter sandwiches, junket or tapioca, baked apples and pitchers of milk or cocoa. Today it was further spiced with the novelty of the little morality play just acted out. “Irene dear,” Nell prodded my moppet of the moment. “I’m sure your mother never lets you and Brubs read at the table.” “I can’t help it, Aunt Nell. It’s this silly magazine.” Irene was turning over the pages of one of the murky periodicals left by one of the Lost Sheep. We were all as entranced as kids today are with television. “Look at this one,” her brother demanded. “Aunt Nell, what’s a Scarlet Woman?” “Look, the Pope has three heads,” Irene put in. It was true. On the front page was a crude cartoon representing the Vatican with a hydra-headed monster oozing out, each head crowned with the Triple Tiara. “Let me see that!” Nell ordered. She took one look, then snatched up the remaining copies. As I recall it, they swam with lurid slanders against the church, the Papacy and Priesthood, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass – against all things Catholic, in fact. Such exotic phrases as Whore of Babylon, and Pomps of the Devil, linger to this day. “Well, I’ll be –“ Nell’s smouldering exclamation was lost in the rustle of cheap paper. “Come on, children,” she announced suddenly. “Get your wraps and duds.” “But, Aunt Nell,” came the whines. “What about our baked apples?” “Never mind them – come on!” By the time she reached her boiling point – which was notoriously low – we had cast off for uptown in Hernrietta. I doubt if any journey has ever been achieved in more portentous silence or with greater clugging or and motor sputter. We lurched, we skidded, we bounced over the tracks. Gears grated, people honked, and my mother’s knuckles grew white with clutching the steering wheel. We all knew exactly what was happening. We had seen it before and we knew. Nellie was on the warpath. Nobody said a word. It didn’t take long to find them. The limousine was a dead giveaway and you could hear the scratchy gospel hymns amplified all over town. They had set up shop right next to the bank and the female sheep was handing out literature while partner ranted from the running-board. Gus Niemetz the policeman stood by uneasily, not knowing what to do. “Everybody stay right in this car,” was Nell’s car as we ground to a halt. “Don’t a one of you dare get out.” The next instant a nuclear ball of Irish Catholic fury burst through the crowd, scattering umbrellas and shopping baskets like tenpins. The female Sheep spotted her but before she could sound the alarm, Nell was upon them, tugging the oracle down from his perch and shaking her fists in his face. I closed my eyes and put my head down on the back of the front seat. God help him, I thought. Heresy isn’t worth it. The scene was brief enough – more fistshaking and Gaelic oaths, propaganda dashed underfoot and appeals to the bewildered congregation, a convulsive digging into her own pockets by the chinless Sheep, then the bowling ball routine again, propelling Nell into the Studebaker and us on our way home. From the rear window we could see the limousine moving off in the opposite direction. Not until we were well into our baked apples did things return to normal, or rather, from normal. “At least I got the eleven cents back,” Nell said, dabbing at our dishes with whipped cream. “And not a word of this to Big Herb, understand? Go on, kids, eat yourselves. You must be ravished by now.” It was gratifying to hear old malapropisms again. “Everything’s going to be all right.” Everything was. The Lost Sheep never came back, not in the limousine anyway. The eleven cents went into the Sunday collection and the Raphael Madonna was moved into a more prominent position over the fireplace. From then on Nell read every publication that came into the house. Religous toleration is a grand thing, she used to say, but it’s got to work both ways.

Anna’s Noble Heart Article about Anna Kronzell (1900 – 1996) and the Old World By Charles E.J. Moulton

Introduction When my wise and witty, noble and eternally curious grandmother Anna Julia Sofia Kronzell was born on October 18th, 1900, Queen Victoria still ruled Great Britain, William McKinley was the American president, Henry Ford was yet to invent his T-Model Ford and horses were still used in transportation. It was twenty-one years after the invention of the electric lightbulb and fourteen years before the First World War. Emperors still ruled Russia and Germany, Puccini’s opera “Tosca” had just seen its world premiere, Charlie Chaplin was still an unknown kid living in London, the Boxer Rebellion had just taken place in China and nobody had ever heard of Adolf Hitler. There was no internet, no short message service. Taking a stroll, even to the local shop, meant dressing up nice, putting on elegant gloves and a hat and dressing for a respectable reputation. It was another world, a world we have forgotten, a world we could learn from with character traits like nobility and style, well-spoken manners and gentility. Noble Anna In our world of iPods, Smartphones, Mp3s, Apps and DVDs, we have become distantly excessible, aggressive and fast. Superficial contacts grace our microcosmos, contacts that pretend to be close. We think we know who our friends are, but our chatty virtual world is like a comic book filled with constant Facebook-Lingo like “lol”, “rofl”, not to mention all those comic-book like outburst like “Wow!”, “Bam!”, “What’s up?” and “Far Out!”. In many ways, there is a great danger in becoming a cliché. There is no shame in a world like that, it has its merits. The old world, however, had something that we lack. Poise. My grandmother was a spiritual aristocrat in all her ways. In my mind, she outshines most of the historical noblewomen I have known. This woman, who lived to be 95, had something most people should have more of in this day and age. Something that we seem to have lost along the way. Nobility. She witnessed the demonstration of the first radio in 1911 and was a contemporary of the Titanic disaster in 1912. She was a pianist in a silent movie cinema and a charity organizer for the destitute during the Second World War. The car, the telephone, the cellular phone, the grammophone, the television, the film-camera, the CD-player, the VCR, the airplane, the helicopter and the submarine: these were all inventions that either appeared during her lifetime or were introduced to a broad audience during her days. During the course of her 95 years on this Earth, she saw inventions come and go, she saw them revolutionize society and change history. She had to walk a long way to school every morning. Back when she was young, life was slower. Step into the time-machine, folks. It’s a cool ride. “I paid five Swedish crowns for my driver’s license back then,” she always began. “After that, however, I had to go to the police office and get a license that I was sober and orderly. The driving school had forgotten one thing, though. They had not taught me how to drive in reverse, so we went out of town to practice that. Once I was on the road, however, I felt like the Queen of Kalmar. The people warned each other about me, I must admit that. They told each other to look out if I came driving down the road. I was a very good driver, it wasn’t that. I was a very fast driver. 40 km/h (25 miles per hour) was pretty speedy cartravelling back in 1923. One day I encountered horse-driven carriage and stopped the car, just to be nice to the horses. I got a friendly laugh from the man driving the carriage. He asked me if I was afraid of the horses. I had a Fafner, you know, a pretty fancy car at the time. A car from Germany with the horn and the breaks on the outside. I really was the Queen of Kalmar back then. That’s what it felt like, anyway.” You know what is really nice? My daughter still has that driver’s license in her play-room handbag. Time passes by. Family remains. We’re in that time-machine that took us from 1993 back to 1923. Now, we go back even further. I really can’t help thinking about Rose in the film “Titanic” when I remember hearing these stories. Rose, played by Kate Winslet, came out of the Titanic disaster alive only to experience all the things a new woman could experience. It was a new world, a world that came exploding out of the cataclysm that was called the Great War, which was what the First World War was known as before Hitler launched the second one. Anna Kronzell was a selfmade woman, a female driver, a female citizen with her own opinion and a right to vote, a good cook, a musician, an educated poet and a good friend. I remember sitting on her lovely blue couch in Kalmar and hearing her tell me about how she had been walking to school that April of 1912 and reading the headlines on the front pages of the local press: “Titanic Sinks, 1500 die”. Back in school that day, there were probably more discussions about how that could’ve happened, more that than any actual teaching going on. I feel the echoes of history reverberating into my own life into what happened on September 11th, 2001, and how the World Trade Center was attacked by two airplanes. History repeats itself, doesn’t it? Let’s make sure that doesn’t happen again, shall we? Anyway, we are not here to brood. In fact, my grandmother had quite an eventful youth. Now let’s go even further back to see that youth. Are you ready? Here we go. Press the button. You there, scrolling the screen of your tablet. There. We’re back in the past. Born in Åseda on October 18th, 1900, with eight brothers and sisters to call her own, she spent the first 8 years of her life in open Swedish farmland, helping her father Gustaf milk the cows and clean the barn. Her father wrote his initials – “G.N.” – on the wall of that barn close to Brädsäta when my mother was born in Kalmar back in 1930. What happened next, that one day in 1908, sounds just like a scene from a true Hollywoodepic. Picture it: A rich Uncle named Thomas arrives at Farm Friskamålen one sunny spring day with his wife Emilie, politely offering to take Anna to Kalmar to give her an official schooling and a wealthy home. So, Anna packs her bags and her one old doll and moves away from her parents. At first, it is an unusual situation for Anna. Thomas and Emilie tell her that she can call them “Mom and Dad”. Anna declines, here we see the pride that signified her throughout her life. She uttered the proud words of a young child: “I already have a mother and a father.” Promptly, Anna writes home to her parents that she gets all the most expensive clothes and the greatest toys in Kalmar, but that she would rather be at home with them. Those initial days may have been difficult, but Kalmar became as much a part of her soul as music was or literature or good friends. She remained true to that city until they day she died, back in 1996. The story continues. Although her stepbrother does get more domestic benefits than her, what we discover through the filters of history is a girl who constantly meets theatrical stars, writes poetry, learns how to play the piano, spends a summer at a girl’s camp in Wernigerode in Germany (learning how to speak German) and witnesses the official presentation of the first local radio as well as the first machine she has ever seen of its kind: the grammophone. Motion-picture-like scenes keep flirting with our minds when we read about the events in her life and at every moment of the way, we see her dignity in action. It was dignity with a naughty giggle, though. In the Kalmar Girl’s School, her teacher endeavoured to teach her the art of baking cookies. “Turn the oven baking tray around,” the teacher claimed. Anna promptly turned the tray upside down, making the cookies fall down on the floor. She uttered the cute inquiry: “Like this, Miss?” “Be careful not to ruin your reputation,” Aunt Emilie always snapped in true Victorian fashion. “Once you loose it, you’ll never get it back.” Anna Julia Sofia Nilsson quoted that phrase back in the 1990’s, but always added some detail with a mischieveous wink. Let’s hear what she had to say: “I was on my way to work as the fastest typist in the Hultsfred Fuel Commission when a man named Knut Kronzell arrived at the scene of my life. He would definately change my life forever. At the time, he was just the friend of a friend, whom I chatted with for a bit. He obviously took a liking to me, because he jumped up on the sideboard of my car while I was driving off. He wooed me until I gave in. The funny thing was, though, that I was already engaged to be married to another fellow. Our announcement had been presented promptly in the local paper. Now, three months later, I was engaged to be married to another man altogether with another ad in the paper about me and this new fellow Knut. What were people going to think? Anyway, I became Anna Kronzell. It was the best decision of my life. In 1926, Bengt-Åke was born. In 1930, Gun Margareta was born. Well, three year-old Gun could never pronounce Bengt-Åke’s name. She always called him Bohkke (Båkke), so that is what he became: from then on, he was Båkke. Now, my grandchild Mikael has taken over that name as Båkke the Second. Funny, isn’t it, though? Both my children have became musicians. I must have excellent musical veins, after all, just like that phrenologist told me in the hotel I worked in, back in 1919.” That was true, indeed. Uncle Thomas, the owner of a big hotel in Kalmar where Anna worked part-time, had invited a phrenologist to examine the staff for free. He claimed to be able to tell what someone’s talents were just by looking at how the bloodveins crisscrossed in someone’s scalp. When he examined Anna, he exclaimed: “My dear, you have excellent musical veins.” These musical veins made her choose the musical profession, at least for a while. She was a pianist at her brother Carl Albien’s cinema “Saga”, which happened to be Sweden’s first cinema ever. Anna always mused that she had to play her pieces faster or slower depending on the how drunk the camera operator was. The cinematographical cameras back then were circumcolved and operated manually. When the operator was drunk, he cycled slower and Anna had to play slower. The worst case scenario was, of course, when the operator was inconsistent and revolved fast and slow. She didn’t always work alone, though, and could share the pain with a few colleagues. On a few occassions, other musicians were invited to earn a few extra crowns. The violinist who got his bow caught in her hair during a gig, though, never got a second invitation. Anna’s husband, and my grandfather, Knut Allan Kronzell had a fantastic singing voice, besides being a sea captain, an accountant and the boss of a steel company. He and Anna were probably responsible for my mother Gun Kronzell’s international opera career. Anna and Knut took the family on vacations to Stockholm to go see operatic performances. That really launched Gun’s career and prompted a subsequent decision to study music in Stockholm and audition in Germany. Bengt-Åke became the bandleader of Resårbandet, a local big band, and his son Krister Kronzell, became a drummer. I even played the drums in that big band. These days, I am the lead vocalist of the J.R. Swing Connection in Germany. I remember sitting on the floor in my grandma’s flat on Bremergatan 11 in Kalmar, Sweden, sometime during my favorite summer of 1993. I’d completed two successful scholastic exams that year and performed a couple of concerts. In return for my efforts, lots of relatives invited us over for food and chit-chat. As many as 24 invitations came rolling in that summer. As you might gather, this made me a little bit chubbier and roly-poly than I am now in my slender and workaholic self. That night, though, was quiet. I was staying in my grandmother’s very elegant flat, sleeping under the artwork of baby Jesus among livingroom chandaliers and tapestries, the art on the walls kissing my soul, silver candleholders gleaming in the moonlight, a white-andgolden fireplace with a mirror and Egyptian figurines silently making love to the starlight. My mother Gun Kronzell hadn’t arrived over from Vienna, Austria yet. You see, we lived in Vienna at the time, where my mom was Professor of Singing at the Music Academy. My father Herbert Eyre Moulton was working in Amsterdam that year, I think, playing a role in the musical “Piaf” and performing in a TV-show together with Nina Simone. Anyway, I sat alone on my grandmother’s livingroom parquet floor, drinking something on the rocks (water, coke, whiskey, whatever it was), watching the lit lampposts throwing their light on the wall. My grandma was sleeping in her room and I (ever the nightowl) enjoyed a bit of contemplative philosophy, watching the ice melt in my glass, crying tears of joy while listening to the Julio Iglesias and Stevie Wonder duet “My Love”. It was right then and there that I had a what could be called a revelation. The diary that I wrote my thoughts into doesn’t exist anymore, but the thought that inspired it is eternal: “The real goldmine, the real treasure chest in anyone’s life, is not a monetary one. It’s spiritual. It’s inside the soulful fibre of your personal experience and the love you feel, the love you give, the love you get.” My passion for things spiritual, things that concern the soul and the beings of people (the essence of what exists beyond what we can see), started in my grandmother’s flat. So, I felt it was important to tell you this story before I told you about her life. She inspired me. So it was fitting that had that golden revelation in my grandma’s flat. Her soul was indeed a goldmine of treasures. After spending four hours on the road in our Volkswagen on any given Saturday morning, we stopped at the gas station in Hovmantorp and gave her a call. “Grandma, we’re on our way!” “Great, I’ll prepare dinner and set the table. I think I have a soft-drink and a bar of chocolate in the fridge for Charlie.” There were balloon tennis matches in the livingroom (Moultonian World Record: 829 throws) and card games in the kitchen. We went for summertime strolls around town. When we came back, I helped her bake some deliciously warm, freshly home made cinnamon rolls. On Sunday afternoons after church we’d invite someone over for coffee and talk about old times. My mom sang a song, my dad would would tell our relatives what was going on in our fascinatingly theatrical lives. There was laughter and joy, music and art, intellectual discussions, board games and welcome-home dinners. Those were good times back in Kalmar in Sweden, my grandma and I. They were summer days filled with fun. Anna was also a true friend. For 70 years, she kept contact with her schoolpals from her girlschool graduation class of 1918. They met every year in my Great-Uncle Carl Albien’s City Park Restaurant Byttan (he gave it the name “The Butter-Tub”, when he took over as its boss after the First World War, because of its similarity to the era’s popular breakfast accessory). The old girls, that used to be little maids from school, would sit there and chat about old times on every yearly anniversary of their graduation. I am sure that there were no huge differences between their behavior in 1988 and their behavior back in 1918. Okay, they were older, more dignified, more experienced, but they were still those giggling little girls that chatted about poetry and perfume and local personalities. The only difference was that they now had grey hair and were wearing pretty cotton gloves and dainty hats. I’ll tell you a little secret about grandmother Anna. She was a brave girl. When our old dog Wutzi, a poodle-dachshund-mix, bounced about her feet one day during her Austrian visit in our Mödling home, my grandmother fell and badly injured her head. Holy Mother of God, what did she do? She didn’t gulp down an Irish whiskey like my dear father did. She didn’t flutter to the window like my mother did, looking for the ambulance. No, she went to the mirror and powdered her nose. There’s more where that came from. One summer, 1988 I believe it was, her legs weakened terribly and she had one of her doctors come home and give her a cortisone injection that was supposed to strengthen them. Unfortunately, the injection had the opposite effect and within a year, my grandmother was in a wheelchair. Did that stop her from pushing forward? No way, not her. Her lifestyle remained dignified, her lavish birthday parties remained lavish, she still invited over friends for meat and potatoes. She still had loads of fun and she still remained the gracious landlady. She even had her good childhood friend Mrs. Lesseur serve the afternoon coffee, who, at the time almost 80 years old, even came to the party wearing an apron and a white shirt, looking like a top waitress in a fashionable hotel. One of the things I admired so much about her, later on I understood how much of her was to be admired, was that she never complained about the pain she felt in her legs. One of her legs was shorter than the other, so she walked with a slight limp. The truly amazing thing was that nobody ever thought of it at all. She had such class, such poise, such style, such joie-de-vivre, that her personality outshone anything that might’ve been to her disadvantage. How I enjoyed going with my grandmother to visit her friends. They were all so nice and, heck, I always got candy to take home with me and they all listened to what I had to say. Anna lived alone in her fashionable apartment for another six remaining years (her husband Knut had died back in 1973). Thanks to the fantastic Swedish social system, the state had a caretaker come home to Anna’s flat three times a day. The caretaker made her breakfast, cleaned her flat and helped her pay her bills. The journalist Palle Bobecker, a life-long friend of hers who was born in the same house as my mother, was granted the same social service and could enjoy a respectful old age because of it. One summer afternoon, we were off to the library, leaving grandma alone for a bit. She fell off her wheelchair by accident and remained seated in the hallway for almost two hours until we came back. Her caretaker at the time, a Danish woman named Karin, even called her to see if everything was okay. Anna told her nothing about her falling off the wheelchair. She chit-chatted with her on the phone about this and that, hung up and waited for our return. Anna knew that we were coming back, so why make a problem out of it? Courage, stamina and, yes, nobility of heart. That was Anna in a nutshell. She frequently used the local taxi-service for seniors, as well. They were wheelchairfriendly larger cars that took her across large regional areas to visit her relatives. Quite frequently, she used those cabs in order to hear us sing in concerts. The drivers even escorted her into the concert hall and told her when they would be back to get her. Those caretakers and cabdrivers all heard her tell them her endless anecdotes about her eventful life. They were the anecdotes to end all anecdotes: she was the first female driver in Kalmar 1923 and she made sure everyone knew that. Conclusion One person’s musical interests, her friendly ways and dignified appearance can mean a lot, not only for the children and grandchildren, but for the great-grandchildren, as well. When my daughter Mara Sophie Moulton pretends that her great-grandmother Anna’s driver’s license from 1923 is her own passport, then I know that Anna is alive somewhere in time and space. Maybe Anna hears us, reads this, smiles and thinks to herself: “Those were good times, weren’t they?” Back in 1918, no one really thought of networking, attention or fame. Today, like Andy Warhol foretold, everybody wants their fifteen minutes of fame, but we are chasing the wind, so preoccupied these days with that golden rainbow with the treasure at the end of it that we miss the train that takes us home to our hearts. Once we get to that rainbow’s end all we might find is a bowl of corn flakes. Let’s live in the present, but let’s fill it with the kind of spiritual light Anna possessed. The soul glitters. That’s the real goldmine, the real wealth. Anna had something we should all want: nobility of heart. How does humanity retrieve what it lost when the modern age caught up with us? We have to rediscover how it is to be aware of our lives, not only letting the life pass by in a daze. We have to be able to wait, realizing that patience really is a virtue, realizing that personal thought might be better than letting others do the thinking. My grandmother gave me a feeling that there always was enough time. She always took the time to read me a bedtime-story and sometimes we laughed until we cried even during those bedtime stories. Even our cocker spaniel Snuffy loved falling asleep on her feet in our flat in Gothenburg. After all, she was the only one that never moved around. After she picked me up from school – after our customary visit to the café for a bite to eat, that is – she sat down in our sofa “Clothilde” and knitted and that is where she remained for the rest of the evening: in her own cosy corner. She could afford to remain seated. After all, she had around moved enough in her life, organized shiploads of clothing for the poor and given so much money to the blind that it actually helped her own self at her old age when her eyesight started failing her. The Kalmar Library had audiobooks even back in the 1980’s. She often called our flat in Vienna, Austria and enthusiastically informed us what Jane Eyre right now was doing in Bronté’s book or what the prehistory behind Mahler’s 2nd Symphony was and how incredible Chopin’s Etude Opus 10 sounded when Rubinstein played the piece. Laughter, joy, pride, love, intellect: all these things and more were Anna’s vibrant gifts to enjoy. I know that she hears me when I tell her in the presence of all you sweet readers: “Grandma, wherever you are: we love you! You were one of a kind!” Time waits for nobody. What we call our own has turned into an absolute necessity. We can regain something that we lost, though. Something that disappeared once we became too facebook, too cool and too casual. It could be found inside my grandmother’s heart, inside her adamant joviality and witty poise. We need a little nobility of heart. We need to be acutely aware of the echoes of time as it passes by our vision every given day and understand that the people of yesteryear were no different than we are. We need to understand that there is more to time than meets the eye. It’s the ultimate illusion. The people of the the world that disintergrated when the First World War started were just way more aware of the excitement of the prospects of creating a new world. Have we become too cool to understand that we can change the world just by following our dreams and finding inside us what Anna had all along? Namely: integrity. And, yes, Anna had the time. She took the time to think, to feel, to love, to hope, to become wise, to laugh, to cry, to hug, to kiss and to dream. Anna’s old world was another time in history, but the virtues are eternal. So, in actual fact, we, too, can become as eternally wise as she now is in heaven. References Literary References Lundh, Kiki. 1997. Jag ger dig mitt liv. Borgholm, Sweden. Bildningsförlaget. Hofrén, Manne, 1961. Historieglimtar från Kalmar Slott. Tidningen Barometern. Nordstrom, Byron J. 2002. The History of Sweden. Greenwood Press. Kent, Neil. 2008. A Concise History of Sweden. Cambridge University Press. Grimberg, Carl, 2008. A History of Sweden. Dodo Press. Larsson, Olle. 2008. Sveriges Historia. Historiska Media. Websites Charles E.J. Moulton, 2011. ”As A Matter of Fact, I Do!” Vocal Images. http://vocalimages.com/?page_id=774 (http://vocalimages.com/?page_id=774) Charles E.J. Moulton. 2011. “Gun Kronzell” Vocal Images. http://vocalimages.com/?page_id=746 (http://vocalimages.com/?page_id=746) Anna Julia Sofia Kronzell https://www.facebook.com/AnnaJuliaSofiaKronzell (https://www.facebook.com/AnnaJuliaSofiaKronzell)

