6/28/2000

Who would have thought that one of the most beautifully written books of stories, essays and ideas would be written by an undertaker from Milford, Michigan? Thomas Lynch, author of "Bodies In Motion And At Rest : Of Metaphors And Mortality" (Norton $23.95), has already won an American Book Award for his previous book, "The Undertaking :Life Studies From The Dismal Trade", but this book is more personal and touches on the universality of life.

Talking with Thomas Lynch was just an extension of reading his book. We talked about the line in his book where , in talking about the death of "old George, the cemetery sexton" that he used the title of the book. "We are bodies in motion and at rest - there in George's master bedroom, in the gray light of the midmorning an hour or so after his daughter found him because he didn't answer when she called this morning, and he always answers, and she always calls, so she got in her car and drove over and found him exactly as we find him here: breathless, unfettered, perfectly still, manifestly indifferent to all this hubbub." Lynch is not afraid to write a complex sentence.

His father was an undertaker before him. When he was twelve his father took Thomas with him to his office, the mortuary; it was the first time he saw a dead body. His father was very businesslike, except that he asked Thomas to join him in a prayer for this dead soul. Thomas writes about the curse of drinking in their Irish family , which includes two stories in the book relating to his drinking and to his son, Sean, which, he told me he would not have written without Sean's permission.

As for himself, I laughed at the snob writer in him who wrestled with the bromides of A.A. of "Fake it till you make it", etc. But I admired the line he wrote "Blind drunks who get sober get a kind of blind faith - not so much a vision of who God is, but who God isn't, namely me."

This is part of an essay entitled, "The Way We Are" and the argument for an open casket. To those who say they want "to remember the person the way the person was ", he answers that seeing is the hardest and the most helpful part and that truth, even when it hurts, has a healing to it.

Lynch always drank, but the drinking became more intense when his wife left him for another man. It was an era of finding herself. He got custody of the four children which he said saved his sanity during his depression. He has remarried Mary Tata to whom he dedicates the book.

I could go on about his thoughts on the conglomerates buying up funeral homes and the lack of personal caring. His humor in "Y2Kat" begins with the sentence, "By the time you read this the cat will be dead. So long have I longed for the truth of that utterance that I have grown mad anxious with the longing for it." Keep reading and he and the cat have a rivalry and feud that is hilarious.

He is the flavor of the month for all mortuary conventions. But, he is my flavor of any month or year for a brilliant writer whose writing I admire even when I did not agree with all his conclusions. Don't miss this book.

Dennis Brown has written a different type of interview book called "Actors Talk: Profiles and Stories From The Acting Trade"(Limelight $22.95). Rather than giving facts and details, he intertwines careers. He talks about Stacy Keach and his career and what he learned while he was in prison in England, which is a horrifying tale, but he ties Keach in with Jose Ferrer and his advice on playing Cyrano.

Jane Alexander, an outstanding actress for any era, became Jane in Washington Wonderland when she was nominated by President Clinton to be Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts.. She has chronicled her four years in "Command Performance: An Actress in the Theatre of Politics"(Public Affairs $27.50).

Thanks to clearance by the FBI she and her husband discovered that their accountant had absconded with all their funds and signed their names to mortgages, etc. They were practically bankrupt. Still, she was able to accept the nomination and travel to Washington to undergo the drilling before she was unanimously voted in. She gives high marks to Ted Kennedy and Nancy Kassebaum, not so to Newt Gingrich and some elder senators.

Jane Alexander had always been a liberal, including going to Communist Russia while she was a student in Scotland. She did not change the color of her cloth to suit her job. Like any intelligent person, she knows that a civilization is judged by the art it leaves behind. Without theatre, art and music, the world would be a drab place.

Unfortunately, the NEA was categorized by the ultra right as being obsessed with pornography. And they were in a position to vote the funds. Mostly, they wanted to do away with the NEA all together. Jane writes of her fight to keep it alive.

Many of the good fights were fought at dinner parties where often a decision would be made. In talking with Jane, one feels a bone tiredness from these years of being a Joan of Arc for the arts. The good news, of course, is that she is acting and bringing her truth to her work. Meanwhile, if you want to follow the process of nomination, confirmation and getting down to business in Washington this book is an eye-opener.

