Epigenetics, Spontaneous Evolution, and the Power of Positive Thinking

I just finished reading Spontaneous Evolution, Our Positive Future and a Way to Get There From Here by Bruce H. Lipton and Steve Bhaerman (2010) and was looking back over the dog-eared pages, trying to get a handle on what I can tell you about a book so mind-blowing that I couldn’t wait to share it, but I came up blank.  There’s so much information packed into Spontaneous Evolution that not only do I have no idea where to begin, I don’t know what to highlight. 

So how about this for a start?  What the heck is epigentics? 

Here’s the definition from the online dictionary:

ep·i·ge·net·ics | ˌepəjəˈnediks |

plural noun [treated as singular] Biology

the study of changes in organisms caused by modification of gene expression rather than alteration of the genetic code itself: epigenetics has transformed the way we think about genomes.

I hear you — English, please!  In general, that means your DNA only predisposes you to an outcome, yet ultimately, you control that outcome.  DNA aside, there are a whole list of factors that go into getting you from birth to outcome, but here’s the great news:  you have a choice about those factors and can influence or change an outcome simply by altering the way you think about it.  As Bruce Lipton says:  “if you think it’s all in your genes, think again.”

According to Lipton, your DNA is only the table setting for your reality, but the appetizers, the main course, the dessert, even the wine pairings are all you and your perception of that reality.  Lipton is not just suggesting this, but has spent a good portion of his adult life researching that very phenomenon.  For thousands of years, gnostics, buddhas, mystics and Wayne Dyer, among others, have said the same thing only without the lab research.  They always knew that science would catch up — and now it has. 

Fire-walkers, levitators, energy healers, mothers who lift cars off their trapped children, faith healers, these inexplicable and amazing people defy natural laws and are usually explained away as anomalies, a result of faith.  According to Lipton and Bhaerman, the hardest part about the belief game is that you either believe it or not; there is no middle ground.  And, be honest, our society is all about hedging our bets so faith, real honest to goodness, unshakeable let the snake bite me because God will keep me from dying faith, is an unusual commodity.

If you’re focused on what the doctor said about your dis-ease and your prognosis for health, you’ve already given away part of your power, and the random miracle that may have slipped in the back door, assisting you in your reversion to perfect health may not have the available floor space with all the other worries claiming their spots.

My favorite discussion in Spontaneous Evolution was the bit on Darwin’s theory of evolution.  Did you know that Darwin wasn’t really the first to come up with the theory?  He had help from English naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace.  Wallace, unlike Darwin, was a commoner who caught and sold specimens to museums and wealthy collectors as a way to make a living.  In June 1858, Wallace sent Darwin a copy of his On the Tendency of Varieties to Depart Indefinitely from the Original Type, Wallace’s own theory of evolution.  Apparently, catching specimens in Borneo and selling them had given him a lot of time to study those specimens.  At this point, Darwin hadn’t thoroughly vetted his own theory so rather than rejoice at a like-minded idea, he mourned the possibility of losing his coveted spot as the father of a new theory and enlisted the help of some well-connected colleagues.  A month later the theory was officially introduced at the Linnean Society of London as the Darwin-Wallace theory.

Here’s the kicker.  Darwin’s theory espoused one of fierce competition as in — the only way one succeeded in the world was to be the very best.  As a result, for over 150 years, people have been trampling over each other to get to the top of the heap because, well, survival of the fittest means that the best man wins.  On the contrary, Wallace’s theory was not one of survival, but of cooperation. 

“From the perspective of the commoner, Wallace recognized that evolution was driven by the elimination of the weakest, while Darwin interpreted the same data to mean that evolution resulted from the will to survive inherent in the fittest.  The difference?  In a Wallacean world, we would improve in order not to be the weakest, but in a Darwinian world, we struggle to acquire the status of being the best.  In other words, had Wallace prevailed, there would be less focus on competition and more on cooperation.”

We want to be number one or we think we’ve failed.  We have less of a cooperate spirit and more of a need to dominate than ever. We’re breeding this into our children the same way we’ve had it bred into ourselves.  We want to get ahead, be best, and take no prisoners in the process, but is that really how society functions best, or for that matter, how we want to live our lives?  Remember what it felt like to be part of a community? People helping people?  Why don’t we do that anymore?  Should the desire to help really be equated with weakness?

Eventually, Wallace’s name dropped off — he was a commoner, after all, and in a classic case of survival of the fittest (or should it be richest?), only Darwin remained.  In only took about a year for Wallace to fade into obscurity while Darwin was heralded worldwide with the publication of The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection.  There is more to the story and about a decade later, Darwin himself started focusing on human cooperation over competition, but by then it was too late and Darwin’s followers dismissed his new theories — a real pity.

What does the Iroquois Confederacy and the birth of the United States government have in common?  How about the birth of a cell and its adaptation to an evolving world?  Sure, the world can get you down when the news is always so negative, but Lipton and Bhaerman have an antidote.  Spontaneous Evolution will show you how to move the earth beneath your feet.  This book is filled with so much positivity that you’ll walk, or maybe even float away convinced that a more peaceful, verdant world is at all of our fingertips.

And you thought change was impossible.

pam lazos 1.12.20

 

***

Survival of the Fittest

Blogging friend, Jacqui Murray, has written a new prehistoric fiction novel, Survival of the Fittest, Book 1 in the Crossroads series, part of her Man vs. Nature saga.  

Synopsis:

Chased by a ruthless and powerful enemy, Xhosa flees with her People, leaving behind a certain life in her African homeland to search for an unknown future. She leads her People on a grueling journey through unknown and dangerous lands by an escape path laid out years before by her father as a final desperate means to survival. She is joined by other homeless tribes–from Indonesia, China, South Africa, East Africa, and the Levant—all similarly forced by timeless events to find new lives. As they struggle to overcome treachery, lies, danger, tragedy, hidden secrets, and Nature herself, Xhosa must face the reality that this enemy doesn’t want her People’s land. He wants to destroy her.

Survival of the Fittest is Available at: Kindle US Kindle UK Kindle CA Kindle AU

A litte bit about Jacqui:

Jacqui Murray is the author of the popular Building a Midshipman, the story of her daughter’s journey from high school to United States Naval Academy, the Rowe-Delamagente thrillers, and the Man vs. Nature saga. She is also the author/editor of over a hundred books on integrating tech into education, adjunct professor of technology in education, blog webmaster, an Amazon Vine Voice,  a columnist for TeachHUB and NEA Today, and a freelance journalist on tech ed topics. Her next prehistoric fiction, Quest for Home, is due out in Summer 2019. You can find her tech ed books at her publisher’s website, Structured Learning

 

If you want to reach Jacqui, here are her Social Media contacts:

http://twitter.com/worddreams

http://pinterest.com/askatechteacher

http://linkedin.com/in/jacquimurray

https://worddreams.wordpress.com

https://jacquimurray.net

Before you go, how about a taste of Survival of the Fittest:

Chapter 1

Her foot throbbed. Blood dripped from a deep gash in her leg. At some point, Xhosa had scraped her palms raw while sliding across gravel but didn’t remember when, nor did it matter. Arms pumping, heart thundering, she flew forward. When her breath went from pants to wheezing gasps, she lunged to a stop, hands pressed against her damp legs, waiting for her chest to stop heaving. She should rest but that was nothing but a passing thought, discarded as quickly as it arrived. Her mission was greater than exhaustion or pain or personal comfort.

She started again, sprinting as though chased, aching fingers wrapped around her spear. The bellows of the imaginary enemy—Big Heads this time—filled the air like an acrid stench. She flung her spear over her shoulder, aiming from memory. A thunk and it hit the tree, a stand-in for the enemy. With a growl, she pivoted to defend her People.

Which would never happen. Females weren’t warriors.

Feet spread, mouth set in a tight line, she launched her last spear, skewering an imaginary assailant, and was off again, feet light, her abundance of ebony hair streaming behind her like smoke. A scorpion crunched beneath her hardened foot. Something moved in the corner of her vision and she hurled a throwing stone, smiling as a hare toppled over. Nightshade called her reactions those of Leopard.

But that didn’t matter. Females didn’t become hunters either.

With a lurch, she gulped in the parched air. The lush green grass had long since given way to brittle stalks and desiccated scrub. Sun’s heat drove everything alive underground, underwater, or over the horizon. The males caught her attention across the field, each with a spear and warclub. Today’s hunt would be the last until the rain—and the herds—returned.

“Why haven’t they left?”

She kicked a rock and winced as pain shot through her foot. Head down, eyes shut against the memories. Even after all this time, the chilling screams still rang in her ears…

 

The People’s warriors had been away hunting when the assault occurred. Xhosa’s mother pushed her young daughter into a reed bed and stormed toward the invaders but too late to save the life of her young son. The killer, an Other, laughed at the enraged female armed only with a cutter. When she sliced his cheek open, the gash so deep his black teeth showed, his laughter became fury. He swung his club with such force her mother crumpled instantly, her head a shattered melon.

From the safety of the pond, Xhosa memorized the killer—nose hooked awkwardly from some earlier injury, eyes dark pools of cruelty. It was then, at least in spirit, she became a warrior. Nothing like this must ever happen again.

When her father, the People’s Leader, arrived that night with his warriors, he was greeted by the devastating scene of blood-soaked ground covered by mangled bodies, already chewed by scavengers. A dry-eyed Xhosa told him how marauders had massacred every subadult, female, and child they could find, including her father’s pairmate. Xhosa communicated this with the usual grunts, guttural sounds, hand signals, facial expressions, hisses, and chirps. The only vocalizations were call signs to identify the group members.

“If I knew how to fight, Father, Mother would be alive.” Her voice held no anger, just determination.

The tribe she described had arrived a Moon ago, drawn by the area’s rich fruit trees, large ponds, lush grazing, and bluffs with a view as far as could be traveled in a day. No other area offered such a wealth of resources. The People’s scouts had seen these Others but allowed them to forage, not knowing their goal was to destroy the People.

Her father’s body raged but his hands, when they moved, were calm.  “We will avenge our losses, daughter.”

The next morning, Xhosa’s father ordered the hunters to stay behind, protect the People. He and the warriors snuck into the enemy camp before Sun awoke and slaughtered the females and children before anyone could launch a defense. The males were pinned to the ground with stakes driven through their thighs and hands. The People cut deep wounds into their bodies and left, the blood scent calling all scavengers.

When Xhosa asked if the one with the slashed cheek had died, her father motioned, “He escaped, alone. He will not survive.”

Word spread of the savagery and no one ever again attacked the People, not their camp, their warriors, or their hunters.

While peace prevailed, Xhosa grew into a powerful but odd-looking female. Her hair was too shiny, hips too round, waist too narrow beneath breasts bigger than necessary to feed babies. Her legs were slender rather than sturdy and so long, they made her taller than every male. The fact that she could outrun even the hunters while heaving her spear and hitting whatever she aimed for didn’t matter. Females weren’t required to run that fast. Nightshade, though, didn’t care about any of that. He claimed they would pairmate, as her father wished, when he became the People’s Leader.

Until then, all of her time was spent practicing the warrior skills no one would allow her to use.

One day, she confronted her father. “I can wield a warclub one-handed and throw a spear hard enough to kill. If I were male, you would make me a warrior.”

He smiled. “You are like a son to me, Daughter. I see your confidence and boldness. If I don’t teach you, I fear I will lose you.”

He looked away, the smile long gone from his lips. “Either you or Nightshade must lead when I can’t.”

Under her father’s tutelage, she and Nightshade learned the nuances of sparring, battling, chasing, defending, and assaulting with the shared goal that never would the People succumb to an enemy. Every one of Xhosa’s spear throws destroyed the one who killed her mother. Every swing of her warclub smashed his head as he had her mother’s. Never again would she stand by, impotent, while her world collapsed. She perfected the skills of knapping cutters and sharpening spears, and became expert at finding animal trace in bent twigs, crushed grass, and by listening to their subtle calls. She could walk without leaving tracks and match nature’s sounds well enough to be invisible.

A Moon ago, as Xhosa practiced her scouting, she came upon a lone warrior kneeling by a waterhole. His back was to her, skeletal and gaunt, his warclub chipped, but menace oozed from him like stench from dung. She melted into the redolent sedge grasses, feet sinking into the squishy mud, and observed.

His head hair was sprinkled with grey. A hooked nose canted precariously, poorly healed from a fracas he won but his nose lost. His curled lips revealed cracked and missing teeth. A cut on his upper arm festered with pus and maggots. Fever dimpled his forehead with sweat. He crouched to drink but no amount of water would appease that thirst.

What gave him away was the wide ragged scar left from the slash of her mother’s cutter.

Xhosa trembled with rage, fearing he would see the reeds shake, biting her lip until it bled to stop from howling. It hardly seemed fair to slay a dying male but fairness was not part of her plan today.

Only revenge.

A check of her surroundings indicated he traveled alone. Not that it mattered. If she must trade her life for his, so be it.

But she didn’t intend to die.

The exhausted warrior splashed muddy water on his grimy head, hands slow, shoulders round with fatigue, oblivious to his impending death. After a quiet breath, she stepped from the sedge, spear in one hand and a large rock in the other. Exposed, arms ready but hanging, she approached. If he turned, he would see her. She tested for dry twigs and brittle grass before committing each foot. It surprised her he ignored the silence of the insects. His wounds must distract him. By the time hair raised on his neck, it was too late. He pivoted as she swung, powered by fury over her mother’s death, her father’s agony, and her own loss. Her warclub smashed into his temple with a soggy thud. Recognition flared moments before life left.

“You die too quickly!” she screamed and hit him over and over, collapsing his skull and spewing gore over her body. “I wanted you to suffer as I did!”

Her body was numb as she kicked him into the pond, feeling not joy for his death, relief that her mother was avenged, or upset at the execution of an unarmed Other. She cleaned the gore from her warclub and left. No one would know she had been blooded but the truth filled her with power.

She was now a warrior.

When she returned to home base, Nightshade waited. Something flashed through his eyes as though for the first time, he saw her as a warrior. His chiseled face, outlined by dense blue-black hair, lit up. The corners of his full lips twitched under the broad flat nose. The finger-thick white scar emblazoned against his smooth forehead, a symbol of his courage surviving Sabertooth’s claws, pulsed. Female eyes watched him, wishing he would look at them as he did Xhosa but he barely noticed.

The next day, odd Others with long legs, skinny chests, and oversized heads arrived. The People’s scouts confronted them but they simply watched the scouts, spears down, and then trotted away, backs to the scouts. That night, for the first time, Xhosa’s father taught her and Nightshade the lessons of leading.

“Managing the lives of the People is more than winning battles. You must match individual skills to the People’s requirements be it as a warrior, hunter, scout, forager, child minder, Primary Female, or another.  All can do all jobs but one best suits each. The Leader must decide,” her father motioned.

As they finished, she asked the question she’d been thinking about all night. “Father, where do they come from?”

“They are called Big Heads,” which didn’t answer Xhosa’s question.

Nightshade motioned, “Do they want to trade females? Or children?”

Her father stared into the distance as though lost in some memory. His teeth ground together and his hands shook until he clamped them together.

He finally took a breath and motioned, “No, they don’t want mates. They want conflict.” He tilted his head forward. “Soon, we will be forced to stop them.”

Nightshade clenched his spear and his eyes glittered at the prospect of battle. It had been a long time since the People fought.

But the Big Heads vanished. Many of the People were relieved but Xhosa couldn’t shake the feeling that danger lurked only a long spear throw away. She found herself staring at the same spot her father had, thoughts blank, senses burning. At times, there was a movement or the glint of Sun off eyes, but mostly there was only the unnerving feeling of being watched. Each day felt one day closer to when the People’s time would end.

“When it does, I will confess to killing the Other. Anyone blooded must be allowed to be a warrior.”

 

Still here?  That’s great.  Jacqui invites you to answer the following question.  I don’t know that you’ll win a prize, but you’ll have to think a bit on our prehistoric ancestors for the answer.

How did Xhosa count?

 Xhosa and her People also had no need for counting. This is true even today with primitive people. Many count only to two (which is the method I’ve adopted for Xhosa). Beyond that, numbers may be described as handfuls or how much room they occupy in relation to something else. Counting people was unnecessary because all Xhosa had to do was sniff, find everyone’s scent, or notice whose she couldn’t find.

pjlazos 3.13.18

 

***

Fallen Princeborn:  Stolen

       Fallen Princeborn:  Stolen, Jean Lee’s breakout YA novel, was eight years in the writing, eight years in the creating, eight years in the honing; and eight years in the suffering — through her postpartum depression; through past breaches of trust rearing themselves in the present; through invalidation of the self that can only be understood by others similarly situated — and in the end, Jean Lee would probably say it was worth it, for every drop of her experience, sweat and tears made it onto the pages of Fallen Princeborn:  Stolen, showcasing her raw talent, and the strength of will and character it took not just to survive, but thrive.

First, the back story.  Jean Lee wrote a series of standalone shorts encapsulated under the common banner of Tales of the River Vine, the precursors to Fallen Princeborn:  Stolen, and an exposé of the characters we’ll meet there.  The stories are like bursts of mouth-watering flavor, a small, delicious taste of what is to come.  Tales of the River Vine introduces us to:  The Boy Who Kept a Forest in His Pocket, where we first see The Wall, a malevolent force all its own; The Stray, and the strange cat known as Captain Whiskers; Dandelion of Defiance, and the beautiful Ember, a hunter from the fairy world who pays a large price for her insubordination; No More Pretty Rooms, and the cruel and insouciant prince who once ruled indiscriminately over River Vine; The Preservation Jar, about the same prince, now repentant, and his wise teacher who hope to change the course of the evil forces plotting to overtake River Vine; and Tattered Rhapsody, and the feisty Miss Charlotte, the indomitable heroine who would give up all, even her beloved music, to keep her sister, Anna safe.  By the time you’ve finished Tattered Rhapsody, you’re primed to dive into Fallen.  Oh, and the shorts are all free on Amazon Kindle so no excuse not to read, eh?

Tattered Rhapsody begins with Charlotte performing on the piano for her teacher and a few college recruiters, the scrappiest pianist ever to grace a stage.  Her hands are raw, cracked and painful looking, but her demeanor is pure steel and musical genius.  Her teacher praises her to the recruiters, angling for a scholarship.  The same teacher later tries to convince Charlotte why she should take the scholarship, but Charlotte refuses to leave her sister behind and under the “care” of several less than competent adults.  You don’t need to have read the back stories to start in on Fallen Princeborn:  Stolen, but it will prime you for the novel and launch you into a magical and most unsettling world of fairy magic where grudges rarely die, but humans often do.

Fallen picks up right where Tattered left off.  Charlotte has agreed to take the scholarship on the condition that Anna go with her, and the girls are on a bus headed to their Aunt Gail’s where they will live while Charlotte attends school and follows her musical aspirations.  We get early on that there is trouble in the girls’ home, a father who’s died, a mother left grieving and unable to cope, and an aunt and uncle that are more foes than friends.  The particulars are unraveled slowly, like pulled taffy, the nefarious and horrific nature of the girls’ situation worse than hell, and Charlotte refuses to leave Anna to face that alone.  For her part, Anna seems a bit vapid and you may find yourself questioning why Charlotte has remained so loyal when she receives so little in return.

So off to Aunt Gail’s the girls go with everything maybe working out for a change, but then the inevitable snafu:  the bus breaks down and the passengers are rescued by another bus, but this one smells funny, like death and decay under everything shiny and new — in addition to being a good fighter, Charlotte’s super power is her sense of smell — and the driver and his helper are more than a bit odd.  Before the next 24 hours are up, Charlotte will have crossed over into a land that defies logic.  “Charlie” will fight anyone and anything that preclude her from keeping Anna safe, but if she needed to be badass before, here in River Vine Charlotte and Anna’s lives depend upon it.

If you enjoy stories about magic, good versus evil, and the fight for justice, then Fallen Princeborn:  Stolen guarantees hours of reading pleasure.  I think you’ll agree with me that Miss Charlotte may be the gutsiest, most combative heroine to ever to burst the shackles of your heart.

pjlazos 11.25.18

 

 

***

I’ve heard people say that Tony Bennett is a singer’s singer, the consummate performer, the pitch, the tone, the tempo, the clarity, the inflection, all always spot on.  The same can be said of writing and Jean Lee, a woman I know solely through blogging (although no doubt we’ve hung out on the astral plane), and am now happy to call friend; she is the equivalent — a real writer’s writer.

Jean Lee is a Wisconsin born and bred writer excited to share her young adult fiction with those who love to find other worlds hidden in the humdrum of everyday life. Her first novel, Fallen Princeborn: Stolen, debuts, Halloween 2018 from Aionios Books. She also blogs regularly about the fiction, music, and landscapes that inspire her as a writer . You can find Jean on her site, as well as on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram under the handle @jeanleesworld. She currently lives in the Madison area with her husband and three children.