The Birth of Jesus 1 (http://biblehub.com/luke/2-1.htm)In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. 2 (http://biblehub.com/luke/2-2.htm)(This was the first census that took place whilea (http://biblehub.com/niv/luke/2.htm#footnotes) Quirinius was governor of Syria.) 3 (http://biblehub.com/luke/2-3.htm)And everyone went to their own town to register. 4 (http://biblehub.com/luke/2-4.htm)So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. 5 (http://biblehub.com/luke/2-5.htm)He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. 6 (http://biblehub.com/luke/2-6.htm)While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, 7 (http://biblehub.com/luke/2-7.htm)and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them. 8 (http://biblehub.com/luke/2-8.htm)And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. 9 (http://biblehub.com/luke/2-9.htm)An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. 10 (http://biblehub.com/luke/2-10.htm)But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. 11 (http://biblehub.com/luke/2-11.htm)Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. 12 (http://biblehub.com/luke/2-12.htm)This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.” 13 (http://biblehub.com/luke/2-13.htm)Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, 14 (http://biblehub.com/luke/2-14.htm)“Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.” 15 (http://biblehub.com/luke/2-15.htm)When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.” 16 (http://biblehub.com/luke/2-16.htm)So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. 17 (http://biblehub.com/luke/2-17.htm)When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, 18 (http://biblehub.com/luke/2-18.htm)and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. 19 (http://biblehub.com/luke/2-19.htm)But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. 20 (http://biblehub.com/luke/220.htm)The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told. 21 (http://biblehub.com/luke/2-21.htm)On the eighth day, when it was time to circumcise the child, he was named Jesus, the name the angel had given him before he was conceived. Jesus Presented in the Temple 22 (http://biblehub.com/luke/2-22.htm)When the time came for the purification rites required by the Law of Moses, Joseph and Mary took him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord 23 (http://biblehub.com/luke/2-23.htm)(as it is written in the Law of the Lord, “Every firstborn male is to be consecrated to the Lord”b (http://biblehub.com/niv/luke/2.htm#footnotes) ), 24 (http://biblehub.com/luke/2-24.htm)and to offer a sacrifice in keeping with what is said in the Law of the Lord: “a pair of doves or two young pigeons.”c (http://biblehub.com/niv/luke/2.htm#footnotes) 25 (http://biblehub.com/luke/2-25.htm)Now there was a man in Jerusalem called Simeon, who was righteous and devout. He was waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was on him. 26 (http://biblehub.com/luke/2-26.htm)It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not die before he had seen the Lord’s Messiah. 27 (http://biblehub.com/luke/2-27.htm)Moved by the Spirit, he went into the temple courts. When the parents brought in the child Jesus to do for him what the custom of the Law required, 28 (http://biblehub.com/luke/2-28.htm)Simeon took him in his arms and praised God, saying: 29 (http://biblehub.com/luke/2-29.htm)“Sovereign Lord, as you have promised, you may now dismissd (http://biblehub.com/niv/luke/2.htm#footnotes) your servant in peace. 30 (http://biblehub.com/luke/2-30.htm)For my eyes have seen your salvation, 31 (http://biblehub.com/luke/2-31.htm)which you have prepared in the sight of all nations: 32 (http://biblehub.com/luke/2-32.htm)a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of your people Israel.” 33 (http://biblehub.com/luke/2-33.htm)The child’s father and mother marveled at what was said about him. 34 (http://biblehub.com/luke/2-34.htm)Then Simeon blessed them and said to Mary, his mother: “This child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against, 35 (http://biblehub.com/luke/2-35.htm)so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed. And a sword will pierce your own soul too.” 36 (http://biblehub.com/luke/2-36.htm)There was also a prophet, Anna, the daughter of Penuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was very old; she had lived with her husband seven years after her marriage, 37 (http://biblehub.com/luke/2-37.htm)and then was a widow until she was eighty-four.e (http://biblehub.com/niv/luke/2.htm#footnotes) She never left the temple but worshiped night and day, fasting and praying. 38 (http://biblehub.com/luke/2-38.htm)Coming up to them at that very moment, she gave thanks to God and spoke about the child to all who were looking forward to the redemption of Jerusalem. 39 (http://biblehub.com/luke/2-39.htm)When Joseph and Mary had done everything required by the Law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee to their own town of Nazareth. 40 (http://biblehub.com/luke/2-40.htm)And the child grew and became strong; he was filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was on him. The Boy Jesus at the Temple 41 (http://biblehub.com/luke/2-41.htm)Every year Jesus’ parents went to Jerusalem for the Festival of the Passover. 42 (http://biblehub.com/luke/2-42.htm)When he was twelve years old, they went up to the festival, according to the custom. 43 (http://biblehub.com/luke/2-43.htm)After the festival was over, while his parents were returning home, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but they were unaware of it. 44 (http://biblehub.com/luke/2-44.htm)Thinking he was in their company, they traveled on for a day. Then they began looking for him among their relatives and friends. 45 (http://biblehub.com/luke/2-45.htm)When they did not find him, they went back to Jerusalem to look for him. 46 (http://biblehub.com/luke/2-46.htm)After three days they found him in the temple courts, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. 47 (http://biblehub.com/luke/247.htm)Everyone who heard him was amazed at his understanding and his answers. 48 (http://biblehub.com/luke/2-48.htm)When his parents saw him, they were astonished. His mother said to him, “Son, why have you treated us like this? Your father and I have been anxiously searching for you.” 49 (http://biblehub.com/luke/2-49.htm)“Why were you searching for me?” he asked. “Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?”f (http://biblehub.com/niv/luke/2.htm#footnotes) 50 (http://biblehub.com/luke/2-50.htm)But they did not understand what he was saying to them. 51 (http://biblehub.com/luke/2-51.htm)Then he went down to Nazareth with them and was obedient to them. But his mother treasured all these things in her heart. 52 (http://biblehub.com/luke/2-52.htm)And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man.

ECHOES OF A FAIRYTALE Kalmar Castle examined by Charles E.J. Moulton

Some places are blessed with the echoes of history. In that respect, the events that occured in the coastal town of Kalmar, Sweden had such a strong effect that, like a stone thrown on water, the rings expand indefinately. Maybe the spirits are still here making the reverberations grow. The renaissance palace overlooks Sweden’s most attractive bay. The water glitters as travellers bask in the summer sunshine, ordering Swedish Pripps beer going with the meatballs with cranberry sauce. Where tourists sit today, wars were fought, parties celebrated and a 12th century fortress was built in order to ward off enemies. I grew up here, my family taking me on summer walks by the moat. I fed the ducks, played king with my father, told ghost stories with my mother and visited “the magic tree”. Years later, I worked here as a tourguide. Where international visitors lazily enjoy the luxury of Swedish summer life, kings and revolutionary rebels alike tread both heathen and sacred rocks. Nowadays, the city may not have the Danish border 40 kilometres away. This border was pushed toward the bay on February 8th, 1645. But the Scandinavian collaboration was a lucky draw that finally bettered itself after many tries. The kings no longer fight with the population, like they did when the rebel Nils Dacke almost toppled the realm in 1542. Nowadays, the royal family don’t go into battle. They go shopping on the island of Öland, hear their pop-star friends perform in the re-established rock-ruin of Borgholm or meet dignitaries. Back in the 12th century, Kalmar had a population of 10 000. It was a city of growing importance, largely due to trade. Germans, largely representatives from Mecklenburg and Lübeck, travelled back and forth between the countries and exchanged products, brought in books, tutored catholic priests and provided the aristocracy with German beer. The Kalmar beer was redeemed “impossible to drink”. That, too, has changed. It was the increasingly important Hanseatic trade that created the necessity to avert a hazardous cross-cultural climate that brought on international connections. Not only was there a Scandinavian border to protect. Pirates raided the coast, making official life in Kalmar one full of peril. King Knut Eriksson erected the first defense tower in order to ward off enemies. Papal delegate Cardinal Guido held a conference, defining the borders of church and state. This prompted a restructuring of Kalmar Castle in 1275. As a war with Denmark raged in 1276, King Magnus Ladulås married Hedvig von Holstein in order to strengthen German relations. In the wake of the ordinance of Alsnö in September of 1280, the king gave inner political peace a supporting pillar. Kalmar, the southern most outpost in Sweden, became the key to the kingdom. In order to conquer Kalmar Castle one had to penetrate the city walls. To use modern terminology, Kalmar was becoming a star. Sandstone and limestone was carried by the tons in boats from Öland. Defense-towers, senatorial buildings and storage quarters were built. By the turn of the century it became a royal palace with a wall and a moat. This meant a lot for intercontinental trade. For a while, it seemed that the Swedes and the Danes could set aside their differences. Albrecht of Mecklenburg was crowned Swedish king on Febuary 18, 1364. Several rebellions failed, until Norway’s King Hakon and Denmark’s Queen Margareta became successful in evicting the ruler. And so, the Kalmar Union was founded as a result. Signed on June 17th 1397 at Kalmar Castle, it hosted all political agenda. However, the dramatic collapse of the union marks the explosive beginning of the castle’s glorious career. With the meddling of German trade councillors, Sweden’s lack of leadership lead Christian II to invade and take over Sweden, forcing a young blue blooded officer named Gustav Vasa to run flee Sweden in 1518. He came as far as Lübeck, a Swedish ally, where he stayed until the coast was clear. His arrival in Kalmar on May 31st, 1520 marks the official beginning of the Vasa-era. It was obvious to him that the new government, that had chased him away, was the evil result of a desastrous union. Travelling all the way up to mid Sweden left him pleading for the farmers of Dalarna to help him. It was on his way away from them that he heard about the tragic events of the Stockholm Bloodbath. The Danish king had executed 82 people during the course of three days. He was now the only possible heir and therefore a walking target. As so often is the case, this event started a chain reaction that lead Sweden to help Gustav Vasa ascend to the throne. During Gustav Vasa’s 39 year reign, the king supervised the renovation of his network of sixteen Vasa-Castles and spent many months here each year. Kalmar Castle became the kingdom’s key and Vasa’s most beloved residence. During his years here, Gustav demonstrated more organization than culture, more fashion than looks and more temper than health. His iron fist was so harsh, however, that his family kept on ruling Sweden for a full 131 years. This harshness left its trademark on his reputation. He builtH Kalmar Castle staircases out of churchyard gravestones, ate the tax-deemed citizen-donated natural goods and paid his allies in melted Catholic treasures. Not to mention how much he ate and drank. During his third honeymoon, spent here at Kalmar Castle, this becomes more than evident. The event was a three month bash that had 1500 guests drink 228 000 litres of beer and eat pork, peacock, swan, beef, elk, fish and eel by the tons. The public eating habit, where chosen citizens could watch the royals eat, was carried out even here. The royals threw left-overs at the populace, who in return could witness these royals devour their average of 28 courses a day by gastronomical recycling. Buckets were held ready in side rooms in order to receive the superfluous content of royal stomachs. Served to the animals, these were in turn served hours later on the oak tables. We call that recycling. Nevertheless, the Kalmar Castle that we see today is his creation. He built the foundation on medival grounds, but the glory belongs to Vasa. His children may have decorated its rooms, built chapels and added windows. Vasa was the founding father. The most artistic of the children was Erik XIV, who spent much time here. Erik sculpted and painted the castle’s resident jewel. His king’s chamber is a little gem, full of musical frescoes and anecdotes. Accordingly, the castle became a temple of culture during his reign. Unfortunately, his insanity lead to a coup-de-tat and supposed murder with his own brother Johan as a culprit. Under Johan III’s govern, the castle become a fortress of renovation. Sigismund, Vasa’s grandson, built a catholic chapel on the protestant castle wall and thereby brought his own uncle Charles against the current crown, a fact that ignited the Kalmar Bloodbath of 1599. Family quarrels never came easy in the Vasa dynasty. The fire that raged here in 1647 was a witness to the echoes of an era. When the glorious superpower, created by the 30 years war, dwindled down with Charles XI, this king was also the last one to live here. Defended 22 times by 287 cannons, it had thrived. The subsequent stagnation that followed had the castle threatened by destruction after its’ hard time as an alcoholic distillery. 19th century romanticism saved it. Poets and historians insisted on its renovation. Fans today arrive in droves in order to experience what they have missed in so many other baroque fortresses: the true fairytale. When my six year old daughter sat on the throne in the golden Kalmar hall with its 96 kilogramm ceiling knob, I saw that fairytale come true. She felt like a princess. No wonder. She was living the fantasy. When tourists gaze across the Kalmar bay onto the Swedish sunset, they too are reminded of the gloriously painful times that the palace endured. They are ushered through fantasy-like ballrooms and one or two must realize that the echoes of a fairytale are becoming a reality during the castle’s second renaissance. The many ghosts here, the white lady in the tower, the monk in the chapel and King Johan’s widow, are here to witness this glory, as well. But that is a completely different story.

Saint Nicholas (Greek : , Hagios Nikólaos, Latin : Sanctus Nicolaus); (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_language)

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_language)

(15 March 270 – 6 December 343), also called Nikolaos of Myra, was a historic 4th-century Christian saint (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint) and Greek (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greeks) Bishop of Myra (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myra), in Asia Minor (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asia_Minor) (modernday Demre (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demre), Turkey). Because of the many miracles (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle) attributed to his intercession (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intercession), he is also known as Nikolaos the Wonderworker ( µ , Nikolaos ho Thaumaturgos). He had a reputation for secret giftgiving, such as putting coins in the shoes of those who left them out for him, a practice celebrate d on his feast day St Nicholas Day (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Nicholas_Day) (6 December, Gregorian calendar (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregorian_calendar), in Western Christianity (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Christianity) and 19 December, Julian calendar (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_calendar), in Eastern Christianity (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Christianity)); and thus became the model for Santa Claus (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Claus), whose modern name comes from the Dutch Sinterklaas (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinterklaas), itself from a series of elisions (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elision) and corruptions of the transliteration (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transliteration) of "Saint Nikolaos". His reputation evolved among the faithful, as was common for early Christian saints. In 1087, part of the relics (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relic) (about half of the bones) were furtively translated (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Translation_(relics)) to Bari (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bari), in Apulia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apulia), Italy; for this reason, he is also known as Nikolaos of Bari. The remaining bones were taken to Venice (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venice) in 1100. The historical Saint Nicholas is commemorated and revered among Anglican (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglican), Catholic (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic), Lutheran (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lutheran), and Orthodox (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Orthodoxy) Christians. In addition, some Baptist (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baptist),Methodist (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methodist), Presbyterian (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presbyterian), and Reformed (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reformed) churches have been named in honor of Saint Nicholas. Saint Nicholas is the patron saint (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patron_saint) of sailors, merchants, archers (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archery), repentant thieves, children, brewers, pawnbrokers (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pawnbroker) and students in various cities and countries around Europe.

His Soulmate, the Cello John Ehde’s Extraordinary Musical Career By Charles E.J. Moulton

I distinctly remember the first time I performed with John Ehde. It was a day close to Christmas sometime in the mid to late 1980’s. I was a teenager already studying at the Vienna Musical Academy, taking every chance I got to have more experienced colleagues inspire me. My mother, the prominent operatic mezzosoprano Gun Kronzell (1930 – 2011) had taken leave from her steady position as a Professor of Voice and Interpretation at the Vienna Music Academy to direct, produce and perform in a show we called “Cabaret Kunterbunt,” which in English roughly could be translated as “Cabaret of Rainbows.” It was very much a funloving event for children, a presentation of fun, songs, stories and games at the Swedish Christmas Market. The Albert Schweizer Haus in Vienna’s 9th district, close to Freud’s old office, was filled to the brim with shoppers and merry carolers. Every second hour, we appeared as the comic team par excellance delivering a wacky routine of sketches to droves of laughing kiddies. John, my mother Gun, my experienced Renaissance Man of a father Herbert Eyre Moulton (1927 – 2005) and myself, we were all made of the same stuff. As consummate and free-thinking artists, our aim was creativity and what we got out of it was always inspiring, fun-loving, passionate, deep-thinking and cultural. Most of all, it was free in spirit. It didn’t matter if we were singing carols at a market or performing for the elite at the opera or for an ambassador at an embassy. Music was music. That was that. John Ehde was already then an up-and-coming solo-cellist, studying at the Vienna Music Academy. Professor Wolfgang Herzer was his teacher and one of the solo cellists of the Vienna Philharmonic. He gave John every chance he could to work as a guest in the Vienna Philharmonic. Furthermore, John took every chance he got to perform in concerts. In fact, John worked all the time. That night, he was going to be playing the cello part in the orchestra of the Vienna State Opera for Puccini’s “Turandot” with the magastar Eva Marton singing the title role. It was also in the orchestra pit during one of these performances that John played his cello part in the score so enthusiastically that he knocked down the music stand of the colleague sitting next to him. John himself, however, says that he learned a great deal from the symbiosis and the constant collaboration within that orchestra. The important role of the concert master, even at times overshining the power younger conductors had over them, provided John with interesting anecdotes, inspiration and information for his later work. It says everything about John’s attitude toward music and performing in general that John took the time to join our wild group of Christmas carolers during that day back in the 1980s, although playing in what he described to be the Men’s Club of the Vienna Philharmonic of Yesteryear. At that Swedish Christmas Market, though, John and I told the story of Little Red Riding Hood as a part of our “Cabaret of Rainbows,” using only our voices and instruments as tools. I played the guitar, portraying Red Riding Hood. John used his cello to play the role of the wolf. My mother sang a beautiful aria and my father sang an Irish folktune. Looking back now at the incredible names that John worked with over the years, and continues to work with, his happygo-lucky love of experiments shines a beaming light upon his extraordinary career. At one concert of ours a few years later, John told a story about a gang of rockers cruising the highway, a tale complete with audial reproductions of heavy metal music, a roadside accident and an arriving ambulance. John used only his cello to tell the story. Magic in John’s mind is a holy thing. Every note he plays tells a story. His cello also makes the grown-ups smile and the children laugh. How perfect, then, that John has been producing, directing and performing his own musical children’s concerts, combining magic tricks with the playing of classical music. After all, John, like me, is a child who just happened to grow up. Music keeps the soul young. At the Swedish Ambassador’s residence, to which we were invited repeatedly back toward the end of the 20th century, we held a concert soirée once that will remain in my memory forever. Mats Knutsson, now working in the Vienna State Opera, started playing the initial bars of De Falla’s “Ritual Fire Dance”, only to be joined by John Ehde running in from the wings after a customary four bars, his cello in hand, his blond hair tousled, his cheeks red and a bright grin gracing his face. Happily, he erupted into the main cello theme of the piece as soon as he reached his on-stage-seat. That is John Ehde in a nutshell: a top-of-the-crop instrumentalist, a man who has worked with the likes of Jessye Norman and Claudio Abbado and still loves to rock it once in a while. Born in Stockholm in 1962 as the son of brilliant poets, musicians and academics Berit and Martin Ehde, he soon went on to study at the Royal Danish Academy of Music in Aarhus, taking his diploma in 1984 at age 22 before venturing out to study and work in Vienna. John’s musical anecdotes includes stories about one of the greatest of the conductors of the Vienna Philharmonic: Carlos Kleiber (1930 – 2004). He was reputed to be one of the few that aimed to control and direct the orchestra’s musical interpretation. Carlos, like so many artists, was a unique personality who carried his scores to rehearsal in a plastic bag. The orchestra, accordingly, didn’t make it easy for Kleiber. While the 2nd movement of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 4 was being rehearsed, Kleiber tried his best to explain the rhythm to the musicians. Finally, the concert master spat in loud Viennese dialect: “Also, wos woins jetzt, woins des laang oder kuaz?” (“Okay, how do you want that tone? Long or short?”) Needless to say, Kleiber didn’t return to Vienna after that. Such was the life in the Vienna Philharmonic, exciting and yet excitingly mysterious. With his amazing Austrian experiences as a professional career buffer, John was hired as first solo cellist in at the Helsingborg Symphony Orchestra, a congregation that my grandfather, a solo trumpeter for the Royal Swedish Army Orchestra named Adolf Kronzell, helped found. John’s professional experiences with the late, great Leonard Bernstein, adored by the otherwise somewhat snobbish Vienna Philharmonic, made John’s spirits soar. Under Bernstein’s supervision, these conservative men became little children eating from the palm of his hand. The doors were always open during his rehearsals and students were allowed to listen to the live music. On his 70th birthday, Leonard was given a philharmonic birthdayfanfare. Lennie, who was absolutely loved by the Austrians, exclaimed: “In G-Major, please! Two octaves!” Not only did the orchestra laugh at this spontaneous comment, they played exactly what they were told to play without a moment’s notice. Ergo: musical excellence in action. Often enough, Lennie would appear in cowboy-pants and sneakers to rehearsal, dancing himself through orchestral pieces, finally exclaiming a heartfelt: “Bravissimi!” The icon Herbert von Karajan (1908 – 1989) remains in John’s memory as one of his most moving experiences. During a recording of Verdi’s “The Masked Ball” at Vienna’s Musikverein in 1989, the maestro was old and tired and spoke in a very soft voice. Then, suddenly, Karajan burst out in a screaming forte that the wrong music score had been brought to the music stand. He screamed, shouted and banged his fists against the wooden stand. Placido Domingo, the headliner that evening, ran up to the famed conductor and put his arms around him, speaking in Italian, joking and calming him down. After that, Domingo sang his aria so splendidly that the orchestra cried. Karajan conducted in small movements, making the orchestra follow his every tempo-change. Afterwards, a colleague of John confessed: “That’s how we play under Herbert von Karajan!” Later that year, Karajan was dead. Under Carl Maria Giulini’s (1914 – 2005) baton, John Ehde felt safe and warm. The conductor’s sympathetic charisma, strong presence, radiant eyes and clear direction brought out the clear musical architecture of Bruckner’s 9th symphony. The pizzicati of the beginning Scherzo turned John’s cello and the cellis of his colleagues into resounding rockets of warmth. In John’s own words, the 3rd Adagio movement opened the warm doors of heaven and gave him musical ecstacy in what finished in Giulini’s amazing tremolo fortissimo. The two concerts and live-recording that came as a result gave John the ability to experience a man who was absolutely consumed by music, only returning to reality once the bleeps of the sound engineer came reverberating across the hall from the control room. A conductor John had the privilage to work under was Claudio Abbado (1933 – 2014), whose photographic memory inspired many people who had the luck working with him. The intense enthusiasm and self-evident clearness appeared first in the equally intense passages, filled with an astounding forte or a fantastic presto. In the slower and senstive passages it was hard to deciphre what he wanted from the orchestra or what he meant. The challenge in working with Abbado lay in the fact that he carried out run-throughs of entire movements without interruption or comments. The orchestra would rebel by continuing to play even after Abbado had stopped conducting. A colleague of John’s remarked that Abbado was a great conductor to have as a leader on a tour. He delivered the goods, most certainly. The Austrian-American conductor and famous musical director of the Boston Symphony Erich Leinsdorf (1912 – 1993) made an impression on John because of his original and personal conviction. This conviction shaped itself within an attitude of playing a piece not completely direction by direction according to the composer’s wishes, but how the emotion dictated it. In a particular piece, he would play a broader staccato than originally Beethoven’s intention, claiming that “this, too, is staccato.” “Not too short on those notes, gentlemen,” he would tell the orchestra musicians, “and remember: sing, sing, sing, sing!!!” Like Bernstein, Leinsdorf told his orchestra musicians to emulate the human voice, the greatest of all man’s instruments. Leinsdorf was a friendly man who knew what he wanted and was able to use small sardonic comments without hurting all too many feelings. One of John Ehde’s most unforgettable experiences was playing Beethoven’s Leonora Overture with Leinsdorf. The conductor had the orchestra stand up three times to meet the eardeafening ovations of the audience. Finally, one cello colleague turned to John and exclaimed: “They’re applauding you!” That reminded John of the advice that he had received to always play full out when working as a guest in an orchestra. Well, I have known John Ehde for 30 years and he has always played full out. Then again, I come from a family of artists who have always played and performed full out. Maybe that’s why I have always done the same. Maybe that’s why I like John so much. The list of conductors that John has worked with goes on: with Zubin Metha (born 1936) he performed Mahler’s Symphony No. 3 in 1999. Mariss Jansons (born 1943) conducted John in a concert performance of the Alp Symphony by Richard Strauss in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, an experience that included a personal tour of the Strauss home. James Levine (born 1943) asked the concert master what the tempo of the Mozart symphony was that they were about to record. With Václav Neumann (1920 - 1995) John performed as solo cellist in the concert hall of the Berlin Philhamonic, playing Dvorak’s 9th symphony. Sir Simon Rattle (born 1955) asked for a great deal of attention and concentration, but gave back a great deal of warmth and flexibility. I have saved the best for last. Knowing John Ehde and performing with him all through my career has provided me with a great deal of inspiration. Not only has he performed with the greatest of the classical elite. He has also performed with the popular music and jazz music elite of his home country Sweden, people like Robert Wells and Carl-Axel Dominique. His greatest gift, though, is his enthusiasm. He had that enthusiasm absolutely in common with my parents. Gun Kronzell spent 60 years on the operatic concert-hall stages, singing every imaginable mezzo role, working with people like Birgit Nilsson, Luciano Pavarotti and Nicolai Gedda. Herbert Eyre Moulton was the MCA Show Star of the 1950s, an OffBroadway playwright, a stage- and film-actor who had shared the screen with people like Alan Rickman and Clint Eastwood. And yet they were so much like John: lovers of music and culture and enthusiastic about anything that anything to do with creativity. Ergo: 100 % professionalism, 0 % arrogance. John Ehde came and saw me on stage when I played the Big Bopper in “Buddy – the Musical” in Hamburg. He certainly rocked the joint, watching me from his seat in the 2nd row that night. When he played the cello at my mother Gun Kronzell’s funeral back in 2011, he played it with the same amount of love and passion for music as had he been headlining Carnegie Hall with James Levine. My mother was there in spirit, singing along with us as we performed Cesar Franck’s “Panis Angelicus” to a touched and weeping crowd of soulmates. While acting and singing in the musical “Piaf” in Amsterdam back in 1988, my father Herbert Eyre Moulton got together with his good friend John between a rehearsal and TV-show. Herb was off to the filmset to record a TV-show, where he sang next to Nina Simone. John was about to perform as a headliner in one of his concerts, possibly appearing with Jessye Norman, probably getting standing ovations for it. The two ingenious men laughed and sang, smiled and joked, happy as ever, enthusiastic like always and knowing in their hearts that they, as artists, had won the lucky draw in the roulette wheel of life, enjoying the privilage to fill other hearts with joy, inspire souls to be creative themselves and excel in their professions like nobody ever had before. Just like John Ehde, they could be proud to be the best they could be and love the soul of music enough to create a better world. We are certainly looking forward to seeing what John Ehde does next. Whatever it is he is about to do, I know that it certainly will be an exciting eruption of creativity for everyone involved.