6/21/2000

The last frontier that has yet to be conquered is the sea and all its inhabitants, be it in Junger's book, "The Perfect Storm" which took place in the 1990's, or the whales and the storms in Nathaniel Philbrick's "In The Heart Of The Sea : The Tragedy Of The Whaleship Essex (Viking $24.95) which took place in 1820, and was the inspiration for Herman Melville's "Moby Dick". Philbrick lives on Nantucket Island which was the hub of whaling ships in the 1800's. It was a world unto it self , settled and run by the elders of the Quaker religion.

The Essex was not a new ship but it had a new captain and it had an ambitious first mate, Owen Chase, who would live to write his version of the ship and the crew's adventures. The Essex was literally broken in two by an angry sperm whale. The whale was as long as the ship. What Owen Chase failed to mention in his memoirs was that he had missed the opportunity to throw the lance into the whale.

There was another eyewitness to the sinking, Thomas Nickerson, the fourteen year old cabin boy who was steering the boat when the whale attacked. His written memoirs have just recently been discovered , which gives a whole new light to the event.

Philbrick writes with an urgency that brings the tragedy to a "you are there" emotion. Only eight of the twenty-eight men survived the four months at sea in three little whaleboats. They ran out of water and food ; and they were forced to eat the bodies of those who died. Philbrick told me that cannibalism was a usual practice among sailors shipwrecked at sea.

As Philbrick portrays the process used to catch whales and to boil the blubber to reduce it to the valuable oil which required heavy fires on board these wooden ships it is amazing that any of them survived. Eventually, the whalers moved over to Salem and New Bedford, both of which had access to deeper harbors and to trains.

Rachel Abramowitz wrote a series of articles for Premier magazine on Hollywood female executives. It has become a major book called "Is That A Gun In Your Pocket? Women's Experience of Power in Hollywood" (Random House $26.95). She told me with a laugh that she figured this would be a great way to meet these fabled women and find out how they did it. It doesn't take a genius to figure out who these women will be.

Leading off and still in power is Sherry Lansing who sees nothing wrong with nepotism and has had Paramount bankroll her husband's films while claiming an arm's length conflict of interest situation. Polly Platt is a real talent, born in the wrong decade. She is the "Helpmate" to the star-husband-male. Devastated when Peter Bogdanovich left her for Cybill Shepherd , she seems to have found a home working with James Brooks, according to Rachel.

I commented that the book was written like a Rona Jaffee novel, Rachel corrected me by saying that it was more Mary McCarthy, who wrote "The Group". Rachel, who is a graduate of Yale, prefers Vassar Mary, to Radcliff Rona. In Rachel's book, she opens by giving the reader a history of Sherry's early life, as well as Polly's, Dawn Steele's and Sue Menger's early years as a means of explaining how and why they became the women of power.

The titles of the chapters are sharp, "Sue Mengers is Hatched", "D-Girls On The Rise", "The Power of Barbra Streisand" and "Steel In The Furnace" , etc. Rachel retells the history of "Fatal Attraction" and how Lansing and her partner, Stanley Jaffe, both identified with different characters and how the screenplay went back and forth.

Finally, they submitted the script to Dawn Steel and her boss, Ned Tanen, at Paramount, who turned it down as did every other studio. It wasn't until they got Adrian Lyne that Dawn Steel would consider it. And even then it was not an easy film to make.

Other women whose stories she tells are Nora Ephron, Callie Khouri, who wrote "Thelma and Louise", Jody Foster among others. The woman we both agreed had the greatest talent is Jane Campion, a film school graduate who wrote and directed "The Piano". Jane is from New Zealand. Rachel closes the book by discussing the feminist point of view of "Titanic".

Remember Rose who wanted to live her life and who is the survivor? I did ask Rachel about the next wave of women who are in their thirties. It was an interesting answer.

If you have visitors coming this summer, like the Zagat books , "Best Places" Los Angeles, San Diego, etc. are written by the locals (Sasquatch Books $18.95). I found the San Diego book helpful, recently, and it's written in a friendly style for those of us who drive and are destined to get lost in strange environs.