Synopsis for Fallen Princeborn Stolen

In rural Wisconsin, an old stone wall is all that separates the world of magic from the world of man—a wall that keeps the shifters inside. When something gets out, people disappear. Completely.

Escaping from an abusive uncle, eighteen-year-old Charlotte is running away with her younger sister Anna. Together they board a bus. Little do they know that they’re bound for River Vine—a shrouded hinterland where dark magic devours and ancient shapeshifters feed, and where the seed of love sets root among the ashes of the dying.

Fallen Princeborn: Stolen is the first in a series of young-adult dark-fantasy novels by Jean Lee. Watch for book 2 in March 2019. Read Tales of the River Vine, a collection of FREE short stories based on the characters in the Fallen Princeborn omnibus.

        

And now, the questions:

Do you use a pen name and if so, why?

I do! I grew up in the Midwest, where many people knew my parents and therefore knew me by default. When I started writing three years ago, I wanted to earn respect for my skills based on my skills alone, not because of whom I was related to or where I had come from. Writing under a pen name has also allowed me to work through some very raw, bloody pieces of my life I couldn’t otherwise share because of other individuals involved.

How long have you been writing?  

Writing’s always been a part of me. I started doodling picture books before I was school-age. I still distinctly remember drawing a monster kidnapping a kid, forcing him to make giant peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and then Superman flying in to tie the monster up and save the day. I kept writing stories and plays all through elementary school, high school, and college. I went on to study creative writing in graduate school, which…okay, I didn’t really learn what to do so much as what not to do. I still consider those years worthwhile, as they taught me to handle peer criticism with grace. But I also learned that what I wanted to write—genre writing—isn’t “important” like literary fiction is. Bah, I say! You write what YOU want to write, forever and always. If you can’t write with a passion, then what’s the point?

What’s your routine?  Do you take breaks, or write until you fall asleep at your keyboard?

My routine is eternally in flux because of children. I stole whatever writing time I could when my children were infants, often early in the morning or during nap time. Once my children started attending school part-time, I divvied that time between writing and teaching. Now that the kids are in school full-time, I actually have several hours to budget!

However, as amazing as having a contract is, it also means I’m now divvying the hours not only with teaching and writing, but also marketing, reviewing, corresponding, commenting, and editing. Some days I’m up from four in the morning until midnight; other days I’m off with the kids all day. So long as I follow the list of what’s got to get done and when, I just take a deep breath and pray it all gets done.

What is your favorite genre of book to write?  to read?

As far as writing goes, I LOVE to write fantasy. It’s the perfect blending genre. You can stick a murder mystery in there, a family drama, a coming-of-age quest, a romance, a horror. It can all fit into a fantasy when done right.

Reading-wise, I’ll usually reach for either a cozy mystery by the likes of Agatha Christie or P.D. James, or a fantasy by the likes of Diana Wynne Jones or Peadar Ó Guilín.

All author’s I’ve never read — although I do have the Diana Wynne Jones book on writing on my Kindle which is on my shortlist of what to read next.  BTW, what’s your favorite book and who’s your favorite author?

Diana Wynne Jones, hands down! Her stories are always a joy to read—I’m not ashamed to giggle like a ninny no matter who’s around me when I read them.

No way can I pick a favorite novel. There are just too many good ones in every genre! I can say that Howl’s Moving Castle is my favorite Jones novel, with Deep Secret running a close second. As far as craft books go, I’d recommend Jones’ book Reflections on the Magic of Writing. It is both instructive and insightful into her life, the publishing process, and the development of strong storytelling.

Do you think writing is a form of therapy and, if so, has it helped you work through anything in particular?  

Oh heavens, yes. I suffered very, very severe postpartum depression when my twin sons were born. Alone in the house with three tiny ones always needing, never sleeping, colic screaming…plus, I was teaching from home, and my husband’s hours kept him gone for many of the children’s waking hours, so I was more or less a single parent for three years. I lived one day at a time—on bad days, one hour at a time. Writing helped me face my demons, and battle back against the anger, fear, sadness, and regret.

Today writing continues to be one of the greatest tools I wield against depression. It’s also a way for me to maintain perspective in the highs and lows of parenting. “Use your words,” I always tell my children when they’re frustrated or upset.

Such advice is good for us all.

Do you work outside of writing?

I teach remedial composition online for an American university. It’s about as exciting as it sounds. ☺

What’s your best time of day to write?

Because I teach online—and the kids are in school—my time to write can be in the morning or early afternoon. It all depends on my mindset, on the marketing to-do list, and on the ever dreaded grading pile.

What inspires you?

I’ve always found inspiration in powerful instrumental music from composers like John Powell and James Horner. Inspiration also used to be the bizarre dreams I’d have on 1-2 hours of sleep in the midst of nursing children. Nowadays it still comes from music, but also the adversities my children face…and create. So there’s nooooo end of inspiration to be found in this house.

Pantser or perfectionist?

Both, which is likely the worst possible combination.

I often have a rough idea where the story needs to go, with a moment or two in dew-drop level of detail. But bringing light to the story around the moments is a long process, often requiring anywhere from three to eight rewrites to complete. It needs to be just right. And I can’t make it just right by forcing it with a rigid plan.

Ah yes, totally agree on this.  Being both spontaneous and a stickler for detail can result in some really great fiction.  So tell me about your other books.

Middler’s Pride is a serialized young-adult fantasy novel available through the subscription service Channillo. I also currently have a number of short stories available for free download under the collection Tales of the River Vine. My young-adult dark-fantasy novel, Fallen Princeborn: Stolen, will available starting Halloween 2018.

Congratulations!  I’m looking forward to reading Fallen Princeborn: Stolen.  I just finish the Tales of the River Vine stories, a wonderful set!  So, what do you think?  Indie or traditional publishing?

Hmmm. I think small press publishing fits snugly between the two. There’s a good deal you need to help with through every stage of the editing and publishing process. While this means you’ve got a lot of creative say on the technical side of things, you also have to complete many tasks that aren’t related to storytelling. It’s tough, but worth that creative power.

Tell me about your family.

I’ve been married over ten years to someone who doesn’t like to read or watch fantasy anything. Yes, we somehow make that work. ☺

Three: firstborn daughter Blondie, our geologist and Inventor of Puppy-Helping Devices, and the twins, Biff and Bash. Biff’s our reader and Devourer of All Things Cosmic, while Bash is our prankster and Snuggling Storyteller.

Have you included your own stories in your writing, some small details, or do you completely make everything up?  Either way, how do you interpret the phrase, write what you know?

Yes.  It’s rather like re-using fabric: I cut out pieces from my own experiences and stitch them onto characters to find the emotional color of the scene. Most recently I did this with the short story “The Preservation Jar”: there’s a moment when the main character, utterly alone, comes into a room still littered with articles other characters have left behind. I pulled upon that experience of coming to my parents’ house the day my father died, and finding his work coat, books, and notes scattered about the kitchen as if all was a normal day.

You don’t have to know an experience to write it. You have to know the feelings of that experience to write it.

I love the metaphor of fabric.  And yes, if you nail the emotion, you can make most anything work.  What about research?  How much do you do before you begin a writing project?

Ew, research, what’s that?

I kid. Seriously, I tend to do very little research—as I once explained on my website, I tend to “Google as I go.” This stems from writing in the midst of motherhood; writing minutes should be WRITING minutes, not reading minutes! So long as I can get a few facts and a few visuals in my head, I can pants my way through the rest.

Same same.  I think we might be split aparts!

So much fun this has been!  But I’ve got to get it posted if it’s going to help get the word out about your new book so the final question is:  do you think writing can save the world?

YES. I tell my students this all the time. So much of today’s problems revolve around misunderstanding and misconception. Everyone’s quick to jump to the soundbytes and react out of context, which creates more reactions and more soundbytes and more reactions to the point where all is completely distorted from the original issue. If people took the time to read completely, and to write their thoughts completely, so much anger and pain could be avoided. Sure, not everyone’s going to agree and bring about world peace, but there’d be a clearer understanding. That’s way more than we’ve got right now.

Thanks, Jean Lee, and best of luck with the book launch for Fallen Princeborn:  Stolen!

Want to stay in touch with Jean Lee?  Well then, have a look at her contact info:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100012373211758 Twitter: https://twitter.com/jeanleesworld                                                      Amazon author page: https://www.amazon.com/Jean-Lee/e/B07DPP2RV6/ website: https://jeanleesworld.com/                                                                    Publisher site: https://aioniosbooks.com/jean-lee                                        Instagram @jeanleesworld                                                                                             Email: jeanleesworld@gmail.com

pjlazos 10.22.18

 

 

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                                                   will grayson

                                                              will grayson

I found will grayson will grayson, written by John Green and David Levithan in the backseat pocket of our Honda Odyssey when I was cleaning out the van.  It belonged to one of our kids’, left over from a 12-hour road trip to Ocracoke Island in North Carolina, I’m sure, but forfeited in favor of half a dozen DVDs because watching is easier than reading and you don’t get car sick.  Who knows how long it had been there, its pages dog-eared, the corners of the cover curling as if it had experienced water damage (a damp beach towel, perhaps?).

The last of our tribe went off to college this fall so I’m pretty sure no one is going to want to read this book any time soon given the demands of a full-time college schedule and the fact that their tastes no longer run toward the YA novel.  Yet I, never one to let a book pass through my fingers without at least a whiff of a few paragraphs inside, was delighted by not only the words, but the concept:  two random strangers meet through a series of bizarre events to discover they have not only the same name, but in some weird, abstruse analysis, the same kinds of problems.  Since I myself was about to take a trip, I stuck it in my bag for the plane ride and ended up finishing it before I returned home.

You wouldn’t think that a YA novel would have much to say to an adult and recent empty nester, but you’d be wrong.  will grayson will grayson was fabulous, full of witticisms and criticisms about life, love, relationships, each other, and all the things that make a good book great. Also, as a writer, I got to study plot and pacing from two different viewpoints (interestingly, both Green and Levithan were on the cusp of great success when they wrote this book).  Diversity and inclusion, mental health, and being a gay man in a homophobic world are just a few of the big topics this writing duo tackles with humor, grace and resourcefulness.  The result is heartfelt and satisfying.

will grayson (1) is a smart kid with two parents, a good home, and an aversion to getting involved with anything and anyone, but makes an exception for his best friend, Tiny Cooper, a giant of a kid/man who is gay and proud of it.  will stuck up for Tiny once in a letter to the editor and because of the attention it garnered him, he’s been kicking his own ass ever since.  will grayson (2) is a smart, but lonely kid, (really, isn’t that true of all high school kids on some level?) with divorced parents, a mom who struggles to keep it all together financially and emotionally, an absentee dad, and a diagnosis of depression.  Oh, and he’s gay which adds to his difficulty in navigating life’s vicissitudes.

Green and Levithan wrote the book each from the perspective of their own will graysons and that alone kept it fresh and surprising, both for the reader and the writer.  In addition to will grayson will grayson, both are prolific YA novelists:  Green wrote The Fault in our Stars and Looking for Alaska while Levithan wrote Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist, among others.

 If you want a bit of insight into the minds of today’s high schoolers or simply a walk down memory lane — because a parallel experience is a parallel experience and high school remains the same no matter what decade we are living in — then read will grayson will grayson.

pjlazos 10.8.18

 

***

Lee Harper is a picture book author and illustrator from Doylestown, Pennsylvania best known for his whimsical illustrations for the best-selling Turkey Trouble series and just so happens to be the husband of one of my favorite traveling companions, his wife, Krista.  In fact, Lee was present for one of our now iconic experiences abroad, and dare I hope that some of those adventures may have sparked a bit of the creative juice behind his very clever and incredibly endearing children’s books.  Lee’s newest work published in June 2018 is Ready or Not, Woolbur Goes To School, the long awaited sequel to the award-winning Woolbur.  As if that wasn’t enough, Turkey’s Eggcellent Easter, the fourth book of the Turkey Trouble series is coming out in January of 2019. In addition to writing and illustrating picture books, Lee leads interactive presentations at schools. To learn more, please visit LeeHarperart.com.

About Lee’s latest book, Ready Or Not, Woolbur Goes To School, written by Leslie Helakoski.  Here’s a look at what’s inside:

The free-spirited, fluffy, one-of-a-kind sheep, Woolbur, is on his way to school, and he’s MORE than ready …  But Maa and Paa aren’t so sure. What if Woolbur isn’t exactly ready for school?  He’s different. He’s unusual. And his new hairdo is kooky!

At school, Woolbur loves trying new things like drawing outside of the lines and eating grass. (No wonder his parents were worried!)

The rest of his classmates are nervous about their first day and aren’t excited about trying anything new. Will Woolbur’s excitement help show his friends that doing something different, or unusual, or kooky is the best way to get ready for school?

This charming and spunky follow-up to the beloved Woolbur is the perfect gift for children who march to the beat of their own drum or anyone who needs a little encouragement on their first day of school.

Praise for Wilbur:

“Woolbur is an excellent role model of self-confidence and positivity.”– Kirkus Reviews

“The fiercely independent sheep introduced in Woolbur starts school in this infectious follow-up.”– Publishers Weekly

“Woolbur tackles each new experience with aplomb.”– Publishers Weekly

“In a long list of appealing back-to-school books, this one really makes the grade.”– School Library Journal

 

So I wanted to give Lee a chance to tell us a bit about the man who started off as a painter, but has “enjoyed playing with words ever since [he] figured out you could make words with lines on a piece of paper and then turn those words into poems and stories.”  Let’s see what the master illustrator who prefers early morning illustration to burning the midnight oil has to say for himself, shall we?

I never had any formal writing training. My education was in painting but I always gravitated toward narrative painting.  My favorite genre of book to write is the humorous picture book.  My favorite genres of books to read are memoirs, satire, history, science, and comedy and humor.  I can’t say I have one favorite book but I’m reading Philip Ball’s Bright Earth: The Invention of Colour for the third time so I’d have to put that high on the list.  I also enjoy anything written by David Sedaris.

From where do your ideas come?

My best ideas usually come when I’m distracted in some way. My last good book idea came to me while I was on hold with Verizon.

Okay, that’s hilarious cause most people would say something like, ‘oh, when I’m walking, or when I’m in the shower.’  I’m getting a David Sedaris or maybe Stephen Wright vibe from you right now, you know, like wry (and not the bread kind cause that would be rye) meets deadpan.  Anyway, what’s your favorite writing prompt?

This question made me realize I need to get some good writing prompts.

Have you had any brushes with writing greatness, e.g., a writer (or actor, etc.) anyone you would be flustered to meet and suddenly they’re standing lin line in front of you?  What do you do?  Speak?  Smile? Wait to be spoken to or invade their personal space?

My most interesting brush with greatness is one that actually led to a collaboration I’ve been working on recently.

In 2012 while at the New Jersey School Librarians Conference I almost met Suzzy Roche of The Roches fame. We were both participating in ‘Author’s Ally’ promoting our new books. I was so star-struck I didn’t have the nerve to introduce myself to her, but afterwards I sent her a friend request on Facebook and she accepted. 

That was the extent of this brush with greatness until a few months later when I was working on my book Coyote. Coyote is an allegorical story about loss inspired by an encounter with a Coyote on the day my brother passed away. At around the same time I was working on Coyote,  Suzzy Roche happened to be creating music that was influenced by the death of a friend. Moved by the paintings from Coyote I was posting on Facebook, she asked if I could do the cover art for her next CD: Fairytale and Myth.

We worked together to create the cover and the next time I was in New York we met for coffee. During that meeting we tossed around the idea of doing a picture book together. The idea was not very well-formed, but we both agreed that her words and my pictures were a good fit and we would go wherever the creative spirit took us. Brainstorm was the working title. Or Wonder. We weren’t sure. We were making it up as we went along. She wrote some words and I made paintings inspired by those words. We ended up with a sketchbook-full of pictures and words without any real story. Or maybe the story was there and we just hadn’t found it yet. Either way, after a while we both got busy with other projects and or collaboration went dormant. The sketchbook went onto a shelf in my studio with all my other sketchbooks. Then when I moved to my new farm last summer all my sketchbooks were packed into cardboard boxes.

A few moths ago while unpacking I came across that sketchbook full of paintings based on the words Suzzy Roche wrote. Looking at those sketchbooks with a fresh eye made me see clearly that something very inspired and creative was happening and that it would be a shame if the ultimate fate of those paintings was for them to rot away in a dusty old loft in my barn. So I sent the sketchbook to Suzzy. A few days after she received the sketchbook she wrote something brilliant that pulled it all together as a coherent yet still wildly creative picture book.

Brainstorm is now in the hands of my literary agent. I don’t know what will happen from here but I’m hoping this isn’t the end of this story about my brush with greatness.

That’s a fantastic story!  And given what you just related about the passing of your brother, I gather that you would agree that writing is a form of therapy?

Oh my god, yes. I always need to be working on a book to keep my sanity, particularly when times are difficult. Writing and illustrating Coyote was definitely a form of therapy for me. Immersing myself in the creative process helped me work through the grief of losing my brother.

What has been your greatest writing lesson?

I think I need to publish a few more of the stories I’ve written before I can start dishing out writing lessons, but I can say I’ve gotten better at paring down my stories and focusing on the age group I’m writing for.

How about greatest life lesson?

This life lesson I’d like to share with my younger self: If you have a ‘Question Authority’ bumper sticker on the back of your car, make sure to keep your registration up to date.

You really are channeling Stephen Wright.  Have you reduced your life lessons to writing?

No, not yet.

Do you work outside of writing, i.e., do you have a day job other than writing?

I supplement my writing/illustrating income with school visits. It’s a perfect complement and has become a part of my job that I really love.

That sounds like big fun.  I always loved visiting my kids’ schools because kids have tons of energy and I get a real kick out of being around them.  Is that where you get your inspiration? 

My children, pets, family members, nature, and the many children I meet at schools have all inspired my stories and pictures.

Well, let’s hope the fun continues.  Thanks for stopping by and giving us a glimpse into your creative process, Lee.  And best of luck with Woolbur and your other projects.  

Want to reach out to Lee and let him know what you think about Woolbur or any of his other works?  Here are the deets:

Facebook: Lee Harper@leeharper44

Twitter: Leeharper@headleyb

Amazon author page: https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B002LQPZ3S

blog: http://leeharperart.com/leeharperart/Blog/Blog.html

website: leeharperart.com

pjlazos 9.14.18

THE HATE U GIVE

Why do we Americans travel the world looking for engagement with other cultures when we have one right here, different from ours, exotic even, and instead of engaging, we put a police barricade around it?  I just finished reading, The Hate U Give, by Angie Thomas, a YA novel about an African-American high school girl, Starr Carter.  Her daddy, Big Mav, is a store owner but used to be a gang member who served three years in prison for not snitching on the “boss”.  Her momma, Lisa is a nurse at the local clinic and the bedrock of the family who manages the house like a drill sergeant.  Her family is blended in a way that most mothers would not tolerate, but Lisa does it for the kids.

Starr goes to Williamson Prep, a mostly white, upper crust school because her parents want their children to be safe and get a good education.  Starr lives in Garden Heights, a mostly black, lower socio-economic neighborhood where gangs rule and shootings aren’t accidental.  Even though her parents could move, her dad thinks that not giving up on the neighborhood is the right thing to do.  Starr loves The Fresh Prince, dates a white boy from school, and plays basketball like a pro.  Since she’s been at Williamson, her two best friends are white, but they never come to her house.  She’s moved away, emotionally, from her Garden Heights friends and struggles with keeping the two sides of her life separate.  When Starr was 10, she witnessed her friend, Natasha, killed in a drive-by shooting, an incident that left indelible ink on her psyche.

One night Starr’s at a party in Garden Heights with her friend, Kenya, with whom she shares a brother, Seven.  Her parents don’t allow her to go to Garden Heights’ parties so this outing is on the DL.  While there she meets up with Kahlil, her childhood BFF and first crush.  A short time into their re-acquaintance convo, shots ring out and the party disperses mad fast in all directions.  Kahlil grabs Starr’s hand and since she doesn’t see Kenya anywhere, Starr leaves in Kahlil’s car.  The kids are rattled, but manage to get away from the party intact.  They resume their catch up conversation:  Starr asks if Kahlil is selling drugs (he denies it); they talk about their families; they remember how they used to be such good friends; and all is well until they get pulled over by a cop.   When Starr was 12 she got two talks from her parents:  one about sex and the other about what to do when interacting with the police — “yes, sir,” “no, sir,” slow movements, do what the cop says or end up dead, and on.  As a result, Starr instinctively knows what to do.

Either Kahlil never got this talk from his family or he just can’t stick to the script because instead of handing over his license and registration as the cop asked, Kahlil asks the cop why they’ve been pulled over.  The annoyed officer — 11-15 as Starr will later refer to him — instructs Kahlil to stand still next to the car.  While 11-15 checks out Kahlil’s license, Kahlil opens the car door to ask Starr if she’s okay.  And that’s all it takes to end a life.  Three shots to the back — pop, pop, pop — and Kahlil’s dead.  Starr screams and rushes to Kahlil but there’s no help for him.  The cop freaks out and points his gun at Starr where it stays until backup arrives.  Later the cop will say he thought the hairbrush in the side of the door was a gun, but that doesn’t change Kahlil’s fate.  If you think I just gave the book away, well, that’s only the first two chapters.