These are my grandfather Herbert Lewis Moulton’s letters, written on typewriter back when he was stationed as a soldier in the U.S. and in France, back in was called the Great War. He was a young man in 1917, training and living at Camp Stanley, Camp Sherman, Custer and in other army camps. Toward the end of what we now know as the First World War (from 1917 to 1919), Big Herb (as my father Herbert Eyre Moulton – who lived from 1927 to 2005 - called him) was transferred to France, fighting for the United States and working as a wireless operator in places like HoudelainCourt, St. Nicholas-du-Port and Rue-de-vru near Chateau Thierry. These letters from 1918 are priceless historical documents, and sharing them with the world has become a mission. Read these letters with reverance. They describe a time most of us only know from the history books. My grandfather describes his feelings, his doubts, his worries, but also tells us what he loves and how he sees his life in retrospect, at his present and in the years to come. He worries that he will not return. In spite of his young years at the time of writing, these letters paint the portrait of a thinker. He was a man going to fight one of the most horrible wars that world had ever seen, in a time when, in quote, “kingdoms are shattered in a day and the world changes every night.” These touching evidences of true soul is the testament of a peaceful soldier. August 16, 1908 (Herbert Lewis Moulton was 17, 9 years before he became a soldier in World War I) Dear Mother and Father, I just received Harper’s ticket that he received with him. Between Thurs. night and Sat morning about 450 women arrived. Sat. noon we fed over 600 people, that over 200 people’s dishes apiece, for there are only 3 dish wipers. It takes over 2 hours after each meal to clear things up. I am about sick of the job. apiece, for there are only 3 dish wipers. It takes over 2 hours after each meal to clear things up. I am about sick of the job. Yesterday morning we folded about 13,000 paper napkins in a couple hours. I have to stand over near the zinc and clocks and sweat (and work) and when I am through my clothes are so wet I have (been) turning them out. I am going to the head waiter and tell him that I want to be a waiter and give my reasons if he will not let me. I will be home tomorrow evening for I am about sick. They are short of men so I think my request will be granted. Tell Harp that I wasn’t the “Bucaneer” Friday after noon and we beat the hosters by about a mile. Instead of a center board the “Bue” has two nich boards and every course I had the job of pulling over up and letting the others down. When I got up my hands had all blisters and my little finger got caught in a pully, cutting it almost to the bone which interfered with my work a little, but it is almost well now. Last night, I went out across the lake to Henwood Springs Hotel to dance with a couple of people and met quite a few nice people. We rode across in a launch and walked in about 1 hour a distance of about 3 miles and (I) was pretty tired when I got in bed about 12:30. Two or three nights I visited with Mr. Hughes and once went down to Oakbank about ¼ mile, where a couple of Lervis boys are staying. I have played tennis quite a bit. Lately and not very much: golf, because I don’t like to hunt balls with talls weeds and timber. I swim twice a day regular rain or shine. I have met a quite a few young people around camp and am not lonely. Tell Harp that Colvin’s ear is not any better, he has been staying out of the (master?) since last Wednesday on account of it. This evening, Colvin and I are going to Williams Bay to get my suitcase that you are supposed to have sent. I’ll drop a postal if I get it all right. If I were at home I would have --- (Illegible) --- You will have to send me some cash because I am going to have my under none (?) and collars, shirts, socks, etc. The shirts go to Williams Bay and my under none to an old --- woman near by. Ask Walt if he will let me take his high shoes for it has rained quite a bit and its liable to rain some more. It rained all Saturday morning. Friday night and last night. Papa can take the shoes to Mr. Hughes for he is in Chicago between Tuesday and Friday and he will bring them to me Friday night. Between this conference and the next we have 3 or 4 days grace. 24 to 28 and I think you might arrange to come up then. Mrs. Hughes will --- together this week about it. (Written up on top of the page:) Folks, write to me once in a while. Well, I must elope. Your son, love to all, Herbert I was in an awful hurry, so excuse the whim. Dear Folks: It is 8 o’clock and I am sitting in my tent writing without a light. You can still read here at 9 o’clock and after, and you can see to move around all night – it never gets really dark. The nights are so wonderful and clear and the stars so bright that they set me to raving every night and it makes me hate to go to bed – if it were not for that tired feeling we never would go. Just think I have just passed the 26th milestone in the path of my life with the passing of this day. One year ago to-day I would never dressd that such great changes would take place in all of our lives. Each and everyone of us in a different sphere and so widely scattered with Walt married, Minnie in California with the kiddies. Art in Mexico, Bob and Edith and little Ruth in Colorado with you two dear ones before going to Penn. Wes at Ft. Sheridan preparing for, we know not what, Harp probably leaving Chicago now with the same prospects in view, myself on the sunset Alkili plains of Montana dodging the cactus rattle snake and alkili water, endeavoring to make the desert, help feed the mouths of the hungry multitudes and passing through my bath of fire in the process and father and mother dear in Colorado slowly and surely, I hope, regaining enough physical strength to carry themselves through these momentous times when kingdoms are shattered in a day and the world changes every night. Though separated by circumstances I feel that we are all drawn closer together in spiritual communion, each through one’s love for another, offering encouragement and giving strength to carry us through the tests through which we are going and the even greater tests yet to come. How we have all enjoyed (Larkins?) “Take me back to babyland and please don’t let me go”! It certainly makes one desirious of going back to the days when all that the morrow could bring was a broken toy or two and when you only saw the rainbows. Have you read the articles in the American Magazine lately by various writers, such as “Looking ahead at Thirty-six” and “Looking ahead at Thirty-five”? That is the way my thoughts have been running to-day – back over the years and ahead and speculating. Looking back, I can say that my life has been more than full and that I have really seen a great deal of life in many of its phases. My interests and activities have been many and varied, and though only 26 I have met few men who are as interested and as active in as many lines as I have been. Here I meet a person who is interested in one thing that I am and then I meet another, but there their interests cease. Most of them seem complacent and content with their particular interest and hobby, while it seems that the more that I do and see the greater grows my desires. Though my shortcomings are many and my virtues small, though I have done those things that I should not have done and left undone, those that I should have done, and no one in the world realizes my shortcomings more than I do, still I feel in passing my twenty-six years in review on the pages of time that there is a balance on the credit side. I am willing to accept them as my share of this world’s pleasures and take whatever the future may have in store. Ah, the future! Looking ahead I find it impossible to speculate or plan; the past fatal year that has changed so much makes me realize what a short sojourn life on this place really is and that one must ever be on the alert to grasp the oppurtunities to serve that present themselves while one yet may. I am overwhelmed with the desire to make this a better world to live in before I go and shall leave no stone unturned in my little daily duties to bring that desire to a realization. That is the star my wagon is hitched to as I pass on to my 27th year and I know that I have the love and the best wishes of all my dear ones to cheer and strengthen me in my journey. My hands are so stiff and my eyes so heavy that I must go to rest. I shall write very soon of recent events and our progress and experiences – it is a long tale. Goodnight. Your boy, Herb Tuesday Noon. Dear Folks: I am in Custer to-day, drove in to get a packer and roller which weighs 1500 lbs., it is loaded in the car now and I am doing some shopping. I got your birthday letter this morning and the record also. Thank you very much. I know we shall enjoy it. I received a letter from Wes this morning. It is certainly hard luck about his ankle. I got a letter from Walt from Atlantic City thanking me for my letter that I wrote him from Bozeman, you see, Mother, that I had written him only 48 hours before I wrote that circular letter I shall write another one as soon as I can. I am well hardened now and enjoying life very much. With love Herb Camp Sherman, March 30th, 1918, Saturday Afternoon My dear Mother, Do not worry about our going into action without thorough preparation, because we are not. Because first of all we will be shipped to some camp on the seaboard where we will be held for weeks and probably months, and after reaching the other side we will have several more months of training. This unit consists of mostly enlisted men, all of whom with a few exceptions were in some phase of telegraph or telephone work in civilian life. And as for us boys from Chicago, we can all hold our own, and in about one month’s training will be expert operators. From all appearances, I think that we will surely move this week. Each man’s equiptment has been checked over about five times and by tonight every man’s personal equiptment will be complete down to extra shoelaces, extra legging laces, etc. All kinds of equiptment for the company has been coming in a regular stream; it is interesting to watch. Yesterday, thirty-one men were transferred out of this company to other branches of the service and thirty-six men arrived from Camp Dodge, Iowa. All of whom are line men or operators. We got our second paratyphoid shot in the back this afternoon – another one within ten days and we are through with them. The first one caused me only slight discomfort – here’s hoping the same for this one. Several of us took a walk to the community house last night. The inside of it reminded me of the inside of the Grand Canyon Hotel in Yellowstone, it was large and spacious looking. They have dancing there every night for the soldiers and their friends. There is everything that one could ask for in the terms of entertainment right in camp. Several theaters, one with a stock company, a large Y.M.C.A. auditorium, about two other Y.M.C.A. buildings with some form of entertainment going on every night; and canteens and camp exchanges on every hand. I sure have been getting more than my share of packages this week. Easter eggs, cookies and chocolate. They sure hit the spot. Please do not send me anything that I will have to take with me, because we are being supplied with everything and I will have to ship home my suitcase with loads of stuff in it that I won’t be able to lug around. Tell Father that if he wants to me I oz. can of paprika when he thinks of it, or in the next box or package coming my way, it will be appreciated highly. This past week is the first time that I have felt the least bit contented for a long time. I feel that I am going to be able to take a very active part in helping end this whole war business. Whatever discomforts and hardships and individual subservancy that I will have to undergo will only strengthen me. They resolve to help destroy everything military, so that the next generation will not have to undergo them. Democracy and militarism are the absolute antithesis of each other. The more that one sees of things military, the more one realizes the truth of that statement. Several thousand new draft men arrived last night and today and men are moving out every day. So it comes and goes. My thoughts and heart will be with you, dear ones. I hope the day will bring peace to you. So, I am uncle again. You will have to put an addition on to the old house to house all of the family for the reunion when we all come back when its over, over there. Loads of love, Your boy, Herb

A Misuse of Power By Charles E.J. Moulton If you were a terrorist and wanted to take over the world, would you reveal your plan to everyone? Probably not. Tell someone: “I’m gonna take over you!” and see how they react. Yes, right. You’re laughing. Good. Ultimately, if you wanted to kill someone, would you tell him: “Hey, I am going to kill you in 2016! Watch out!” No, of course not. That would be silly, wouldn’t it? At first, I was horrified. Petrifying scenarios of total slavery or even brutal death came to mind. Worse, even. When I read the words “ISIS plans a total confrontation in 2016 and a total Islamic World in 2020”, I repeated a thousand conspiracy theories that I had heard within my brain. William Cooper’s horrifying book “Behold A Pale Horse” came to mind. It is a book where the ex-CIA agent tells us that eventually an external cause will be introduced that will allow the New World Order to take place. But the term New World Order, a terminology I, too, believed was part of a conspiracy myself at one time or other, was just something George Bush Senior said in a speech, not to start a dictatorship, but to be smart and popular and get votes. Heck, in my mind, I even saw those YouTube-documentaries about the one million coffins that FEMA had built for us. Either that, or the fact that the ISIS actually might be the secret superpower they claim to be. I criss-crossed my garden on foot, speaking to God, asking him if he really wanted the world to be destroyed. Furthermore, my family and myself, we had come so far. He wouldn’t want our destruction, would he? Something had to be done. I searched the web for information on the subject. The destruction of the twin towers in NYC on 9/11 was supposedly the beginning of the twenty year plan to conquer the world, a plan that will culminate in a new Islamic World in 2020. I had to talk to someone. One name came to mind. The name of a friend, who sometimes had other opinions than me, but whose opinions were sound, logical and absolutely based on an admirably intellectual viewpoint. Moreover, he had expert knowledge and common sense. So I mailed him and finally called him on the phone, described the subject and received what I feel to be the best and most comforting advice I have ever received. This is a summary. I have made plenty of additions to his ideas. We are all shocked at the moment after hearing about the horrible attacks that have taken place across the globe, all attacks claimed to be executed by the famed ISIS. We have all heard how this group have terrorized people in the Middle East. Now we see these two developments (the personal terror of the Middle East bandits and the suicide bombers), we see the supposed twenty year plan to conquer the world and we assume that these things actually come from the same source. Of course, you say, why wouldn’t they? Because we might be talking about two or three different groups here. Or more. Or even a loose communion of angry bastards. The basic problem is that people are naturally gullible. They believe what they hear or see. They think the press is telling the truth. But the news is selected by news-agencies, not on an official basis, but on what makes a profit. It’s like the doctor I went to when I had an ear problem. I couldn’t hear. “You have an ear infection,” he spat. “Take these, three times a day!” Something in me snapped and clicked. I knew he was wrong, so I went to another and much better ear-doctor. It turned out to be ear-wax. After that, I realized I had to trust my own intuition. So, don’t take the word of the press for it. Don’t even take my word for it. Search, research and search again. Things are not always what they seem. The ISIS-militants in Syria and Iraq are strong, apparently 200,000 in number, but they are still a Middle East phenomenon. The explosive attacks elsewhere cannot be proven actually to be made by the ISIS, in spite of the acclaimed Paris witnessed ISIS criminal. Now, if you think I am wrong, I have to remind you that every single terrorist attack of the 20th century was immediately followed up by at least a half dozen terrorist groups that claimed responsibility for the attacks. Why? Well, if you are a terrorist, you do want to scare people. That is the point of being a terrorist. You want to make people afraid. Terrorists are glorified playground bullies. Accordingly, if you claim responsibility for the attack, you are immediately in the headlines and are supporting your cause. So, of course the terrorist will say he is the ISIS. His militia will cheer. He didn’t do it. Who cares? He is in the headlines. Whopee! Second point: the twenty year plan supposedly started with 9/11, an attack claimed to be executed by the Al-Qaeda. Now the ISIS claims the responsibility for the attacks in saying that it was part of their plan along. But the IRA did the same thing. There were hundreds of terror attacks that the IRA claimed responsibility for in Ireland, but many of them were proven to be fake claims. Now two arch enemies both claim responsibility for 9/11, one of them even saying that it was phase one in a step to enslave the world. That is quite fishy. Wasn’t 9/11 Bush’s fault all along? Or are we dealing with the Illuminati here? And what about the Arab revolutions? According to the by now quite famous “Twenty Year Plan to Take Over The World”, it was ISIS’ plan all along. But the whole revolution movement started with jobless graduate and fruit seller Mohamed Bouazizi burning himself up as a protest against provocative authorities. The whole thing was very coincidental. He was neither a believer nor a non-believer, neither right nor left, just a fruit vendor and a typical example of Tunisian youth. A young man who just wanted to buy a pick-up truck and live his quiet life alone, a man who gave poor families fruit and vegetables for free. He was neither associated with any secret militia, nor did he much care even for religion. His death was the one domino-piece that set the whole Arab ball rolling. If you seriously want to start a revolution, you don’t choose a guy like that, because he won’t get the job done. He didn’t care. He only burned himself up because he was frigging pissed off the cops didn’t respect him, man. He could’ve have been a so-called “sleeper”, but you can fake that just as easily (or not at all) as you could fake Barack Obama’s entire life biography with thousands of witnesses (and there are people who claim that Obama was Osama – check YouTube). Al-Qaeda and ISIS are opposing groups that fight and kill each other. So, you see the idea that 9/11 was claimed responsible by both groups as the start of the “Twenty Year Plan” is already on shaky ground. In my opinion, life is too random and has too many complicated factors for any militant and global superpower plan to ever work. It has never worked. Ever. Even in today’s global world, a scheme like that would mean that the ISIS would have to have a militant airforce and navy to succeed. And they don’t. It’s common sense. Every superpower in history has collapsed. Name one superpower that has not collapsed. There are conspiracies, certainly, heavy ones, but sometimes you have to say this: if you can’t keep a secret between just three people, how on Earth should it be possible to keep a secret from an entire world? Third: I am sure some people really mean it when they say that this “Twenty Year Plan” existed as early as 1996, but it is the first I have heard of it. It is pretty easy to map out this project in retrospect. There is another issue, as well. People love scary stories and conspiracies. I had a conversation with a man in 2012 who collected loads of information on how the world was going to end that year. He mapped out countless facts and even told me the date. I told him that he might be wrong and that it was impossible to say when or how. He was so angry at me, he was steaming. There have been cataclysmic apocalypse-scenarios for as long as there have been people. Why? Depressed people want to start over. If we believe in reincarnation, and I do, we might actually want to say: “Hey, let’s just blow up this rock and try again!” But we can’t. We have to save and rescue life. That is just as much a “must” as love is a necessity. Forth point: the claimed ISIS sources (a forth hand information) names cities in Europe that they will attack in 2016. If that’s true, they are super-duper-dumb to do so. If you’re gonna attack someone, you ain’t gonna tell him about it. They, they say, will even go to people’s houses and pull them out. I am reminding you that we are speaking of a militia that has guns and bombs, but no navy and air force. They, even if they do have 200,000 soldiers, want to attack a continent with hundreds of millions of people with bombs and guns, pulling people out of houses when an army of nations are pointing their nuclear weapons at them? Hmm. Okay. As a friend of mine sarcastically puts it: “Good to know that!” Okay, there are one and a half billion muslims, but most muslims are peaceful people. Even the ISIS will not create an army of a billion. What bothers me are the opposing stories: for every single point in the Twenty Year Plan, there are multiple groups being blamed or taking the blame for everything, which proves to me that there are multiple sources, even multiple groups doing the dirty deeds, not even one organized force. It’s way too confused to be one idea. The ISIS of Paris is not the same ISIS of Syria. And a third group might have posted the story about the “Twenty Year Plan”. We have seen that enemies both take blame for 9/11, but then people have gone to amazing extents to prove it was Bush all along. Now they say that the ISIS flew in the planes into WTC? Furthermore, the beginning of the Arab Spring Revolution was way too random to be a planned event. Just like the event in Prague, where one fell out the window and started the Thirty Years War. If we also remember that no plan like that ever worked, we might be approaching reality. The Crusaders wanted to take over the Holy Land and we all knew how that turned out. The Protestants and the Catholics fought to rule Europe during the aforenamed Thirty Years War. Did that last? Hitler fell, Stalin fell, Ghaddafi fell. Back in 1991, there were people absolutely sure that The Gulf War would be the start of World War III. There was no talking them out of it. They were even severely pissed off if I told them it wasn’t so. Please also remember that journalism is not what it used to be. One journalist gave up his job, because he could not stand having to write lies anymore. I have an African neighbor who tells me that his family back in Kamerun does not know what all the Ebola-scare is about. Down there, it is not half as bad as they tell us on television. What is bad, though, is what is happening at the same time. Somewhere else in the world, there is a delicate problem that someone does not want you to see. So look elsewhere. See what no one else sees. What’s behind the surface? Political work is chess of the ego. Accordingly, the political egotist does not want to rule the world. He just wants power, money and a helluva lot of self esteem. Remember that even during the French Revolution back in 1789, Robespierre and Danton were drinking wine at the same palaces that Louis XVI partied at just months before. Napoleon was back on the throne soon enough and then the Bourbons ruled France. Different names, same scenario. The militant guerilla troops that took over their banana republics soon discovered that sleeping on soft cushions and eating caviar was not as decadent as they had thought. And other rebels threw them off the thrones and discovered the same thing. Everyone wants to be happy, that’s not the problem. The problem is that they think they have to have what the other guy has to be happy. And that just ain’t so, bro. ISIS is a really huge problem. No question. But surf the net, write the word “Conspiracy” into your YouTube search engine and watch some movies. After an hour of that, you will be scared to your wits. Two hours later, you will be laughing. There is even a 9/11-UFOConspiracy-Theory out there. I am just telling you that to remind you that not everything is what it seems. Ever. It ain’t as bad, either. Take that as my daily gift of hope. Final point (and I started out saying this, but it’s worth saying again): if you were a terrorist and wanted to take over the world, would you reveal your plan to everyone? Probably not. Revealing the plan means revealing your secrets. There is only one reason why someone would reveal a secret. We are all human. Ask yourself why you would reveal a secret to the world? To be important, to get a feeling of power. Ultimately, if you want to kill someone, do you tell him: “Hey, I am going to kill you in 2016! Watch out!” No, of course not. That would be silly, wouldn’t it? If various opposing groups tell you they ALL did it, revealing all their secrets, revealing an old plan nobody has heard of before, it might be just a very loud noise that sounds like a time-bomb, but turns out to be a whoppie-cushion. Take ISIS seriously, but do your own research. Search the facts. Don’t take my words for it. I am just offering my opinion. I am just repeating that nobody has ever been able to take over the world yet. That only happens in Hollywood. I have to smile, thinking of Arnold Schwarzenegger as Mr. Freeze in “Batman and Robin”, telling everyone he will take over the world. Yes, Arnie. You already have. The good thing is, Arnie, that we have a lot of time off between your commands. You know the only thing that actually rules the world? I am not kidding. It’s love. Nothing else works. Nothing else ever will. Trust me on that. Oh, by the way, speaking of love, join me on May 1st, 2016, at 12 p.m. CET, for a global moment to try to be one world, wherever you are right then, stop and pray or feel for Mother Earth, for you, for me, for us, for eternity. I am calling it “World Pray Day 2016”. Regardless of religion of belief, think of the world right then. We might be able to conjure up some faith if all pray together. If we want to become happier, we have to make someone else happy. You hear that, you angry terrorists? Love is the only answer to any question.