San Diego has many small music festivals, including Mainly Mozart Festival which takes place both in San Diego and in Mexico with orchestral, chamber and choral music. It usually takes place in June and the book lists phone numbers and web sites. The book travels South to Baja and identifies areas for fishing. Sasquatch has books for up and down the Pacific coast.

An addition to my comments on Jeff Shaara's book. The title is "Gone For Soldiers"(Ballantine Books $26.95).

6/14/2000

Whatever his enemies accused him of being, Martin Amis has the courage to examine his own life and that of his father, Sir Kingsley Amis, renowned English author and winner of The Booker Prize for his book, "The Old Devils" in his autobiography "Experience" (talk Miramax books $23.95). The book is written on different levels of reality with notes of explanation at the bottom of the page. Interspersed with the story are the letters Martin wrote to his father and his step-mother, Elizabeth Jane Howard, during his adolescence from boarding school , from Oxford, and during his tenure at the London Review of Books when Martin's first novel was published. This is his "Osric" period.

The book has a few substories, such as the mystery of his cousin, Lucy's disappearance and the subsequent discovery of her body and her killers, the Wests. Lucy had gone to get a bus and just disappeared. It was a ghost of grief that hung over the family. Other substories relate to Martin's teeth, the surgery on his jaw for a benign tumor and the pain.

He had been charged with leaving his long time literary agent for Andrew Wylie who would get him a much larger advance for his books because of the expense of his dental surgery, and because of the expense of a messy divorce. Martin writes about this in the book and the dissolution of his friendship with Julian Barnes. And, there is his adoring friendship with Saul Bellow. Martin told me that he will never feel totally fatherless as long as Bellow is alive. He had just been to see Bellow and his new baby. Bellow is his mid-eighties and is pleased as punch to be a father again.

Martin is the middle child of Kingsley and Hillary Amis' brood. His brother, Phillip is an artist. I asked him if as the middle one if this had led him to try harder for his father's affection by emulating him in the literary field? His family was not your typical stiff upper lip British. He was not sent off to boarding school at six, only when he went to a "crammers" school to pass his O and A levels for Oxford. They were Bohemian artists where his father hugged and kissed him , except, as he laughingly told me, during the Carnaby years when his hair was down to his shoulders and he wore velvet clothes. His father was a support to him when he got a divorce and Martin felt he had deserted his two sons. But, Kingsley had done the same thing to his family .

Martin told me that when Kingsley's second marriage failed Kingsley felt that he was a total failure. He had destroyed his first marriage for what? Kingsley was a man of fears; trains, planes and being alone at night. When Jane Howard left him, his sons guaranteed him that one or the other would be with him every night. Or as Martin said, "He was totally phobic." The sons come up with a remarkable plan, one that would have pleased Noel Coward. Their mother, by this time, had married her third husband by whom she had another son. They could not afford to live in London and were way out in the country. The sons arranged for their mother, Hillary, to move her family in with Kingsley for what was to be a short term. It lasted fifteen years until Kingsley's death.

Martin read from his book, a selection called, "Seagulls" which included the passage, "He sits in the red chair. This was said ominously. The tomato - red leather armchair lived in Kingsley's study. Its significance lay in the fact that it wasn't the chair on the business side of the desk. The red chair was where he sat when he wasn't writing." He never laughed again, he never wrote again.

One of the great ways to learn about history and "what was it really like" are by reading the diaries that people kept. There is an excellent book on the Civil War called "A Union Woman in Civil War Kentucky: The Diary of Frances Peter"(University Press of Kentucky $22.50). She was one of eleven children of Dr. Robert Peter, a surgeon for the Union Army. She was an epileptic and her view of the world and the war was from her Lexington, Kentucky window. In 1862 Kentucky, a border state, was invaded by the Confederate army under General Braxton Bragg. She was definitely hostile to the "secesh" and the women who not only sided with the Confederates but would not care for the wounded Union soldiers.

It is an informative book about women defending their homes against marauding guerrillas and thieves, women who used guns to drive Confederates from her home, and women who wrestled guns from intruding soldiers, and the story of the wife of an army surgeon who was given authority to punish men under his charge during his absence. Frances Peter died before the end of the war in 1864 but her diary lives on for her.