What Thomas does with the remaining 24 chapters is nothing short of poetry.  If you want to understand racism in America from the African-American perspective then read, The Hate U Give. The book sizzles with excitement and emotion, and despite the YA moniker, it’s not just a teen read.  I repeatedly thought about my own kids’ experiences growing up white in America and what I would do as a parent if I had to give that second talk, the one African-American parents are forced to give, and what it would sound like.  The feeling of helplessness, of being unable to protect your child out in the world, must be overwhelming, but the lack of vision from the white community is what would anger me the most.

The title of The Hate U Give comes from Tupac Shakur.  Thug Life, Volume 1 (1994), is the name of an album, but THUG LIFE is also the name of an idea:  The Hate U Give Little Infants F@$%s Everyone.   

Thug Life refers, obviously, to how white America treats black America from infancy through adulthood, how children grow up to marginalized by society with fewer opportunities for advancement (recent studies show black males will always make less, even if they come from high income families), how the marginalization turns kids to gangs, how gang violence hurts everyone, and over and over in a cyclical loop.  I don’t know the answer to solving this century-and-a-half old problem for which there’s no today solution, and you won’t find it in the book, but understanding and awareness on both sides of the aisle is a good place to start.  Sadly, Tupac didn’t live long enough to see his work have much impact in the world.  He died on September 13, 1996 at the age of 25, the victim of a drive-by shooting.

The fear and anger that fuels such systemic violence will never be abated unless we all stop and take stock of how we are complicit in this never-ending racial drama. Want to change the future?  Then start with the present otherwise the future will look exactly the same only the alienation and altercations between the races will have only worsened.  As Angie Thomas says in the acknowledgements section of the book, “be roses that grow in the concrete.”  The Hate U Give is an endearing and clear-eyed look at growing up African-American in this country, a look at both the roses and thorns.

pjlazos 5.6.18

 

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The Twelve Virtues of the Merchant Priests

I recently reviewed, Sacred Commerce, A Blueprint for a New Humanity, by authors Ayman Sawaf and Rowan Gabrielle. In their brilliant book, Sawaf and Gabrielle talk about the emotional alchemy practiced by the merchant priests of ancient Egypt. As the name sacred commerce suggests, transacting can be an enlightening experience, not the greedy, capitalistic one that we seem to feel is necessary today in the 21st century, but one that assures all parties are equally respected, get the benefit of the deal, and that in every transaction, be it for an ounce of spices or a ton of brick, the parties are gratified, a win-win. For the merchant priests, emotional alchemy was their stock-in-trade and to practice it, they followed the path of Beauty, Goodness and Truth, no easy feat given that the people of ancient Egypt were so invested in “root” chakra thinking. Their main concern was survival and a bad business deal could mean no food on the table during a period in history where you couldn’t just put the week’s groceries on your credit card. By focusing on Beauty, Goodness and Truth, the merchant priest was able to elevate an entire marketplace with his resonance, expanding the field farther and farther beyond his person like a supercharged bubble of light and positivity. Just being inside the bubble changed you into a calmer, fairer, more gracious version of yourself.

It’s hard to think of a modern-day equivalent. Traders on Wall Street want the best deal for their clients and all the yelling and screaming is designed to elicit that singular deal for their clients alone. Our current leadership with its message of “America First” has not sparked the community problem-solving/brain-storming sessions that we will need to avoid the environmental Armageddon that seems destined to take us out if we don’t change course soon. Of all the Peoples of earth, perhaps the closest equivalent to the merchant priests are the Buddhist monks who spend hours chanting for the health and well-being of people they will never meet. But one small group in a world of over 7.5 billion people is not enough to elevate us all.

In the routine business dealings of the last century, the only thing that mattered was the “bottom line,” i.e., how much profit a business made. However, in 1994, John Elkington, an author, advisor, and entrepreneur who is known as a global authority on sustainability and corporate responsibility thought differently, coining the term, “triple bottom line.” In addition to profits, businesses should strive for and be guided by social and environmental/ecological goals. This assures a win-win for everyone and the planet and sounds a lot like merchant priest-speak.  Similarly, by introducing spirituality into every exchange, you elevate that transaction above the 3-D world by including the “4th bottom line,” a/k/a, “spirituality.”

As an exercise to understanding the mindset of the merchant priest, Sawaf and Gabrielle recommended focusing on the 12 virtues of the merchant priest — honor, loyalty, nobility, virtue, grace, trust, courage, courtesy, gallantry, authority, service, and humility — to “automatically lift us to a higher octave of being.”

As a personal exercise for 2018, I’m going to take their advice and focus on one virtue a month until the year’s end. For the month of January, it will be “honor.” I like this idea of concentrating on one thing for an entire month. It’s so un-2017 where I focused on 14 different things every three seconds 24/7. It’s exhausting, frankly, and not all that good for your brain. So I’m taking the time to settle in, think it through, breathe a little, and when I’m ready, I’ll report out. Perhaps I can increase my own resonance in this manner, and in a small way, uplift my little part of the world.

A most happy and healthy New Year to you and yours. May this year be the one where we wrangle less over trivial matters, look within rather than without for answers to what really matters, and lift our heads to the sun, and each other, more frequently.  May we each find nothing but love reflected back to us from every face we see — for that is the real gift of resonance.

pjlazos 1.1.18

 

 

 

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Sacred Commerce

What do you call the New Age these days? If the New Age dawned in the 70’s, then it’s getting pretty long in the tooth, coming up on its semi-centennial, so wouldn’t a new designation almost be a necessity? What if what we consider New Age is actually as old as the pyramids of Egypt, older even, while the ideas contained therein have been rebranded for the modern world? Does that make it less new? Rhetorical questions, yes, but if you want some real answers about how to improve your business and life, read Sacred Commerce, a Blueprint for a New Humanity, by Ayman Sawaf and Rowan Gabrielle.

Sacred Commerce plays like an ancient melody, resurrecting and restoring the concept of conscious capitalism, bringing it to life through the quality of resonance, a trait that surely must be part of our human DNA for all our predisposition to it. It’s no secret that negativity breeds negativity, and that one person having a bad day can ruin everyone else’s (the one friend that is agonizingly grumpy all the time) be it with a dour countenance or some serious negative juju (any one of the public shootings happening with so much more frequency), but if you buy into the concept then the reverse is also true, someone with a super positive attitude can raise the energy level of everyone around them. Such was the job of the ancient merchant priests who were skilled in the art of “resonance,” the process of lifting the energy level of everyone around them by elevating their own vibrations. It’s a skill that took years, perhaps decades to perfect through meditation and conscious creation and its based on three elements of the Soul: beauty, truth and goodness.

The merchant priests drew sustenance from these concepts, meditating on them and incorporating them into their activities of daily living. By doing so, they were not only themselves elevated, but were able to elevate the entire marketplace, expanding their own energy and sending that positiveness out into the world much like a tuning fork resonates with another when its struck. In ancient times, life was base and chaotic, marked by fear and a whole range of lower emotions that lived side-by-side with people’s survival instincts, while life and death were viewed much more indiscriminately than they are today. Imagine having someone who could elevate the thoughts of everyone around them simply by holding a higher vibration. As the merchant priests focused upon the concept of beauty, for example, sitting off to the side in the open air market, their entire aura changed and they were able to spread this supercharged energy to everyone around them. This in turn brought out the principles of democracy, emotional intelligence, fairness and conscious commercialism as a means not just to sell things, but to bring out the best in the individuals affected. In this manner, every transaction becomes a brush with the Divine Feminine.  

According to Sawaf and Gabrielle, our current system of capitalism, of bottom line dollars and greed above all else, is killing us and the planet. But fear not! We are on the verge of a renaissance, a return to the themes of beauty, truth and goodness, of conscious capitalism, of all for one and one for all, of the time of the merchant priest. Sacred Commerce recommends focusing on the 12 virtues of the merchant priest — honor, loyalty, nobility, virtue, grace, trust, courage, courtesy, gallantry, authority, service, and humility — to “automatically lift us to a higher octave of being.” If you want an inkling of what this new old world order will look like, read Sacred Commerce and immerse your Self and the world around you in a higher vibration.

 

 

 

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Not A Scientist

Did you go to the March for Science on Earth Day? Did you feel the swell of pride for all the people who lent their support in favor of science? Do you worry about the current state of science in America, especially when politicians are holding the purse strings? Then Not A Scientist, How Politicians Mistake, Misrepresent, and Utterly Mangle Science by Dave Levitan is your next read. Not a Scientist is loaded with examples of real life politicians ditching the facts, disputing the evidence, and generally disrupting the scientific status quo on topics of which they know little to nothing about.

Today, there is an ever-growing divide between science and politics. Maybe its because the problems are too big, the solutions too expensive, the public loathe to change. There’s little disagreement in the scientific community that humanity is on the brink of critical mass, a 6th extinction, if you will, but to hear the politicians talk one would think that great controversy exists among scientists where it concerns the environment since politicians are always doing their best not just to ignore, but to call into question the most fundamental of scientific principles and method, rolling back regulations, and naysaying whenever possible.

Politicians aren’t dumb. They know it’s easier to lie then tell constituents that it’s going to cost a kajillion dollars of hard-earned cash to address some of the more intractable environmental issues. Fix climate change? cha-ching. Repair or replace an aging water infrastructure under every large metropolis in the country? cha-ching. Stop a new development in order to preserve an endangered species? Lost profits. It’s all too much for the overburdened consumer. Politicians know this and have offered to do the thinking for us. And since they take their jobs seriously, they’ve devised clever phrases that should help ease the burden and obfuscate the truth. All you have to do is keep voting for them on election day.

Levitan searched the internet to find the first time a politician used the phrase, “I’m not a scientist…,” tracing it back to Ronald Reagan in 1980. During his campaign against Jimmy Carter, Reagan waxed philosophically about the amount of sulfur dioxide (a component of acid rain) Mount St. Helens had released into the atmosphere following its eruption: “more … than has been released in the last 10 years of automobile driving.” Turns out that you can be really REALLY wrong when you don’t understand the science. In Reagan’s case, it was many orders of magnitude off the mark — the volcano’s eruption released 2,000 tons of SO2 per day into the atmosphere while at the time, the U.S. population was releasing 81,000 tons of SO2 and the world population was at 300,000 tons!

Not a Scientist is great for science geeks and everyone else who lives on planet earth (notice I didn’t say “anyone who cares about the environment”?), but let’s just get this out — you’re not going to walk away with a warm fuzzy feeling after reading it. You will gain a few tools to help you spot and then navigate around the many lies you’ll hear about the environment from those elected to represent you, so go for it. As they say, knowledge is power. Read Not A Scientist and get on with your powerful self.

pjlazos 10.15.17

 

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Jitterbug Perfume

What the heck, I may as well pack it in right now. I just finished rereading Jitterbug Perfume by Tom Robbins and not only did I shed a tear of joy for the rowdy and philosophical magnificence of this book, but there went a second one for the lusty, enigmatic curiosity with which Robbins imbues all of his work, plus the man has a knack for simile and metaphor that’s unbeatable. How can the rest of us even hope to compete? I rarely read a book twice. There are too many other books out there and despite the deliciousness of the first reading, I feel it indulgent to circle back, but it had been thirty years since I first read Jitterbug Perfume so I allowed this one decadent revisit. Did I think it would make me weep? Technically, it didn’t. A few tears does not an episode of weeping make — it’s those kinds of nuances Robbins happily points out (it’s draperies, not drapes) — but it did make me think that I’ve got a long way to go if I’m ever going put out a masterpiece like Jitterbug Perfume.

Where to start? Somewhere in ancient Bohemia where Alobar was the feisty ruler of a band of warriors and wenches who fought hard, played hard, and disposed of their king the minute he showed the first sign of weakness. A king must be strong so he can protect the people. When Alobar finds a grey hair after catching his visage in the looking-glass his life is forfeit. He felt no less strong this day than yesterday, but the rules of tribe dictated otherwise and once they found out they would kill him and select a new ruler. As one of those rare men who think outside the customs and mores of the times, there was no way Alobar was accepting this fate. He called for his favorite wife, Wren, and convinced her to be his eyes each morning, plucking whatever grey hairs revealed themselves in the night. This caused a bit of consternation among the other wives who all wanted equal time with the king, and to show his energy was not sagging, Alobar serviced them all, an exhausting proposition. As with all plots, however well-devised, eventually, Alobar was discovered. Refusing to accept a death sentence, Alobar, with Wren’s help, is soon on his way out of town with all of his body parts intact.

Meanwhile, a few centuries later, Kudra is living in India and has a few problems of her own. Kudra came from a family of incense makers, having learned the trade from her father, but as a woman living in a society that didn’t think much of women, she was only allowed to work with him until an arranged marriage forced her to live with her husband’s family. At first, Kudra was heartbroken, but the pair were well-suited and eventually happy. Kudra learned her husband’s family’s rope trade and raised three children. Life was good until destiny went haywire and Kudra’s husband was killed in a freak riding accident. Indian law dictated that Kudra be burned on the funeral pyre next to her husband to honor his memory, and rather than face the flame, Kudra kissed her children while they were sleeping and snuck out during the night. Her wanderings aligned with Alobar who at first repelled her, but later won her over and that is when the real adventure began. If you think I’ve given away the entire plot, you would be wrong. These are just two of a slew of hilarious characters still to come, traversing time and smells and continents.

Jitterbug Perfume is a love letter to life and death, to religion and paganism, and to perfume and the sense of smell that can evoke memory more than any of the other senses. Ready to put your nose to the test? Then Jitterbug Perfume is your book.

pjlazos 9.19.17

 

 

 

 

 

***

Between the World and Me

Ta-Nehisi Coates. The name connotes images of African skies splashing orange across the desert at sunset, inflaming what remains of the day with their last refractive stand, of the freedom and danger of the wide open plains where life is lived uncensored and unhinged, of big game and big game hunters, and of rainforests, humid, dark and fecund, where thousands of species grow and thrive. Life lived so close to the earth can be harsh, feral, even violent. It takes a rugged individual to survive. There are light years between that golden continent and the one where our African-American brothers and sisters now reside, having arrived so many generations ago, displaced against their will and all codes of ethics and morality, light years between nature’s violence and that of man, yet rugged individuality is still a necessity if one is to survive.

Between the World and Me is one man’s tale, a gritty, clear-eyed look at race relations in the United States. Written as a letter to his son, Coates rails against the violence of white society against the black body, offering no shortage of examples — victims like Trayvon Martin, Freddie Gray or Philando Castile — victim’s stories of violence that often result in death if you’re black, acquittal if you’re white. Coates’ conclusion? Despite landmark cases and laws written to address the obvious, the fear and hatred and disparity between white and black America continues unabated. Being black means that the act of stepping out your door becomes an act of bravery where a typical day can turn into tragedy because of a bum tail light. Being black means not having sovereignty over your own body, your soul, maybe, but not your body. The sometimes terror, and often heartache that Coates feels, not so much for himself, but for his son, living in a country where black lives don’t really seem to matter escapes like a mist from the pages of the book, making me want to weep in solidarity and in shame for a country that treats its children this way, and for my own kids growing up in a nation so divided. As parents, we’d do anything for our children, but Coates maintains that if you’re black, no matter what you do it may never be enough.

Coates talks about Howard University as a mecca for the black body, a place of safety, identity and discovery for African-Americans. He met his wife there and came into black consciousness there, too. I can only imagine that if there was a one single place in the whole of the country where I felt safe and free to be myself that I may never want to leave that place, but Coates did leave and has found ways to navigate life despite the constant worry that things could always go horribly wrong. Still, it takes a rugged individual to step out the door.

How did America get here? Well, the thinking that allowed slavery in the first instance has never really left us. Imagine watching your father go off to work and not knowing whether he’d be coming back, taken by a random act of violence. It’s a sobering thought. Every white person I know would be uncomfortable in a room of all African-American folks and yet my black friends do it all the time without fear or complaint, like scouts sent out to chart a course. Except most explorations are followed by rapid expansion and integration while the black movement into a white society has been blocked along the way by laws and regulations, fear and ignorance, and violence, violence, violence.

While I don’t believe I’ve been turning a proverbial blind eye to racism in our society, I realize now I’ve been naive. The ancestral entrenchment is much greater than I would have guessed with hate being passed down from generation to generation without any clear understanding of why. People hating people because that’s what their people did. My Greek grandparents fled Istanbul in the early 1920’s (when it was Constantinople) to avoid being exterminated along with the Armenians and they hated the Turks because of it. Luckily, all I have is the story without the hate. On the contrary, there are dozens of examples worldwide of people sharing the same soil, but not the same ideals: Shiites and the Sunnis, the Hutus and the Tutsis, Indians and Pakistanis, Bosnia, and today, civil war in Syria, forcing Syrians to flee in massive numbers or possibly die, a mass migration that has forced other countries to become involved. Yet, the world still spins on its axis even in the face of such monumental injustices piled up like waste in a landfill, difficult to sort out with any certainty.

Here in the U.S., years of overt and silent conditioning has systematically sought to exclude people of color — from the best housing, the best schools, the best choices — and government’s attempts to fix the problem with affirmative action have not always been successful. We all thought that would work until it didn’t. You can’t legislate a change of heart and you can’t throw money at something and expect it to fix itself. There needs to be counseling, and dialogue and a lot of interaction from both sides and we’ve got very little of that going on with no real plan to start soon.

Between the World and Me is visceral yet hopeful, honest yet purposeful. It’s Ta-Nehisi Coates’ story, but we in the U.S. all know this story because we are part of the creating, the telling, the watching, and the living. We can no longer sit in the audience and watch the story unfold. It’s time to demand better programming. Perhaps our children, with their multinational friends who sometimes look like attendees of a U.N. Conference, will grow up color blind with an idea of how to begin the healing process. In the meantime, we can help them get there. Let’s change the channel and shift the world.

pjlazos 8.13.17

 

 

***

DREAMLAND

Dreamland, by Sam Quinones is the story of a nation gone berserk, a harrowing, fear-inducing slog through the small towns and backwater alleys of what was once as American as baseball and apple pie. On the front lines are generations of hard-working Americans, possessed of the values of the people who did make America great and who, sadly, could not forestall the destabilization of that same country in the grips of an opioid epidemic. In 2012, 259 million prescriptions were written for opioids — enough to give everyone in the U.S. their own bottle of pills. The addiction started in the heartland and worked its way outward, like ever-growing tentacles that stretched and squeezed and stretched and squeezed until we had all succumbed. Over 50,000 lives were lost to opioid addiction in 2015 and it all started with the Xalisco boys and a perfect storm of events. Those beginnings were so covert that even the medical profession that aided and abetted it could not foresee such a complete and total coup.

Dreamland would be great as a work of fiction — intense, edgy, adrenalin-inducing — if it were only that. Unfortunately, it’s for real. Whether you blame the resilient Mexicans, the ad execs that turned the pharmaceutical industry into a money-making machine, the use of the “pain index” as a fifth element in medical treatment, or a sagging American spirit that once fought for rugged individualism, but due to unemployment and loss of manufacturing jobs, among other things, now accepts the status quo like a prison inmate accepts lunch, you still come out in the same place: America likes its opioids more than it has liked any drug before, and throwing addicts in jail as a way to solve the problem is not going to work.  

Quinones is the quintessential journalist, the type who goes in search of a story rather than one who sits behind a desk and waits for the internet to bring it to him. He spent years investigating the Xalisco Boys, researching, writing, following leads all the way to Mexico and back. It’s no surprise that Big Pharma comes out with egg on its face, having shoved the idea of pain as an indicator down physicians throats, sending forth wave after wave of sales team to rival an invasion and then promising to the moon and back that the oxycontin and oxycodone and other opioids were not addictive “if used properly” (what drug has ever been created that someone didn’t figure out how to use improperly?). Quinones doesn’t blame anyone, just shines a light, but Big Pharma knew, and even in the face of escalating deaths, it’s allowed the ruse to continue.

Once an addict, always an addict, just ask anyone who’s ever smoked cigarettes and tried to quit. To this day, I won’t touch one because, despite however much I may cough at first, if I make it through one, there’s a 50/50 chance I’d have another. I know the clarity that nicotine delivers to my brain is better than a pot of coffee and my brain, especially when I’m writing, gets a bit giddy just thinking about recreating that effect. And while addicts are addicted for different reasons, they generally can’t quit for the same one: the beast of desire is a hard one to tame. When a sports injury in high school leads to a life of addiction, and in case after case, death as Quinones describes in the book, then something is wrong with the system, not the child addled because of it.