The Spirituality of Sex Article by Charles E.J. Moulton

Watch out. You’re sitting in the hotseat. What we’re about to deal with here probably contradicts what you have learned or have been taught, but let’s face it: this is a new age. Sex is a sacred, procreative and divine act and it is not a sin. Celibacy really is redundant, even for Catholic priests. If they were allowed to marry, we could put an end to a lot of pain. A new age? Well, I mean that both in the sense of the religious movement in question as well as in the sense that this actually really is a new age. No, not a new world order. We are not talking about the Illuminati here. This is the evolution of humanity at work. We have to look reality straight in the eye, using our souls and not necessarily our brains. Our emotions lead the way and, in that sense, the truth really shall set us free. We might think that a discussion like that is outdated, but look at what we believe, what our society tells us. We think sex is dirty. We are taught that we can only be holy if we are chaste, but if that were true why are so many good people parents of so many children? If that were true, why are there hypocrite virgins or people who have no sex but commit crimes? The result is that young people battle between liking sex and finding God. God actually lives within their souls. There is a great tragedy in such an act, because they can have both sex and find God. In fact, they should have both. They are fertile souls put here in bodies upon the Earth to procreate and love each other. I have good news for you: God wants you to have fun during sex with someone you honestly love. That’s what it was meant to be: fun. When we make love to the partners we love, we should treat it as a sacred act between equal partners and an act of utmost tenderness, but we cheapen it and treat it as a sin. Disrespect, hatred, arrogance, theft, murder, bigotry, ignorance, injustice, those are sins. Forcing celibacy upon clerics has created wars and famine and hung, drawn and quartered thousands of innocent people. Do you know how many lives have been ruined because of that kind of behaviour? I am about to scratch the surface of a very old wall nourished by a very old muse. One that defends a tradition that we have accepted as true – but isn’t. The fact that nobody actually has checked the facts is a sign that people accept what is preached to them by anyone in power. People don’t want to make their own decisions for fear of making the wrong decisions. So, most people will let other people make the wrong decisions for them. That way, if something goes wrong they can blame him for the catastrophy. God exists, God is inside you, God is everything there is, God loves you. He gave you your emotions. Use them to improve the future of humanity. I stress that I, too, am a bible reader and a religious man. I am also, however, a soul, a husband, a believer and a man that loves sex. I know also what problems have been created through the anti-biblical and quite misunderstood and misinterpreted requirement for celibacy. Fidelity, certainly. Respect, of course. Gender equality, naturally. Celibacy, not really. Having lots of respectful, equal levelled, faithful sex is a part of who we are. You heard it, I said: “faithful.” Faithful is real. So, does the bible actually say that sex is a sin? No. I’ll give you some quotes here before we go to the facts: St. Paul, in the bible, in 1 Timothy 3: 1 – 13, assumes, to begin with, that many deacons and bishops will be married. In Timothy 3: 2, 12 and in Titus 1:6, he even states that a cleric must manage his family well and that his children must obey him with proper respect (1 Timothy 3:4, Titus 1:6). So, we see that the bible only loosely recommended celibacy and sometimes even recommended priestly marriage. The Catholic Church, however, has turned celibacy into a real problem that began only as a power-tool. If that is true, how come that celibacy has been given the stamp of being so diabolical an act? If it was never a clerical requirement stated in the bible to begin with, when did that begin? The initial requirements concerning the celibate life of priests appeared at the Councils of Elvira in 306 A.D. and Carthage in 390 A.D. That it was a discussed necessity prior to these meetings is not the issue. The real reason for the inclusion of celibacy in the clerical profession was to omit any nepotism. Anyone who has studied Renaissance history will know that Alexander VI, the Borgia-Pope, frequently passed professional torches of sorts to his children and was even reputed telling his son Cesare that he would see that he would become pope one day – by his father’s own hand. Celibacy was a way to avoid that. The hypocrite political agenda of Alexander VI shows us that clerics found ways to promote nepotism and overcome celibacy anyway. I am willing to bet Alexander VI would never have become so bigot a pope, if celibacy had been banned. Also, the patriarch-oriented and masculine bureaucracy of the church was simply a power-tool to keep the power where the power was stationed. Men were stationed on the battlefields. It didn’t take long for the regal leaders and the clerics to cooperate to keep their kind in power. The crusades were examples of this kind of cooperation. It was a bigot attempt to crush any other way of obeying God by forcing everyone to be as masculine and as westernized as them. Let’s be honest here: no woman would ever have gone on a religious crucade in order to kill muslims just to get back land, holy or not. Jesus knew that his kingdom was not of this world. Jesus chose a woman named Mary Magdalene to spread the message that he had been resurrected and he sure wouldn’t have killed anyone to make a point. So why should we do the same? Shame on the inquisitors, crusaders and the clerics for forgetting what Jesus taught to begin with. Jesus only told his followers to be faithful. Did Jesus ever kill anyone, avoid prostitutes, call sex a sin? No. He told us to be honest, faithful, kind, loving, sincere. Female priests would’ve used their brains and their vocabulary, not weapons. The male population knew that and they were afraid of it. Many clerics are still afraid of female sincerity. The male dominance factor within the priestly profession was and is only a power-tool. In a way, we all are and can be or could be priests of God. The presence of fear for female honesty included Paul, who in the Corinthians spoke of women required to be silent in church. It should be noted that I believe that if women would have been used as the main religious leaders of clerical tradition, not one drop of blood would have been shed. Women are creators to end all creators. We know that, don’t we, guys? If the body is the beautiful house of the soul, why can’t we enjoy that house? Tizian, Rubens, Caravaggio, Boucher and Michelangelo painted naked bodies. Their art is considered divine. So why should real nudity portrayed in a respectful way be any less? We can even go back to the very beginning of the Old Testament to find another real truth. Adam and Eve’s downfall was never that they were seduced to have sex by any old snake. It was never even once stated that sexual practice was a reason for any destruction. What is stated, however, was that Adam and Eve were ashamed of being naked. Accordingly, their own shame was their downfall. Are the animals ashamed of themselves for being naked? To them, there is no such thing as “naked”: they are what they are. It would be highly impractical for us to strip naked and wander about town with nothing but our birthday-suit on. But the fact remains: if we had the honesty animals possess, we would be better off. Look into the eyes of a faithful dog or a friendly horse and tell me that they have no souls. I heard a friend of mine say that animals have no eternal souls. That, fortunately, is a lie. They do, indeed, have souls. And are we not more or less worthy than they? If we look at the Renaissance alone, we have countless examples of sexual perversions inspired only by celibate supression. Clement VII and Alexander VI were two of the many popes that had illegitimate children. Nay, they had entire dynasties of offspring and mistresses, conducted orgies and perversions without end going on within the walls of the Vatican. Behaviour like that scared people away from the church. We would never have created atheists, though, if we had realized that God and the church only remotely played the same ballgame. When we see what Alexander VI did in God’s name and how the religous wars ravaged Europe, we witness the tragic logic of a missed oppurtunity that created today’s secularized world. Accordingly, also because of the abnormal celibate dictatorship, the church did more harm than good by being so concentrated on celibacy. The prude era of Victorian England was compulsive in its strictly gender-based society (not unlike some other countries today where educated women with degrees are expected to stay home and cook). The woman was a mere decoration and the man was the workhorse that came home to take her for walks and show her around. The dark dungeon-like catacomb of that infrastructure, however, was a capital that created 200 000 prostitutes and a killer nicknamed Jack the Ripper. Can you imagine a world that did not label sex as a sin creating such perversity? If sex and nudity would have been a natural thing people accepted and talked about the husband would certainly have gone home, respected and made love to his equal wife and not gone out and shagged someone else. That conflict between the natural feeling of lust and the abnormal requirement for celibacy persists to this day. How many witch hunts, inquisitions, trials, executions, acts of torture, illegitimate children, homosexual affairs and perverse acts of sexual conduct could have been avoided within the clerical community if this unnatural act of celibacy had been lifted? After all, man is a rebel and he wants to be free. Forbid him to do something and it becomes interesting. Sex is interesting to begin with. Give him the freedom to have it and he will act responsibly. If you still disagree with me, ask yourself why God would create something that we need to do in order to survive and then ask us not to do it? So, that being said, I wanted to say that I believe in the eternal soul and I believe in God. I also believe that God created sex. Of course he created it. If we didn’t like sex, we wouldn’t have a species to begin with at all. Liking sex is a part of who we are. That doesn’t mean we have to sleep around to begin with. In fact, we shouldn’t sleep around. Fidelity is a necessity, but supressing sex only makes matters worse. History should show us that. If it doesn’t, boy, are we in trouble. We are procreators. God is a creator and like he created us we, as individuals, are put here in this world to create something of our own. We create art, music, dance, literature, inventions, machines, new worlds, just to praise him/ her/ it/ the divine spirit – and yes: we create babies to praise him/ her/ it/ the divine spirit. If we didn’t like sex so much, we wouldn’t feel drawn to having it – just for the fun of it or for creating beautiful new babies that can keep praising him/ her/ it/ the divine spirit in any way we choose. We have to like it. In a lot of ways, sex actually saves us. As I said, that doesn’t mean we should go and have sex with everyone. In fact, being faithful is a sign of necessary respect for any partner. You sign a contract of sorts and you are expected to follow it. Sex, though, is not just a procreative thing. It is also a symbiosis of souls, a union of emotions, a wonderful moment between two people. It is not a power tool. Never ever. Again, I am a deep believer. I am first and foremost a soul living in a body. God lives inside me, outside me, within me, without me, before me, in front of me. Respect each other, love each other. Lust and sex in its most beautiful form is a triumph of emotions between two loving, consenting adults who just enjoy expressing a faithful sexual unison. It is time we stopped pretending it is not part of our lives or that God doesn’t want it. What he doesn’t want, though, is for us to cheapen it. Guys, there is a whole lot of cheap sex out there. We have to stop that. Enjoy each other and by all means: use your dignity. I am willing to bet that if the church had not brandmarked and devilproofed sexual lust with such adamancy we would not have such a clerical history of secret lust. This is an ongoing story that lasts to this day. Of course we must point out that most priests are deepthinking, trustworthy and actually celibate people. The fact remains, however, that celibacy was implemented to avoid nepotism and was based on a biblical misunderstanding. I firmly believe that even the atheists believe in God. In my mind’s eye, I see one thousand people raising their eyebrows now. We must remember, though, that God lives within us and that God is everywhere. We can reach God in many ways. Going to a church, a temple, a mosque or a synagogue are ways to find God, but by no means the only ways. How do I figure? Even the most adamant atheist has emotions. Maybe he falls in love, even though he will blame it on endorphines. He will wonder why he is angry at a friend who betrayed him once, even if he blames it on neurons. He will feel these emotions inside and deep down he knows that he believes in justice or equality or truth or faith or hope. He might even believe that good will can move mountains. All of these things are spiritual characteristics that have nothing to do with the human body. In that sense, even the atheist believes in God. If he didn’t, why does injustice upset him? If God did not exist, nothing like that would matter. We all relate to beings in a non-corporeal way. Friendship has nothing to do with the body. The key is emotion. You even hear agnostics say: “Funny that you should call me right now, I just thought about you!” or “What a coincidence! I was just speaking about you with a friend!” In my mind, there is no such thing as luck or coincidence. The atheist might say that he does not believe in God, but maybe he believes in love, hope, justice, friendship, hope and faith. These things, my dears, belong to the spirit and the spirit is God. Have you ever heard the expression: “God is love”? Exactly. And what is sex but an expression of love? Now for the biggie: God expects us to act responsibly. He has given us assignments. Everyone has a mission. It is our job to find out what that mission is. God has one address: he is inside your emotions, inside what you feel, inside your most tender love, your hopes and dreams and faith. If you find God while making love to your wife: well, hey, that’s great. Where two people meet and pray in his name, God is with them. That is true for prayer, so why shouldn’t it be true for faithful sex. Sex, after all, is a form of amorous prayer. As long as you don’t sneak out in the middle of the night and copulate with another woman, you are okay. In that case, you would actually be working against God. If you feel attracted towards another person besides your spouse, keep it platonic, write a poem about love and lust in general, paint a painting, write a song, do a dance. Be creative. There are a thousand other ways to get rid of your lust. Don’t do what some men have done, creating havoc: exploding out of their frustrated marriages, leaving their families for some younger bimbo, leaving an unemployed wife and two children who wonder what hit them. In more cases than we know, we can make it work. In fact, we should definately try. Having now held my sermon about fidelity, I will add that God gave us these feelings of sexual lust because it binds us together and explores who we are. If Catholic priests were allowed to marry, can you imagine how many young lives that would have saved? It would put many therapists out of work. Express your love. Enjoy your love, just be faithful about it. Make a decision that benefits everyone. If you let your soul be your guide, you can never go wrong. God is real. The seemingly endless universe, the intricate system born into every single individual, the telepathic reality of chance meetings, out of body experiences and correct recollections of proved past lives: those are all parts of a puzzle that we can use as evidence in actually proving God. God really has nothing to do with the church. Not really. You can find him there. Most certainly. I know you can, I grew up going to churches, temples, synagogues, mosques. After all, I found him there, too. Remember that my parents were singers who sang loads of church concerts a year. They were deep believers, deep thinking people who prayed with me at least once a day. But they didn’t care what church they went to or in what church they actually sang. My mom Gun Kronzell, besides being a successful opera-singer, spent half her career singing oratories in churches. Churches, to me, were free for all, because faith and belief was, as well. Churches were potential employers for singers who wanted to get jobs. My dad Herbert Eyre Moulton was a cantor in a synagogue during his army days in Georgia, for crying out loud, and he wasn’t even Jewish. He studied to become a priest for four years before returning to his regular profession as an actor, but that didn’t stop him from going to the evangelic or even the orthodox church afterwards. I, for my part, discovered that there was such a thing as church taxes at all when I had my first official theater gig. Paying someone money for believing in God? Excuse me? My divine belief is my personal issue. It is not of this world, guys. I will conclude my sermon of sorts here by mentioning the film “Basic Instinct”. The public reaction to the film back in 1992 showed me that we still have a long road to walk down before we can be as truthful, as respectful and as gentlemanly as we should be. People were more concerned back then that Sharon Stone showed the audience her vagina than the fact that she was a brutal murderer. Think about that for a second. What is worse? Sex or murder? It is my hope that we one day will live in a society with people that know that we are souls, living in bodies, that are allowed to enjoy embracing one another, loving each other a bit before we move on to the next world. Maybe we can then just stop the sexual excess of modern media and be just what were: faithful and emotional human beings that just love to love each other. After all, aren’t we all clerical advocates of our loving God?

Requiem of Hearts By Thaddeus Hutyra Tides of life can be as sweeping as the tides of oceans overflowing our enthralling Earth full of allure What there, however, once was is no longer gone with the wind the same way as the tides do Focus thus on your life to the outmost let especially your love flourish into symphonic flames. You know, my dear, you are all the musical notes of the magnificent library of music there is of all the musical scriptures and overtures quintessential and essential, effervescent all the tones out of symphonic instruments being played on the philharmonic stage. You know, my dear, when you are with me it feels to me to be in the midst of creative music you, the music, your sensual body and your heart your eyes shining like the most bright stars the music brought to life by your femininity the music of the Mozart, Beethoven and Chopin calibre. In your presence all the musical instruments have the wings of melodies attached The flames of music getting out of them are transforming on my very eyes into flames of love the flames that I not only see but also hear the visual flames of the symphonic performance of love between me and you, in transcendental way. We are the lovers united in ceaseless oneness nothing can ever split us both Our bodies are melting in one another and our hearts, even our souls I do believe I am a set of melodies to you as well so enthralling melodies that in your heart I am the one and only one, your man ! O play us your music, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart play us the beauty of your Requiem put us in the mood, let us use much foreplay May your Magic Flute and your Marriage of Figaro let us sail smoothly through our foreplay the ocean of fierce lovemaking, with a million of kisses. O play us your music, Ludwig van Beethoven play us your Appassionata and Moonlight Sonata so we can forward our love intercourse to the highest dimensions of our lovemaking Play us your Emperor Concerto and your symphonies you are being thanked for our orgasmic climax one that brought us all the way to the Universe and back home. O play us your music, Frédéric Chopin play us enchanting ballades, mazurkas, waltzes, bewitching nocturnes, polonaises, études, sonatas What we are through are the final stages of the music of all times, the music of love, of fulfillment Getting up from our bed we are dancing seduced by torrential flames of our hearts on the wings dancing till the very morning when we do realize we are the man and the woman, married out of pure love. © 2015 Thaddeus Hutyra

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. Abraham Lincoln November 19, 1863

COULD KING HAVE SAVED KENNEDY? A Review of Stephen King’s novel “11/22/63” By Charles E.J. Moulton Maybe it was just the picture of the scary cat gracing the book-cover that had me spellbound. Maybe it was the theme of the novel that made me borrow it from the school library. Whatever it was that drew me to it, Stephen King’s “Pet Sematary” transfixed me. I became an avid King-freak after “swallowing the story in one gulp”, as it were. According to my mother, my magnetic concentration on the storyline produced a “spooky atmosphere” in the train we were in and transfixed anyone who walked by. I was 15 years old at the time. Accordingly, novels like these inspired me to write stories like “Coffin Varnish” (published by Aphelion), “The Multitude” (published by SNM Magazine) and “The Pigeon Goddess of Room 3327” (published by The Screech Owl). Stephen King has, since those bygone days, proven that his literary skills exceed the merely horrific. Writing Fantasy certainly became a passion for him when he wrote his “Dark Tower”-series and in “The Green Mile” we saw his psychological character-analysis drilling a few inches deeper into human enigmas and scaring us as well as touching our hearts. His novel “11/22/63”, however, is by far the most versatile and unusual of all his pieces. What genre does the novel actually belong to? Is it a mystery? A historical piece? A crime novel? A book about time-travels? A political analysis? No. The novel is all that – and more. We all have our questions about what really happened the day Kennedy died. If we believe that the limo-driver William Greer actually did kill him or that CIAagents stood behind the grassy knoll firing the deadly shots, the final consensus belongs to us. We don’t know and probably never will know the real truth. That is reserved for a chosen few of illwilled conglomerates. Whether we experienced it first hand or not, most of us know someone who was alive when it happened. My mother Gun Kronzell was stage-rehearsing the leading part in Gluck’s “Orfeo ed Euridice” in Hannover, Germany. My father Herbert Eyre Moulton had just finished a long day as a leading actor at an Irish filmset when he heard the news, drinking his Guiness at the local pub and almost dropping the glass in the process. No one is left untouched. Kennedy’s murder affects us all, even those who were born at a later time feel the repercussions and the shockwaves of what happened on November 22nd, 1963, in Dallas, Texas. Stephen King tells us what happened that day from his own angle. He succeeds in creating a fictional documentary with a fantasy twist, a journey back into time that keeps the reader guessing at every moment. If the riddle, as such, is a recipe for success, King knows how to ask the right questions. Not only does he know how to produce excellent cliffhangers, he knows how to formulate the real answer when the time is right. Now to the story: Jake Epping is a young English teacher at Lisbon High School in Maine (Stephen King’s home and the place of action of most of his stories) in the year of 2011. One of his students is a campus janitor. At his old age, Harry Dunning goes back to school in order to achieve his high school diploma. Doing so, he writes an essay, where he explains how his father brutally murdered his entire family, leaving him the only survivor of the slaughter. Epping has no choice but to give the troubled man an A+ along with the finishing diploma. Fate steps in and lets Jake change Dunning’s past. Al Templeton, the owner of a local diner, tells Jake that a portal exists at a certain place in his pantry, a portal into another time. This special gateway to a certain moment in time is a typical Stephen King touch. It adds a threshold guardian, the yellow card man, archetypical in its ingenuity. The author takes the absolutely ordinary world, a backroom door in Small Town, America, and turns this smallest of microcosmic places into the focal turning-point of the entire universe. In King’s world, the ordinary is extraordinary. God bless him for that, storyteller of the macabre, inventor of dark secrets. Jake’s friend Al is dying and so his last request is that Jake return through the time portal, into September 9th, 1958 at 11:58 a.m. - and change history. And I mean really change history. “John Kennedy can live,” Al tells him. “Millions of lives can be saved.” Thirty-five year old Jake Epping, after going back there, eventually decides to live in the 50’s as real estate agent George Amberson, does more than just change history. He tragically reinvents it, although he hopes to improve the result. As the preventor of the murder of the Dunning family by killing the brutal killer Frank Dunning himself, he only realizes that the survivor Harry, in spite of his efforts, still ultimately died in the Vietnam war. And so, another reason to kill Oswald is introduced. If Kennedy survives, Epping seems to say, there would be no war to send Harry Dunning into. An almost Arthurian quest begins with the Holy Grail named “The Vietnam War” as a bloodridden cup-goal. Once Epping decides to stay in the past, he becomes a kind of a guardian angel and is repeatedly called in to serve as a knight of peace in the course of this very Templar-like conquest: King becomes a spiritual advocator. Epping, as Amberson, prevents an accidental shooting and a subsequent crippling of a local girl. But the pro’s and con’s of these acts are clearly visibile to the observer. Should we change the past? Al was sure that Oswald was guilty. But was he really and honestly guilty? King, as Epping, claims that an author should keep his readers guessing until the end and, damn it, we keep turning the pages so fast, hoping just to get the answer quick enough to stop the murder. Maybe we can prevent Kennedy from dying. Once Epping moves down south, he comes in contact with some shady characters. The more he researches where the truth really lies, the deeper into trouble he gets and it doesn’t get any easier for him as the tale unfolds. The story dramatically takes off from there, brilliantly producing variations on a theme like Liszt would improvise on a Beethoven melody. Films and books walk hand in hand. So, we wander into Science-Fiction to find a comparison. Time Magazine quoted the film BACK TO THE FUTURE II as being “a brilliant fugue that improvises on the theme of the first film”. “11/22/63”, one of the few books I know with an actual date as a title, does exactly this. Stephen King takes the actual events and the actual places and the actual people of actual history and reshapes them like clay figurines with an amazing symbolic historical outcome as a result. King ultimately plays God, answering the questions of what would have happened if we’d had the actual power to change the past. He becomes the guardian of time travel. Anyone who has ever seen an episode of the STAR TREK television extravaganzas THE NEXT GENERATION and VOYAGER will know the character known as “Q”. He, brilliantly played by John de Lancie, is a metaphore for the space-time continuum. In “11/22/63”, King is the ultimate “Q”, playing chess with the people of the story like a puppeteer would pull the strings to make a point. He twists and turns reality, juxtaposes what we take for given and turns the normal every-day trudge and asks us, very honestly this time: “Does life have to be this way? Could we actually change things the way the are or were or will become? Are we as normal and regular as we think? And was Kennedy’s murder a conspiracy or was Oswald really the killer? Or are we just paranoid enough to believe that it was the mafia? Where is the really real truth?” Asking these questions are commendable efforts in King’s part. Does King offer a response? You’ll have to read the book to find that out. Stephen King is, after all, the master of surprises. He has proven himself capable of transcending genres. Is “11/22/63” a paranormal story? A tale of human pain? A road-movie? A love story? A book, as any work of art, should be able to stand on its own two proverbial feet without slipping into any drawer. Maybe, it can even switch book cases or be in several genres at once. This one does. The flip side is King’s honesty, a two-faced Janus-Coin, if you will (Janus being the Roman God with two faces). King has never been afraid to call things by their real names. Four letter words do occur, to the dismay of a reader or two. Gore and blood are not exempt from any inclusion. This has a disadvantage: it can turn off a sensitive or prude reader and you wouldn’t even blame the reader for it. But buckling up and kicking through that in order to get to the other side offers the interested observer an award at the end of the tunnel: three-dimensional characters that tell an unbelieveable story in a believable way and two completely different eras compared to each other in an unexpected way. Modern man can here look up from his tablet PC, his Ipod or Smartphone with its million Apps, researching the search engines for complete accessability, realizing that there was a time when food tasted better, when roads were free and open, when doors were unlocked, when rock ‘n roll was young, when marriage meant more to the coupled individual, when innocence prevailed and when a smile was not merely a career move on a social platform. After all, 2011 was not 1958, thank God – or maybe we can’t thank God enough. Maybe we should welcome God back into our hearts where he belongs and where he was back in 1958 – before Kennedy was murdered. After all, Kennedy’s murder did something to our innocence just like 9/11 attacked our feeling of security. The world has changed. For the better? For the worse? Maybe both. As the film “The Neverending Story” tells us: the kingdom of fantasy was almost destroyed by ‘Nothingness’ just because people were not smart enough to dream or wish for what their hearts needed to need. So keep dreaming and keep wishing and keep feeling – something – anything at all. In the realm of fantasy, dreams are timeless. King works in the twilight zone, where reality meets the seemingly impossible, goals that are possible if the heart’s wishes meet spiritual conviction. Have we really evolved or are we worse off? The question is how King delivers the answer. I respond: with writing technique. Alliteration is used, just as other more base tools such as detailed descriptions of violence, in order to ruthlessly pseudo-poeticize emotional situations. Both passive and active sentences are used here: past, present and continuous tense are merely meticulous mechanics in the master’s magic machinery, pardon the pun. What, furthermore, can be mentioned is his love for italics and paranthesis. It should also be known to anyone who has opened one of his books that he sticks to a theme, deals with one topic, gives every character his own style of idiom, lets the story evolve through incidents in a cause-and-reaction sort of way, let’s every introduced person propel the story foreward and concentrates not on the action, but on the meaning of the said action. Thereby, King becomes both observer and actor at the same time, just like the characters in his stories. The age-old trick of introducing a newcomer, a narrating observer that is forced into action, serves all his novels well. Sentences such as: “He paid the bill, realizing the importance of the situation” prove this. Wonderful quotes such as “His food pushed the ejector seat” or “Straight as a poker” amuse not only readers, but reviewers as well. The most touching part of the book is the romantic storyline. Jake falls in love with a woman from his own past. Ultimately, he has to ask himself two questions: is telling her about the future safe for her as a person and could he choose to stay in the past and build a life with her only to witness his own birth? Pass the gore and the blood and wander into a great storyline. Stephen King will keeping you guessing, just like he was taught to in order to keep you buying more of his work. That leads us to the ultimate question: Could King have saved Kennedy? Will he, as Jake Epping, change history? Was Oswald the killer or was it a conspiracy? Maybe the book gives you the answer. Maybe it doesn’t. The flipping of the pages of your copy will maybe also produce that infamous spooky atmosphere in any given train. It might even turn you into an aspiring author. Who knows? After all, that is the ultimate question, to which there are an endless array of responses. Playing the guessing-game, after all, is a vital part of what it is to be human. King knows that – and he uses that knowledge well. REFERENCES: “11/22/63” by Stephen King – Gallery Books, 2012 “THE GREEN MILE” by Stephen King – Signet Books, 1996 “PET SEMATARY” – Doubleday, 1983 “THE DARK TOWER” by Stephen King – Grant Publishing, 1982 – 2012 “THE HAUNTED KINGDOM” by Charles E.J. Moulton, © 2005 “BACK TO THE FUTURE – PART II” – Universal Pictures, 1989 “STAR TREK – THE NEXT GENERATION” – Paramount Domestic Televion, 1987 – 1994 “STAR TREK – VOYAGER” – Paramount Network Television, 1995 – 2001 “THE NEVERENDING STORY” – Warner Brothers, 1984 “COFFIN VARNISH” by Charles E.J. Moulton, published by Aphelion “THE PIGEON GODDESS OF ROOM 3327” by Charles E.J. Moulton, published by The Screech Owl