Another extraordinary woman, Ruzena Berler, who lives in Beverly Hills, tells her story in "Cattle Car To Kazakhstan: A Woman Doctor's Triumph of Courage in World War II"(Vantage Press). It is an impressive story of survival. On September 12,1939, Hitler invaded Poland and Stalin invaded from the East. Ruzena lived in Przemysl, a town divided by the river San. She lived on the Russian side and the knock came in the middle of the night for her and her daughter to be transported to Russia. It was a train of women. Ruzena is proof that knowing medicine is an invaluable tool for survival, even from the Russian men who came howling at their doors like wolves.

She chronicles her experiences in opening up a field hospital and her romance with a man, named Stan, with whom she joins the Czech Legion training under the soviet army. She places her daughter in various child care facilities. Today, her daughter, Olga lives in Los Angeles. Ruzena maintained the sparse field hospital during the battle of the Carpathian mountains.

When her unit reached the Polish border, she returned to Przemysl to find strangers living in her home who refuse to tell her how they took possession and where her husband or her family went. The only words are " the camps". After she reached Czechoslovakia, dispirited by the Communist take over, she rejoins her brother in Paris. Every segment of this book would make a fine film. Dr. Berler, like others I have talked to this year, has chosen to self-publish rather than be rejected or wait for a little publisher to take a chance. Life's too short. Meanwhile, she must have had an excellent editor and good for her because the book is good reading.

In this period of "dot.com" "dot.com go" it's important to know how big, how fast you want your company to grow. Peter Meyer has written "Warp-Speed Growth: Managing the Fast Track Business Without Sacrificing Time ,People , and Money (AMACOM $25.00). Based on Peter's question to many CEO's, "What keeps you awake at night?" He focuses in the first part of the book on new markets and creating markets where they had not previously existed, people, hiring and using the right people saves money, time and the cost of mistakes, and technology. Meyer stresses the idea of "Boxtop" and "Jigsaw" management. Look at the big picture.

When we talked he used the intelligent management of Cisco as opposed to Microsoft. There are some people who want to achieve but do not want to give up control which growth may entail. This referred to my thinking that Ted Turner should have quit when he owned CNN, Metro's Library, the Braves, etc. and he could pull all the strings. Meyer talks about the choices a company has when it needs resources. Sometimes it isn't worth it. But, if you are hot to trot, this book will give you some of the maps you need. Peter learned his trade at IBM and then set out with his own consulting firm in Silicon Valley.

6/7/2000

Talking with Mary Higgins Clark, author of BEFORE I SAY GOOD-BYE (Simon & Schuster $26.00), is always a pleasure. She is a terrific story teller, it may be formula but in her hands the stories hold and there is always something to be learned. In the case of BEFORE I SAY GOOD-BYE, it has to do with politics in New York and New York real estate.

The plot of the book has to do with Nell MacDermott who has decided to go after the nomination for the congressional seat that her grandfather, Cornelius MacDermott has held for over twenty years. Although Nell has kept her maiden name, she is married to Adam Cauliff, a real estate architect, who does not want Nell to run for office and who has borrowed money from her for his business in order to buy a run down three story house on twenty-seventh street which he intends to design and develop into an apartment complex. Adam is having a Friday night meeting on his yacht at New York pier. As the boat goes into the harbor near the Statue of Liberty, the boat explodes and all aboard are presumed dead.

Nell had lost her parents in an accident when she was ten. She believed that they had come to say good-bye to her in spirit before they died. She also felt that they had saved her life five years later when she almost drowned in Hawaii. Her grandfather scoffs at the idea of psychics but her Great Aunt Gert is a believer. Psychics play a role in the book. So, naturally I asked Mary if she believed ?

She told me two stories to explain where she doesn't stand. One was her grandmother looking at a picture of her sailor son in WW II and knowing he was going to die, and the other story of Mary going to a psychic with a friend and the psychic telling her she could see and hear Mary's mother singing so sweetly. Mary laughed and told the woman that her mother never in her life sang on key that she must have the wrong woman. But, Mary said that she is Irish and the Irish do have a special ESP. So, choose what you will believe. I did say that I couldn't understand people needing an intermediary that knowing my mother that if she wanted to contact me, she would come directly not through gray eagle or anyone else.