Unfortunately, there’s no easy way forward and we’re not going to get out of it without talking — a lot — because counseling is key and so is patience. But, and it’s a big BUT, that means a groundswell of a shift toward listening, not just locking people up, and in order to listen we need to stop and take a breath, suspend our judgment, and give ourselves the space to hear. Is America ready to listen? Quinones hopes Dreamland will facilitate the conversation. Our kids’ futures depend upon it.

pjlazos 8.3.17

 

 

* * *

A Wrinkle in Time

If I had read Madeleine L’Engle’s book, A Wrinkle in Time when I was young, there’s a good chance I would have pursued a career in science. First published in 1962 before the concept of Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) became a colloquialism for young women — a rallying cry, really — L’Engle’s book reads like a STEM Sisters manifesto, a how-to on being a girl and not being afraid to shine, even if it means being better than a boy in math or science. Today, a measly 12% of female bachelor students go into STEM careers, yet, I posit, that had more girls read A Wrinkle in Time as children, I’m pretty sure that number would be substantially higher. Did I mention that A Wrinkle in Time was rejected 26 times by different publishers until it was picked up by Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, because, as L’Engle has commented, it was “too different,” and she didn’t think anyone would publish it. It went on to win the distinguished Newberry Medal in 1963, proving that people will embrace “different” if it comes in the right package.

Given the groundbreaking nature of the story, it’s wonder the book was even published: a female protagonist, the concept of evil which wasn’t kid’s book fodder in 1962, and so much science talk, that there was no precedent for any of it. Would we have Dr. Who (first aired in November 1963) or Star Trek (first aired in 1966) without A Wrinkle in Time? Is it possible that L’Engle’s little book kickstarted the sci-fi craze that the modern-day public clings to like a free climber in Acadia National Park?

We earthlings need to stretch our imaginations beyond this little blue orb and our activities of daily living in order to experience fulfilling lives. Music, art, philosophy and books, books, books help us answer the darn eternal questions that plague us such as who am I? and where the heck am I going? L’Engle planted the sci-fi seed in a generation of kids who grew up to be Star Wars fans and believe in the power of possibility. No small feat there. Yeah, Madeleine. You go, girl. While Scientists have yet to figure out the time travel thing, you can bet that books like A Wrinkle in Time sparked the imagination like no physics class ever could.  

L’Engle’s main character, Meg Murry, is a feisty firebrand of a girl who knows her way around a mathematical equation, but shrinks from the more traditional subjects that girls generally excel in. Meg’s brother, Charles Wallace, is a big genius hidden in the body of a small boy. When Meg’s dad goes missing while on a secret, scientific assignment for the government, Meg is distraught while Charles Wallace is busy gaining assistance from his secret contacts. When Mr. Murry doesn’t come back for almost a year, neighbors, teachers and friends all assume Meg’s dad ran off with another woman. Only Meg’s mom believes her husband is in danger; she works diligently in her lab — she’s a scientist, too — devising a way to bring him back.

Meg loves her father and knows that the man who taught her so much about math and science would never willingly leave his family so she and Charles Wallace and their friend, Calvin set off with Charles Wallace’s friends — Mrs Whatsit, who drapes herself in layers of colorful clothes and is the primary intermediary for the kids, Mrs Who, who speaks in only quotations, and Mrs Which, the wisest of the three and usually appearing as a shimmering light because 3-D is just too darn dense — on a quest to find Mr. Murry and bring him back. Meg and company travel the galaxy, encountering many bizarre creatures, including the inimitable Aunt Beast, all of whom assist the young travelers on their journey.

Thanks to the assistance of Mrs Whatsit, Mrs Who and Mrs Which, the crew finds Mr. Murry on the planet Camazotz, a dark foreboding place where independent thought is prohibited, where they are introduced to the Tesseract, a fifth-dimensional machine that allows you to jump through time, hence the wrinkle. The Tesseract is one amazing scientific advancement that the kids would love to learn more about, but with Meg’s dad being held in a bar-less prison, and Charles Wallace’s mind being taken over by It, there’s so little time to learn about all of the ramifications of time travel before they have to jump time again to make things right. 

A Wrinkle in Time has all the best components of a sci-fi novel — other worlds, a special relationship rooted in earth, making it impossible to leave for good; crazy characters who, although foreign to us, endear us with their actions; a lovable, flawed protagonist possessed of true grit, heart, and purpose, and at her core, a mind for science and math — which, despite what the current elected officials of the American political system have to say, is the reason modern man has effloresced and is still thriving today in the 21st century. (Recall that the ruling elite of the 17th century imprisoned Galileo Galilei, the father of physics and modern astronomy and arguably one of the greatest thinkers of all time for being too science-y and, hence, heretical.)  Just sayin’.  Plus it has the best (read:  corny) opening line of any mystery novel ever, one which the Washington Post’s Style Invitational attributes firstly to an 1830’s English novel by Paul Clifford, and we mustn’t forget the inimitable Snoopy.

Want to get down with your hidden science side? Want to read a YA novel with big adult themes? Then read A Wrinkle in Time to see how it all got started and rekindle your childhood belief in worlds of possibility.

p.s.  now available as a graphic novel.

 

 

pjlazos 6.11.17

 

 

 

***

Shadow of the Wind

“This is a place of mystery, Daniel, a sanctuary. Every book, every volume you see here, has a soul. The soul of the person who wrote it and of those who read it and lived and dreamed with it. Every time a book changes hands, every time someone runs his eyes down its pages, its spirit grows and strengthens.”
Carlos Ruiz Zafón – Shadow of the Wind

I don’t really like subjecting books to a rating system as I think it seeks to make banal and categorical that which is confounding and elusive. Life is a participatory endeavor, not something that can be put on a shelf with a descriptive label, and literature, especially exceptional literature, not only mimics the truisms in life, but often shows us the way of it, helping us to sort out our feelings in a manner that the heat of the moment, any moment, does not always allow. Shadow of the Wind is one of those profound books that entertains and enlightens, soothes and stirs, explains and cloaks, all the while giving you a glimpse into eternity. I can’t remember the last time I was so wrapped up in a novel that I’d bound out of bed in the morning and race off to the gym (I do my reading on the elliptical) as if they were giving away a dream vacation. If I could give Carlos Ruiz Zafón six stars for his book, I wouldn’t stop there. The story is long and languid, sprawling enough to allow time for you to sink into it, trying on the characters like your favorite coat — the one you walk the dog in and everyone but you thinks should go into the Goodwill bin – but also heady and demanding, calling you back to its pages with urgency while the mystery unfurls slowly, cresting and bellying out, both sating and gutting you in its pursuit of the more indecipherable of life’s questions.

Set in Barcelona after the Spanish Civil War, Shadow of the Wind tells the story of Daniel Sempere, a boy of ten whose mother died and left him and his father to grieve for her in perpetuity. Daniel is a clever boy, a reader and would-be writer. He and his father live above his father’s bookstore which specializes in estate books and rare collections. They are not rich, but they are comfortable enough, and father and son share a love of books that results in the older Sempere bringing Daniel to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books on his tenth birthday. As a life-long lover of books myself, such a place intrigues me — the idea that books have a soul, conjoining the writer and its readers, and that the book’s spirit grows with each reading — and reading Shadow of the Wind, I wished more than once that such a place actually existed.

The Cemetery of Forgotten Books is a singular place given over to the preservation of rare books, some lost to the collective memory, some out of print, some down to only one of their kind. The caretaker, Isaac, guards the books like royalty. For those who know this place, they are invited to walk its labyrinthian halls and choose a book to their liking. Once chosen, that book becomes the responsibility of the chooser who must ensure it remains in print and free from harm, and that the thoughts and ideas therein live on for future generations despite war or politics or climactic changes. Shadow of the Wind is Zafón’s answer to the book burnings of wartime occupiers throughout history. Arguably a crime against humanity, the ravages of book burnings have deprived both present and future readers. The longtime rub between those who love the deep and independent thinking that books engender in a reader versus those who prefer a spoon-fed populace with nary a thought of stepping outside societal lines, carefully drawn by those in power, is alive and thriving, even in today’s modern world. As a reader and writer, I am rooted in the first camp, convinced that the only way to transcend society’s little foibles and grand faux pas is through understanding, and one of the best ways to understand each other is to read what each has written. Books absolutely move humanity forward and no matter how many lifetimes I live, you will never convince me otherwise.

Back at the Cemetery of Forgotten Books, Daniel chooses his: Shadow of the Wind, a story written by Julian Carax, an enigma in and of himself. Daniel’s choice, he later discovers, is extremely rare, possibly the only copy left because someone has been burning all of Julian Carax’s books. Daniel’s sleuthing to uncover the mystery surrounding Carax’s life and the systematic eradication of Carax’s life’s work becomes the crux of both stories for Zafón has created a mystery within a mystery. You find yourself fearing and rooting for these people whose lives have overlapped and doubled-back from the story of the novel to the story within it. Daniel’s persistence in removing the veil of secrecy surrounding Carax’s life and death bring him closer to the truth, but his discoveries also align him, ever closer, with the danger.

Shadow of the Wind spans more than a decade of Daniel Sempere’s life and vividly paints the poignant ascension from boy to man during a period in history when life after wartime was difficult at best, and being different, in any sense, was met with swift and brutal retribution. Maybe it’s the magic realism that is woven into the work of the Spanish writer, maybe it’s Zafón’s lyricism, or his long and philosophical view of life that makes this book so exceptional. If you want to be transported, if you want to read a book that feels like talking to an old friend, read Shadow of the Wind. Your soul will grow, and glow, and sing.

pjlazos 5.21.17

***

American Gods

I just finished American Gods, my 4th Neil Gaiman book, and I have to say that should Neil Gaiman ever need a personal assistant, I’m available. He doesn’t have to pay me much as long as I’m guaranteed some daily tutelage wherein we discuss the electromagnetic nature of the written word. I’ll even sign up to do his laundry if it means I could sit at his feet and take notes. He can wax philosophically about the craft of writing while the tighty-whities whirl about good-naturedly in the spin cycle. I’ll even add fabric softener.

How does Gaiman do it? From where does he conjure these fantastical worlds? Many, perhaps all of Gaiman’s characters have, if not a toe, then an entire body immersed in mythology — Norse, Greek, Roman, Native American, Hindi, more. It’s obvious that the man has done some reading, but beyond the myth and the ability to craft a delicious sentence — not too tart, hot, or sweet with just the right amount of description and dialogue, so plump and full of raw talent it could be sashimi — there is this knowing, as if he alone has solved the puzzle of the human condition.

In America Gods, we meet Shadow, a name apropos of the person Shadow has become. Shadow spent three years in prison for a crime he didn’t want to commit. He learned a few things in there, like the arts of judiciousness and waiting. Prison forced a certain transcendence upon the reluctant hero, stalled as he was, and above all, he learned to adapt. The only thing Shadow wanted from his old life was Laura. Knowing she was waiting on the outside made the inside bearable. So it was unfortunate that a week before Shadow was about to be sprung, he got called down to the warden’s office, an uh-oh in the making. You didn’t think Shadow was going to receive a get out of jail free card, did you? Come on, it’s Neil Gaiman. Apparently, Shadow sensed it, too, so when the warden delivered the unfortunate news, that Laura was dead, Shadow felt the icy fingers of a cosmic stranglehold creeping up on him. Now what?

The warden granted Shadow an early release so he could attend Laura’s funeral. Once the worst happened, it was almost easy to find out the rest: Laura was having an affair with Shadow’s best friend, Robbie — the one who ran a gym, the Muscle Farm, and who was going to give Shadow a job when he got out. The reason they were both dead was because Laura’s mouth was where it shouldn’t have been, especially not while Robbie was driving. Maybe Robbie wouldn’t have lost control of the car and hit the tractor trailer head on, pardon the pun, if he and Laura had been buckled up for safety. The news of the affair pushed Shadow into the extreme discomfort zone, and then Laura visited him and it got worse.

With nothing much to do, Shadow took the first job he was offered as a body guard and a driver for an eccentric yet affable old dude. Before it’s all done, Shadow will face a slew of gods, the living specter of his beloved and decomposing Laura, the many faces of death, and more Gods than are in a comparative religion class.

Read the book now before it becomes a series (premiering on Star on April 30th. You know the book is always better.

pjlazos 4.14.17

***

 

Loving Lady Lazuli

According to Romance Writers of America, romance books garnered $1.08 billion in sales in 2013 and accounted for 34% of the fiction market. With stats like that, I’m wondering why I didn’t choose the romance genre but then I remembered — I have no talent for it. Ah, but Lady Shey does. Loving Lady Lazuli is the classic storyline of boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy meets girl again, but told as a relentless, breathy romantic mystery.

It’s been decades since I read a bodice-ripper if you don’t count the Outlander series by Diana Gabladon which markets itself as romance, but is really a hybrid — the love child of Romance and Historical Fiction — and I may have never read another one if I didn’t chance upon Shehanne Moore’s blog and struck up a friendship with the Lady Shey. Now, announcing your desire to read a virtual friend’s book and write a review can be a tricky process even if they don’t live across the street from you because, well, the blogosphere has limits, too, writer’s tend to travel in the same circles, and you just don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings. Thank GOD that I just adored this book because all that worry is now a moot point. After reading a few chapters of Loving Lady Lazuli, I was hooked. Moore writes a self-described brand of romance that she calls “smexy”— a cross between smutty and sexy — a classic pot-boiler of a book with the trademark characteristics of historical fiction adding to its allure.

Loving Lady Lazuli is the story of Sapphire, the renowned London jewel thief who no one has ever seen. Sapphire’s greatest defense has been her invisibility. Her many costumes and identity changes have allowed her to remain elusive and because of that, the most successful jewel thief in England. But one evening Sapphire makes a terrible mistake. Her “mark”, the famous Wentworth emeralds, are in her grasp, but the escape route is not. Her partners have let her down and there is no way out except a long trek across an open field in winter, and in an evening gown, no less.

Complicating matters, there is a witness, the rich, young, handsome Devorlane Hawley who happens upon the bewitching Sapphire while driving by in his coach. The unsuspecting Hawley has no idea what’s happening when he offers Sapphire a ride. It all happened so quickly, that kiss, that hand where hands should not be when strangers are involved, the pawning off of the Wentworth emeralds into Hawley’s pocket without him even knowing, and her alighting from the coach before he could catch his breath and clear his addled brain. Months later, he’s been enlisted into the army, the rich man’s version of punishment for a theft, preferable to hanging from the end of a noose, but still a high price to pay for a crime he didn’t commit. She caught him all right, with a breathy kiss and a swift goodbye and he will use all his resources to exact revenge.

For ten years Devorlane harbored his enmity, for ten years, he replayed the events of that night, and for ten years he swore that one day he would find and catch Sapphire and make her pay for ruining his life. Ten years of feeding and nourishing that hatred which festered like the wound to his leg when, upon his return, he is met with a sight that makes his heart both soar and shatter — it’s her, Sapphire, sitting in his drawing room. Now who’s caught?

Want to find out? Then read Loving Lady Lazuli, a romantic page-turner of first order. You may want to ditch the tea and crumpets for something stronger!

pjlazos 3.26.17

***

Expired Listings

“A buoyant, commendable mystery that piles on red herrings with ferocity and glee…the spiraling final act, culminating with the killer’s staggering reveal, is an exhilarating ride.”

—– Kirkus Reviews

Welcome to the first in my series of author interviews leading up to Mystery Thriller Week. My first guest is D.M. Barr, author of Expired Listings. Barr’s debut novel, Expired Listings was selected for review by the Midwest Book Review, in January 2017:

Critique: Expired Listings by D. M. Barr is an exceptionally well written, genre-busting, riveting psychological thriller laced with satiric, romantic and erotic elements. A consistently compelling read from beginning to end, Expired Listings is a masterfully crafted suspense thriller that will prove to be an enduringly popular addition to personal reading lists and community library collections. Expired Listings is also available in a Kindle format ($2.99).

Shall we start with D. M. Barr’s bio, in her own words?

WHO IS D.M. BARR?

 By day, a mild-mannered salesperson, wife, mother, rescuer of senior shelter dogs, happily living just north of New York City. By night, an author of sex, suspense and satire.

 My background includes stints in travel marketing, travel journalism, meeting planning, public relations and real estate. I was, for a long and happy time, an award-winning magazine writer and editor. Then kids happened. And I needed to actually make money. Now they’re off doing whatever it is they do (of which I have no idea since they won’t friend me on Facebook), and I can spend my spare time weaving tales of debauchery and whatever else tickles my fancy.

 The main thing to remember about my work is that I am NOT one of my characters. For example, as a real estate broker, I’ve never played Bondage Bingo in one of my empty listings or offed one of my problem clients. 

But that’s not to say I haven’t wanted to … .

[photo credit, D. M. Barr]

Here’s a synopsis of this “genre-busting, psychological thriller”:

What if people were dying around you and you weren’t absolutely sure you weren’t their murderer? Someone is ‘deactivating’ the Realtors in Rock Canyon and almost no one seems to care. Not the surviving brokers, who consider the serial killings a competitive boon. Not the town’s residents, who see the murders as a public service. In fact, the only person who’s even somewhat alarmed is Dana Black, a kinky, sharp-witted yet emotionally skittish Realtor who has no alibi for the crimes because during each, she believes she was using her empty listings for games like Bondage Bingo with her sadistic lover, Dare. And yet, mysteriously, all clues are pointing her way.

Along with clearing her name and avoiding certain death at the hands of the ‘Realtor Retaliator,’ Dana has an even bigger problem: she’s inadvertently become a person of interest in more ways than one to Aidan Cummings, the sexy albeit vanilla detective investigating the case. While his attentions are tempting, Dana is torn—does she continue her ironically ‘safe’ but sterile BDSM relationship with Dare, or risk real intimacy with Aidan?
 
Kink, Suspense and Satire–Expired Listings masterfully combines all three while exploring the universal need for validation and the toxic nature of revenge.

***

Ms. Barr and I had a little virtual chat about her work, writing, and life in general and here’s what she had to say:

What’s your writing background (schooling), backdrop (where you work at your craft), and backstory (what you will tell the world when you become super famous)?

I really never studied writing—fiction or nonfiction—at school. I started writing by writing a review of a comedy improv group for a boyfriend who was in that group and sent it off to a local paper called Downtown Manhattan. They hired me as their Nightlife Editor and I reviewed shows and restaurants.

A few years later, I wrote an article about Opsail 86 for a travel trade magazine (I was a travel agent) and they started sending me on press trips as a freelancer and later hired me as an Associate Editor. I ended up spending three years there before breaking off on my own to start a PR company that helped travel agents with their promotion and corporate communications. So I actually fell into writing.

My first fiction experience was in 1979 when I attended a two-week Writer’s Conference at Hofstra University. I was there to study nonfiction magazine writing when I wandered into a fiction class by mistake. I was absolutely fascinated but never dreamed I had it in me to write fiction. When I got serious about my book (2013!), I took some classes at the Hudson Valley Writer’s Center, which was more of a critique group and got me into the habit of handing in pages. So no formal training in style—all learned by the seat of my pants.

What are your favorite books?

Oh, wow. Hard to narrow down. Atlas Shrugged, The Fountainhead, Trinity, The Grapes of Wrath, Lonesome Dove, The Kite Runner, Iron House by John Hart, all of the Marshall Karp Lomax and Biggs series and all of Michael Connelly Lincoln Lawyer books. I also love Jennifer Crusie for romance and Kerrilyn Sparks for comedy/paranormal. And I’m leaving a million other books out.

Why mysteries?

Expired Listings started out as a real estate parody that warned my fellow real estate agents about the dangers of our business and it just evolved. Since I love psychological thrillers, that’s slowly what it became, with satiric, romantic and erotic elements. I loved adding layer over layer to the story.

Do you see the need for all these sub-genres or do you think we’ve become over-specialized, as in, a story isn’t just a story any longer, but a specific type of story?

Since my book is a hodgepodge of genres, I was very put off by the number of agents and publishers who liked the writing but turned it down because they couldn’t pigeonhole it into a genre. Since most books aren’t sold on shelves but can be categorized into several categories online, I couldn’t understand this dogged devotion of theirs to genre. I refused to cut the story in half to fit in, I didn’t want to be formulaic. I stayed true to the story I wanted to tell, for better or worse.

Why writing and not ceramics, or gourmet cooking, or anything else really? If not writing, then what?

I like being read, making someone laugh and entertaining people. But it’s not my only hobby. I’m a competitive trivia player, I love word games, I love to travel and I rescue senior shelter dogs.

From where do your ideas come?

From everywhere. I used to think there was only one book in me. Now there are so many, there’s no time to write them. Anything I hear that might be funny or offbeat can either be its own story or part of a larger one.

What’s your routine? Do you work out while writing, take breaks, or simply gut it out?

I don’t have one. I write when I have the time and I plow through. It’s good to have deadlines though. I have thought about hiring an editor and having her impose deadlines on when she expects pages.