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GUN KRONZELL – A Life on the Opera Stage Article by Charles E.J. Moulton My mother Gun Kronzell spent 60 years working as an opera- and concert-singer, working with the likes of Nicolai Gedda and Birgit Nilsson. She performed for the late Swedish king Gustaf VI Adolphus in 1970, played the Goddess of Justice in a play in Gothenburg for the late Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme and became good friends with Luciano Pavarotti. She was a stage director, a vocal coach, an author, a speech pedagogue, an opera mezzo, a musical singer and, in addition, a splendid lady to spend an evening with. Her jovial personality, often supported by bright colored dresses and lots of jewelry, the telling of incredibly theatrical stories about her various opera productions and the offerings of her excellent choice of personal Swedish cooking, turned every visit into a highlight. When we visited Vienna in 1981, we spent an evening with our good friend, the pianist Walter Moore and his family. The Wienerschnitzel dinner was superb, the weather was excellent and the atmosphere jubilant. When we wanted to pay our bill, however, no waiter was to be seen. So my mother stood up, among hundreds of guests, and sang an aria. All the waiters came, applauded, let us pay for our food and personally escorted us out with grandure and fanfare. This heritage that I carry within me has inspired me to become an actor, a singer, a teacher, a painter and a tourguide. Much of that comes from growing up within the realms of the theatre. Heck, I was even on stage before I was born. It is always an interesting way to live. My mom sang Ortrud in Wagner’s “Lohengrin” while pregnant with me. Shortly before this, my parents went on a European concert tour as “The Singing Couple” appearing on Irish TV, appearing between a prize winning cow and a Russian spy. I was told that my conception took place during that concert tour sometime around Christmas of 1968. Sound like fun. Irish whiskey, Irish stew, concert tours, TV appearances ... and me. After leaving Ireland, they continued their tour in Germany, singing Leonard Bernstein’s “Tonight” from his musical “West Side Story”, improvising a new and changed choreography, while my mom was pregnant with me in the seventh month. “Tonight, tonight, it all began tonight”. Those lyrics received a completely new meaning now. Really? Tonight? Why, she’s seventh month pregnant! No wonder I have become an artist. The story of my parents’ first meeting goes back three whole years to the year 1966. Thinking of how much they worked together just in those three years before my arrival on Earth in 1969, it leads one to think that their musical and spiritual infatuation must have been enormously inspiring, to say the least. My mother and father met while perfecting their vocal technique with the renowned singing teacher Professor Köhler. The effect it had on them must’ve been astounding. These two stage veterans of opera, musical, screen and concert stages, 39 and 36 years old respectively, started collaborating almost right away and they became “The Singing Couple”, touring Europe and America with countless recitals, many of them entailing choreographed musical shows accompanied by their long time friend Karl Bergemann. My father introduced my mother to his associate, the composer James Wilson, who later was paid by the Irish state to compose music and who began composing music for them before I was born. When I was born, Uncle Jim became my dear Godfather. I visited him in 1999. He took me to Wicklow, told me anecdotes about his opera productions and gave me off-the-cuff information that Chris de Burgh was his neighbour. My mother was the one that evidently took the leap in the relationship, asking my father if he would speak some English with her. My father’s joke was that he never kept quiet after that. It soon became clear that her colleague from the Hannover Opera House, with whom she was singing in Richard Strauss “Der Rosenkavalier” and in Albert Lortzing’s “Zar und Zimmermann”, would become more than just a friend. He was her soul-mate, her confidant, her artistic equal and a spirit deeply anchored in her heart. No wonder that they loved each other. The opera-lover, swing-singer, film-actor, journalist, author and former theological student Herbert Eyre Moulton was descendant of the Baron Eyres of Eyre Court in Ireland. My mother was an aristocrat of the heart, noble, grand, witty and really witty. Both were artists of the finest sort. Gun Margareta Kronzell was born in Kalmar, Sweden on July 6th 1930. Early on, she showed a passionate interest in music, playing the main part in the school play “Santa’s Smallest Helper”. She also danced ballet to the sounds of “The Blue Danube Waltz”. The family vacations in San Remo, Nice and Monte Carlo promted this love, but the visits to Stockholm catapulted her love affair with opera. Here, she could share her love of music with her family. She and her family would hear the greatest stars sing. She and her father Knut were riveted, while her brother and mother found it witty that the singers died at the end and then went to thank for the applause. Gun Margareta Kronzell wanted to become a singer. After her debut as a singer in 1949 in the Cathedral of Kalmar, she studied for Ernst Reichert in Salzburg and legendary Russian Madame Skilonsz in Stockholm (her interpretation of Mozart’s Queen of the Night turned into a cult phenomenon). Ragnar Hultén gave her a vibrant volume of the voice and nevertheless Skilonsz perfected her technique. Sebastian Peschko worked meticulously on every single consonant and vowel and Lohmann worked on her line. Köhler and Åke Nygren gave her four octaves its finishing touches. Voila, said the Spanish count: musically sculpted and artistically completed there was a voice that flabbergasted. Famous opera star James King exclaimed: “Jesus Christ, what a voice!” upon hearing her sing. Her first capital dwelling was in the French Dominican Abbey for Nuns in Stockholm. It was there she discovered her love for Gregorian Music. She moved to a tiny apartment in Stockholm’s old city to and studied at the Royal Music Academy, where she spent her formative years and worked with many a later famous singers like Jussi Björling and Lasse Lönndahl. She sang oratories, she performed nationally on tour. She sang Elisabeth in Tannhäuser and the Countess in The Marriage of Figaro during the Academy years, something that would prepare her for the countless opera roles she would play in her lifetime. In 1952 and in 1953, however, my mother spent three months studying in Salzburg and lived in the centre of town. She here met Bishop Bonifaz Madersbacher at the side entrance of the Dome and this companionship would become the most important of her life. They would correspond every time she felt dire about anything. For the TWJ magazine, I wrote a story called “A Match Made in Heaven” back in August of 2014. The story describes exactly what happened when they met. http://twjmag.com/fiction-nonfic-poetry/a-match-made-in-heaven Even when the bishop moved to Bolivia and founded a Christian congregation there, he would answer her questions truthfully and eloquently. There were love problems and professional problems and all of it was treated with dignity. As soon as she was awarded Norway’s Rudd Foundation Scholarship by Kirsten Flagstad, she moved to Wiesbaden and studied for Paul Lohmann. He had lost an arm in the war. However, he compensated his bodily handicap with his skills as a singer. It gave him the greatest flexibility. He would work with her meticulously on every note and every single letter of the alphabet. After the Opera Wiesbaden, she moved to Bielefeld and still speaks of this place as her greatest career experience. She here got to sing the greatest roles: Dorabella, Asucena, Abigail, Eboli and Santuzza. She in actuality got into her own as a prominent character-actress and brilliant mezzo-soprano. The media discovered her talents and she began attaining truly first-class critiques. She also had a great deal of success singing oratories and concert music, among other in the London Festival Hall and in the Vienna Stephan’s Cathedral, in Paris and in the Netherlands. Working simultaneously at a home for mentally ill children was a wonderful change. The children gave her the reality check she needed. After that came engagements in Amsterdam, London, Paris, Vienna, Graz, Augsburg, London, Recklinghausen, Köln, Essen, Lübeck, Berlin, Vienna and Regensburg. Her great reviews became legendary and people spoke of Gun Kronzell as one of the fresh principal mezzos of Germany. Hannover was a bright professional position for her. From here she guested all over the country. By now she had sung most of the great roles: Erda in Rheingold, Kundry in Parsifal, Ortrud in Lohingrin, Brünhilde in The Ring, Adriano in Rienzi, Brangaene in Tristan und Isolde, Emilia in Othello, Eboli in Don Carlos , Dame Quickly in Falstaff , Abigaille in Nabucco, Czipra in Zigeunerbaron, The Innkeeper in Boris Gudonov , Chiwria in The Fair at Sorotchinzk , Santuzza in Cavalleria Rusticana, Asucena in Trovatore, the mother in Hänsel and Gretel, Orpheo in Orpheo ed Euridice, the leading part in Antigone, Ludmilla in The Bartered Bride, The Countess and Madelon in Andrea Chenier, The Old Woman in Die Doppelgängerin, Begonia in Der Junge Lord and Ulrika in A Masked Ball. To this was added a wide range of recitals and church concerts and a huge repertoire of almost any composer imaginable. She became a vast Bach-specialist. All of the Bach oratories were sung in most of the continental cathedrals. Furthermore, Gun Kronzell’s knowledge of Brahms, Copland and Gershwin was astounding. Her fantastic interpretation of songs like “Did they shut me out of heaven, did I sing too loud?” or “My Man’s Gone Now” was a feast for the ears. This lead her to my father, that spring of 1966. Meeting the famous Gun Kronzell was elation to Herb. He loved opera and soon became her biggest fan. They bought an old Renault that they named Monsieur Hulot, named after the Jacques Tati character in the French film comedies. What really grew successful was their musical collaboration. Soon enough, they became as likable and loved as Astaire & Rogers and Kelly & Crosby and were rarely seen apart. I grew up attending their concerts. They were marvellous together. That collaboration began in 1966, a subsequent marriage in Bad Godersberg, and continued until my father Herbert Eyre Moulton died in 2005. My mother sang at the Volksoper in Vienna, among others a world premiere of Salmhofer’s “Dreikönig”, where she received rave reviews. In Sweden, my mother started working as a Gothenburg Music Academy singing teacher in 1974. Her work at the opera also included Ulrika in Verdi’s Masked Ball in Swedish, which she had already sung in Italian in Hannover. Their performance in Osage, Iowa in 1976 was my first family concert experience. For the encore, I wandered up on stage in Lederhosen and sang with in “Wien, Wien, Nur Du Allein”. The American audience gave us standing ovations. From 1979 on, she freelanced a great deal and this gave her the necessary experience that would grant her the next successful engagement. She wrote, directed and starred in a play called “Long Live the Trolls”. This was my first acting experience. She taught organists how to sing in Oskarshamn and held church music seminars. She taught private and official speech and vocal classes in a variety of schools and even taught Chinese immigrants Swedish and Stena Line Disc Jockeys how to articulate well into a microphone. My mother’s extensive concert experience gave her wide-ranging attention from the press and gave her subsequent work as a vocal teacher in the Gothenburg Ballet Academy. Her broad knowledge from various teachers now gave her expertise in how to teach her students how to sing every imaginable style. Sebastian Peschko had taught her how to enunciate the alphabet. Paul Lohmann gave her a smooth legato. Köhler widened her range. Now she could use speech exercises such as Myavabranya, Pradgaflaspya and Yakaganga to perfect her student’s consonants. I use them as excersices when I teach my students even today. It was exactly the gathering of this experience that made three international universities offer her positions as a Professor of Music. Tucson, Arizona and Graz, Austria wanted her, but the lure of taking the engagement in Vienna was too strong. The teaching try-out here also proved to be the best of all her auditions. By 1984, Vienna won the personal award and so we, the family, moved there with her. For the rest of us, it brought us work without end in this cultural capital of the world. This was the start of a 26 year stay in the city where she sang over 200 concerts and taught students that eventually would work with the elite. Her students would eventually end up singing at the Vienna State Opera, in Bern, Zurich, Cairo, St. Petersburg, Malmö, London, New York, Örebro, Växjö, Copenhagen, Hamburg, Gelsenkirchen and Stockholm. Her student Judith Kovacs was Luciano Pavarotti’s personal assistant for eight years. This gave us all intimate contact with the master and free tickets for many of his galas. Many opera stars like June Andersson, Nicolai Gedda, Claudio Abbado, Ricardo Muti, Per Grundén and Ingvar Wixell became acquaintances of ours through Luciano. The already mention Swedish-Russian tenor Nicolai Gedda was an old friend of my parents from the time when my dad had worked in Ireland. When we met him again in Vienna in the 1980’s he told my father: “We are older now, but still gorgeous.” Gedda was kind enough to train a tenor student of my mother’s for free before he left Vienna as a service of gratitude for my mother. My mother’s wide experience made her arrange numerous appearances for her students in such diverse places as Bamberg in Germany, Ludbreg in Croatia, Langentzersdorf in Austria and Kalmar in Sweden. Three Croatians became the charity centre of media attention in Sweden. She created the music ensemble “Musik Melange” and gave young singers the oppurtunity to perform extensively just like she had in her youth. In 1998, she retired from the academy, but kept on performing actively until she moved to Gelsenkirchen in 2010, closer to me and my family. My mother died in 2011 and left a vast gap behind her. My daughter speaks of her grandmother as her own personal guardian angel. I know in my heart that my parents are happy to see us living in our new house, hearing me sing and working on my career, continuing the brave Kronzell-Moultonian artistic tradition. I am the forth generation of artists in my family. They taught me a great deal. What could be better than looking back at a fulfilled life jam packed with glorious artistic bliss? My hats of to my parents. They were extraordinary people.

From the Mahayana Translated for the first time from the original Sanskrit by Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki At that time, the Blessed One who had been preaching in the palace of the King of Sea-serpents came out at the expiration of seven days and was greeted by an innumerable host of Nāgakanyās including Śakra and Brahma, and looking at Lakā on Mount Malaya smiled and said, "By the Tathagatas of the past, who were Arhats and Fully-Enlightened Ones, this Truth was made the subject of their discourse, at that castle of Lakā on the mountain-peak of Malaya, —the Truth realisable by noble wisdom in one's inmost self, which is beyond the reasoning knowledge of the philosophers as well as the state of consciousness of the Śrāvakas and Pratyekabuddhas. I, too, would now for the sake of Rāvaa, Overlord of the Yakshas, discourse on this Truth.” [Inspired] by the spiritual power of the Tathagata, Rāvaa, Lord of the Rākshasas, heard [his voice]. Indeed, the Blessed One, surrounded and accompanied by an innumerable host of Nāgakanyās including Śakra and Brahma, came out of the palace of the King of Sea-serpents; and looking at the waves of the ocean and also at the mental agitations going on in those assembled, [he thought of] the ocean of the Ālayavijñāna where the evolving Vijñānas [like the waves] are stirred by the wind of objectivity. While he was standing there [thus absorbed in contemplation, Rāvaa saw him and] uttered a joyous cry, saying: "I will go and request of the Blessed One to enter into Lakā; for this long night he would probably profit, do good, and gladden the gods as well as human beings." Thereupon, Rāvaa, Lord of the Rākshasas, with his attendants, riding in his floral celestial chariot, came up where the Blessed One was, and having arrived there he and his attendants came out of the chariot. Walking around the Blessed One three times from left to right, they played on a musical instrument, beating it with a stick of blue Indra (saphire), and hanging the lute at one side, which was inlaid with the choicest lapis lazuli and supported by [a ribbon of] priceless cloth, yellowish-white like Priyagu, they sang with various notes such as Saharshya, Rishabha, Gāndhāra, Dhaivata, Nishāda. Madyama, and Kaiśika, which were melodiously modulated in Grāma, Mūrchana, etc.; the voice in accompaniment with the flute beautifully blended with the measure of the Gāthā. 1. "The truth-treasure whose principle is the self-nature of Mind, has no selfhood (nairātmyam), stands above all reasoning, and is free from impurities; it points to the knowledge attained in one's inmost self; Lord, show me here the way leading to the Truth. 2. "The Sugata is the body in whom are stored immaculate virtues; in him are manifested [bodies] trans-forming and transformed; he enjoys the Truth realised in his inmost self; may he visit Lakā. Now is the time, Muni! 3. (4) "This Lakā was inhabited by the Buddhas of the past, and [they were] accompanied by their sons who were owners of many forms. Lord, show me now the highest Truth, and the Yakshas who are endowed with many forms will listen.” Thereupon, Rāvaa, the Lord of Lakā, further adapting the Totaka rhythm sang this in the measure of the Gāthā. 4. After seven nights, the Blessed One leaving the ocean which is the abode of the Makara, the palace of the sea-king, now stands on the shore. 5. Just as the Buddha rises, Rāvaa, accompanied by the Apsaras and Yakshas numerous, by Śuka, Sārana, and learned men, 6. Miraculously goes over to the place where the Lord is standing. Alighting from the floral vehicle, he greets the Tathagata reverentially, makes him offerings, tells him who he is, and stands by the Lord. 7. "I who have come here, am called Rāvaa, the ten-headed king of the Rākshasas, mayest thou graciously receive me with Lakā and all its residents. 8. "In this city, the inmost state of consciousness realised, indeed, by the Enlightened Ones of the past (5) was disclosed on this peak studded with precious stones. 9. "Let the Blessed One, too. surrounded by sons of the Victorious One, now disclose the Truth immaculate on this peak embellished with precious stones; we, together with the residents of Lakā, desire to listen. 10. "The Lakāvatāra Sūtra which is praised by the Buddhas of the past [discloses] the inmost state of consciousness realised by them, which is not founded on any system of doctrine. 11. "I recollect the Buddhas of the past surrounded by sons of the Victorious One recite this Sutra; the Blessed One, too, will speak. 12. "In the time to come, there will be Buddhas and Buddha-Sons pitying the Yakshas; the Leaders will discourse on this magnificent doctrine on the peak adorned with precious stones. 13. "This magnificent city of Lakā is adorned with varieties of precious stones, [surrounded] by peaks, refresh-ing and beautiful and canopied by a net of jewels. 14. "Blessed One, here are the Yakshas who are free from faults of greed, reflecting on [the Truth] realised in one's inmost self and making offerings to the Buddhas of the past; they are believers in the teaching of the Mahāyāna and intent on disciplining one another. 15. “There are younger Yakshas, girls and boys, desiring to know the Mahāyāna. Come, Blessed One, who art our Teacher, come to Lakā on Mount Malaya. 16. (6) "The Rākshasas, with Kumbhakara at their head, who are residing in the city, wish, as they are devoted to the Mahāyāna, to hear about this inmost realisation. 17. "They have made offerings assiduously to the Buddhas [in the past] and are to-day going to do the same. Come, for compassion's sake, to the Lakā, together with [thy] sons. 18. "Mahāmati, accept my mansion, the company of the Apsaras, necklaces of various sorts, and the delightful Aśoka garden. 19. "I give myself up to serve the Buddhas and their sons; there is nothing with me that I do not give up [for their sake]; Great Muni, have compassion on me!” 20. Hearing him speak thus, the Lord of the Triple World said, "King of Yakshas, this mountain of precious stones was visited by the Leaders in the past. 21. "And, taking pity on you, they discoursed on the Truth revealed in their inmost [consciousness]. [The Buddhas of] the future time will proclaim [the same] on this jewel-adorned mountain. 22. "This [inmost Truth] is the abode of those Yogins who stand in the presence of the Truth. King of the Yakshas, you have the compassion of the Sugatas and myself." 23. The Blessed One accepting the request [of the King] remained silent and undisturbed; he now mounted the floral chariot offered by Rāvaa. 24. Thus Rāvaa and others, wise sons of the Victorious One, ( 7) honoured by the Apsaras singing and dancing, reached the city. 25. Arriving in the delightful city [the Buddha was] again the recipient of honours; he was honoured by the group of Yakshas including Rāvaa and by the Yaksha women. 26. A net of jewels was offered to the Buddha by the younger Yakshas, girls and boys, and necklaces beautifully ornamented with jewels were placed by Rāvaa about the neck of the Buddha and those of the sons of the Buddha. 27. The Buddhas together with the sons of the Buddha and the wise men, accepting the offerings, discoursed on the Truth which is the state of consciousness realised in the inmost self. 28. Honouring [him as] the best speaker, Rāvaa and the company of the Yakshas honoured Mahāmati and requested of him again and again:1 29. "Thou art the asker of the Buddha concerning the state of consciousness realised in their inmost selves, of which we here, Yakshas as well as the sons of the Buddha, are desirous of hearing. I, together with the Yakshas, the sons of the Buddha, and the wise men, request this of thee. 30. "Thou art the most eloquent of speakers, and the most strenuous of the Yogins; with faith I beg of thee. Ask [the Buddha] about the doctrine, O thou the proficient one!

Foreword by Charles E.J. Moulton My father Herbert Eyre Moulton (1927 - 2005) lost both his parents during that year of 1958. His father and my paternal grandfather Herbert Lewis Moulton, a World War I veteran whom everyone called Big Herb, died of a heart attack. After that, my father's mother must have been distraught. She got run over by a train on her way to work. This was a very poignant and very fitting for this feisty and strong Irish lady: she died standing up. It is then amazing to see how intellectual and calm my father seemed to be when he wrote the following piece for the Information Magazine in June of 1958. When his girlfriend died of cancer, my father, desperate and emotionally drained, left America on a two week vacation in his ancestrial home of Ireland. This stay lasted for seven years and brought him at least as much success as he the success he had experienced in the United States. This stay eventually led him to Germany, where he met my mother, operatic mezzo-soprano Gun Kronzell.

The rest, as they say, is history. This is my father's article from June 1958.