One thing, I can assure you, you won't be bored with Mary Higgins Clark's stories. I still remember the fright I felt with "Loves Music, Loves to Dance".

Another superb woman is Dr. Nancy Snyderman, the medical correspondent for Good Morning, America, 20/20 and ABC News. Nancy had written "Dr. Nancy Snyderman's Guide to Good Health" which most women, I know, keep as a health bible. But this time she has written NECESSARY JOURNEYS, LETTING OURSELVES LEARN FROM LIFE (Hyperion $19.95). If you admired her before, wait till you read this book ! She is everywoman's best friend with this book as she talks about her life and what she has overcome. I should mention that she told me that along with her television work, she maintains a private practice as a surgeon.

But it is what she has lived through that the book addresses. She is a doctor's daughter from Fort Wayne, Indiana . She was a sophmore at Indiana University in an all girls' dorm, McNutt, where one night she left her dorm room door unlocked because her room mate was coming in late when she awoke to find an unknown man on top of her raping her and threatening to kill her if she screamed.

He ran away and was never found. Nancy never went to the infirmary or reported it to the police. As we talked I reminded her that in that era people always looked at the woman and wondered what she did to provoke it. Her grades suffered and she was in a great depression. When she told her father that she wanted to see a psychiatrist for her depression, he suggested that she hold off as it might harm her acceptance into medical school. She did not tell him about the rape at that time.

Nancy married her high school boyfriend and went to live in Pittsburgh. She was overweight but by luck she was asked to do a TV spot on the evening news. As she says in the book, "If my television career started with a bit of luck, keeping it going had much more to do with commitment than anything else." This marriage did not work out and they were divorced. She ended up in Little Rock , Arkansas, where she had both a medical practice and a television career.

She married a real estate developer who seemed to be her White Knight and she convinced him to adopt a baby girl. The husband turned out to be a womanizer and a thief with her money. After her divorce, she was broke, owed money to the I.R.S. and she decided to move to San Francisco to make a new life. Her attorney for both the adoption and the divorce was none other than Hillary Clinton. Nancy does not dwell on this and only be a careful reading does one note this fact. San Francisco began a whole new life for her.

She also gave birth to a daughter as a single woman. She met and married her current husband, Doug, and they have a son, Charlie, which is another dramatic story in this well-lived life. Nancy talked about how her reporting from Blace, the refugee camp in Kosovo, changed her life. We talked, too, about the lack of role models for young women and a book by Dr. Mary Pipher, "Reviving Ophelia: Saving the Lives of Adolescent Girls", which she highly recommends. Thank you, Dr. Nancy Snyderman for opening your heart and your life.

You may not agree with all his ideas or agendas but it is certainly a provocative book. The book is Jeffrey Scheuer's THE SOUND BITE SOCIETY, TELEVISION AND THE AMERICAN MIND (Four Walls Eight Windows $23.95) Jeffrey produces the theory that sound bites support the conservative agenda and over simplifies our current social problems. Who can be against, "Less Crime", "Get the Rascals Out of Office" and the topper, "No New Taxes, Read My Lips"? But how do you explain in nine seconds, why education is important and why taxes benefit all?

On the other hand I took exception to his argument about whole language being as important, if not more, than phonics. No way would I accept that premise. Although I totally agreed with him on the chapter "Shouting Heads: The Language of Television". I pointed out to him that there was only one person that I knew who ran a literate, thinking, both sides of the argument program with a fair hearing for opposing sides and that was Bill Rosendahl from Adelphia. I have total respect for the way he presents and handles his guests. Jeff mentioned that William Buckley's Firing Line also gave both sides a hearing even though Jeff definitely didn't agree with Buckley's positions. Jeff writes cogently and the book is fodder for discussion. Visit us on the world wide web at www.conniemartinson.com

5/31/2000

Summer is coming sooner than later, here are some books to keep you in shape. Of course, read these, but DO NONE of the exercises before consulting your own doctor. I have used Linda Huey's "The Complete Waterpower Workout Book" which is now waterlogged from use. She and Robert Klapper.M.D. have co-authored HEAL YOUR HIPS: How to Prevent Hip Surgery -and What to Do If You Need It (Wiley $16.95). The book begins with a ten minute pool program and a ten minute land program. This is for the person who comes home with a pain in the hip from a walk or bike ride

The book addresses the medical reasons for hip problems and getting the right diagnosis. What can be done to help, short of surgery? There are remedies such as massage therapy, acupuncture, yoga that focuses on stretching, and best of all for relieving pain, aquatic therapy. Chapters 11 and 12 are for the recovering patients from hip arthroscopy and hip implant surgery. Dr. Klapper notes that in his hope for the future that there is some work being done in injecting hyaluronic acid in to knees to enhance the hyaline cartilage and that this may work in the hip as well. Since no surgery is a walk in the park, the author carefully takes you through the steps and, possible missteps in a hip operation.