Do you work outside of writing, i.e., do you have day job?

I’m currently a Real Estate Associate Broker.

What has been your greatest writing lesson? How about life lesson?

Publishing is glacially slow so be prepared for that. Don’t ever let a bad review get you down—even the best books on Amazon have one-star reviews. Write the book that’s in your heart. Someone will want to read it. Never chase trends.

How many books to you have out?

Two: a novel and a novella.

Indie or traditional publishing?

One of each.

Country of origin?

USA

Relationship status?

Married

Kids?

Two, one of each.

Pets?

I had two rescue dogs. I just lost one, a Newfoundland mix. I still have Doofus, my schnauzer-poodle mix. He’s about 14, dumb as a doornail, blind and sweet as can be.

Travel and if so, favorite place?

I’ve actually been lucky enough to travel the world as a travel agent and later as a travel writer and meeting planner, all before I went into real estate. Favorite place is Bora Bora.

Favorite childhood memory?

I was a huge Avengers fan, not the comic book ones, the British series featuring Steed and Mrs. Peel. When I was around 11, my dad got me backstage to meet my idol, Diana Rigg, after a performance of Jumpers (Tom Stoppard) in London’s West End. I stood there with my mouth open, amazed I was actually meeting her.

And the final question, do you think writing can save the world and if so, why?

I wish. Unfortunately, too many people out there don’t read or do read and don’t listen. Or do listen and disagree. Still, it’s so important to write and be heard because someone might listen.

Interested? Then check out Expired Listings and D. M. Barr. She’s waiting for you.

 

pjlazos 1.16.17

***

Rabbit Warrior

In an era of tell-all books and reality TV, it’s still unnerving for the average person to reveal too much about themselves, their dreams, and dramas. The translucent nature of living in a world that thinks it knows you simply because it has a few data points results in an exhausting and inauthentic existence. While revealing your deepest secrets along with the attendant emotions you’ve been harboring for the better part of forever is a rough and rickety bridge to cross, once you do, the secrets come pouring out like fine Irish Whiskey, purging the pain that held the memory to you and bringing an opportunity to shift nothing less than your entire consciousness. That’s just what Janet Brady Calhoun did and later described in her memoir, “Rabbit Warrior,” a book dedicated to the Self: self-healing, self-actualizing, and self-discovery.

Like most middle-aged women, Janet had been shackled by a few of life’s golden handcuffs: wife to an F&M College Administrator; mother of two lovely daughters; a sister in a family of four siblings; and a successful career woman, working, among other things, as the co-chair for Tom Ridge’s gubernatorial campaign and finally as Special Assistant to the Secretary of Human Services in Pennsylvania. Ironically, all left her both fulfilled and depleted. Her father, who she adored, died when she was 12, a death that left her despondent and dependent on her mother for her emotional sustainability. Whether one ever reconciles such a loss is an open question. Despite her father’s success as a dentist, he left her mother with little money, gambling debts, and four children. Possessed of nothing more than an indomitable spirit and an iron will, Janet’s mother pulled the family through, but that period, fueled by her mother’s own warrior spirit, cost Janet, and perhaps all of her siblings their emotional independence.

It’s no surprise then that the most brutal blows life dealt Janet came from the deaths of her mother and sister within a short span of each other. All those hurts caused by her father’s death came rushing back, nearly drowning her in their need to be acknowledged and released. So Janet left her home and her husband in Lancaster, Pennsylvania and moved up to Cape Cod for the summer where the family owned a home and where she did her best thinking. She took her journal and some essentials — books; the dream catcher her granddaughter made for her; wine — and headed to the Cape to call her spirit back. It turned out to be a very important summer, possibly the most important one, and it resulted in a brave and open-hearted book about the search for one’s true Self.

I must confess that at first I was annoyed. I didn’t really want to read a book about a privileged woman having an existential crisis in her home on Cape Cod when, for instance, one-third of the world doesn’t have access to clean water, but I had promised a book review so I took a breath and read on. The dialogue was a bit stilted and I had the feeling that I was voyeuristically reading over Calhoun’s shoulder as she scribbled in her journal with all its unfettered pain, anguish, and fear of being stuck inside her 12-year old emotional self — plus, she held back, probably out of propriety because nice women don’t tell all their secrets, even to their journals — yet in spite of my objections, I saw what Calhoun wanted me to see: a woman seeking redemption, not from someone else, but by and for herself because she was the only one in the world who could grant it.

Courage comes in all forms. It’s not handed out at birth and its not part of our genetic code; rather it’s something earned, and usually, it comes at a great cost. It takes courage to tell your story, the real story, not the one you create for public consumption. Rabbit Warrior is every man’s and every woman’s story. Your facts may be different, but I guarantee your pain shares similarities. Read Rabbit Warrior if you’re interested in how one woman moved some of her own pain offshore.

plazos 1.10.17

***

An American Tragedy

Theodore Dreiser’s, An American Tragedy, written in 1925 was extremely racy for its time, but the real tragedy of Dreiser’s novel was not the ultimate fate of the protagonist, Clyde Griffiths, as much as the societal conditions that precipitated it. Also, that I guessed the ending so far in the beginning of the book that, at times I had a hard time sticking with it. Dreiser’s prowess as a writer is overshadowed by his accomplishment as a sociologist and philosopher and in the fearless manner in which he shines a light on the American condition, one that elevated the rich and denigrated the poor of the 1920’s, a condition still in existence today. The American Dream, hard work equals becoming rich if you live in America, is simply not true, at least not for the masses, and Dreiser brilliance is in painting that picture of poverty and often hopelessness, of an American system that leaves its working class behind without choice or money or a pathway to an improved condition. Oh how the entitled look down their noses of those without money, how they chafe and groan about the burdens put upon them to uphold “society,” yet how Clyde longs to be part of that society. Yet the truly entitled are not those who have earned their money themselves, but have been handed it by their fathers who worked hard to ensure their own legacy which is then passed down to their children.

An American Tragedy introduces us to everyman Clyde Griffiths, born to unordained, self-proclaimed, missionary parents who run a small home for wayward souls and spend some time each day, singing church hymns and proclaiming the glory of the Lord on street corners along with organ accompaniment. Unfortunately for Clyde, this lifestyle leaves him awash in embarrassment, desperate to break free from the daily horror and the impoverished conditions that permeate his home life. Clyde desires nice things with his whole being, dreaming of one day living the life of luxury. He lacks a formal education as a result of all his parents moving around, but soon lands a series of jobs which allow him to buy the things he’s so greatly desired, but he’s terrible with money, without the concept of saving for the future or creating a safety net because no one ever taught him how so he lives from paycheck to paycheck. There’s a longstanding fallacy that Dreiser manages to shed light on, which is, if you’re poor you’re stupid and if you’re rich, you’re smart. Clyde proved himself adept at getting out of his poor circumstances, he just didn’t have the training and foresight to stay there. Clyde wasn’t stupid, simply not as schooled as his cousins and there seemed to be no way for him to catch up.

Such is the systemic nature of poverty: a lack of education and no one to advise you of how to do things differently. Clyde’s rich relations tolerated rather than uplifted him as if they thought his poorness would rub off on them. Rather than looking at the odd one or two who break free of poverty, we should, as a society, be looking at why our fixes have made the trap of poverty inescapable because the 1920’s could just as easily be 2017. Reading Dreiser, you get the impression that he believes the world needs this tragedy, actually revels in it, that the rich need the poor so they can feel richer and the poor need the rich so they can feel subjugated and that we are all just pawns in a larger script. Dreiser manages to convey all this through the guise of the twin pillars of religion and law, one created to control the masses the other to admonish when that control failed to work. Poor people may have been born poor, but they are God-fearing, and therefore malleable because of the hope of a better life after this miserable one. Easier for a rich man to pass through the eye of a needle and all. The rich, however, have little incentive to give up anything because, well, there’s just no proof of an afterlife, and aren’t material blessings at least tangible proof of God’s love?

There were a few plot deficiencies that pained me a bit, like how women, once used up, were completely dropped from the book, Hortense, Roberta, even Sondra, although again, this was the 1920’s and women had very little to do other than act in a supporting role for their men. As for the writing, at 867 pages, the book was a bit too long for me as was Dreiser’s desire to dissect Clyde’s thinking from every vantage point, but the book was written circa 1925 when a bit of verbosity was the norm, and moreover, who am I to quibble with a classic?

The character analysis, the strange and unnerving parallels to what’s happening in the U.S. today, the social implications of poverty and its reverberating effects all work to make this a great, albeit sad novel. An American Tragedy is worth your time as both a novel and historical text. Depending on how the next four years go, An American Tragedy could be more relevant today than when it was when first written. Read it. You’ll have a greater perspective regarding the challenges surrounding the nature of poverty by the time you’re finished.

an Invisible Thread

There are those who doubt the hand of God in ordinary events and those who see it everywhere. A chance encounter with an old friend when you take a wrong turn on an unfamiliar street. A meeting with a stranger on a train who gives you the exact information you’ve been after for months. The miracle is that on any given day, the natural order of your routine could be upended by these coincidental, often helpful, almost unnoticeable moments when we are present and listening, where a small, serendipitous event enters through the side door, carrying with it the power to change your life. And so it was for Laura Schroff who almost missed the moment. To this day, she has no idea what made her turn around, talk to the child, investigate the situation a bit further, but she recounts it all beautifully in her memoir, an Invisible Thread.

Laura was having the odd, unscheduled day out, a break in her hectic schedule with no pressing need to be anywhere special when she passed a young boy panhandling for change on the street. At first, she barely noticed him amidst the cacophony of sound and craziness that comprised the streets of New York City. She kept walking. He was part of the backdrop of stimuli clamoring for her attention, and despite the outward appearance of someone so young begging for food, she barely registered his presence. Halfway across the street, she stopped and stood, processing what she had just seen. The light changed. A horn blared. She made no conscious decision to turn around and head back. She heard no voices, felt no hand of God guiding her, yet an invisible force was at work, and guide her it did. Without conscious intent she turned around and headed back to the boy. Rather than give him money, she took him to lunch at McDonald’s where she peppered him with questions, not to interrogate, but to understand his life and situation. He responded truthfully and with integrity. That day sparked a friendship with the boy, Maurice, although, at the time, neither had any inkling it would be more than lunch. The friendship has lasted decades and will likely last their entire lives.

Maurice was 11 when he met Laura who had her own complicated and troubled upbringing with an abusive and alcoholic father.  While this bit of commonality provided an emotional understanding that helped to cement their friendship, the gap between their lifestyles couldn’t have been greater. She was a successful ad executive and he, the son of a drug dealer and a drug user with little to no chance of ever escaping the systemic cycle of poverty — the lack of education, of proper nutrition, or housing and supervision — where little help of any kind characterized his life. Yet Maurice did escape, and today as a grown man with kids of his own, he says it’s because of Laura’s love and devotion.

Today, Maurice credits her with saving his life and she credits him right back. Read all about their inspiring and extraordinary journey in Schroff’s raw, honest, and heartfelt book, an Invisible Thread.  Tissues recommended.

Laura Schroff will be appearing at the Author’s Luncheon, sponsored by the Jr. League of Lancaster on Friday, December 2, 2016.

p.j.lazos 11.24.16

***

Lincoln in the Atlantic World

There are people who read scholarly works just for fun, those super smarties for whom reading novels is practically a waste of time. Not me. I want fiction. I want suspense. I want action. I want romance. Most of all, I want a good story and an escape from my routine. Well, guess what? You can get all those things in the scholarly yet action-packed book, Lincoln in the Atlantic World, by American History Professor, Louise L. Stevenson. Lincoln is Stevenson’s third book and is as original as it is wide-ranging, a treasure trove of information that you would be hard-pressed to find elsewhere. Lincoln in the Atlantic World redefines our 16th president as a trendsetting risk-taker whose biggest gamble paid off resulting in the Emancipation Proclamation. By presenting little-known facts rarely focused upon in other scholarly works, Stevenson makes a strong case for Lincoln’s genius not only as a great statesman, but as a brilliant strategist, writer, and political cosmopolitan.

There’s plenty of swashbuckling heroism, midnight escapism, foiled assassination attempts, capture on the high seas, and a bit of sockdologizing — a non-word that loosely means someone pretending to be something they’re not while at the same time trying to get over on you. Professor Stevenson spent much of her career, searching through the tunnels and alleyways of Lincoln fact and lore, unearthing little tidbits of information that have been generally overlooked by the history books. The chapters are set out as “lessons” and they describe the various influences in Lincoln’s life — German, African, English, etc.— that together formulate the narrative that became the mindset behind Lincoln’s policies at home and abroad.

Cosmopolitan is not the first word that comes to mind when you think of Abraham Lincoln, but new research by Stevenson demonstrates that he could well have been a dictionary entry next to the word. Both before and after the Emancipation Proclamation, Lincoln was a man who believed that restoring the Union and ending slavery were a means of preserving not only the American republic, but also of republicanism as a goal for the world’s people, a view he’d expressed in the Gettysburg address.

Throughout his life, Lincoln internalized information about slavery, American politics, and international relations from sources centered in Africa, Britain and the European continent through his reading (Authentic Narrative of the Loss of the American Brig Commerce, to name one), his association with German immigrants, and perhaps moreso, his humble beginnings and prior employment. The result was not a president interested in isolationist theories or American Imperialism, but one dedicated to bring to life the tenets of the Constitution and Declaration of Independence. When Lincoln wrote that a government “of the people, by the people, and for the people” should neither perish from the North American continent, nor “from the earth,” he wasn’t uttering empty sound bytes meant to get him reelected. “The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here,” the 272-word speech goes, a speech so concise, it was concluded before the crowd had finished assembling. No, Lincoln was in it for the long game. At the time, he had no way of knowing that his words would fan the fires of democracy and republicanism in such profound ways, but he knew he could not stand idly by, whatever the repercussions.

Lincoln’s many losses taught him that without coalition building, his political agenda was destined to fail. In a time of great turmoil for our country, Lincoln managed to turn the fickle nature of popular opinion in his favor simply by viewing the world from 30,000 feet. He embraced the New Americans that came from Germany and other parts of Europe in search of religious freedom and appealed to their sense of higher of justice and power to gain their political and editorial backing. He even used something as mundane as facial hair to make a statement. Stevenson argues that Lincoln, ever the erudite scholar of human emotion knew that much like today your face was your calling card, announcing who you were to the world at a glance. Lincoln’s facial hair was a strategic move meant to give him popular appeal to a more republican audience. He grew his beard as a way to participate visually in the Atlantic world of republicanism and liberalism.

The result? Lincoln gambled his entire career on a high-minded ideal, a new world vision for the republic he loved. It’s hard to say what would have happened if Lincoln lived. Perhaps the reparation period would have gone more smoothly, perhaps blacks and whites would have learned to live together in peace and harmony, perhaps there would be no need to argue today about whether to fly a Confederate flag over a courthouse in South Carolina, or to suffer rioting in North Carolina, or the other half a dozen venues where racial tensions have lead to death in the last year, or perhaps nothing would be different and the fight would be ongoing with no satisfactory resolution. One thing is indisputable, however. Because of Lincoln’s ideals and resolve, because of his cosmopolitan nature and egalitarian outlook, our 16th president gave an entire race of people back their voice. Today, a century and a half later, they are no longer afraid to use it.

Read Lincoln in the Atlantic World and fall in love with Lincoln and the Republic for which he stood all over again.

p.j.lazos 10.10.16

***

The Ancient Minstrel

When I read the news you could have knocked me over with a well-placed word:

He was dead.

How did I miss that tidbit of information? How could I have not known that one of my favorite living authors is no longer walking about the earth plane? Shouldn’t I have felt the cosmic shift of the planets as his spirit left? Why didn’t the Earth herself — for whom he was such a consistent and persuasive advocate — rise up in protest at his departure. In March 2016, Jim Harrison died of a heart attack. (I wrote heartache at first. Freudian slip, eh?) What Harrison left behind — vibrant, sparse, yet effusive stories that resonated with a quiet truth — will have to be enough.

I remember reading my first, and favorite Jim Harrison book, Dalva, about a young Native American girl who gets pregnant at sixteen and because of her age and circumstance is forced to give up her child. It’s a love song to lost innocence and horrible consequences, a sad tutorial on all the ways that Native Americans have been screwed over, both singularly and in the macrocosm, and Dalva is a brilliant blend of the two, full of history, lore, and a collective plight that Harrison deals out in small bites in the form of letters interspersed throughout the story — classic Jim Harrison.

Then there were the food stories. One, the title escapes me, where Harrison was attending a dinner party with 12 or 20 or maybe more courses, a meal akin to Roman times when a vomitorium was a necessity to keep up with the feasting. He wrote about the experience afterwards, about how they had to take a walk after five or six courses to make room for more food and alcohol, and I remember his admonition of, “Courage, gentlemen,” referring to the prospect of what lie ahead, as if he were really referring to fighting a great battle or beast. Only Jim Harrison could make food so challenging and gluttony so soulful.

The Ancient Minstrel, the title of his last book and the name of the first of three novellas, is a memoir, somewhat fictionalized to protect those who wished to remain anonymous (his family), true to Harrison form and full of excesses: food, drink, women, eccentricities of choice, disdain for the temperament of acclaim, but not the money it brought. It begins and ends without resolution but somehow it feels as though there’s nothing left to say. The epilogue is a touching, Harrison-esque love song to his art and his wife: “The sanity of a good marriage will enable you to get your work done.” Amen to that.

I think Eggs is probably what Harrison would have been like if born a woman a decade or two earlier, internally self-directed, self-assured, deliberately plodding through life with a quiet bravado. Eggs tracks the life of Catherine, the child of alcoholic parents who rises above her family’s dysfunction, a beautiful spirit whose attachment to the land, her chickens, and her own heart’s choices proves the adage that we may not always get what we want, but, if open to it, we get what we need.  

More than a few of Harrison’s stories deal with the topic of suicide. Even if he hadn’t thought about it personally, it was a point of fascination for him, something to be looked at from several angles. The final story, The Case of the Howling Buddhas, is about a clever, brilliant, self-destructive private investigator, leaving you with the feeling that Harrison called out his own death, the timing if not the exact nature of it. By the end of the The Ancient Minstrel, Harrison’s on every page of the book but still nowhere in plain view. In toto, The Ancient Minstrel is Jim Harrison’s swan song, so final, so deliberate, so determined to suck the last ounce of joy from the marrow bone that it feels as if there is — dare I? — nothing left to say. How much was truth and what remains as fiction we will never know for just as a tuning fork can bring another tuning fork into resonance, good fiction resonates with universal truths that readers can use as needed in relation to their own lives. More than that we don’t need to know.

Harrison leaves behind a much respected and well-appointed literary legacy, but it’s what he didn’t say that troubles me. What will I not get to read and ponder now that he’s gone? What noble truths will be lost to oblivion? It makes me want to write all the more furiously before my own voice is silenced. Is The Ancient Minstrel Harrison’s best work? No, but it’s true to his writing style and his most personally revealing, essential to any Jim Harrison collection.

p.j.lazos 10.6.16

 

***

Mary’s Message

I love books that retell a story in a way you would never imagine. Want to see every story you’ve ever read about Mary Magdalene turned on its head? Then put judgment aside and read Mary’s Message by Ann Crawford, the reimagining of what Yeshua’s life would have been like if Mary Magdalen had been his wife. In Mary’s Message, Mary is a priestess of the high temple practiced in the art of love and alchemy (could be why the Bible refers to her as a prostitute), a gifted teacher (could be why the Apostles had a beef with her), an energy healer and medicine woman (had she been born centuries later they would have burned her at the stake), and a positive thinker all wrapped up together in a powerhouse of a package, a woman in control of her thoughts and emotions and hence her reality, a woman worthy of being the mate of Yeshua ben Yosef, more commonly referred to as Jesus. I was entranced by the possible alternatives to the Bible stories and intrigued by how Crawford married the feminine nature to what has until this time been a strictly masculine-defined and patriarchal view of that time period of Yeshua’s life.

The way Crawford describes it — and since none of us were alive at the time, why bother disputing it — Yeshua and Mary Magdalene lived together in the temple where Magdalene lived and taught. When the time came, she went out on the road with him, assisting hm in preaching what would later become the Gospels. They were essential components of each other’s personalities, their marriage the intertwining of the feminine and masculine to form a complete unit through the bonds of matrimony, and as such, they instructed, supported and empowered each other and those around them. They evolved together, becoming stronger through the gestalt of the relationship rather than as separate entities, and the benefits of their union continued long after Yeshua “died” and was “resurrected.”

The story follows along with all the high points of Yeshua’s life as depicted in the Bible, but touchstones for that period in time is where the similarities end and many of the events such as Yeshua’s death are told with a very different spin. Moreover, while Yeshua had the utmost respect for Mary, her abilities, and point of view, the rest of the people alive at the time, and to some degree the Apostles, considered women as little more than chattel. This made the story all the more interesting to read as Mary and Yeshua navigated their interpersonal relationship while still maintaining a place in the larger community with its masculine-dominated mores and opinions.