DEFENDER OF THE FAITH By Herbert Eyre Moulton (1927 – 2005) Written for the Information Magazine in June of 1958 My mother Nell was an ardent Catholic all her life and something of a Revivalist at heart. She believed in standing up and being counted, and she never sat down again. That is why, whenever I read about the new look along the sawdust trail, I wonder what she'd have to say about it all. It's a cinch Nell wouldn't recognize the old Gospel Train in its Madison Avenue streamlining. She liked her religion straight, thank you, liked it as well as she liked a good fight. Come to think of it, her one encounter with militant unorthodoxy may have helped bring on the present era of soft voices and cushioned condemnation. Nell approached belief with wide open emotion and when said she'd gladly die for the faith, she meant it. To her as to many an Irishman the saints were cronies, especially the Blessed Virgin. Our Lady didn't live next door to us - she had moved right in to help with the housework. This Catholicism, however intense, was no impediment to respecting those outside the fold, providing they were sincere. Nell never condemned anybody - she loved them and felt sorry they were missing so much. As for prejudice, it was the Devil's work and anybody who practiced it was, in her own words, "a hypocritch of the first water." My father Big Herb had no official religous status, but he was better Catholic Dad than many in our parish, and his family was of vigorous if diverse Protestant stock. There were Presbyterians and Episcopalians and Transcendentalists and Free Thinkers and Swedenborgians and even a Quaker or two in the middle distance. Nell wanted me to know all about all these demoninations, what made them "other" and how they got that way. We must have toured every church and temple in the vicinity, guided by astonished beadles, custodians and janitors. Nell always called these personages "dear", and made sure they locked up afterwards. Religious toleration didn't stop at the vestibule door. Everybody was welcome in our house. If they were atheists, if they didn't revere the Blessed Mother as Scripture says we should, if they were agnostic or fallen away or just indifferent, they were wrong and Nell never tired of belaboring the point. But as long as they were people and in our house, they got the full treatment, and even in the rockiest depression that meant anything from hot toddies and sherry-soaked fruitcake to a seven-course meal. It was during those hard days of the 30's that our bungalow began taking on the aspects of a soup kitchen. Impoverished spinsters with cats and cataracts, an artist on relief, a retired handyman named Peter the Indian, an unemployed barber (two bits for a kitchen haircut and I can still feel the pull of those handclippers) - any number of down-and-outers crowded our table. None of them ever left without a shopping bag crammed with jars of jelly and fresh soup. No matter how bad things got, we were never of relief and they were, and that made all the difference. As long as there was a WPA, a PWA or any practical nursing to be done, Nell worked to help Big Herb while that gentle soul plugged away trying to sell insurance, appliances, anything to help supplement Big Herb's modest income. We always had more than enough, somehow. We had parties and battles and pets and a second-hand car born 1928, a Studebaker named Henrietta. We packed lunches and went off to the opera, the World's Fair, zoos, ballparks and museums. One weekend we started out for a short ride (we lived in a suburb of Chicago named Glen Ellyn) and ended up at Niagara Falls. Everybody cut corners and everybody had fun. Friday night we went to the movies, lured by Bank Nite, free dishes and good shows. Because prices changed from fifteen cents to a quarter at 6:15, people hurried through dinner and read the evening paper in their seats before the feature. Our milkman delivered his own vino with the dairy products. Big Herb continued to make homebrew beer in the basement long after Repeal, and his men friends rolled their own cigarettes. The women knitted and crocheted, while the more ambitious hooked rugs or entered contests, did each other's hair or tried their hand at short story writing. We kids gave puppet shows and pageants, fell out of tree-houses and fought. Saturday night there were crowds of poker players, not a one of them with a dime to his name, and during one slump when ours was the only house with the light and the gas still turned on, they carted home bushel baskets of coal to heat drafty old mansions left over from Palmier Days. We were the happiest people we knew. It was into this kingdom of raffish good will towards everybody that two woebegone missionaries wandered one rainy Saturday. Nowadays, as I said, gospel harvesters plow the fields and scatter with such gentility that you hardly know they're around. But a couple of decades ago you couldn't miss them. This particular brood barnstormed for the Lord in an antique limosine painted white and plastered with signs proclaiming the imminence of Kingdom Come. As if this weren't enough to scare the daylights out of anybody, a nest of loudspeakers topsides saturated the target area with glad tidings of approaching Armageddon, hellfire and judgment. "I'd like to know what these people think they're doing," Nell mused from the front window. "The man and woman in that goofy car. I've never laid eyes on them before, have you guys?" As usual I was presiding at a levée for urchins, all of us dressing up to play King, The Prince and the Pauper, or whatever we had seen at the Glen Theatre the week before. The evangelists didn't seem to be doing too well, according to Nell, who was never nosy unless something really special were afoot. They had tried every door on the street, finding nobody home (and everybody was) or getting a reception chilly enough to freeze Gehenna. "Well, I think it's just awful about those poor slobs," Nell worried. "The least somebody could do would be to ask them in, no matter what they're peddling." It never occurred to her that these might be religious rivals. She wouldn't have admitted the existance of any to begin with. At last the discouraged Lost Sheep (which is what we called them ever after) approached our porch. Nell was ready for them. She flung open the door with a bountiful, "Come in, come in, and get dried off!" The Lost Sheep looked at her and then at each other. "Oh, come on. You look like the Grapes of Wrath." Nell was an inspired improviser. With one of her "non sequiturs" dropped casually into the conversational works, she could jangle all talk to a standstill, and her enthusiastic misquotations were worth their weight in double takes. Now was no exception. The Lost Sheep turned their unbelieving gaze back at her and beyond to the warmth of the house. Then they bolted inside where we could get a look at them. The man was gaunt and shaggy and he scowled all the time. The woman was whispy and chinless and very much ill-at-ease. There was something pathetic about them as they flapped their magazines our way. “Never mind about that now,” Nell blocked the tactic. “What you need is a good hot cup of tea.” The Lost Sheep damply agreed. “How about a little something in it?” “Perhaps a spoonful of sugar,” the woman hesitated. “I mean, a little something to take the chill off.” “Lemon?” came the nervous suggestion. “Oh, skip it,” said Nell and she pottered out to the kitchen, abandoning us all to an eternity of embarrassment. Finally she returned with a loaded tray (and I choose the term “loaded” purposely). It was just like her to spike her teacup with a little something to take the chill off. Only with Nell you could never be quite sure. “Now then,” she beamed, ever the hostess. “What is it you’re selling?” The female Sheep gasped like someone reviving after a near-drowning. “Have you found Christ?” she asked. “I never lost Him,” was Nell’s reply. We wanted to cheer, but the woman pressed on. “I mean, do you have him in your life?” “Of course I do, dear. Don’t you?” There was a murmur of approval from the gallery and Nell continued briskly: “I go to mass and communion every Sunday of my life. And Herbert here is an altar boy.” The couple exchanged another look. The interview wasn’t going according to the book. “You see that picture over there?” My mother indicated a Raphael reproduction. “The ... that woman?” the female Sheep looked as though she were gnawing a quince instead of one of Nell’s delicious cookies. “She’s the mother of God!” Nell saluted. “Now what can I do for you?” The Sheep set down their teacups and began a faltering pitch, but their hearts were not in it. “If it’s money you’re after,” Nell interrupted, “I don’t think there’s a nickle in this house.” She cast about for her pocket book and proceeded to empty it onto the coffee table. Rosary, Novena book, keys, family photographs, compact, comb and curlers, a jar of hand cream, a can of tooth powder and a denture brush, newspaper clippings, her lower plate, the dog’s collar and a bottle-opener all clattered forth. At each item the eyes of the Lost Sheep widened and their mouths contracted almost in disappearance. Now they both looked like they were sucking quinces, or possibly alum. “Well, I’ll be jiggered!” Nell reported triumphantly. “I do have some change!” She counted out eleven cents (a nickle and six pennies). “It isn’t much, but God knows you’re welcome to it.” She pressed the coins into the woman’s palm. “Oh, don’t bother with any of that stuff,” again she waved away the proferred literature. “I haven’t even finished ‘Gone With The Wind’ yet.” But the Lost Sheep prevailed and presently were effecting an escape, their benedictions all but lost in the alleluias of “God love you!” from my mother. She closed the door and heaved one of her great sighs. “I want you brats to get out of those crazy duds now,” she suggested at length, “and I’ll go see about the potatoes.” No matter how many guests I rounded up, lunch was always hearty, generally consisting of baked potatoes, peanut butter sandwiches, junket or tapioca, baked apples and pitchers of milk or cocoa. Today it was further spiced with the novelty of the little morality play just acted out. “Irene dear,” Nell prodded my moppet of the moment. “I’m sure your mother never lets you and Brubs read at the table.” “I can’t help it, Aunt Nell. It’s this silly magazine.” Irene was turning over the pages of one of the murky periodicals left by one of the Lost Sheep. We were all as entranced as kids today are with television. “Look at this one,” her brother demanded. “Aunt Nell, what’s a Scarlet Woman?” “Look, the Pope has three heads,” Irene put in. It was true. On the front page was a crude cartoon representing the Vatican with a hydra-headed monster oozing out, each head crowned with the Triple Tiara. “Let me see that!” Nell ordered. She took one look, then snatched up the remaining copies. As I recall it, they swam with lurid slanders against the church, the Papacy and Priesthood, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass – against all things Catholic, in fact. Such exotic phrases as Whore of Babylon, and Pomps of the Devil, linger to this day. “Well, I’ll be –“ Nell’s smouldering exclamation was lost in the rustle of cheap paper. “Come on, children,” she announced suddenly. “Get your wraps and duds.” “But, Aunt Nell,” came the whines. “What about our baked apples?” “Never mind them – come on!” By the time she reached her boiling point – which was notoriously low – we had cast off for uptown in Hernrietta. I doubt if any journey has ever been achieved in more portentous silence or with greater clugging or and motor sputter. We lurched, we skidded, we bounced over the tracks. Gears grated, people honked, and my mother’s knuckles grew white with clutching the steering wheel. We all knew exactly what was happening. We had seen it before and we knew. Nellie was on the warpath. Nobody said a word. It didn’t take long to find them. The limousine was a dead giveaway and you could hear the scratchy gospel hymns amplified all over town. They had set up shop right next to the bank and the female sheep was handing out literature while partner ranted from the running-board. Gus Niemetz the policeman stood by uneasily, not knowing what to do. “Everybody stay right in this car,” was Nell’s car as we ground to a halt. “Don’t a one of you dare get out.” The next instant a nuclear ball of Irish Catholic fury burst through the crowd, scattering umbrellas and shopping baskets like tenpins. The female Sheep spotted her but before she could sound the alarm, Nell was upon them, tugging the oracle down from his perch and shaking her fists in his face. I closed my eyes and put my head down on the back of the front seat. God help him, I thought. Heresy isn’t worth it. The scene was brief enough – more fistshaking and Gaelic oaths, propaganda dashed underfoot and appeals to the bewildered congregation, a convulsive digging into her own pockets by the chinless Sheep, then the bowling ball routine again, propelling Nell into the Studebaker and us on our way home. From the rear window we could see the limousine moving off in the opposite direction. Not until we were well into our baked apples did things return to normal, or rather, from normal. “At least I got the eleven cents back,” Nell said, dabbing at our dishes with whipped cream. “And not a word of this to Big Herb, understand? Go on, kids, eat yourselves. You must be ravished by now.” It was gratifying to hear old malapropisms again. “Everything’s going to be all right.” Everything was. The Lost Sheep never came back, not in the limousine anyway. The eleven cents went into the Sunday collection and the Raphael Madonna was moved into a more prominent position over the fireplace. From then on Nell read every publication that came into the house. Relious toleration is a grand thing, she used to say, but it’s got to work both ways. RIGHT! WE'LL HAVE A PARTY! from the autobiography "DAMN THE DEPRESSION, ANYWAY!" Written by my father the late great Herbert Eyre Moulton (1927 - 2005), who worked as MCA-Record’s Show-Star Herbert Moore. He also conducted the Camp Gordon Chapel Choir during the Korean War, toured with his wife, the operatic mezzo-soprano Gun Kronzell, around the world as “The Singing Couple”. This true story takes place in the posh, spiritually rich but financially poor 1930’s. The picture here to the right is of my father many years later, during a party in the 1960’s (how fitting), drinking wine, chatting with his good friend, the famous Swedish opera tenor Nicolai Gedda. Now, fasten your seatbelts. Step into the time machine. Get ready to visit the culturally endowed relatives living the posh life back in the Illinois that was, sometime in the 1930’s. As long as anyone can remember, our home had always been THE HOUSE OF HOSPITALITY. Through thick or thin, palmy days or the Depths of the Depression - between the extremes of my father Big Herb's practicality and Nell's "To Hell with Poverty - we'll sell the pig!" liberality, we always managed to make every visitor feel happily at home. Most of the regulars at this snug little oasis of ours were survivors of a picturesque world that, since the Stockmarket Crash of 1929, had evaporated fast. Their families had once held sway in a score or more of vast old turreted wooden-frame mansions which still ornamented the town, left over from the Gilded 1880's, a few of which still stand to this day, plaqued (as they say) as Historical Landmarks. One of these - Eastbourne - had from the mid 1890's been my Dad's family home, last occupied by my Uncle Harper and his peripetitic family - three sons and his great billowing Southern Belle of a spouse, Clara by name, but known to all and sundry (all except us, that is) as 'Honey". They blowsily occupied the old manse until late in the 1930's, when it was unfortunately demolished. To this day it forms a marvelously gloomy, House-of-Usher background for a lot of my earliest memories - fifteen huge, high-ceiling rooms, many with fireplaces. Of these, the room I remember best was the library, a museum really, cluttered as it was with bayonets, shell-casings, dress-swords with sashes, handguns, even spiked officer's helmets from the old German Imperial Army, just the thing for our boyhood extravaganzas inspired by the historical movies we saw on Saturday afternoons. These were souveniers of the time in France in 1917-18 by my Dad Herbert Lewis Moulton and his two younger brothers, Wes and Harp. The rest of this spacious old mansion contained family and servants' quarters, hotel-sized kitchen and laundry facilities - Eastbourne had been a popular crosscountry inn until my Grandfather bought it to house his lady-wife and brood of six children, plus servants that included at least one live-in nanny. One of them was a wonderful black Mammy, Maisie - pardon the lapse! - with her daughter Rachel, my first experience with folk of other colors, and a delightful one or was, too. (Rachel, grown to young womanhood, was my baby-sitter when I was a nipper.) Further amenities included a billiard room, a glazed-in conservatory (south side, of course), and a large lofty attic filled with memorabilia of untold splendor, a porte cochere, and two pillared porches, which Honey in that booming Texan foghorn used to call Galleries, much to Nell’s unconcealed disgust: “Haw-puh! Frank! Leeeeeeeeeeee! What yawl doin’ on that gall’reh?” On the sloping, wooded lawns were the remains of a croquet- and a tennis-court, outbuildings where the cows and the horses were billeted (named Chummy and Princess, and Duke and Lightning, respectively) and by the time we began playing in it, a slightly ramschackle summer house. People can talk all the like about the delight about the ante-bellum Southland, but its post-bellum northern counterpart, based, not on slavery, but on industry and commerce, had a no-nonsense charm of its own. It was in settings such as these that was played out on that long, in retrospect lovely American twilight up to the start of the first World War, which is celebrated in plays such as O’Neill’s “Ah, Wilderness!” – tea-dances, ice-cream socials, masquerades, and amateur family theatricals, with house-music provided by all five of the Moulton boys, with sister Minnie at the piano. After the war, the twilight lingered on spasmodically until the grand old memory-drenched house was sold off and demolished. Even then, in the late 1930’s, we’d gather a carload of friends and drive over on a summer evening to pick basketfuls of the fragrant lillies-of-thze-valley which still flourished in a corner of the original garden. It was the dispossessed heirs of these once proud dynasties, the greying sheiks of yesteryear with nicknames like “Babe” and “Bunny” and “Wop”, with their exflapper Shebas, all raucous voices, middle-age spread, and clouds of perfume with names like Mitsouki or Emeraud, who used to crowd our little dining room on Saturday evenings (the table top decked in an old army blanket) for intense penny-ante poker sessions, sometimes using matchsticks for chips, laughing at off-color jokes way above my head and puffing their Old Golds and home-rolled “coffin nails”, while the Budweiser flowed and soda crackers got crumbled into bowls of Big Herb’s special chili-con-carne, to the accompaniament of Paul Whiteman records or Your Hit Parade on the radio-phonograph hard by in the living-room. I loved these gatherings in my parents’ cronies – Big Herb’s out-of-work business colleagues or American Legion (Forty-and-Eight) buddies and their wives or ladyfriends. Many of them had been the blithe and breezy Charleston-dancing, hipflask toting young marrieds, who (I was told); used to switch partners on weekend treasure-hunts, and in that still infamous Crash had lost everything but their social stature (whatever that amounted to) and their sense of humor. Thus had John Held, Jr. given wa to the late Scott Fitzgerald. To me these people were as fascinating as visitors from another galaxy, caught in what today would called a time-warp. Authemntic “Twenties-Types” (if one thinks about them now) and I couldn’t get my fill looking at them – everything they did shone with enough of the glamour of lost wealth which set them apart from everyone else we knew (God, was I that much of a snob at the age of nine or ten?). Special fun were those evenings which suddenly turned musical, like the time when a lady with hennaed hair unloosed one of Delilah’s arias from “Samson” in a rich boozy contralto, then huddled at the keyboard with a lady friend to harmonize “Sing to Me, My Little Gypsy Sweetheart”. (Nell later reported that they were both sharing the same “beau”, who happened to be our family dentist. (What a sensation that was!) So the poker sessions rolled merrily along, spiced now and then with one of the men getting sobbing drunk and passing out on the livingroom couch, or one of the married couples indulging in a strident battle which mesmerized me even while being hustled out to my bedroom by one or the other of my parents. Boy, it was as good as having a movie-show right in our own living room. Besides which, they were all exceedingly nice to me, slipping me a shiny new dime now and then or taking time out to show me card tricks or draw pictures, or sometimes work with me on my pappet theater or Erector Set. One of our occasional guests was the cartoonist Dick Calkins – Lt. Dick Calkins, as he signed his Buck Rogers in the 25th century newspaper strip. One Saturday eveing, though half-sozzled, he spent a good hour painstakingly drawing cartoons of Buck and his girlfriend Wilma Deering on facing pages of my autograph book and dedicated to me alone. (Naturally, treasures such as these eventually disappeared – gone, alas, like our youth too soon.) Thee smoky, sometimes emotion-charged pow-wows weren’t quite the proper fodder for the local newspapers, but there were plenty of other tidbits lovingly provided by Nell at the drop of a phone-call.

On the Lord Bacon By Voltaire

Not long since the trite and frivolous question following was debated in a very polite and learned company, viz., Who was the greatest man, Cæsar, Alexander, Tamerlane, Cromwell, &c.? Somebody answered that Sir Isaac Newton excelled them all. The gentleman’s assertion was very just; for if true greatness consists in having received from heaven a mighty genius, and in having employed it to enlighten our own mind and that of others, a man like Sir Isaac Newton, whose equal is hardly found in a thousand years, is the truly great man. And those politicians and conquerors (and all ages produce some) were generally so many illustrious wicked men. That man claims our respect who commands over the minds of the rest of the world by the force of truth, not those who enslave their fellow-creatures: he who is acquainted with the universe, not they who deface it. Since, therefore, you desire me to give you an account of the famous personages whom England has given birth to, I shall begin with Lord Bacon, Mr. Locke, Sir Isaac Newton, &c. Afterwards the warriors and Ministers of State shall come in their order. I must begin with the celebrated Viscount Verulam, known in Europe by the name of Bacon, which was that of his family. His father had been Lord Keeper, and himself was a great many years Lord Chancellor under King James I. Nevertheless, amidst the intrigues of a Court, and the affairs of his exalted employment, which alone were enough to engross his whole time, he yet found so much leisure for study as to make himself a great philosopher, a good historian, and an elegant writer; and a still more surprising circumstance is that he lived in an age in which the art of writing justly and elegantly was little known, much less true philosophy. Lord Bacon, as is the fate of man, was more esteemed after his death than in his lifetime. His enemies were in the British Court, and his admirers were foreigners. When the Marquis d’Effiat attended in England upon the Princess Henrietta Maria, daughter to Henry IV., whom King Charles I. had married, that Minister went and visited the Lord Bacon, who, being at that time sick in his bed, received him with the curtains shut close. “You resemble the angels,” says the Marquis to him; “we hear those beings spoken of perpetually, and we believe them superior to men, but are never allowed the consolation to see them.” You know that this great man was accused of a crime very unbecoming a philosopher: I mean bribery and extortion. You know that he was sentenced by the House of Lords to pay a fine of about four hundred thousand French livres, to lose his peerage and his dignity of Chancellor; but in the present age the English revere his memory to such a degree, that they will scarce allow him to have been guilty. In case you should ask what are my thoughts on this head, I shall answer you in the words which I heard the Lord Bolingbroke use on another occasion. Several gentlemen were speaking, in his company, of the avarice with which the late Duke of Marlborough had been charged, some examples whereof being given, the Lord Bolingbroke was appealed to (who, having been in the opposite party, might perhaps, without the imputation of indecency, have been allowed to clear up that matter): “He was so great a man,” replied his lordship, “that I have forgot his vices.” I shall therefore confine myself to those things which so justly gained Lord Bacon the esteem of all Europe. The most singular and the best of all his pieces is that which, at this time, is the most useless and the least read, I mean his Novum Scientiarum Organum. This is the scaffold with which the new philosophy was raised; and when the edifice was built, part of it at least, the scaffold was no longer of service. The Lord Bacon was not yet acquainted with Nature, but then he knew, and pointed out, the several paths that lead to it. He had despised in his younger years the thing called philosophy in the Universities, and did all that lay in his power to prevent those societies of men instituted to improve human reason from depraving it by their quiddities, their horrors of the vacuum, their substantial forms, and all those impertinent terms which not only ignorance had rendered venerable, but which had been made sacred by their being ridiculously blended with religion. He is the father of experimental philosophy. It must, indeed, be confessed that very surprising secrets had been found out before his time—the sea-compass, printing, engraving on copper plates, oil-painting, looking-glasses; the art of restoring, in some measure, old men to their sight by spectacles; gunpowder, &c., had been discovered. A new world had been fought for, found, and conquered. Would not one suppose that these sublime discoveries had been made by the greatest philosophers, and in ages much more enlightened than the present? But it was far otherwise; all these great changes happened in the most stupid and barbarous times. Chance only gave birth to most of those inventions; and it is very probable that what is called chance contributed very much to the discovery of America; at least, it has been always thought that Christopher Columbus undertook his voyage merely on the relation of a captain of a ship which a storm had driven as far westward as the Caribbean Islands. Be this as it will, men had sailed round the world, and could destroy cities by an artificial thunder more dreadful than the real one; but, then, they were not acquainted with the circulation of the blood, the weight of the air, the laws of motion, light, the number of our planets, &c. And a man who maintained a thesis on Aristotle’s “Categories,” on the universals a parte rei, or such-like nonsense, was looked upon as a prodigy. The most astonishing, the most useful inventions, are not those which reflect the greatest honour on the human mind. It is to a mechanical instinct, which is found in many men, and not to true philosophy, that most arts owe their origin. The discovery of fire, the art of making bread, of melting and preparing metals, of building houses, and the invention of the shuttle, are infinitely more beneficial to mankind than printing or the sea-compass: and yet these arts were invented by uncultivated, savage men. What a prodigious use the Greeks and Romans made afterwards of mechanics! Nevertheless, they believed that there were crystal heavens, that the stars were small lamps which sometimes fell into the sea, and one of their greatest philosophers, after long researches, found that the stars were so many flints which had been detached from the earth. In a word, no one before the Lord Bacon was acquainted with experimental philosophy, nor with the several physical experiments which have been made since his time. Scarce one of them but is hinted at in his work, and he himself had made several. He made a kind of pneumatic engine, by which he guessed the elasticity of the air. He approached, on all sides as it were, to the discovery of its weight, and had very near attained it, but some time after Torricelli seized upon this truth. In a little time experimental philosophy began to be cultivated on a sudden in most parts of Europe. It was a hidden treasure which the Lord Bacon had some notion of, and which all the philosophers, encouraged by his promises, endeavoured to dig up. But that which surprised me most was to read in his work, in express terms, the new attraction, the invention of which is ascribed to Sir Isaac Newton. We must search, says Lord Bacon, whether there may not be a kind of magnetic power which operates between the earth and heavy bodies, between the moon and the ocean, between the planets, &c. In another place he says either heavy bodies must be carried towards the centre of the earth, or must be reciprocally attracted by it; and in the latter case it is evident that the nearer bodies, in their falling, draw towards the earth, the stronger they will attract one another. We must, says he, make an experiment to see whether the same clock will go faster on the top of a mountain or at the bottom of a mine; whether the strength of the weights decreases on the mountain and increases in the mine. It is probable that the earth has a true attractive power. This forerunner in philosophy was also an elegant writer, an historian, and a wit. His moral essays are greatly esteemed, but they were drawn up in the view of instructing rather than of pleasing; and, as they are not a satire upon mankind, like Rochefoucauld’s “Maxims,” nor written upon a sceptical plan, like Montaigne’s “Essays,” they are not so much read as those two ingenious authors. His History of Henry VII. was looked upon as a masterpiece, but how is it possible that some persons can presume to compare so little a work with the history of our illustrious Thuanus? Speaking about the famous impostor Perkin, son to a converted Jew, who assumed boldly the name and title of Richard IV., King of England, at the instigation of the Duchess of Burgundy, and who disputed the crown with Henry VII., the Lord Bacon writes as follows:— “At this time the King began again to be haunted with sprites, by the magic and curious arts of the Lady Margaret, who raised up the ghost of Richard, Duke of York, second son to King Edward IV., to walk and vex the King. “After such time as she (Margaret of Burgundy) thought he (Perkin Warbeck) was perfect in his lesson, she began to cast with herself from what coast this blazing star should first appear, and at what time it must be upon the horizon of Ireland; for there had the like meteor strong influence before.” Methinks our sagacious Thuanus does not give in to such fustian, which formerly was looked upon as sublime, but in this age is justly called nonsense.