Toru Namikoshi has written an excellent book TOUCH & STRETCH: SHIATSU FOR EVERYONE (KODANSHA $16.95) This is the seventh printing of this book, which was first published in 1985. Shiatsu is the act of stroking a muscle, pressing or kneading a numb or sore muscle. We have all done it without knowing it. Shiatsu improves flexibility and eliminates fatigue. Stretching extends the muscles, improves the circulation, increases resilience and strengthens the muscles.

With excellent step by step drawings, he illustrates how to improve those tight neck muscles which will help ward off senile dementia, or at least that's what the book says. For the over enthusiastic tennis player with shoulder problems, there are shiatsu pressure points and stretching exercises. And for the poor soul suffering from sciatic pain, the diagrams break down the pressure points and illustrate helpful exercises. Again, consult your doctor before exercising.

Suza Francina has written THE NEW YOGA FOR PEOPLE OVER 50; A COMPREHENSIVE GUIDE FOR MIDLIFE & OLDER BEGINNERS (HCI $11.95). Suza was a home health care provider for convalescents and the elderly, she noted the differences between the former and the "seemingly" ageless yoga practitioners. There are reasons for turning the body upside down to reverse the pull of gravity. Look at your dog, how the dog stretches, these are the moves that Suza demonstrates in the book for reversing the aging process. She, too, cautions about having an experienced teacher guide when you try any of these exercises for the first time.

Suza Francina discusses foot reflexology, which sounds wonderful but which can hurt the first time pressure is applied. The ancient Chinese acupressure theorized that by massaging the nerves in the feet, we stimulate corresponding body areas. According to Yoga philosophy, the connection of hands and feet completes the circuits of energy that flow through the fingers and soles and through the right and left sides of the body. There are yoga exercises for strong knees, eating mood swings and depresssions.

Important for the chair bound are the yoga exercises for twisting in the chair, or for the arthritic, poses with the help of a table or chair. There are three important results for seniors who practice yoga exercises or poses, they have improved breathing and posture, they restore and maintain normal mobility, and they live a more psychologically conscious life. Currently, Suza is director of the Ojai Yoga Center in Ojai, Ca.

Remember your father or mother saying, "Sit up straight!"? They would love Janice Novak, author of POSTURE, GET IT STRAIGHT! (Perigee $11.95). She claims that by having correct posture, one instantly loses an inch around the mid-section, one stops having a stiff neck, one sleeps better and one radiates confidence. I do know that holding one's self up from the diaphragm will help one's tennis game. There are some very good exercises in this book for "shoulder unrounder" and "strengthen your abs". Nothing unusual, but in reading them, it reminds you to do them.

Along the same lines is Karen Andes' A WOMAN'S BOOK OF BALANCE: FINDING YOUR PHYSICAL, SPIRITUAL AND EMOTIONAL CENTER WITH YOGA, STRENGTH TRAINING AND DANCE ( Perigee $15.95). Karen adds exercises with bands and poles, as well as the poses, called Shiva and Shakti which come under the heading of The Temple Dance Form which includes thirteen moves for balance, strength and grace. I suppose that if one can hold one's foot off the floor for five seconds it is a beginning. The only carp that I have with the book has to do with some wild photographs of the Goddess of Balance and Bliss. My reaction was "You've got to be kidding!" Other than that , the book can be a helpful tool for regaining a youthful flexibility which will help prevent falls.