If your Christianity is of the fundamental variety then Mary’s Message may not be the book for you, especially given the deep metaphysical and eastern religion tenets that run throughout. But if you can put aside preconceived notions and be open to a familiar story told in a brand new way then give Mary’s Message a look.

p.j.lazos 8.5.16

***

Geocaching GPS
Great Personal Stories of Romance, Adventure and Connection

Have you ever cached? No? Nor have I. In fact, before a friend told me about the sport of geocaching, his newest hobby, I’d never ever heard of it. I call it a sport because it involves many things that an actual sport does: agility, tenacity, a keen eye, an intellectual curiosity (required), and more. Who knew there were thousands and thousands of people across the globe participating in this “catchy” ad hoc adventure and even stores that sell geocaching supplies and “swag”? If you’ve got no idea what all the hubbub is about then read Geocaching GPS: Great Personal Stories of Romance, Adventure and Connection, compiled by Kimberly Eldredge, the first of its kind geocaching anthology.

I only heard of this book because my blogging friend, Karen Allendoerfer, has one of her stories, Bobbing for Bob, included within. Bobbing for Bob is about the longterm commitment to marriage and goals — in this instance, the goal being a particularly difficult cache — and is one of the best stories in the book both for the writing and the lesson. In marriage and in life, the goal, and the tenacity you apply to it, defines the outcome. And sometimes sharing credit for something may just be enough.

All the stories showcase one of the book’s three main themes: romance, adventure or connection, and while not all of the contributors are “writers,” they are all adventurers committed to the cache and enamored of what geocaching offers them: time out in nature, time with family, time to dust off the frontal lobe and learn a new skill, to get out of the house and away from the TV, to move around and reconnect with yourself, your friends, your life, and forge some friendships in the larger geocaching community. When a cache is discovered, notes are made in the logbook such as FTF, failed to find, and there’s generally some swag — little trinkets, varied in nature — available for exchange. It’s an ongoing and exciting game of hide and seek with prizes available at the end. What could be better?

What I found most intriguing — in addition to the inspiring and characteristic geocaching names used to log into a find — was how story after story talked about introducing the sport to others, generally family members who either never heard of it or had poo-poo’d it and then were hooked.

Here is a sampling of what’s inside: “Concert on a Waterfall,” about a 22-pound pyramid, a didgeridoo, a harp, and spirits who enter the earth through the waterfall’s veil. “Along for the Hike” about a father and daughter who bond over geocaching even as the daughter is dying of cancer.  “A Quick Stop Along the Way,” about a daughter who instills the love of geocaching in her father who had grown tired of waiting for her to arrive because she was stopping at geocaches all along the way.  He ended up hiding 67 of his own caches within a 30-mile radius of his home in Arkansas where previously there were none to assure he could spend more time with his daughter. “Beauty in Abandonment,” about a woman who lost the friend who introduced her to geocaching, yet found her own spirit again at the first geocache she ever searched for with the friend who was no longer with her.

There’s so many more and they are as varied as the caches themselves.  If you are interested in geocaching, are just curious to see what these crazy geocachers are doing with their spare time, or if you’ve been looking to get started, but need a boost, consider Geocaching GPS your primer.

p.j.lazos 8.2.16

***

Rain Clouds and Waterfalls

Rain Clouds and Waterfalls by Piper Templeton is a lovely little coming of age and beyond story set in a time when life was simpler if only because choices were limited. In other ways, life was more harsh as the dogma of the day ruled. People, especially children, had fewer options. They didn’t revere, as we do today, the meaning of individuality, and “Authority,” meaning work, school, teachers, parents, priests, etc., was spelled with a capital A. It was always the job of rock and roll, beginning with the Beatles, to peel back the veil of mass conformity so that everyone could let their individual light shine. Rain Clouds and Waterfalls offers a peek into that beginning time.

The stories follow the life trajectory of a young girl, Ellen, depicting isolated incidences as she goes from child to adult which, en toto, gives you the fuller picture of her life, especially as it is interwoven with the music of The Beatles. Each chapter is headed by a Beatles song. Sometimes the music is a catalyst for her actions, sometimes a balm, but always linked to the story within, allowing the reader to witness Ellen grow up with and through the music. The stories are bare bones, not a lot of fluff here and no extraneous subject matter. Often the language belies the gravity of that same subject matter which can be stark, harsh, sometimes unbearable. A brother who leaves, a friend who leaves, a boyfriend who leaves, a boss who comes through (finally!), parents who are perennially remote and self-absorbed, all leave you asking where is Ellen’s “good” in life, really, other than through the music of the Beatles?

The stories are told almost matter-of-factly without pity or pulling of heart-strings even though some very adult things happen to Ellen as a child. Set in New Orleans, I wished for more of a sense of place, at least from the adult Ellen. I also wanted the adult Ellen to try a little harder to create her own reality rather than letting things wash over here as she’d done as a child. I understand that not everyone can or will evolve in this way, but I was rooting for her. In fact, the majority of the world is so slow to change that sometimes it seems the only dynamic action occurring is that which is dramatized in film and literature. Ultimately, I think it would have better served the story to see more of that character arc as well as the arc of the language Ellen used as she matured. Overall, however, the stories are balanced and steadily told. The book would make a great art house film — soundtrack essential — with the protagonist growing year to year along with her love of the Beatles. For a quick, enjoyable read try Rain Clouds and Waterfalls.

p.j.lazos 5.25.16

***

Leaving Time

Leaving Time by Jodi Picoult is part The Amazing Kreskin, part Defenders of Wildlife, and part When Elephants Weep all wrapped up in the body of a mystery. Jenna’s mother, Alice Metcalf has been missing for ten years. Jenna who was three at the time her mother went missing desperately wants to find her and refuses to believe she’s dead because that would mean she’d never see her again. But the alternative, that Alice abandoned Jenna at the age of three, is the more painful one and an alternative Jenna can’t bear to consider. Jenna’s father has been institutionalized since the night her mother went missing so any help he could have provided will not be forthcoming anytime soon. Jenna lives with her grandmother, Alice’s mom who refuses to talk about her missing daughter which forces Jenna to do some undercover sleuthing on her own.

Jenna enlists the aid of a former detective on the case, Virgil Stanhope who changed his name and went AWOL as a result of the original botched investigation into her mom’s death 10 years before, as well as that of a local psychic, Serenity Jones even though she doesn’t much believe in that psychic stuff. Both Virgil and Serenity have experienced their own individual falls from grace and are outside looking in on their respective fields which plays a role in why Jenna was able to hire them in the first place given the unconventionality of a situation with a 13-year old spearheading the movement to solve a decade-old possible murder mystery. And that’s all I can say without giving some key plot points away.

Leaving Time waxes poetically in true Picoult fashion, reserving some of the most moving passages for the elephants themselves. I remember reading When Elephants Weep, and actually crying myself with the knowledge that these beautiful sentient beings suffered such cruelty at the hands of man. But whether you are a believer in the anthropomorphic qualities of elephants as I am, Leaving Time will teach you a few things about elephants and help you to feel a kindred connection with such divine animals, leaving a mark on your spirit in the process.  Interested in large animal conservation? Read Leaving Time. You may even want to run off and join a conservation group on the African Plains, but definitely not the circus.

p.j.lazos 5.22.16

 

***

A Confederacy of Dunces

I just finished reading A Confederacy of Dunces  by John Kennedy Toole for the second time. The first time was 30 years ago and I think I appreciated it more this time around because I now realize just how visionary Toole was. The book was written in the 1960’s and the circumstances surrounding how the book came to be are bizarre. It is most unfortunate, but aside from a first novel written at the age of 16, A Confederacy of Dunces is the only book Toole ever wrote. Much like David Foster Wallace, Toole struggled with depression, and after years of trying and failing to get A Confederacy of Dunces published and having so totally invested himself in the work, he committed suicide. His mother then toiled for many unsuccessful years to get her son’s book published posthumously until finding Walker Percy, the American author, now deceased, who at the time was teaching at Loyola University. Percy reluctantly began to read the book, but what started as a guilt read ended in astonishment, and A Confederacy of Dunces found a champion, finally achieving publication in 1980.

A Confederacy of Dunces won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1981. One can only imagine how many other books Toole would have written but we are left with only this gem as well as his first, The Neon Bible. Sad that, but I’d like to think he’s already reincarnated as a brilliant 20-something, tossing out prose the way parents dole out Halloween candy. We’ll never know, though, will we?

And now, on to the review.

A more unlikely protagonist you won’t find in Ignatius Reilly: he’s obese, he’s a slob, he never removes his green hunting cap (not even to take a bath which, as far as we can tell, is not often), he has “valve” issues, and he’s a pubescent teenager experiencing the throws of sexuality in the body of a full-grown man. He also eschews sex, except for the single-handed kind, has a love/hate relationship with his mother whom he depends on for support, and a girlfriend to whom he can’t go a week without writing scandalously insulting letters. He has no job, no money, and such and inflated opinion of himself that you pity the people who have to live with him. When Ignatius’s mother, Irene insists that her college-educated layabout son go get a job or else, Ignatius must take to the streets in search of employment. When he does, each albeit short-lived experience is more outlandish than the last. And while it’s true that Ignatius is a narcissistic windbag of the highest caliber, he’s a smart windbag and often there are giant hairballs of truth in his diatribe even while the internal moral compass that he steadfastly tries to maintain to keep his equilibrium wavers more than true North in the 21st century. As smart, funny, insightful comedies go, this book ranks among the best.

A Confederacy of Dunces is set in New Orleans in the 60’s, then and now a city of dichotomies. If you are poor in New Orleans, there are very few opportunities to climb the proverbial ladder of success, a theme explored in the novel with hilarious outcomes. Toole’s characters could just as easily be navigating New Orleans today as racial inequality, gay rights, police brutality, and even America’s porn obsession are all front and center in this story. The plot is fresh and exhilarating and the philosophical musings on life and the world are provided at no extra charge. There’s a reason A Confederacy of Dunces won literature’s highest prize and it’s a shame Toole wasn’t around to claim it.

p.j.lazos 5.19.16

 

***

Maddy’s Journey

We all seem to be in transition these days and if the transition is a tad scary, Maddy’s Journey, by Julie M. Gotwald can help.  It’s a kid’s story about moving to a new home, but with a twist.  This time, it’s the grandparent doing the moving.

No one likes change, especially kids. There’s an inherent destabilizing factor that throws even the most stalwart of us into chaos. Maddy is a young girl worried about her grandmother’s impending move into a retirement community. The move means Gran will need to leave the house she’s always lived in which in Maddy’s opinion is a terrible thing. When Gran wisely tells Maddy that the only thing that will be different for them is the location of her home, Maddy decides to do some serious sleuthing. When they arrive at Gran’s new digs, Maddy slips down the hall and investigates every room that catches her eye. Ultimately, Maddy comes to the conclusion that Gran’s new place has all the essentials, and perhaps even a few perks. Most importantly, it has Gran and her stories. What more could a girl ask for?  Maddy’s Journey is a lovely and supportive little book for any youngster who feels they may lose a loved one to transition.

Since I know the author through our volunteer work at the Jr. League of Lancaster, I thought she’d be up for a little interview about Maddy’s Journey and her writing process.  And she was.  Here’s what Jules has to say about writing, life, and her own journey.

[photo courtesy of the author]

I love the book’s dedication. Did your Gran have a big influence on your life and does she still?

HUGE! Gran actually lived in Kansas and I lived in Pennsylvania so it wasn’t that she was right down the street. How I had always wished she was though. She was my first pen pal and I wrote her until the day she died at age 96 when I was 25. I have always felt very lucky that she was in my life for as long as she was. I have letters saved from me to her that date back to the time I started writing. In college when a letter would come from Gran all of my good friends would somehow know and they would come by, wanting me to read them the letters. I think that is where my love of writing comes from — writing her letters all those years. Gran was always the best story teller. Even today I try and tell the stories I grew up hearing from her and they still don’t sound as good as hers. She would let her voice get very deep and soulful; I think that’s what made them so good, her voice. We went to Kansas just about every summer and I think the first thing my two brothers and I would always do was run into her house and ask for stories right off the bat.

Yes, my Gran still has an influence on my life. I think of her often and at odd times especially when I see something that reminds me of her. My daughter’s middle name is after her, Mary.

How long have you had the dream of writing for kids?

It has always been a dream of mine to be a published author. A class came up at the area community college on how to write a children’s book so I eagerly signed up. One of our assignments was to come up with an idea for a book. I had been working a couple years at Willow Valley Communities and had the memory of my Gran when she was in a retirement community so I kind of morphed the two ideas together. I think being a children’s author means being able to enter a world or magic and dreams so it’s a great honor to have my dream come true!

Do you think you’ll branch out to YA or adult novels?

Maybe someday. You never want to close a door.

You have two young children at home. Do you find yourself writing for them or just the world at large?

For now, I write for the world at large. I am sure they will do something and it will spur an idea in me.
Speaking of kids, how do you juggle two kids under the age of five, a husband, work, writing, your volunteer activities, and manage a bit of time for yourself. Any secrets for the rest of us?

Well, I don’t sleep much! It is a lot of work but I have a fantastic husband who is always by my side. It’s keeping that dream alive in your mind that pushes me.

You work in a retirement community for your 9-to-5 job. Is Maddy’s Journey based on someone living at the community or purely a work of your imagination?

Maddy’s Journey is part imagination but part just based on my Gran. As I meet with people who are thinking of moving to my retirement community they sometimes will ask, “how will I tell my grandchildren?” They know their grandchildren love to come to their home now and they don’t want that to change. That was a lot like my situation when I heard my Gran was moving from her home that I loved to visit to a retirement community in Kansas. But it’s not the four walls of a house; it’s the person who you love dearly. The physical things grandparents have, move with them when they go to a retirement community, so you just have to remember that it’s just a different set of four walls.

In the retirement community where I work there are many things to do in the building, like the mail room, wood shop, beauty salon, etc. So I decided as a head strong little girl who doesn’t want her Gran to move, Maddy needed to go exploring to see for herself how the new four walls of her Gran’s house would really be.

Favorite children’s author?

Nancy Tillman. I have read one of her books over and over to both of my children. Her stories speak to my heart.

If you had the ability to give the world one gift to help it along in its evolution, what would you give it?

Understanding. I think that would go a long way.

Maddy’s Journey is available on Amazon, B&N, and generally anywhere where books are sold.

p.j.lazos 2.21.16

***

My Sweet Vidalia

     They say all doors open for a pretty girl and I believe that’s true, unless you’re a poor girl, and then no matter how pretty you are, those doors are going to stay shut tight and double locked. My Sweet Vidalia, by Deborah Mantella is a story about a poor and pretty girl, Vidalia Lee Kandal Jackson, a straight-A student at the top of her class which means she just may have beaten the odds on a life that offered women, especially poor-ish ones, very few options if it wasn’t for what happened next. Set in rural Georgia in the mid-1950’s, My Sweet Vidalia is not a story for the faint of heart, but it is one for the poetic heart.

When JB Jackson first sets eyes on Vidalia, it is not with the best intentions, but no one has ever paid Vidalia much attention and eventually, JB’s good looks and sweet words just plain wear Vidalia down. Vidalia falls, or rather succumbs to JB’s charms, and soon the charm falls away and the nastiness takes over. By the time Vidalia sees through the veneer to the narcissistic and abusive man/boy JB really is, she’s pregnant and without options.

Their marriage forces Vidalia into a lifelong trap of deception and abuse so gut-wrenching that you want to turn away from every open plan, hungry belly, and closed fist. What makes this story different from others on spousal abuse and hard-core poverty is the lyricism of the language as told through the point of view of Vidalia’s first child, the stillborn Ceili Mae. As Ceili Mae explains right out, if she’d taken her first breath she would have been left out in the cold, but being born still means being possessed of an omniscience only available to those in the spirit world. “In plain-speak, had I but gasped, wheezed, panted, or sighed, even one little sigh, I’d have no recollection of events past, present, or to come. As I never did pull that first breath I see most of what was, what is, and what could be.” When Ceili Mae is stillborn, Vidalia looks about to lose her mind, but Ceili Mae pulls her back from the brink and mother and daughter forge an unbreakable bond that even death can’t sever.

The feisty Ceili Mae knows what her mother needs to take on such a challenging life so she spends her days by her Vidalia’s side, helping her navigate the treacherous terrain that living with a drunkard and abusive good-for-nothing of a husband entails. The juxtaposition of the harsh reality of this impoverished family and the way Vidalia communes with angels through the very live spirit of Ceili Mae makes the story tolerable for both us and Vidalia.

My Sweet Vidalia’s keen observations about race, and poverty and the disenfranchisement of the lower class, particularly women, can be exhausting as I can only assume systemic poverty is in its relentlessness, but the voice of Ceili Mae keeps you rooting for Vidalia straight through to the end. The secondary characters are not as complexly drawn as I would have liked to see, but it’s a small price to pay for the exquisite prose. My Sweet Vidalia reaches deep into your heart and then it keeps going. You’d be wise to go along.

p.j.lazos 2.6.15

***

The Signature of All Things

       What a wonder is The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert, lush, verdant and efflorescent like the plants that fill its pages. You can’t help but get pulled in and up by the narrative in the way all living things reach for the sun. The characters are robust and noteworthy, from the daring, adventuresome and iron-willed Henry Whittaker, whose personality is as extreme as the some of the climates in which grow his favorite botanicals, and who endures much at great personal cost to rise above his very lowly beginnings, to his brilliant and stoic wife, Beatrice, who leaves her Dutch family to move to the United States with Henry and make their mark on the world, to their only natural offspring, Alma, as strong-willed as her father, and erudite as her mother.

As a child, Henry had tasted real poverty and loathed it. His less than illustrious start instilled in him the determination to escape from poverty and build a botanical and pharmaceutical empire. Despite Henry’s father’s employment as a gardner at the Kew botanical gardens, the jewel of the English Crown, the family lived in squalor, and for that Henry blamed his father. Through courage, determination and his refusal to be kept down, Henry moved to America and became king of the botanical import world, building an empire which he then passed down to Alma who became his equal in most all ways, although it takes her the span of the novel to figure that out.

From a young age, Alma strove for an intellectual understanding of the world around her. She spent the bulk of her childhood, analyzing and cataloguing the curious flora and fauna at White Acre, her father’s estate in Philadelphia, riding her pony into the woods to collect specimens and returning to study them under a microscope. Alma was neither comely like her adopted sister Prudence, nor impish and entertaining like her friend Retta. She saw little chance of ever forming a marriage bond so work was it, and being Dutch by ancestry, she thrived in that undertaking, throwing herself into it both physically and with her broad sweeping intellect.

Just when she thought there was nothing left to discover, Alma stumbled upon a category of botanicals she had heretofore overlooked: mosses. The discovery couldn’t have come at a better time. With the death of Alma’s mother, the care and keeping of Henry Whittaker had passed to Alma and, stuck at White Acre, Alma was in need of a new endeavor to rescue her from the boredom of knowing a place too well. Mosses filled that hole, giving her decades of research to keep her occupied in her newfound role. Yet despite all indications to the contrary, Alma will travel farther than she ever dreamed possible before it’s all done.

The Signature of All Things is a gargantuan undertaking and so much more than a well-researched bit of historical fiction. You will have to look pretty hard to find a heroine that’s as true to herself, and a book more remarkable in evoking that truth. Signature is alive with the enigmatic spirit of nature, a paean to the goddess energy in all living things, animal, mineral and vegetable. The very pages come alive with the spark of the divine that creates and imbues the world and everything that lives in it, or as Gilbert calls it, The Signature of All Things.

p.j.lazos 2.3.15

***

 

SNOWMAGEDDON 2016

[photo of my front yard – winter wonderland]

     We’re about halfway through the biggest storm the East Coast has seen since 1996 — Snowmageddon 2016, nature at her finest and fiercest, and beautiful if you, like me, are tucked in at home for the weekend, alternating between cups of coffee and rounds with the snow shovel.  The snow is deep deep deep, so much so that even the dog wants no part of it.  I think it’s Momma Nature’s way of telling us all to take a deep breath and go make some soup.  There’ll be time for all the crazy we call our lives later.  For now, relax.  Your car isn’t getting out of the driveway today anyway,  And for God’s sake, stay off the turnpike.

In celebration of the snow, here’s a review of one of my favorite books on winter, appropriately titled:  Winter.