From "Petrarch's Secret" DIALOGUE THE FIRST S. AUGUSTINE--PETRARCH

_S. Augustine._ What have you to say, O man of little strength? Of what are you dreaming? For what are you looking? Remember you not you are mortal? _Petrarch._ Yes, I remember it right well, and a shudder comes upon me every time that remembrance rises in my breast. _S. Augustine._ May you, indeed, remember as you say, and take heed for yourself. You will spare me much trouble by so doing. For there con be no doubt that to recollect one's misery and to practise frequent meditation on death is the surest aid in scorning the seductions of this world, and in ordering the soul amid its storms and tempests, if only such meditation be not superficial, but sink into the bones and marrow of the heart. Yet am I greatly afraid lest that happen in your case which I have seen in so many others, and you be found deceiving your own self. _Petrarch_. In what way do you mean? For I do not clearly understand the drift of your remarks. _S. Augustine._ O race of mortal men, this it is that above all makes me astonished and fearful for you, when I behold you, of your own will clinging to your miseries; pretending that you do not know the peril hanging over your heads and if one bring it under your very eyes, you try to thrust it from your sight and put it afar off. _Petrarch._ In what way are we so mad? _S. Augustine._ Do you suppose there is any living man so unreasonable that if he found himself stricken with a dangerous ailment he would not anxiously desire to regain the blessing of health? _Petrarch._ I do not suppose such a case has ever been heard of. _S. Augustine._ And do you think if one wished for a thing with all one's soul one would be so idle and careless as not to use all possible means to obtain what one desired? _Petrarch._ No one, I think, would be so foolish. _S. Augustine._ If we are agreed on these two points, so we ought also to agree on a third. _Petrarch._ What is this third point? _S. Augustine._ It is this: that just as he who by deep meditation has discovered he is miserable will ardently wish to be so no more; and as he who has formed this wish will seek to have it realised, so he who seeks will be able to reach what he wishes. It is clear that the third step depends on the second as the second on the first. And therefore the first should be, as it were, a root of salvation in man's heart. Now you mortal men, and you yourself with all your power of mind, keep doing your best by all the pleasures of the world to pull up this saving root out of your hearts, which, as I said, fills me with horror and wonder. With justice, therefore, you are punished by the loss of this root of salvation and the consequent loss of all the rest. _Petrarch_. I foresee this complaint you bring is likely to be lengthy, and take many words to develop it. Would you mind, therefore, postponing it to another occasion? And that I may travel more surely to your conclusion, may we send a little more time over the premisses? _S. Augustine_. I must concede something to, your slowness of mind; so please stop me at any point where you wish. _Petrarch_. Well, if I must speak for myself, I do not follow your chain of reasoning. _S. Augustine_. What possible obscurity is there in it? What are you in doubt about now? _Petrarch_. I believe there is a multitude of things for which we ardently long, which we seek for with all our energy, but which nevertheless, however diligent we are, we never have obtained and never shall. _S. Augustine_. That may be true of other desires, but in regard to that we have now under discussion the case is wholly different. _Petrarch._ What makes you say that? _S. Augustine._ Because every man who desires to be delivered from his misery, provided only he desires sincerely and with all his heart, cannot fail to obtain that which he desires. _Petrarch_. O father, what is this I hear? There are few men indeed who do not feel they lack many things and who would not confess they were so far unhappy. Every one who questions his own heart will acknowledge it is so. By natural consequence if the fulness of blessing makes man happy, all things he lacks will so far make him unhappy. This burden of unhappiness all men would fain lay down, as every one is aware; but every one is aware also that very few have been able. How many there are who have felt the crushing weight of grief, through bodily disease, or the loss of those they loved, or imprisonment, or exile, or hard poverty, or other misfortunes it would take too long to tell over; and yet they who suffer these things have only too often to lament that it is not permitted them, as you suggest, to be set free. To me, then, it seems quite beyond dispute that a multitude of men are unhappy by compulsion and in spite of themselves. _S. Augustine_. I must take you a long way back, and as one does with the very young whose wits are slight and slow, I must ask you to follow out the thread of my discourse from its very simplest elements. I thought your mind was more advanced, and I had no idea you still needed lessons so childish. Ah, if only you had kept in mind those true and saving maxims of the wise which you have so often read and re-read with me; if, I must take leave to say, you had but wrought for yourself instead of others; if you had but applied your study of so many volumes to the ruling of your own conduct, instead of to vanity and gaining the empty praise of men, you would not want to retail such low and absurd follies. _Petrarch._ I know not where you want to take me, but already I am aware of the blush mounting to my brow, and I feel like schoolboys in presence of an angry master. Before they know what they are accused of they think of many offences of which they are guilty, and at the very first word from the master's lips they are filled with confusion. In like case I too am conscious of my ignorance and of many other faults, and though I perceive not the drift of your admonition, yet as I know almost everything bad may be brought against me, I blush even before you have done speaking. So pray state more clearly what is this biting accusation that you have made. _S. Augustine_. I shall have many things to lay to your charge presently. Just now what makes me so indignant is to hear you suppose that any one can become or can be unhappy against his will. _Petrarch_. I might as well spare my blushes. For what more obvious truth than this can possibly be imagined? What man exists so ignorant or so far removed from all contact with the world as not to know that penury, grief, disgrace, illness, death, and other evils too that are reckoned among the greatest, often befall us in spite of ourselves, and never with our own consent? From which it follows that it is easy enough to know and to detest one's own misery, but not to remove it; so that if the two first steps depend on ourselves, the third is nevertheless in Fortune's hand. _S. Augustine._ When I saw you ashamed I was ready to give you pardon, but brazen impudence angers me more than error itself. How is it you have forgotten all those wise precepts of Philosophy, which declare that no man can be made unhappy by those things you rattle off by name? Now if it is Virtue only that makes the happiness of man, which is demonstrated by Cicero and a whole multitude of weighty reasons, it follows of necessity that nothing is opposed to true happiness except what is also opposed to Virtue. This truth you can yourself call to mind even without a word from me, at least unless your wits are very dull. _Petrarch._ I remember it quite well. You would have me bear in mind the precepts of the Stoics, which contradict the opinions of the crowd and are nearer truth than common custom is. _S. Augustine._ You would indeed be of all men the most miserable were you to try to arrive at the truth through the absurdities of the crowd, or to suppose that under the leadership of blind guides you would reach the light. You must avoid the common beaten track and set your aspirations higher; take the way marked by the steps of very few who have gone before, if you would be counted worthy to hear the Poet's word- "On, brave lad, on! your courage leading you, So only Heaven is scaled."[1] _Petrarch._ Heaven grant I may hear it ere I die! But I pray you to proceed. For I assure you I have by no means become shameless. I do not doubt the Stoics' rules are wiser far than the blunders of the crowd. I await therefore your further counsel. _S. Augustine_. Since we are agreed on this, that no one can become or be unhappy except through his own fault, what need of more words is there? _Petrarch._ Just this need, that I think I have seen very many people, and I am one of them, to whom nothing is more distressful than the inability to break the yoke of their faults, though all their life long they make the greatest efforts so to do. Wherefore, even allowing that the maxim of the Stoics holds good, one may yet admit that many people are very unhappy in spite of themselves, yes, and although they lament it and wish they were not, with their whole heart. _S. Augustine_. We have wandered somewhat from our course, but we are slowly working back to our starting-point. Or have you quite forgotten whence we set out? _Petrarch._ I had begun to lose sight of it, but it is coming back to me now. _S. Augustine._ What I had set out to do with you was to make clear that the first step in avoiding the distresses of this mortal life and raising the soul to higher things is to practise meditation on death and on man's misery; and that the second is to have a vehement desire and purpose to rise. When these two things were present, I promised a comparatively easy ascent to the goal of our desire. Unless haply to you it seems otherwise? _Petrarch_. I should certainly never venture to affirm this, for from my youth upwards I have had the increasing conviction that if in any matter I was inclined to think differently from yourself I was certain to be wrong. _S. Augustine._ We will please waive all compliments. And as I observe you are inclined to admit the truth of my words more out of deference than conviction, pray feel at liberty to say whatever your real judgment suggests. _Petrarch._ I am still afraid to be found differing, but nevertheless I will make use of the liberty you grant. Not to speak of other men, I call to witness Her who has ever been the ruling spirit of my life; you yourself also I call to witness how many times I have pondered over my own misery and over the subject of Death; with what floods of tears I have sought to wash away my stains, so that I can scarce speak of it without weeping; yet hitherto, as you see, all is in vain. This alone leads me to doubt the truth of that proposition you seek to establish, that no man has ever fallen into misery but of his own free will, or remained, miserable except of his own accord; the exact opposite of which I have proved in my own sad experience. _S. Augustine_. That complaint is an old one and seems likely to prove unending. Though I have already several times stated the truth in vain, I shall not cease to maintain it yet. No man can become or can be unhappy unless he so chooses; but as I said at the beginning, there is in men a certain perverse and dangerous inclination to deceive themselves, which is the most deadly thing in life. For if it is true that we rightly fear being taken in by those with whom we live, because our natural habit of trusting them tends to make us unsuspicious, and the pleasantly familiar sound of their voice is apt to put us off our guard,--how much rather ought you to fear the deceptions you practise on yourself, where love, influence, familiarity play so large a part, a case wherein every one esteems himself more than he deserves, loves himself more than he ought, and where Deceiver and Deceived are one and the same person? _Petrarch._ You have said this kind of thing pretty often to-day already. But I do not recollect ever practising such deception on myself; and I hope other people have not deceived me either. _S. Augustine._ Now at this very moment you are notably deceiving yourself when you boast never to have done such a thing at all; and I have a good enough hope of your own wit and talent to make me think that if you pay close attention you will see for yourself that no man can fall into misery of his own will. For on this point our whole discussion rests. I pray you to think well before answering, and give your closest attention, and be jealous for truth more than for disputation, but then tell me what man in the world was ever forced to sin? For the Seers and Wise Men require that sin must be a voluntary action, and so rigid is their definition that if this voluntariness is absent then the sin also is not there. But without sin no man is made unhappy, as you agreed to admit a few minutes ago. _Petrarch._ I perceive that by degrees I am getting away from my proposition and am being compelled to acknowledge that the beginning of my misery did arise from my own will. I feel it is true in myself, and I conjecture the same to be true of others. Now I beg you on your part to acknowledge a certain truth also. _S. Augustine._ What is it you wish me to acknowledge? _Petrarch_. That as it is true no man ever fell involuntarily, so this also is true that countless numbers of those who thus are voluntarily fallen, nevertheless do not voluntarily remain so. I affirm this confidently of my own self. And I believe that I have received this for my punishment, as I would not stand when I might, so now I cannot rise when I would. _S. Augustine._ That is indeed a wise and true view to take. Still as you now confess you were wrong in your first proposition, so I think you should own you are wrong in your second. _Petrarch._ Then you would say there is no distinction between falling and remaining fallen? _S. Augustine._ No, they are indeed different things; that is to say, different in time, but in the nature of the action and in the mind of the person concerned they are one and the same. _Petrarch._ I see in what knots you entangle me. But the wrestler who wins his victory by a trick is not necessarily the stronger man, though he may be the more practised. _S. Augustine._ It is Truth herself in whose presence we are discoursing. To her, plain simplicity is ever dear, and cunning is hateful. That you may see this beyond all doubt I will go forward from this point with all the plainness you can desire. _Petrarch._ You could give me no more welcome news. Tell me, then, as it is a question concerning myself, by what line of reasoning you mean to prove I am unhappy. I do not deny that I am; but I deny that it is with my own consent I remain so. For, on the contrary, I feel this to be most hateful and the very opposite of what I wish. But yet I can do nothing except wish. _S. Augustine._ If only the conditions laid down are observed, I will prove to you that you are misusing words. _Petrarch._ What conditions do you mean, and how would you have me use words differently? _S. Augustine._ Our conditions were to lay aside all juggling with terms and to seek truth in all plain simplicity, and the words I would have you use are these: instead of saying you _can_not, you ought to say you _will_ not. _Petrarch._ There will be no end then to our discussion, for that is what I never shall confess. I tell you I know, and you yourself are witness, how often I have wished to and yet could not rise. What floods of tears have I shed, and all to no purpose? _S. Augustine._ O yes, I have witnessed many tears, but very little will. _Petrarch._ Heaven is witness (for indeed I think no man on this earth knows) what I have suffered, and how I have longed earnestly to rise, if only I might.



The Hanging of Judas By Shingirirai Masunda Who is wise? The one giving advice or the one who is seeking the advice? Who is in charge? The one wearing the crown or those placing it on his head. A paradox nondescript, although not altogether indescribable. Ergo: when you grip too hard onto this dry and slippery sand, you will be left holding onto nothing. If existence is in itself a means to an end, I thought the quondam contretemps over significance are inconsequential. That’s what I thought. At least, until the day I met – Self. Self menaced I with the most bitter vengeance. It was a payback for the contempt with which I had treated Self. Self had bestowed the reign on I and I in turn had neglected his advice. The agony was at length insufferable. And I realised, seeing Self run off with the life I had sacrificed all time to build, that the time had come. It was not the season for preventing Self from getting away with this. I realised that it was high time to die. It predisposed I to serious impressions, so finally I made up mind to carry forth without Self. I knew not how the arrangement took place but so it was. I gave the matter no further consideration and ended the hopes of existence by an event which could not have been anticipated, to be sure, but which the natural sequence of events had brought about. Everything which happens is meant to happen, because it happened. The reason is inconsequential, for it does not alter the effect. Life, alike money, has no real value other than possessed by what it acquires. I betook to a pursuit of a life with all the nimbleness which the case required and its circumstances would admit. But I was soon upon the point of resigning to fate as there appeared to be no life without self. But this, for obvious reasons, I found impossible to do. How could I not exist? No sooner, however, had I ceased doubting, I realised what made the pedagogical Self. And I understood submission stood high on the list of indispensable qualities for survival. I, like a puppet cut out of shingle and jerked by a string, addressed and corresponded well when inflicted with a purpose: to amuse Self. Fulfilling life's game of being aware of its Self. When failing, there is no point at all, so I seize to exist. To be of any importance, emotional existence doesn't have to go on any longer than a moment. Quantitative continuity is of no significance. It’s a far more amusing arrangement for life to continue the process through different selves. Such that as each self approaches life it is renewed. Death being as positive an energy as birth, both achieving the same effect. That of life. Every spiritual belief is a preparation to death. And every spiritual discipline involves a form of death. The death of self. One leaves behind the consciousness state in which I were an isolated individual and transcends beyond individualism. Death in its pure form is an experience of changing – Self. I had a grave time with Self. The rod of power was new to Self, and he felt it his "duty" to use the power more than might have been thought necessary by those upon whose sense the privilege had palled. This bestowed upon I an awakening, at least a much serious reflection. Would Self be better if he were self-sacrificing, postponing his own ease and comfort to the general good? Or would he be better if he were more sedentary, and less fond of circumambulating life? And here lies the conundrum, in this transformation of Self into I. Let it not be supposed that Self is of a cruel and ogrish nature. Such souls there may be, among those endowed with the awful control of power, but they are rare in the realm we describe. It is, we believe, where individuals are to be crammed for the "eternity", the process of hardening mind and spirit together goes on most vigorously. Yet among the unenlightened there is so high a respect for power, it is necessary for the self to show, first of all, he possesses this inadmissible requisite for his place. The rest is more readily taken for granted. Wisdom he may have but a strong arm he must have: so he proves the more important claim first. I must therefore make all due allowance for self, who could not be expected to overtop his position so far as to discern at once the philosophy of life. An examination was required on the entrance into this realm, and, with whatever secret trepidation, Self was obliged to submit. Life's law prescribes accountability, but forgets to provide for the competency of the examiners; so that few better farces offer more than the course of faith. I know not precisely what self’s trials were; but I have heard of a sharp dispute between the examiners over good and evil. Good had it, and the school maintained that conviction ever after. Self's exhibition of life on this occasion did not reach I, but it must have been considerable, since he stood the ordeal. I entered the realm with new courage and invigorated authority. I took more liberties, for I knew from past life experiences, influence is stronger than power. Self, however, had many a battle. And whether with a view to this, or as a survival ruse, he resorted to good. Perhaps it was an astute attention to the prejudices of the examiners, who approve no individual who does not do as it pleases them. It was evident Self was in compliance, and that afforded a probability that I too were. Self's success was most triumphant after this. Obedience had given him a degree of confidence, and confidence gave him power. In short, the master had waked up. A God, he became. Circumventing I to slavery. This is an enigma of too much magnitude to be fully described in the confines of human understanding yet vital in bringing out humanity's predicament. It must be "slubber'd o'er in haste". Its important preliminaries left to the assumptions of the individual and its fine spirit perhaps escaping for want of being embodied in words. In any case, I became Self’s life. And here I was, left to self’s whim? How do I discern good? Today I turn water into wine. Tomorrow I am hanged. Is Jesus Christ's self-sacrifice inconsequential? Today I am a disciple. Tomorrow I am a traitor. Is Judas Iscariot's self-sacrifice inconsequential? Who is the villain? The one in plight or the one who gives cause to strife? Who is the hero? The one hanging from the cross or those who nailed him there? A paradox nondescript, although not altogether indescribable. Ergo: when you grip too hard onto this dry and slippery sand, you will be left holding onto nothing.

My Brilliant Film Career or Moulton of the Movies By Herbert Eyre Moulton (1927 – 2005) Posthumously transcribed by his son, the published author, Charles E.J. Moulton PROLOGUE “Weave a circle round him thrice, And close your eyes with holy dread ...” I’ve been delving lately into The Archives --- The Archives being a collection of exquisitely varied plastic shopping-bags and a battered old volume bearing the label: Herb’s crapbook (the capital “S” having fallen by the wayside somewhere along the line) and I’ve discovered a rather startling fact: of all the movies I’ve worked in over the years, either as a dialogue coach or actor or whatever --- every single one of them has been a flop --- that is, if they were ever released at all. Admittedly a couple of them deserved to bomb, due to a bad script or rotten timing or faulty promotion, or inflated hubris or just plain bloody-mindedness on the director’s part. But not all of them were stinkers. Quite the contrary --- aside from the obvious abomination or two, some were of superior quality, as we shall see, with imaginative screenplays or those about to be ... hardly deserving such a fate. Of their actual histories, one of them enjoyed a spectacular Hollywood-style premiere at a leading Vienna movie palace, with speeches, floodlights, and a gala party --- then curled up a died a death. Another made it all the way to America, but ended up as a softporn video (mea maxima culpa!) As far as anyone can discover, two of the really good films haven’t even crept out of the cutting-rooms yet. So now, having surfed through all this bilge, I detect a rather ominous pattern beginning to emerge: one cannot be involved in so many fiascos without something being at the root of it, something a good deal more sinister than ordinary tough luck or coincidence. No, something rather uncanny has been at work here all the time: Doom, Fate, Destiny, the Writhing Finger (the finger, in any case), merciless and inexorible, especially in dealing with Moulton’s Movies. Could it be that I’ve been more than just an innocent dialogue coach or player? Could I actually be a kind of Hoodoo, a certified, fully qualified Plague-Carrier, a Jonah, not so much a charmer as a Bad-Charm? Nowadays, with every other magazine speculating on who will be named Man/ Woman/ Newsmaker/ Personality of the Century/ Millenium, I have decided to go public myself. I am hereby putting myself up for Film-Pariah of the Century, the only completely surefire Jinx of the well-loved Silver Screen, a certain guarantee of disaster. To think of it, the fortune I could have been making all these years, just having people pay me for NOT being in their films, or conversely, having more vindictive souls subsidize me to be in the films of people they hated and whom they deliberately wanted to sabotage. All very simple, very orderly and lethally effective. Let me show you now what I mean --- for the sake of space, sanity, and as few messy lawsuits as possible, I’ll limit myself to nine entries from Moulton’s canon of the Good, the Bad and the Utterly Ridiculous. We’ll skip the made-for-TV efforts, the videos, and the commercials. What we’re talking here is motion-picture-stuff, cinema losses and wasted celluloid, empty theaters with idle ushers and usherettes, unsold pocorn and unswept washrooms, box offices gone to dust and conwebs, with pyramids of unwanted soft drink tins and purtrifying Chicken McNuggets. What we’re talking here is the dreaded Herbie-Factor, Folks --- Moulton’s Midas-Touch-in-Reverse. Call me Ishmael; Shake Hands with the Ancient Mariner ... and the envelope, please ...

My Brilliant Film-Career or Moulton of the Movies 1.

Attack Squadron “Somebody up there hates me!” The first movie I was ever involved in that actually gave me a proper --- well, fairly proper --- speaking role was a little number entitled Attack Squadron. It was shot in less than a week in November 1961 at Ardmore Studio in Bray, Co. Wicklow, a few miles from the coast from Dublin, where I was living and working at the time. If nothing else, it offered proof positive that the human spirit is truly indestructible. Attack Squadron was set on a fictitious U.S. Navy cruiser during World War II and was the brainchild of an aging Hollywood Hot-Shot left over from the 1940’s by the name of Cy Knapp: producer/ director/ undertaker, a real Renaissance-Man. He was also Central Casting’s idea of a Hollywood eccentric, from the baseball cap and tennis shoes to the well-chomped cigar-butt and raspy Edward G. Robinson bark. Our first meeting, a casting session of sorts, took place in the only hotel open in Bray at that time of year, and was constantly interrupted by Knapp’s expansive “I’m having lunch with Herb Moulton here.” Fine, except that he was the one having lunch, while I had to make do with a cold cup of coffee, which, if memory serves, I ended up paying for myself. Of course, I took the damn job, no matter how miserably it paid (Cy Knapp could easily have been Dickens’ original model for Old Scrooge). It might be a good experience (Oh, that most amorphous of terms!) and it might also provide us with a few laughs and a bit of gas (Dublinese for fun). One could always use a bit of gas. Well, we got gas all right, but it was produced by the bill of fare at the studio canteen. Misery loves company, so they say, and mine was shared with a half-dozen or so other castaways --- Irishmen trying to sound American and Americans trying to be John Wayne gung-ho. This cross-section of the old “Race-Creed-or-Color”-syndrome featured a San Francisco-actor and manager named Jack Aronson, who recently immolated himself on a tour of southern Ireland with Moby Dick in the open-stage adaptation by a friend of his, Orson Welles. Many of us in this current gig had also been aboard the doomed, imaginary Pequod as it foundered and finally sunk, leaving the survivors to contemplate the possible existance of a genuine Cap’n Ahab Curse. That Moby Dick misadventure is worth a paragraph of its own. It was a very modern, scaled down production that relied on quick changes, recorded sound, invisible props, and energetic, not to say hysterical miming on the part of all hands. At one point-of-call, the audience consisted of two bewildered farmers in the front row, who took all the miming and shouting with stoic patience up to the point where we were all pulling on an invisible rope (“Pull, babes! Pull, sucklings! Pull! Pull!”) Whereupon one of them said aloud to his mate, “Arrah, what in the name of Jayzuz are they at? Sure, there’s fook-all there!” With that, they arose, put on their caps, and left. You see what I mean about a Curse? In this case, it might easily have been the dreaded Curse of the Seven Snotty Orphans of Dublin. Moreover, as the fella said, “You ain’t heard nothin’ yet!” To return now to our Race-Creed-or-Color cross-section --- Jack Aronson played the ship’s Commander, who also happened to be Jewish. Horrible Herb here, the Illinois pariah, was cast as O’Brien, devout Irish-Catholic bead-roller --- the religious element was absolutely essential --while the color part --- Canada-Lee-“Lifeboat”-damage --- was supplied by a delightful black American named Ferry, who had been snagged for the assignment while passing through. It was a horrendous time for us all, a week that truly tried men’s souls, with Cy Knapp ever more obsessed with cutting expenses, and the entire workforce of Ardmore sniggering behind his back. (Come to think of it, Cy was giving a pretty good performance of Captain Ahab on his own.) To add to my own weight of woe, I was playing Leopold, the singing headwaiter in the operetta The White Horse Inn, in downtown Dublin. This naturally led to logistic problems of horrific proportions, adding to threats, recriminations, and on-set confrontations that were already raging and have since become a part of Irish Theatre Legend. The entire week was one long screaming row, with no quarter asked or given, and no one spared. In these halcyon days I was as yet unmarried --- what the Irish call Fancy-Free-and-Free-to-Fancy, and the state of my health was always a bit dicey. This led to regular eruptions of painful boils on one or the other portion of my anatomy. Naturally, my Attack Squadron installment had to show up, in glorious wide-screen Technicolor, on one side of my nose, altering all of Cy’s camera set-ups and making it necessary to film only one side of my face, like Claudette Colbert --- or, as Ferry put it, Claudette without the jugs. Kindly amnesia has blocked out all but two episodes of that strife torn week --- (1.) the sequence where each of us dis-able-bodied seamen were leaning over the ship’s railing (actually a none-too-taut rope) deep in thought of home and just spoilin’ for a flashback. For that magical effect, Cy came up with a truly ingenius idea. One of the Ardmore worker-bees crouched on the floor at our feet, holding a pan of water with a light trained on it, causing rippled reflections on each face, or, in my piteous state, in my Job-like boil. African-American, Catholic, Jewish, a touching and wonderfully multicultural essay in homesickness and patriotic sacrifice, get it? Then a quick segue into the past --- in my case, to our cut-glass, lace-curtain dining-room at home, complete to crucifix on the wall (Cy thought of everything). Nostalgia-Time, Folks, and thoughts that lie too deep for tears. It was those home-thoughts that detonated the other episode (2.) still vivid in memory, a shot heard round the Republic of Ireland, or at least the County of Wicklow. In this tender vignette (the Gospel according to Cy), I was supposed to be explaining to my little brood how it was that we American-Catholics always have suffered such heinous religious persecution in our daily lives at the hands of our bigoted non-Catholic fellow citizens. At that point the manure really hit the fan (“Bullshit! Ballocks! Balls!”) Dammit, I was once a Catholic growing up in a midwest community and never for a second had I ever, ever, ever known one instance of religious prejudice, let alone persecution. It was a vicious, pernicious libel, and I refused to be any part of it. But old hot-shot Knapp, for the sake of dramatic tension, begged to differ. Tension? Differ? While O’Brien here and Cecil B. DeKnapp wrangled loud and furious, the cast and crew took themselves off to the canteen for an attentuated tea-break. I recall, at one juncture, our make-up-girl Maureen repairing my streaming mask and my painfully blossoming boil, whilst murmuring. “Keep it up, Herb, for as long as you can! We’ll run overtime and he will have to pay us for an extra day, the bloody old gomshyte!” Finally, to break the deadlock and get me to the stage in time, a compromise was reached, the defamatory diatribe toned down, and filming allowed to continue --- the filming and the austerity. By then, ever the kleenex and the paper were all being recycled. How we got through to the end of the week remains a mystery inside of a miracle. I only know that for myself it was Schizoid City, what with juggling Leopold the Alpine Lover in town and O’Brien of the Boils down in Bray, and shuttling back and forth on the coastal train or occasional studio-van loudly begrudged by our gracious and generous Renaissance-Man. One of the few joyous moments of the whole devastating experience came with Ferry’s cheery wrap-up: “I hear that Cy Knapp’s next epic is gonna be The Nine Commandments. He’s leaving one commandment out: Thou shalt not steal .” Dear Ferry --- I wonder whatever became of him. Even more to the point: whatever happened to Attack Squadron and old Cy Knapp? Picture it: Dublin 1961, Jack Aronson, dynamic actor-director son-in-law of the great Irish actor-manager Anew MacMaster, over from San Francisco, to play the ship’s commander of, not one, but two doomed enterprises: Moby Dick’s Pequod, and Attack Squadron’s USS Anonymous -- with rugged fellow-seaman Airbear M. complete with beard for the shipwrecks ahead. Ah, Golden Days! Anchors Away! Note: in the text, Cy’s last name has been changed in the unlikely event that the old hot-shot is still alive.