WINTER

“It was early September and I was driving, literally, to the last road in the United States, a gravel-and-dirt road that paralleled the Canadian border, up in Montana’s Purcell Mountains. It was like going into battle, or falling in love, or walking from a wonderful dream, or falling into one: wading into cold water on a fall day.” – Rick Bass, Winter

Can Rick Bass help it if his Soul’s been on a nature walkabout for all of his life? In Winter [notes from montana], Bass’s wandering spirit is alive and well and living in the Yaak Valley in Montana without electricity, without heat, other than the wood-fired variety, and without much contact with civilization given that only 30 people lived in this remote valley at the time. To read his writing, you get the sense that Bass has explored every canyon and fissure from a hundred points of view so he could bring us city folk back all the details. Both as a geologist, formerly employed by the Oil and Gas industry (Oil Notes is a great read about Bass’s days in the field, looking for new veins of petrol), and now as a writer, advocating on behalf of nature and her wild places, it’s evident that Bass craves a tactile connection with the earth and is keyed in to her secret language, a language he then translates for us in everything he writes. Winter is a memoir of Bass’s first year spent in the Yaak Valley, living with his erstwhile artist girlfriend now wife, Elizabeth, and their two dogs, spend their days living close to the earth. He writes about it while she sketches scenes of the daily living, the serendipity of the path, and the sublime and exquisite stillness of the world — when you can actually find such an unlikely place — and how it contributes to the growth and grounding of us all whether we know it or not.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[My back deck – Snowtopia]

It’s cold in the Yaak Valley. Winter starts about September and goes clear through to March. When Bass and Elizabeth moved in the locals told him them they needed to cut A LOT of firewood. Bass took this advice seriously, cutting cords and cords of wood throughout much of the book as a fitness routine, as a commune with nature, as a spiritual experience, as an exercise in survival, all of which are or may be the same, and when he thought he was done, the neighbors laughed so he cut more. Cords later, he called it and it was just enough to squeak past the interminable winter’s finish line. He was sweating it a little toward the end. A couple more weeks of winter and they would have been toast. That’s the thing about ditching our modern conveniences.

[The Japanese Maple that welcomes visitors to our house.]

There’s a raw, feral power in the earth that we humans aren’t so used to anymore. While daily life in a crowded environment puts us off our game, time spent in nature forces us to be present, open our eyes, pay attention. Not only will you miss nature’s little delights if you don’t, but you could end up in a whole heap of trouble. There’s a thousand ways to die in nature, simply because you aren’t paying attention. Yet there’s a thousand more ways to live more fully, simply because you are. Winter is a profound journey into the heart of the earth’s best kept secrets. Don’t be surprised if, after reading it, you want to close up the house and head for the wild.

p.j.lazos 1.23.16

***

Jon Fixx

     Webster’s defines noir as “1: crime fiction featuring hard-boiled cynical characters and bleak sleazy settings.” Jon Fixx, one of Kirkus Review’s top Indie Books of 2015 is that and more, a madcap mix of noir and romance, a fabulously fun tale of a niche romance writer who’s life’s been on a downward spiral since his girlfriend, Sara, dumped him. The story manages to be predictable in the crime story genre kind of way, and also surprising because the main character is not a sleaze ball, or a criminal, or even a victim, but a guy who just happens to be good at what he does and which lands him in a predicament he can’t write his way out of.  What I loved about Jon Fixx was the way the road took a sharp left turn every time you thought you knew where the story was going.

Jon Fixx is a romantic at heart and he’s turned that trait into a lucrative career. He’ll write your love story and package it up all pretty with the help of his best friend, Luci, who handles the artistic content, making you the star of your own show and simultaneously creating a wonderful keepsake to remember the event. Simple, yet elegant, right? Unfortunately for our hero, wrong. It’s not even close to being that simple.

The novel starts with a post-breakup, traumatized Fixx who just can’t grasp the idea that he’s no longer numero uno on ex-girlfriend Sara’s speed dial. He heads off on a solo road trip to Las Vegas to clear his head and regain some composure. True, she ditched him in a pitiless and cold-blooded manner, and true, he needed some time to adjust, but calling her for months afterwards in the middle of the night from various pay phones in the L.A. area just to hear her voice, then hanging up on her without saying a word borders on lunacy. It’s all relative though since the real lunacy is Fixx standing in the parking lot at a Howard Johnson’s rest stop, banging his head against the metal frame of the phone booth, trying to still the inner voices begging him to make the call while his conscious mind begs him to stop. The result is a few moments of blackout, a nice lump on his head, and a new friend, Donovan, the security guy who takes pity on him.

The breakup resulted in not only a broken heart but a severe case of writer’s block, a problem if you are writing under deadline. Fixx tries to beg off an assignment — a story about a particularly horrible high-profile couple — but the father who happens to be the Attorney General for the state of California will not allow it and demands Fixx finish the piece. He does, but tells the truth about them in an uncensored and brutally honest manner. Suddenly the wedding is off, the parties are furious, and Fixx is at risk of getting his faced smashed in at every turn. Surprise — things get worse when he’s asked to write his special brand of love story for a mob boss’s daughter and her fiancé. Fixx takes the job — as if he has a choice — and finds himself growing more and more attracted to the boss’s daughter, the mob boss’s daughter.

I had a bit of trouble initially with the way the book bounces back and forth in time, but the story is compelling, fresh and funny, so any momentary confusion I may have experienced from a non-linear telling was forgotten in all the fun.

The pace is quick, the narration light and airy, the sense of drama never over the top. There’s no sex, no bad words, and no gun violence — people only use their fists in this book — a refreshing throwback to a more manageable time. Crime + romance = irresistible noir = Jon Fixx. I can’t wait to see the movie.

p.j.lazos 1.8.16

***

[photo of Neil Gaiman shamelessly lifted from google images]

Neil Gaiman Triptych

Neil Gaiman is crazy. Neil Gaiman is deep. Neil Gaiman lives in bizarro world. Neil Gaiman is ridiculously English in his storytelling. Neil Gaiman may be an extraterrestrial. Neil Gaiman is one of the most gifted, prophetic, and ingenious storytellers alive today and I wish we were besties. I feel like I came late to the game and am trying to make up for lost time so I read three NG books in quick succession. Each had at least one foot if not an entire body wedged into the paranormal, making you believe that Gaiman may have witnessed some of this stuff first hand.

Anansi Boys: My first NG novel was Anansi Boys, a story about two brothers, only one of which knows he’s the son of a god who happens to be walking around on earth, posing as a human. The younger brother, Fat Charlie Nancy considers himself somewhat of a doofus. He lives with a dad he pretty much hates because he’s a total dick and embarrasses Charlie all the time, in effect, ruining his life. Charlie has no idea he’s the son of a god or that he has a brother. Charlie’s older brother, Spider, knows both things, but he left long ago and lives somewhere he won’t cop to so when Charlie’s dad drops dead while singing karaoke, Spider decides it’s time to pay Charlie a visit. Unlike Charlie, Spider knows his lineage, but when he shows up at Charlie’s apartment, attempting to put things into perspective, worlds start to unravel. Charlie learns that Dad is actually the human version of Anansi, the African spider god and trickster of tricksters, hated by many of the magical creatures of his own ilk because of his tendency to screw people over. Oh, and Spider actually has some of Dad’s mojo. Drawing on myth, archetype and ancient legend, NG spins a delightful tale that spools out, alternating between the real and mythical worlds, all while the brothers come to terms with their ancestry and each other.  Anansi Boys is a terrific read.

The Ocean at the End of the Lane is chock full of everything you want a book to be, heart, soul and otherworldly luminescence. It’s literary fantasy, like Alice in Wonderland for the new age except no one wakes up from a dream at the end. Or do they? Take your typical boy meets girl, boy falls for girl, boy loses girl story with a huge dose of magic and more than a bit of insidiousness thrown in — good vs. very very evil — raise the fear and fun factors exponentially, and you’ll have Ocean. Eleven-year old Lettie Hempstock and our tender, yet precocious seven-year old unnamed narrator meet following an unfortunate event where a tenant of the boy’s family has turned up dead. The Hempstocks take our innocent, but inquisitive boy into their care intermittently throughout the book as the danger to him ebbs and flows, ultimately at great cost to themselves. Still Lettie is a strong protector and feels an affinity for the boy when things look bleakest, plus the lake at the end of the lane is actually an ocean, the Hempstocks are immortals, and there are more portals to other worlds than anyone would have ever imagined. Reading The Ocean at the End of the Lane, I felt a certain restructuring of my own mystical life, and am reminded of how much there is going on under the surface, both figuratively and literally. You could be standing right next to a completely different world, but your 3-D eyes simply can’t see it. Spiritual leaders have been telling us this for decades, and physics is now providing the scientific evidence to back it up. Perhaps the masses have not yet come to terms with such parallel universes, but with NG’s help, it’s only a matter of time. Fantasy aside, this was a deeply philosophical and spiritual read. Immerse yourself.

Neverwhere: Over 20 years in the making, Neverwhere first appeared as a BBC TV program, but because of the nature of TV production, NG had to change the story from what he’d originally envisioned. The newest adaptation is true to Gaiman’s original concept. Enter the Lady Door (pun intended), so called because she can open portals to other places at will. Richard is her unlikely Savior. When Richard finds Lady Door half unconscious on the streets of London, he takes her back to his apartment where she is able to rest and recover. Richard can’t predict that this single act of kindness will irreparably shatter the life he’s built for himself and others until Lady Door leaves and things begin to get weird. Lady Door awakens the next morning and leaves, promising not to call, and with an admonition not to follow. Fine, except the same “people” who were trying to kill Lady Door are now trying to kill Richard and The Lady is his only chance for survival. Richard leaves the safety of his apartment — actually, the apartment is no longer safe, having been let by his landlord while Richard was “away” — and sets out to find Door and convince her to take him along. Lady Door needs to find “the key” and Richard needs to get out from the underground tunnels of London where he’s been hopelessly stuck since finding Lady Door, something the key may be able to solve. Door reluctantly allows him to accompany her. What follows is one of the most fantastical and bizarre series of events to occur in one book: doors appearing out of thin air; portals to other realms; whole cities existing side-by-side, each within their own realities; people dying and then living again. Neverwhere is way cool and great fun.

A certain commonality runs through NG’s work, at least the three I read. The passive male protagonist is pulled, sometimes sideways, sometimes feet first into his power. He will demur to his wiser and more battle-worn counterpart, often a woman, when warranted, a refreshing change from so many testosterone-laden stories where the male protagonist always charges in and takes control. Then there’s the metaphysical, or paranormal, or fantasy elements — choose the designation with which you are most comfortable — and the cooperation and egalitarianism between the sexes. It’s courageous and weighty storytelling. Is this just the beginning, NG? Are you trying to bring the goddess energy back? I think Neil knows and he’s just not saying.

p.j.lazos 12.15.15

 

 

 

BIG MAGIC

“I told the universe (and anyone who would listen) that I was committed to living a creative life not in order to save the world, not as an act of protest, not to become famous, not to gain entrance to the canon, not to challenge the system, not to show the bastards, not to prove to my family that I was worthy, not as a form of deep therapeutic emotional catharsis . . . but simply because I liked it.”   Elizabeth Gilbert, Big Magic

There’s Big Love in Big Magic, the new book by Elizabeth Gilbert, love of work, love of mucking around in the primordial soup of creativity, and love of manifesting into being that which makes your Soul sing. Why? Because you can. Because you have to. Because you, and sometimes the world, are waiting for it. Because being human means bringing your gifts to market whether someone wants to buy them or not, whether anyone notices or not, or whether anyone else who is not you thinks those gifts are a waste time or not. Big Magic says you must create because your DNA is hard-wired to create, and to deny genetics is to deny yourself. Big Magic is filled with lovely Gilbertian insights, the ones we wait for because we like the way she spins them, shining a light on the “aha” moments for us, the same moments we were reaching for, but weren’t quite able to grasp or bring into the light on our own. This is my third Liz Gilbert book and in some ways, it’s my favorite because, more than anything, it reminded me of my obligation to myself.

You all remember Liz. She’s the one who sold 12 million copies of a little book called Eat, Pray, Love by accident simply because she followed her heart along with the glow of an idea, the one that would make her — not the whole world, just her — whole. The book was honest and raw and full of self-analysis and grand truths that are indigenous to human nature, and repeatedly, people saw themselves in those pages. The books sold and sold, Oprah had her on the show, there was a movie with Julia Roberts, Liz became super famous, and in the process got herself right, and took at least a few of those 12 million people along with her. She had set out to do none of it except for the part where she made herself feel better. She wrote the book because she is a writer and that’s what writers do.

All awesome, right? Well, good luck, bad luck, who knows? A lesser person might be dismayed by the fact that none of her half a dozen other books, three of which were written following EPL, were not as successful — after all, 12 million is a bit of a hard number to top — but not Liz. Why? Ahem. Go back and read paragraph one, herein, please, or repeat after me: “I will follow my muse.” That’s it. Liz is still following her muse and a person in the muse’s thrall is a person on one fabulous joy ride. Many say, “you’re only as good as your last one,” but as Liz points out, to rest on the laurels of your “last one” simply because it was an amazing success is to fail to bring forth what you can, and have as an artist, agreed to bring forth. You continue to create even in the face of amazing, unbelievable, unprecedented everything-you-ever-dreamed-of-and-more success because there’s nothing else you can do. You take the job even if it means not living up to your own expectations or most brilliant version of yourself.

Well then, did I love Big Magic as much as EPL which was quite possibly in my top ten list of favorite books of all time? I think it’s like being asked to choose which of your kids you like best. You simply can’t because to do so would be a disservice to the family unit.

I have a t-shirt that says: “Artists Make Lousy Slaves.” I always feel so smug when I wear it, as if I have one of the Four Noble Truths emblazoned across my chest. After reading Big Magic, I see my t-shirt is all wrong. It’s actually the opposite. Being an artist, or a writer, or a musician, or using your creativity at all means being a slave to the muse, a slave to the process of creating; all you can really do is suck it up and get to work because that’s when magic happens.

Feeling stuck in your creative practice? May I suggest a little book called Big Magic? Read it and I can pretty much guarantee you will reap big, creative, may I say magical, rewards.

p.j.lazos 11.11.15

 

 

 

All the Light We Cannot See

Combine elegant prose, a riveting tale that alternates between story time, and storyline, a provocative topic, war — unfortunately, always a provocative topic — and the predilection of the human spirit to survive even after losing all that is good in life, and you’ll have All the Light We Cannot See, by Anthony Doerr, a book so exquisite that you may just weep with the joy of its telling. At the very least you’ll get a few shivers. Let me start by saying that I had no intention of reading this book, mostly because I’m exhausted by the concept of war; we all are, but my friend, Lena, whose judgment I trust implicitly insisted, so I acquiesced. Oh my, people. Why did I wait so long?

The story begins at the end in 1944 in Saint-Malo, a city on the Emerald Coast of Brittany, France where 16-year old Marie-Laure LeBlanc waits, locked in the attic with little hope for the return of her uncle Etienne who was recently taken away by Germans occupying the city. Marie-Laure, the daughter of Monsieur LeBlanc, the principal locksmith for the Museum of Natural History and a master model maker, has fled Paris with her father to Saint-Malo by the sea to be with Etienne, Monsieur LeBlanc’s brother who resides still in their boyhood home, refusing to leave the house since his service in the first World War. Saint-Malo was supposed to be a safe haven for the pair, but during wartime, no place is safe.

The story then ruthlessly skips back to the beginning where a six-year old Marie-Laure loses her sight and is plunged into darkness by a congenital cataract condition that would likely be fixable today. Monsieur LeBlanc, meticulously and with the utmost patience as was his temperament, teaches Marie-Laure how to navigate the world using a cane and trial and error. In addition, he builds her a miniature model of the city of Paris so she may study it with her hands. Each day they walk to the museum and Marie-Laure counts curbs and storm drains, trying to make mental notes of her surroundings while her frustration builds and builds, until one fine day, she succeeds in navigating the way home by herself.

Things travel more or less smoothly along this path, that is, until Hitler starts mucking around and Paris is overrun by Germans. The curator at the Museum of Natural History has a very special job for Monsieur LeBlanc: transport the Sea of Flames, or perhaps one of its replicas, created to throw the Germans off the trail, out of the city. The Sea of Flames, one of the Museum’s greatest treasures, is a rare and invaluable diamond, believed to have been cursed by a goddess who had sent it to her paramour as a token of her affection. The legend goes that the diamond was intercepted by a human before it reached the goddesses’ intended love interest, causing the goddess to curse the finder to immortality and all those who were associated with the finder to mishap. Monsieur LeBlanc agrees to transport it out of Paris — or perhaps its replica — and he and Marie-Laure set off for Saint-Malo.

Meanwhile, Werner and Jutta are struggling to survive in Zollverein, a coal-mining district outside of Essen, Germany. They live in a small orphanage created as a refuge for those children whose fathers died working in the mines. It’s no secret that when Werner turns 15 he will be sent to the mines to work, the same mines that buried his father below ground and left Werner and Jutta above as orphans to scavenge whatever kind of childhood they could. Yet Werner’s inquisitive mind doesn’t leave much time for brooding about potential future disasters. Werner teaches himself math with the few books he’s able to find, and he and Jutta listen to radio broadcasts from Paris on a radio he’s rebuilt from parts ferreted out from the local dump. The broadcasts discuss science and the earth’s natural wonders, and Werner and Jutta spirits soar with this small, but uplifting distraction. When the Third Reich discovers Werner’s talent they draft him into an elite training school for German youth, many steps up from where he’s come from because of the newfound luxury of learning. Unfortunately, it comes with a price and the joy of math and science isn’t enough to sustain him.

So sets the scene for a ping-pong of a ride through a ten-year period in history as seen through the impressions and experiences of our two young protagonists. All the Light We Cannot See is another story about war, yes, but the language is so sublime, the story so delicately told, the characters so inexorably profound that reading it, you almost forget the gruesomeness and are left with the only thing that ever really remains: the light.

p.j.lazos 10.29.15

 

 

 

The Hidden Messages in Water

“To understand water is to understand the cosmos, the marvels of nature, and life itself.”
from: The Hidden Messages in Water

        You would be hard-pressed to find a more beautifully-appointed and significant book than The Hidden Messages in Water. For years, Dr. Masaru Emoto pulls the very guts out of metaphysical concepts and literally examines them under a microscope. The result is The Hidden Messages in Water, and if the water crystals presented in this book are any indication of what happens in this hidden world, there is hope for mankind after all.

To get the water to form crystals, Dr. Emoto freezes it in a petri dish to -4 ℉(-20 ℃) for three hours, then takes the dish out and shines a light on it, exposing drops of ice, clinging to the surface of the petri dish. He then photographs the crystals for later study. He has 20 to 30 seconds before the ice starts to melt so he must work quickly. Taken in conjunction with his knowledge of the physiology of the human body, Dr. Emoto found the results fascinating. Apparently, water has a consciousness that can be altered through intention.

At the moment of conception, a human being is comprised of 99% water, at the moment of birth, 90% water, as an adult, that number goes down to approximately 70% water, and by the time we die, assuming we die of old age, we are only about 50% water. Without getting into the implications of what it means to dry out over time, Dr. Emoto believes if we acknowledge that we are comprised mostly of water, and also take into consideration his theory that water responds to positive thoughts and intentions, then water becomes the key to a happiness, and the only rational conclusion is that positive thinking is both necessary and essential to humanity’s well-being.

Over the course of his experiments, Dr. Emoto has looked at myriad types of water, like water exposed to both positive and negatives words and vibrations, water exposed to music, water exposed to love, to hate, to pollution, and water that was ignored. Water exposed to positive vibrations shows itself in extraordinarily beautiful crystals full of light. Water exposed to negative vibrations forms crystals that are deformed and disfigured with little light around them. Ironically, it is the water that’s been ignored that produces the most disfigured crystals. Dr. Emoto’s many experiments have demonstrated that water everywhere is linked by an almost eerie telepathy. Water is the first to relay information when something occurs on earth. An opening on the other side of the globe is captured in water, a volcano, a tsunami, an earthquake, it’s vibration transmitted through water.

If you want to do your own experiments with water, Dr. Emoto recommends cloud busting. You can remove clouds from the sky by breaking them into little pieces simply with the power of your thoughts. I’ve tried it and it works. In addition, there are other breakthroughs occurring with water like the use of ultrasound to break up dioxins, and the use of super thermoconductive materials that can freeze water at room temperature, making a special room to photograph water crystals unnecessary in Dr. Emoto’s experiments.

Yet, this is just the beginning of understanding what “wise water” can do. According to Joan S. Davis of the Zurich Technical University who has conducted research on river water for three decades, rain water can be considered “juvenile water” and by the time it has passed through to groundwater, sometimes decades, sometimes hundreds of years, it has taken on the wisdom of the ground’s minerals and become “wise water.” Although retired from the University, Davis has continued her independent research, particularly into how piped water — like the water in our modern water collection systems — degrades and is not healthy for the body. Dr. Davis is experimenting with crystals, magnets, and the redesigning of water taps to give a circular flow back to the water, thus increasing water’s vitality, or rather, giving it back.

Water reflects our emotions. Our reactions to the world around us as experienced through our emotions creates each of our worlds daily. By sending out love and positivity, you raise your own vibration and the world’s. By sending out negative messages of destruction, chaos and doubt, you contribute to the world’s destruction. Dr. Emoto believes that drinking water while holding a feeling of love and gratitude in your heart will change you forever. It will not only improve the taste of the water, but also the effect that water has on your day. Simply by sitting in front of water and thanking it for its blessing, you are changing the world. Dr. Emoto says “the message of water is love and gratitude”. So why don’t you start signaling now? You don’t even have to leave your kitchen.

p.j.lazos 10.11.15

p.s.  Before Pharrell Williams extolled the joys of happiness, there was Bobby McFerrin:

 

 

 

 

Lucia, Lucia

In the days following WWII, women were struggling to define themselves. The war gave them a taste of what it was like to be out there, working alongside men, and earning their own money. After the war, the growing consensus among women was to stay put no matter how much men wanted to see them go back into the kitchen. In Lucia, Lucia Adriana Trigiani exudes the postwar giddiness of hope, and the promise of a safe and settled future set against the struggles of the temporarily-liberated, independent-minded woman. The book is by turns enchanting, exciting, nostalgic and full of the classiness of the early 1950’s when women didn’t leave the house unless they were turned out in their best versions of themselves.

It’s no surprise that Adriana Trigiani comes from a family of seven kids because the essence of the large, close-knit Italian family flows across every page of Lucia, Lucia. In her novel, Trigiani gives us the divine character of Lucia Satori, a beautiful woman caught between opposing priorities, the ones her family sets for her and those she sets for herself. Lucia’s family lives on Commerce Street in Greenwich Village. She may be the youngest, subjected to a hierarchy of four older brothers, but Lucia’s a forward thinker, a feminist before the term was even coined and she is not worried about handling herself out in the world. As the title suggests, she lives up to everyone’s expectations, but there’s a cost.

Armed with six months of secretarial school, Lucia sets out in search of a career. She lands a job as a seamstress for a fabulous dress designer in the Custom Department of B. Altman’s, a high-end department store. There she finds is the realization of her most closely held dreams, working as a career girl in a place that she adores. However, Lucia is much more than a seamstress. She’s an artist who can see what the final design will look like before the needle has been threaded. She and her best friend, Ruth, work under the tutelage of the second in command at B. Altman’s Custom Department, Delmarr. In addition to being an amazing designer, the perennial bachelor Delmarr knows what he has in Lucia and Ruth and he looks out for them accordingly, making sure that if they don’t get the recognition they deserve they at least get the raises.

Yet if that were it, there wouldn’t be much of a story, eh? For Lucia, the most beautiful girl on Commerce Street, there are more than a few bumps and bruises along the way: love lost and found again, familial bonds and old patterns, stretched to almost unrecognizable lengths before returning, more or less, to their original shapes; curses to deal with; and always a family’s abiding love to prop you up when you fall.

Solid writing, wonderful character development, and spot on descriptions of what it’s like to live in a big ethnic family, Lucia, Lucia will take up residence in your heart like your fondest childhood memory. Go on. Read it. You know you want to.

p.j.lazos 8.30.15

 

 

 

The Book of Awakening

In The Book of Awakenings, Mark Nepo breaks open the harried existence we call life and folds it into bite-sized nuggets of wisdom that nudge us along toward expansion, a more open mind, a more indulgent spirit, all in service to elevating the soul. Nepo writes like a man who has crossed the desert and made it to the oasis for the revitalizing drink, then decided the oasis was a pretty fine place to be. A poet and philosopher by trade, Nepo is also a cancer survivor. While he fought the disease, life changed, became scary, possibly shorter, but decidedly different. Nepo suddenly saw the world through slow eyes, coming through the trauma more receptive and mature, and ultimately decided to write down his observations which turned out to be a boon for the rest of us. Just like tempered glass needs a little heat to coax it to its super state of existence, Nepo needed a little cancer to get his 3-D priorities right with his Soul.

The work comes across as if time is infinite (spoiler alert: it is), so why not settle down and make note of a few things while you can. A calendar book, meaning you can read the day’s entry or you can skip around and read it in any order you like, The Book of Awakenings is not about deadlines, but lifelines. I am reading it slowly, savoring it like I would an expensive box of chocolates, but in orderly fashion, leaving randomness for the second time around. You can’t absorb this book through a single read; it’s too rich with its lifetime’s worth of wisdom crammed into a bit more than 400 pages. The Book of Awakenings is a perfect read for anyone who feels as though they’re muddling through: losing life, losing purpose, losing love, identity, focus, or worse, the malaise has manifested as a dis-ease in the body and there you are, broken, alone, clueless as to how to break the cycle. It’s also perfect for someone with no problems, but many questions.

If any of these scenarios sound like yours, I have a suggestion: read The Book of Awakenings. While not a guarantee of success — only you can do that — it will help you find a path in the worst of times. The Book of Awakenings shows you why everything is a blessing, even cancer, and why there is no such thing as curses, only cursed thinking, which with a little work can be changed. Nepo wants you to celebrate life by seeing the good in all things, but don’t misunderstand. This is not a touchy-feely self-help book. Rather, it’s a retreat for the mind and soul that will provide the self-loving space for the body to follow.

It’s hard to imagine a more beautiful book ever having been written. A modern day Rumi, Nepo meets you where you are and turns you from the outside in. You owe it to yourself to follow.

p.j. lazos 7.11.15

 

 

 

 

Some Things You Keep

I admire those who have the courage to write a memoir. I don’t. Memoirs are so raw and vulnerable, like an open wound you can’t stop picking at — but what if you could write your way out of the bloody hellishness back to where you started, before circumstances caused your life to take a serious misstep into the abyss? In Some Things You Keep, JJ Landis goes for it, baring her soul along with many of her missteps. It’s a messy, emotionally exhausting place to be, except it’s not because it’s how her 6th grade self dealt with the trauma of her mother’s suicide: by spending a decade ignoring her own feelings.  No tears, no cries for help other than the self-destructive, self-flagellating kind, no therapy, nothing, just another day. Your mom died. It was a suicide. You better go finish your math homework. This was the saddest part of the story, the fact that so many adults were around and none of them recognized how badly this child was struggling. Were we that clueless in decades past or was it our social custom to brush such heartsickness and immobilizing grief behind the curtains with the dust bunnies.

Some Things You Keep is a series of vignettes with each chapter standing alone, as if on a cliff, ready to jump, or maybe tuck and run, alternating between dark and darker versions of Landis’s life and world. The older she got, the more aberrant her behavior while the searing impact of her mother’s death was ever present. Desperate to understand, but at the same time break free of the crushing despair of that life-changing event resulted in an emotional paralysis. Too embarrassed to ask for help, as if it were her fault — again I say, where were the adults?! — Landis embarked instead on a journey of internal uncertainty and self-loathing that manifested itself in classic dysfunctional behavior — drinking, drugging, and bad-for-her boyfriends. As the adoptive mother of two kids whose birth mother also committed suicide, I have a small peephole of insight into this uncertainty. No matter how much love you heap upon kids who’ve weathered a similar event, they will always wonder why and whether: Why did she do it and was I responsible? The why is never certain even when educated guessing steps in since no one can know another’s innermost thoughts or the resulting reasons for their actions. The whether is always a definite no, but that doesn’t stop kids, and it didn’t stop Landis from harboring one self-recriminating thought after another, if I were a better daughter she would have loved me more, and throwing back a few — drinks, lines, whatever — just to put a finer point on it.

Despite the safe landing at her father and stepmom’s home, Landis couldn’t let the grief loose, and years of bottling up that kind of emotion is like trying to keep a tornado in a tin can; eventually, all kinds of stuff is going to get busted. Lucky for her — and I say lucky because a journey along the razor’s edge is a perilous one — she came out the other side. It took God, and a few missionary trips, and God, and a soulmate in her boyfriend turned husband, and God, and a few kids for her to finally be secure enough to face her demons and deal with the undiagnosed depression that had been her constant companion since losing her mom. While the journey goes on, you get the sense that now she’s doing all right, especially when you read her blog at http://www.jjlandis.com. All in all, a happy ending to what began as a very sad tale.

p.j.lazos 6.26.15

 

 

 

The Code

Have you dabbled in numerology, but found that the numbers never add up right? Are you enamored of feng shui, but find its overgeneralized process coupled with its rigid application and innumerable fixes to be indecipherable? Have you tried tarot, but found its mystical approach too impossible to quantify in your 3-D existence? If you answered yes to any of the above, then have I got a book or you. The Code, by Johanna Paungger and Thomas Poppe will unlock all the answers to all the questions you ever had about yourself, your life and the why of why you do things the way you do, and it will give you a blueprint — yes, a blueprint! — for how to live your life in greater harmony with yourself and your environment. Truly an eye-opening experience, The Code can be applied at any stage and in all areas of life.

The Code is premised upon the idea that your birth date provides most of the information you need to make the right choices as to how you would like your life to unfold. The numbers follow the cardinal directions and each direction has a different set of numbers that broadcasts your strengths and weaknesses. For example, I have two numbers in the north, a 6 and 1, code words, charisma, vision and determination, which makes me a person who wants to be in the public eye, an innovator in search of an audience, a person generally not satisfied with the status quo, and it certainly explains why I take personally a world that changes in glacial time. Clockwise in the east, 8 and 3 are the controlling numbers, code words, empathy and clarity of vision. These numbers indicate a great deal of people pleasing is going on, but also a great deal of people reading. Moving clockwise again to the south we have 7 and 2, code words, fire and passion, and like the heat of the south, these folks are fun-loving, vibrant, curious and passionate, and thrive when at the center of attention. Over in the west you’ll find the perfectionists, code words, skill and prudence. These are the ones who have plans and stick to them. Finally, in the center are the stable, patient, free-wheeling spirits who are able to draw off of any one of the four cardinal points to their advantage. Problematically, center people have wanderlust and homesickness at the same time so maybe unlimited options aren’t always the best thing.

Then there are the combinations of cardinal points and numbers and the advantages of certain number combinations, how to compensate for numbers that are missing — I have three of the cardinal points with the exception of east, but I live in the east, so apparently this works to balance me out — and how to use the book to enhance your life.

If you want to improve your understanding of your life, give yourself a reason to follow that dream you’ve been ignoring for a while, or just want to understand why you do what you do or live where you live, The Code is for you. That’s it. Go buy the book and solve all your issues.

p.j.lazos 6.17.15

 

 

Magnolia City

Magnolia City, Duncan Alderson’s first novel reads like Gossip Girl for the South. Experience the glory days of Houston in the 1920’s, the days that gave the city its oomph, its architecture, and its arrogant charm, when oil barons ruled the roost, flapper fashion was on top, and alcohol was underground, but available if you knew where to get it. Glamour was every girl’s best friend and Esther “Hetty” Allen, a descendant of Houston’s founding fathers, had a steamer trunk full of it. On a fast track to marry the city’s most eligible bachelor, Lamar Rusk, heir to the Splendora oil fortune, Hetty had a spot at all the best tables and on everyone’s guest list, living in extreme comfort, the life of the super rich.

Hetty may have been born with a silver spoon in her mouth — her father was part of Houston’s founding fathers, himself oil cognoscenti — but there were an oil rig’s worth of secrets that needed to remain underground for her to stay there. How much family history, both fortune and genetics, could influence family fate was an open question that Hetty felt compelled to answer. Then there was Lamar. Hetty was the hands down favorite to marry him, but she’d have to bump her younger, social-climbing sister out of the way first. Yet, our gal Hetty was a little more complicated than that, and if a woman in the 1920’s can find a way to live life on the edge then Hetty’s the woman to do it.

When Garret MacBride, a wildcatter oil man walked into the hotel and Hetty’s life on the night of the No-Tsu-Oh ball — Houston’s most beguiling and trend-setting annual party — Hetty’s assured future starts to mutate into something even her precognitive dreams didn’t see coming. It’s love at first sight for both of them, but will Hetty give up her assured ascendancy to Houston’s highest throne or risk it all on a wild card named Garret?

For the history of Houston and the wildcatting days of big oil, Magnolia City is as good as any textbook, but as a story to spark your heart, Magnolia City is even better. Magnolia City is a feast for both the head and the heart. So pull up a chair and have a look. Flasks welcome.

Next up:  An interview with my friend and mentor, Duncan Alderson.

p.j.lazos 6.11.15

 

 

Disclaimer: I have known Rosina Rucci for over 30 years and I’ve loved her like a sister for every one of them, even the ones where distance or circumstances or hurt feelings stood between us (so exactly like a sister). As a result, I cannot write an unbiased review of 6000 Days of Us, a fact that bothered me temporarily until I realized that nothing is unbiased. Even choosing your right over your left hand to hold your fork is a bias. So knowing that, you can either stop reading now, or continue on to my totally biased, deeply personal review of a totally biased, deeply personal book.

“So, fear — fear what?“
Rosina Rucci, 6000 Days of Us

To me, opening a book, especially one I’ve been anticipating is like opening a gift from a friend, and when the book was written by a friend and explains in detail years of old mysteries, things the friend never had the time or nerve or stamina to explain, then that’s 6000 Days of Us, by Rosina Rucci. Compelling in ways that only the most personal, gut-wrenching stories can be, 6000 Days of Us is told with such heart and determination that you forgive the way it jumps around, forgive that it’s over before you’re ready, forgive that the author takes no pains to prepare you for the inevitable; she simply places it in your lap, leaving you to look with wide eyes and think, “wait, did that just happen?”

Even as you walk alongside Rucci, reliving the most memorable in tandem with the most horrific years of her life, you get the feeling that she doesn’t need you, but you would be wrong. Your presence is contributing to the catharsis, both hers and yours, and by the simple act of reading you and she can help each other along the path to letting go of all the secrets and anguish that mark everyone’s developmental years. It’s just that not everyone can say that they were the longtime girlfriend of Salvatore Testa, the Crowned Prince of the Philadelphia Mob, the heir and only son of Phillip Testa, longtime racketeer and associate of one of the most embedded mob families in Philadelphia. Phil Testa, or “Mr. T”, as Rucci refers to him, became head of the Philadelphia mob after his longtime boss, Angelo Bruno was brutally murdered. Mr. T faired no better and died a year later when a nail bomb exploded at his home. But all that happened after — after the first look, the first date, the first kiss.

Rucci met Testa when they were both 13. They lived two doors down from each other on a street where everyone knew everyone else’s business, in a community where Community mattered. 6000 Days of Us is as much about South Philadelphia, a place where people don’t hold grudges for years, but lifetimes, as it is about Rucci’s life, and it’s written as only a South Philadelphian insider can. What constitutes right and wrong have different meanings here. It wasn’t love at first sight, but they became fast friends and that friendship blossomed, but as often happens with young love, a difference of opinion and direction drove them apart. They may have had time to figure it out if “Mr. T” hadn’t been murdered, forcing Testa to take his father’s place in his early 20’s, years before that frontal lobe which is the bane of every young adult was fully developed. Had he really known what he was getting into, perhaps things would have been different, but when he showed no signs of leaving the life that she knew would eventually kill him, she began the long and tortured process of unravelling herself — from all of it. It ended badly, but probably not as you’ve guessed because this is a love that transcends lifetimes.

If you’re looking for elegant prose and elevated metaphor, you won’t find it in 6000 Days of Us. What you will find is a story so compelling in all its raw open-heartedness that you’ll read it in one sitting. Want a love story that survives everything, even death? Then read 6000 Days of Us.

p.j.lazos 6.2.15

 Up next:  an interview with Rosina Rucci.

 

 

Silent Spring

When Rachel Carson penned Silent Spring, first published in 1962, she probably had no idea that it would be one of the most influential books of the modern environmental movement. A smart, savvy scientist, Carson wrote the seminal book on what not to do in caring for the planet and in the process was the impetus for the creation of the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Before the EPA, before the Kyoto Protocol, before the U.N. Millennium Goals, there was Rachel Carson, a shy, research-oriented scientist with the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries (which would later become the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service) who had started seeing patterns where none existed before, patterns of increased incidences of cancer, infertility, mutations and blight. The common denominator, according to Carson was pesticides. Upon publication in 1962, Silent Spring started a s*%t storm of unprecedented proportions by bringing the notion of unsafe pesticides home to the American public, a public who for years had stalwartly believed that such chemicals were safe because that’s what the chemical companies had told them. The central theme of the book is that pesticides, chemical substances used to kill insects that though their very existence reduce agriculture production, were more correctly labeled as biocides. A biocide is a poisonous substance that destroys life. Carson found evidence everywhere that the insect killing chemicals were also poisoning other things like the soil, the water, the air, and the fish and fowl that lived in them as evidenced by massive bird kill-offs in various areas that pesticides had been sprayed.

The book was met with ridicule by the chemical companies themselves which means that there was great truth in the research, and from the agriculture industry which had gotten used to spraying the heck out of everything as a way to reduce pests and increase profits which, by the way, only works in the short term. Eventually, the pests come back with a vengeance. Probably the single greatest triumph of Silent Spring was its success in getting the pesticide DDT banned, a chemical so toxic and pervasive in the environment that its effects still persist today. Carson didn’t advocate banning all pesticides, but wanted them to be fully researched before use, and even then advocated using them sparingly, only when necessary and with good judgment. At 53 years old, Silent Spring is not going to teach you something you don’t already know about chemicals in the environment — that is, if you’ve been paying attention — but it will help you refocus the argument and decide what is important: lower cost, lower quality food, or a pesticide free meal.

Rachel Carson (1907 -1964), marine biologist, conservationist, poet, avid bird watcher and literary genius prompted the “Age of Ecology” with her book, Silent Spring. Even while dying of cancer, the shy Ms. Carson pressed on, finishing the book and as a result, left behind a legacy of environmental stewardship that even the most zealous have failed to match. Carson was born in my state, Pennsylvania.

pjl 4.3.15

 

 

What To Do When It’s Your Turn
[And It’s Always Your Turn]

     Reading Seth Godin is like a slow steady rain after a long drought. Your brain soaks up the wisdom like microbes in the soil soak up the water’s essence. It’s an ecstatic, revelatory moment, gaining insight into a mind so evolved and willing to take you along with him. What To Do When It’s Your Turn is for everyone who wants to grow: as a person, a parent, a boss, a businessman, a student, a seeker, and on and on the list goes, whether you’re seeking courage or to change your career, this book will give you grace, fortitude, a sidelines cheerleader, and a good swift kick in the butt, just to drive the point home.

Beautifully illustrated, What To Do When It’s Your Turn will make you laugh and cry at intervals, energize your emotional Qi in ways you can’t believe, and help you prepare for your next step in whatever form “next” may take. The book is built around the premise that almost everyone waits for something to happen, but not you and not this time. You can be one of the group of people that makes something happen. Godin tells this story and returns to its central premise periodically: two very obviously important people, judging by their appearance, are on an escalator when the conveyance suddenly stops. What do they do? Well, one obsessively checks his watch and sighs with irritability while the other stands there screaming for help. I know, right? It’s pretty funny until you realize Godin’s serious and that people do this every day. Maybe not in a situation as obvious as a stalled escalator, but in other situations that are equally ridiculous yet not as apparent, especially when you are the one standing in the middle of the melee.

We live in a reactive society. Something happens. We react. Something else happens. We react, and sometimes badly. Worse, our preconceived ideas about how something is or should or could work leaves us stuck, albeit to our minds, stranded on the escalator, screaming for help with no one listening. Stepping out of the safety zone isn’t all that hard because there is no safety zone. The 20-year job that suddenly comes to an end was once safe; choosing one career over another because you will make more money as opposed to being happy seems safe (it’s called settling); “if I do this, I will certainly get that, and I’ll never have to think too hard about this or that again,” appears safe, but it is all flawed decision-making. There is no such thing as safe because the world is not static and you are not the only one choosing. Inevitably, other people’s decisions will affect you. The safety zone is an illusion. When you come to that conclusion, it’s can be quite exhilarating, according to Godin, allowing you the freedom to move in whatever direction you want. There are simply too many variables to prepare for every contingency so you may as well follow what has meaning for you rather than what is safe, and for Godsakes, take your turn.

One of my favorite pieces in the book is a picture of a group of people, all movers and shakers of various races, genders, and ages all, doing, being, organizing, and catalyzing, on a variety of projects, and they are all wearing the same t-shirt with a picture of Humpty Dumpty before he fell along with these words: “This Might Not Work.” Every one of the people in that picture stepped outside their comfort zone and took their turn. It wasn’t a sure thing, there were likely tons of nail-biting moments, and maybe some didn’t make it the first time or even the second, but they all moved forward, not always with confidence, but with the knowledge that it might not work, a small price to pay in exchange for the potential of achieving your goals.

What To Do When It’s Your Turn will give you the push you need to start your project, your longterm desire, you newly acquired passion, your lifelong dream. Forget the life coach. Buy the book, read it a few times and see if your perceptions don’t shift. What To Do When It’s Your Turn is like a mineral bath for your Soul. So go ahead; immerse yourself.

pjl 3.9.15

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