2. Firefox “I fear thee, Ancient Mariner, I fear thy skinny hand!” The bit part I played in Clint Eastwood’s Cold War adventure melodrama FIREFOX was one of his first times out as both director and star. In it he plays an American pilot disguised as an ordinary businessman and sent to Moscow to steal a new supersonic fighter plane. This was Vienna 1981 --- we were living in Sweden at the time, but this didn’t stop me from trundling down to Johann-Strauss-Ville every chance I got --- for theatre work, school radio recordings, translations, or what you will. This particular assignment was definately of the what-you-will variety, with myself as a KGB apparatchik hovering ominously in the middle background while “Our Clint” is being interrogated by a cool, polite, and deadly Soviet customs official regarding certain suspicious-looking items in his luggage --- the usual anti-American, anything-to-be-mean hard time those boyos used to specialize in. All I was supposed to do was stand there glowering, but I fear I did considerably more than that, and I’ve got a home video-clip of the scene to prove it. It could serve as a model for all time of how prominent a bit player in the background can be, if he has a mind to, and is sneaky enough to see his chance and take it. My bit being so miniscule, such an old ham like myself --- sugar-cured, hickory-smoked, pineapple-glazed --- naturally felt it could use a bit of fleshing out, which is precisely what I proceeded to do, by the simple expedient of staying right on camera the whole time, naughty, unprofessional, but devilishly effective. All it took was swaying back and forth ever so slightly on my two little cloven hooves, whilst staring into the camera with doubt and suspicion in my eyes, real SpyWho-came-in-from-the-Cold-stuff ... Powerful, stark, menacing. But not everybody saw it that way, and my performance did not go completely unnoticed. At length one of the camera crew spoke up rather pointedly: “Clint, please tell that gentleman to stand still ... bobbing back and forth like that, he’s making me dizzy.” A tiny reprimand, and it did no good whatsoever. Clint for one, being much too preoccupied with his end of the scene and his interrogation, nodded and went on to say nothing but give me a tiny smile. So, accordingly, there’s “Old Herbie” or “AirBear”, as my college friends used to call me, in that key opening reel, beginning 21 minutes into the motion picture and going for another full one-and-a-half minutes (the black-haired and elegant gentleman behind the Soviet military official), swaying back and forth, back and forth, gently, quietly, like a padded pendulum, frowning his Filthy-McNasty-Tovaritsch frown, all the while ... To show you what a fine gentleman and colleague Clint Eastwood truly is, he came over to me afterwards and --- the very pineapple of politeness (to borrow Mrs. Malaprop’s phrase), thanked me for doing the scene with him. Hmm, doing it? Dear Hearts, it looks from this end like I was doing my damndest to ruin it, though I’d swear a great and terrible oath that such was never my intent. Alas, Firefox turned out to be one of the biggest proverbial and monetary duds of Clint’s career. Purest coincidence? As in W.W. Jacobs’ classic horror story “The Monkey’s Paw”, maybe, maybe not. But given my track record before or since, who knows? Mine wasn’t much a part as parts go in “Firefox”, but was it sufficient to jinx the whole operation? If that be the case, sorry about that, Clint. Tough luck that it had to happen at such a vulnerable stage in your endevors. It could have happened to a worse film and as anyone who reads these chronicles can tell --- could, and did. Were the fates even then getting me warmed up for a pre-destined role as plague-carrier sui generis? Stay tuned. I only knew that in the bad old days they used to toss types like me overboard to placate the angry Gods causing all the shipwrecks: “And Jonah said unto them, take me and cast me forth into the sea, for I know that for my sake this great tempest is upon you.” I guess I’m lucky I’m still more or less intact. Let’s see, how things stand now? I shot my first motion picture in Ardmore Studios in Bray, Ireland, as a seaman, with dear Cy Knapp. Between that film (1961) and Firefox lay three thousand concerts, maybe one hundred stage productions and a few dozen commercials, one or two episodes in a local TV-series, not counting the radio-programmes. But as far as the motion pictures go, one vanished into the Bermuda Triangle as if it never existed, the other internationally distributed, but still a moderate flop --- 2 films, 2 flops, a perfect score. Where would the Moulton Menace strike next? The body count continues. Stay tuned. All joking aside, of all the celebrities I have had as colleagues Clint was the most supreme gentleman of them all. Alan Rickman, for his part, was very pleasant and soft-spoken intellectual, Mickey Rourke the cool buddy-type character, David Warner the friendly thespian, Zsa-Zsa Gabor the temperamentful diva par excellance, Viggo Mortensen the consummate professional. Clint? He was, remains and always will be the prince of politeness.

3. Business for Pleasure “And till my ghastly tale is said, This heart within me burns ...” The Making of “Business for Pleasure” By well-known actor, baritone and author Herbert Eyre Moulton (1927 – 2005)

I have starred in many movies, including “Firefox” with Clint Eastwood and “Mesmer” with Alan Rickman. Often, I am confused with another colleague of the same generation and of the same name. We share the same profession, but I am also a singer, a teacher, an author and have worked a greater part in Europe. I was MCA Records’ 1950’s Hot-Shot Dinner Singer, the conductor of the Camp Gordon Chapel Choir during the Korean War, a part of the duo “The Singing Couple”, the other half being my wife Gun Kronzell, creator of the school-radio-programmes for the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation and actor in over three hundred stage productions across the world. As for the movies, one of my more curious anecdotes concerned the following one. Yet another of my hot Oscar-Contenders was an Austro-American goody produced in 1996 by “Erotic-Pioneer” Zelman King of “9 ½ Weeks”-fame. This was one little sweetmeat that actually got released, or it snuck out when no one was looking. I know for a fact that it was let loose back home, because a matronly towncrier of my acquaintance phoned me from the Chicago area to relay the glad tidings: “Don Nichols called last night and said he’d rented a Soft-Porn video and guess who was playing the butler? Not just the butler, but also a sort of uniformed Procurer? Herb Moulton, that’s who! So, of course, we had to have a look at it, and we recognized you, because you were the only one with your clothes on.” This rococo fertility-rite starred Jeroen Krabbe (Harrison Ford’s nemesis in “The Fugitive”) and two dishy young shooting stars who needed the work, I guess: Caron Bernstein and Gary Stretch, and it was filmed (my scenes, anyway) in various splendidly restored castles ornmenting the Austrian countryside. As usual, I wasn’t especially wellinformed about my actual duties. All I knew was: I was to meet and greet the lissome Ms. Bernstein at the portal and usher her up several flights of long winding stairs into a vast bed- and ballroom, in the center of which stood a gilded ornamental bathtub complete with sumptuous Turkish towels and exotic perfumes and ungents. She was to make use of it at once. On this very first day of shooting I was handed a xeroxed resumé of the convoluted, so-called plot which bore the cryptic stamp “UNAPPROVED 2/7/96”. After a moment’s persual I could see why. To match its sheer gooey grandiloquence you’d have to turn to the Collected works of Dame Barbara Cartland. Talk about “Dynasty”- and “Dallas”-Damage. Allow me to quote some purple patches: “Isabel Diaz, a beautiful and sophisticated, rising executive, is facing a crisis,” it begins. “That moment in life, when each time she looks in the mirror, she asks herself: ‘What am I saving myself for?’” The question being wholly rhetorical, the narrative gurgles on: “A self-possessed woman with a smouldering sensuality, she longs to push beyond the limits of the day to day.” Helping her push is the powerful, ultra-wealthy magnate Alexander Schutter, with whom she forms an unholy alliance. With him, she “has met her match”. This is Mr. Krabbe at his silkiest and most icky, and his first demand on Isabel is that she “pass a test of personal loyalty and cater to his peculiar sensual desires.” She is to bring two call girls to his suite and observe them making love to Rolf, Schutter’s chauffeur, whom the handout describes as “darkly handsome and gifted lover.” (Well, he’d want to be, wouldn’t he?) One question, if I may: Why is it always the chauffeur and why not the poor old butler who has all the fun? As the gray eminence of this particular castle, I know I had to be above all that, grandly ignorant of the carnal olympiad swirling all around me, and much more concerned with such domestic duties as supervising a corps of bewigged flunkies as they served a splendiferous candlelight supper out on the terrace. The trouble was it poured wih rain on each of the all-night filming sessions (always tedious and depressing at the best of times), which rather dampended the orgiastic merriment. Luckily, Gary Stretch, alias Rolf the sexually athletic chauffeur, took pity on me and let me take refuge in his heate caravan, for which a benison on him, and may Heaven safeguard his libido. But wait, there’s more, much more. “The game begins,” announces the funky travelogue, and before anybody can say “Priapus”, the show is taken off the road and moved to the glitter and swank of Vienna, where “an intensely erotic triangle develops among Isabel, Schutter and Rolf.” The relentlessly lascivious Schutter gets further kicks from watching the other two making what Iago in Shakespeare’s Othello terms “the beast with two backs.” The gameplan breathlessly unfolds: “The tension in this emotional thriller builds against the background of Vienna where love of life, beauty and luxury echoes Isabel’s growing passion for sensuality. (“Getting There Is Half The Fun!”) But now danger looms for heedless, headstrong Isabel, along with hints of tragedy buried in the past, as “Schutter’s world of power, risk and decadence becomes an addiction for her.” What withdrawal struggles, what cold turkey the poor dear will have to endure while kicking the habuit must be left to the imagination. For now, the whole heroic saga is being rounded off: “Business for Pleasure is the story of one woman’s brave journey to the heart of her own desires. Isabel’s entry into Schutter’s dark world leaves her shattered ...” (And she’s not the only one!) But now come the great crashing chords that signify Redemption and The Grand Finale: “With the help of the mysterious and hauntingly beautiful Anna ...” (Mysterious, is right. This is the first we have heard of her!) “... she is able to pick up the pieces of her life. When finally Isabel triumphs over disaster, she helps Schutter confront his own emptiness and take his first steps into the light.” What this reminds you of is the grand old era of Super-Soap Heroines like Mary Noble, Backstage Wife, and tragic, self-sacrificing Stella Dallas. Isabel has got to be the most distressed and poignant figure since Tolstoy or possibly Jacqueline Susanne. Yet what is the only thing that bugged those yahoo-acquaintances of mine in Chicago? The next time I’m in that neck of the woods, remind me to check out for myself the video of “Business for Pleasure”, if only to see just what fun-and-games the butler had been missing all that time. 4. Princess “What? Will the line stretch out to th’crack of doom?” We arrive at the forth installment of personal accounts about Herbert Eyre Moulton’s movies in the book he wrote about his film work: “My Brilliant Film Career”. This time the story is about the movie “Princess” from 1993. This movie was released as “Piccolo Grande Amore” and information about it can be received under these links: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107823/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_110 (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107823/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_110) http://www.mymovies.it/dizionario/recensione.asp?id=18371 (http://www.mymovies.it/dizionario/recensione.asp?id=18371) After the stories he told us in “The Making of Attack Squadron”, “Herb Moulton & Clint Eastwood” and “The Making of an Erotic Thriller”, we now turn to “Two Hollywood Costume Extravaganzas”. Let’s see what Herbie has to say: In the script of the Italian-produced movie “Princess”, we find this direction: “The door opens and an elderly, impeccably dressed BUTLER appears, with a silver tray piled high with magazines. BUTLER Excuse me, Your Highness, but you said you wanted these urgently. Three guesses who the butler is, and the first two don’t count. That’s right: always the butler and never the boss, a somewhat wearying sentence I seem to be serving for a lifetime. The setting for this Graustarkian love story is the mythical principality of Lichtenhaus, with its royal family modelled on the Grimaldi clan of Monaco. For the part of the princesses, meant to be Caroline and Stephanie, two of Vienna’s most important dramatic regal landmarks were chosen to offer their cinematic bailiwicks. Even the minor players were handpicked by the director, Carlo Vanzina, a one-time protegé of Fellini, no less. So, it was a noble line I was about to tangle with when I turned up at Vienna’s equally noble Hotel Imperial for the casting interview. All right, yet another butler, but this one was special, for he was part of the household of His Royal Highness, Prince Maximilian, played by a favorite of ours, David Warner, not too long ago considered the quintessential Hamlet-for-our-time. His screenbreak-through came in 1966 with the crazy title role in “Morgan, A Suitable Case For Treatment”. That made him a star and my wife and me fans of his for life. Some time later, our son Charlie joined the club with “Omen”, and when he told Warner that himself, Warner snorted: “Oh, God, that!” Our film-freak son was likewise excited by the casting of Paul Freeman as Otto, the villain of the piece, remembering his evil turn as Beloque, the Nazi heavy in “Raiders of the Lost Ark”: “500 000 watts of Nasty!” My workaday duties for the prince were dispatched in two different palatial settings: the Hofburg, the Emperor Franz Josef’s old pad in the heart of Vienna, and, a few streets, and, a few streets and a couple centuries removed, the Theresianum, a superbly preserved baroque complex that once served as an officer’s training school and was named after its patroness, the Empress Maria Theresia, whose name it still bears as a college for budding diplomats. Its 18th century splendor has been has been kept lovingly intact, and we were to play our scene in the fabled library, a treasure house of precious inlaid wood and priceless antique leather volumes all the way up to the frescoed ceiling. It’s open to visitors only with a special pass and suitable pedigreed blue blood. Our first scene however was set in Maximilian’s princely bedchamber in the Hofburg, and I had the honor of waking up the royal slugabed with this exquisitely cadenced speech: BUTLER Good morning, Your Highness. Today is May twelfth, the feast of Saint Ladislas Martyr, also your cousin of Romania. The temperature is falling slightly: a high of fifty-three degrees, and a low of forty-five. The scenes with Mr. Warner were all of them fun, with his easy gift of friendly argle-bargle, both relaxed and refreshing. He even did me the kindness of autographing a portrait of himself which I’d removed from a calendar I’d bought at Stratford, a full-size head-and-shoulders done in pastels and dubbed “The Actor”. This was the first time he’d ever seen it! “To Herbert, Many Thanks, David Warner, ‘The Actor’, Vienna 1993.” Between takes we retreated to the cellar and the museum staff canteen. The scene there could well be entitled “Costumed Chaos in the Canteen”, for there happened to be another film, a real costume extravaganza, being shot in these hallowed precincts at the same time as ours, the latest Hollywood version of “The Three Musketeers”, the jokey one done with American accents and all, with Charlie Sheen and Kiefer Sutherland. The latter nearly brought down destruction on their entire operation by his tosspot antics in the all-night-fleshpots of Babylon-on-the-Danube. So, as things heated up, the Gods were already making rumbling noises. Of course both companies had to break for meals simultaneously, turning the canteen into the scene of the most variegated costume orgies, Louis XIII and Monaco Gold-Braid, since the climactic reels of Lon Chaney’s “Phantom of the Opera”. It might have been better if they’d released those goings-on as newsreel stuff and jettisoned the two doomed feature films. But of that, more anon ... The venue for my second scene was less crowded and yet more elegant: the Theresianum library doubling as the Lichtenhaus Council chamber, presided over by the sinister Otto, whose machinations were suddenly broken up by Maximilian’s no-nonsense and imperious entrance sweeping in, with me, padding breathlessly, in his wake. I was bearing the obligatory silver tray, onto which H.R.H. was lofting over his shoulder, without looking all manner of official-looking documents and letters. It was a dizzying journey across what seemed to me recently restored to its former glory. I am pleased to report that while scampering behind the Prince, molto allegro, I was somehow nimble enough enough to catch everyy single one of the documents he was tossing over the royal epulet. Limping and tottering at his heels, dodging and feinting, but always maintaining my dignity, so I went, and a memorable sight it should be, too, if the movie ever gets released. That’s precisely where the fate-keeps-on-happening routine comes in: a delicious light comedy script, first rate directing, handsome authentic settings, and stars like David Warner, Paul Freeman, and Susannah York as the Queen Mother, plus what Signor Vanzina promises in the press releases to be a sensational new Dutch actress, Barbara Snellenburg as Princess Sophia: “ This girl will be a star!” And the best of Viennese-Italian-Dutch luck to them all, what with Moulton here as Major-Domo (Major Disaster would be more like it). For as far as my sources can discover, “Princess”, running true to form, hasn’t yet seen the light of day anywhere, or if it has it hasn’t reached Central Europe yet or any of the international publications we subscribe to. It might have been shown in Vanzina’s native Italy, but it was filmed in English for the English-speaking market. As far as that all-too-jokey “Three Musketeers”-movie goes, well, of course it was a movie for the MTV-generation and a kind of a youthful introduction to Alexandre Dumas. Literary history for the Brat Pack with a huge Top 40 Hit as a PR-gag, Roddy, Sting and Bryan, the three musketeers of Rock ‘n Roll, singing it away, all for one and all for love. Me, Herbert Eyre Moulton, having shared tables with Kiefer and Charlie in the Hofburg canteen in Vienna, chatting away with good old David and hearing the Hollywood hotshots repeating their lines while drooling over their Wiener Schnitzels. Seriously now, Gang, could it be that this butler-playing character-actor is the subject not to a a pernicious, contagious curse, but a small blessing? Could it have rubbed off during those united lunchroom melées in the Hofburg cafeteria? After all, I wined and dined with the best. Maybe “Princess” will have its day in the sun after all. A sobering thought. And a good one. Just like the movie I was in. 5. Dead Flowers “For all the words of tongue or pen, The saddest are these: it might have been.” “A lyrical film, a flop ...” So wrote the Austrian film magazine DIAGONALE about “Dead Flowers” three years after the fact. And this was really tragic, this flop, one of the few movies I’ve ever been associated with that was truly all of a piece, with no nonsense and no camp about any portion of it. It was only the second work by the brilliant young Austrian writer/director Peter Ily Huemer, who divides his time between his native Vienna and his adopted New York, where he lives and works. Huemer’s first work, the film noir “Kiss Daddy Good Night”, had been shot in New York and was just as much a success as “Dead Flowers”, made in Vienna. Financially speaking, let it be said, it was a failure. It stands today as a thoroughly fascinating modern retelling of the old Orpheus and Eurydice myth, transplante to the industrial outskirts of the city and its robust working class, a totally integrated work, in turns endearingly funny, raunchy, somber, spooky, and disturbing. Huemer, known as a man of understatement, is a thoughtful and indeed lovable “Mensch” of infinite patience and kindness, especially towards his chosen players. And with what care he chooses them, too. His casting sessions are famous for their thoroughness. Mine lasted well over half an hour and consisted mainly of thoughtful pauses and groping for the answers to his many searching questions, some of them personal, some seemingly irrelevant, many of them psychological: What animal would you like to be, and why? What would you do if a child of yours was in serious trouble/ mixed up with drugs/ killed in an accident? What would you do to try and prevent it, if possible? Have you any cruel impulses, surpressed or otherwise? Questions like that, a baffling, mentally stretching half-hour ... and then no word of the results for weeks. In fact, I’d quite forgotten the whole incident when the agent handling it phoned and said I’d been cast as Mr. LeMont, a rich, powerful executive at the United Nations, in some way mixed up with arms smuggling. As a bonus, Mr. LeMont would speak in my own dulcet tones, Chicago-Deutsch and all, without being dubbed later by some lowViennese kraut-head, as so often happens. LeMont’s only daughter Alice is the Eurydice of the tale, who was killed in a traffic accident two years before and comes back mysteriously from the underworld to fall in love with the hero, or anti-hero, Alex. And never has Eurydice had a more unlikely Orpheus, laconic, rough-appearing, almost primitive, but with a huge heart and tender nature, by profession with the harrowing of hell with his shirttail hanging halfway out. Alex lives with his dotty old grandmother (Tana Schanzara, who received an international prize for her delicious portrayal), a grandma who talks to herself when not addressing the image of her dead husband in his illuminated closet-shrine. Whenever she happens to stumble, out in her garden, she just has to lie there on her back like a tortoise, squealing and calling out until somebody, Alex usually, appears and helps her to her feet again. Into this odd little household comes my daughter, Alice/Eurydice, whom Alex has picked up one night hitchhiking on the highway, bruised and soiled as if she’d been in an accident. This is a haunting performance by the American actress Kate Valk, whom in the idiotic way of moviemaking I have never ever met, while I was filming, she was onstage in New York. Alice is a figure of mystery, and is already being stalked by a sinister network of agents from Hades, headed by a sadistic creep named Willy deVille, in mauve Liberacetype outfit and dark shades. The flight of the young pair, Alice must be returned to Hades whence she escaped, is packed with danger and excitement and ends up in a truly scary night-sequence in a shut-down zoo. There she gets separated from Alex and is abducted by deVille. Now deeply in love, Alex breaks out in a desperate search which leads first to Alice’s father, who only compounds the mystery. And that’s where I come in, out of the butler’s pantry for once, and into a top position in the UNO-City-by-the-Danube. I’m first seen in the parking lot there, getting into my big expensive car to drive to my big expensive home in Grinzing. On the expressway I’m increasingly aware of Alex tailing me in his van. Once at my place, he gets himself zapped unconcious by a couple of goons in my employ – Blues Brothers types, only evil, and comes to my cellar where I’m

enjoying his getting roughed up, that is, until he mentions his quest for Alice. At which, I get up and come forward to inform him that she has been dead these two years now, the victim of a traffic accident, which Alex, of course, finds incomprehensible. After a moment’s consideration, I order my gorillas to set him free. LeMont had only a couple of scenes, but these were as meticulously staged and filmed as if it were a major role in a top-budget thriller. Peter guided me through them with great patience and understanding. For the interrogation in the cellar he took me step-by-step, phrase-by-phrase, until, speaking of my dead daughter, I was almost choked with emotion – this tough, amoral, affluent wheeler-and-dealer. For the chase on the expressway, the traffic was blocked off so that I could race down the wrong way, for a more advantageous shot, the camera whirring away just at my right elbow and Peter directing me from the back seat: “Okay, Herbert, now look in the rearview mirror to see if he’s gaining on you – now speed up a bit – glance at the side mirror, speed up slightly again – shift in your seat – another glance in the mirror – excellent, Herbert, super! That’s it, CUT! Thank you very much!” Alex’s quest culminates in a foggy rowboat-crossing of the Danube/River Styx – Huemer’s screenplay follows the old legend faithfully, and is studded with intriguing details like Alex meeting a dead pal, just recently killed in a train accident involving the express from Salzburg, the “Rosenkavalier”. He inquires how it was that Alex died – Alex tells him he’s only visiting. Then, in an unforgettable encounter with The Boss, who turns out to be a transsexual Bulgarian woman in a dark suit and boy’s haircut, he learns that, in order to get Alice freed again, someone else must die in her place ... This little detail is neatly dispatched by dear old Granny, once Alex gets back to the other side. A fresh viewing of our “Dead Flowers”-video (recorded off the air) convinced me that this is nothing short of a minor masterpiece which deserved a far happier fate than a few prizes and citations from scattered film festivals, followed by a week in a grotty little cinema in Vienna’s 9th district. There, except for a couple of teeny gigglers, my family and I were the only audience that dismal Saturday afternoon – after which it folded up its petals and crept into oblivion. Some days later, wretchedly true to form, advertising posters began blossoming in streetscars and buses and on railway platforms – just one more example of too little/too late, as if purposely being sabotaged by the insensitive slobs in charge of promotion and distribution. No doubt they were already launched on something much more commercial, something reeking of sentimental schmaltz, but profitable. Peter’s only printed comment: “Da ist man schon einige Zeit angeschlagen – You can be pretty hard hit for a while after that.” As for the ultimate fate of Alex and Alice, one can only hope there’ll come another oppurtunity some day to re-live this haunting and fascinating picture. Given half the chance it still has all the makings of a genuine cult-film.