Enough of the good and kind spirit. On with Mike Young's MARTIAL ARTS HOME TRAINING : THE COMPLETE GUIDE TO THE CONSTRUCTION AND USE OF HOME TRAINING EQUIPMENT (Tuttle $19.95). Mike Young grew up in Hawaii on the island of Oahu, where he studied martial arts, which he used when he became a police officer in 1981 for the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. But, the book is designed to practice without a partner at home. He stresses stretching before any workout.

The simplest equipment he demonstrates is the "shadowboxing towel" which allows one to practice focusing and snapping punches and kicks into the towel. Then there is the old tire which can be used for balance ; he does warn about falling off the tire. Or, you can use the tire on a strong rope as a striking target to practice Escrima or Kali strikes with a rattan stick.

The wonderful part of this book is that one does not have to spend a fortune to practice. It doesn't hurt to teach kids to use what is at hand such as a plastic grocery bag for kicking and boxing. Visit us on the web at conniemartinson.com

5/17/2000

If Constance Rosenblum's mother had not been involved with antiques and had she not bought sight unseen a carton filled with papers, pictures and articles of a woman named Peggy Hopkins Joyce, the book GOLD DIGGER:THE OUTRAGEOUS LIFE AND TIMES OF PEGGY HOPKINS JOYCE (Metropolitan $26) would never have seen the light of day. Connie Rosenblum is the Metropolitan City Editor of The New York Times, the life of Peggy Hopkins Joyce had faded from front pages of newspapers. Occasionally in a yellow journal paper there would be an article about the woman with six husbands, but that was it.

Peggy was the party girl of the Roaring Twenties and the face on the tabloid front page. She knew how to create attention to herself. Born in Norfolk, VA, she left home at sixteen with a vaudeville cyclist . She married Sherburne Philbrick Hopkins in 1913 in Washington,D.C., where she exchanged her entrée in society for free designer clothes. After a year and a half of this, she took off for New York City and with the help of Madame Frances, she met Flo Ziegfield and became a "Ziegfield show girl". As Rosenblum writes, "The mystique stayed with a woman for life, certifying that she had once been among the anointed".

It was her marriage to James Stanley Hopkins that fulfills the title, "GOLD DIGGER" with a pearl necklace valued at $300,000. In the spring of 1920 she spent over a million dollars in one week on a shopping spree! In 1922 she was introduced to Charlie Chaplin by director, Marshall Neilan. She and Charlie had a romantic affair while she was trying to get into movies. Eventually, she would return to Hollywood and have a few parts in movies such as "The Skyrocket". In addition to Chaplin, she was romantically involved with Irving Thalberg. He was quoted as saying about Peggy in comparison to Norma, "That was sex. This is love." Peggy had moved on. She wrote three books, was the prototype for Lorelei Lee of Anita Loos' , "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes".

Connie Rosenblum and I talked about that era for women. If you didn't inherit money, the only way a woman achieved wealth was through a man and that was through beauty and sex. These were the women who reinvented themselves in order to get the lifestyle they wanted. Peggy was determined not lead a dull life and to become a celebrity, she had her fifteen minutes of fame. Although she died July 14, 1957, she will live on in this book. And all because Rosenblum's mother bought an attic box in Poughkeepsie, NY.

If your mother or father came from Boston, the memories of Fenway Park are cemented in a wonderful pictorial book called, FENWAY, A BIOGRAPHY IN WORDS AND PICTURES (Houghton Mifflin $18.95) text by Dan Shaughnessy and photographs by Stan Grossfeld, with a Foreword by Ted Williams. The book is divided into five sections, of historic Fenway, the wall, and the All Star Game at Fenway, Game Day and Fenway Memories with contributions by David Halberstam, Stephen King, who remembers being twelve years old and "coming down" from Maine with his cousin. Doris Kearns Goodwin writes, "I fell in love with Fenway Park before I fell in love with the Red Sox." At the present time, Fenway Park is being torn down to be rebuilt into a new stadium which Ted Williams says is long overdue, but he writes,"I love the fans in New England. They're the greatest….And I hope they win a World Series. Someday, I would like to look in the stars and say, 'Damn, we did it'."

A wonderful way to spend Mother's Day would be at The Getty. There is an exhibition of their priceless book of hours which has been written about by Kurt Barstow in THE GUALENGHI-D'ESTE HOURS, ART AND DEVOTION IN RENAISSANCE FERRARA (The J.Paul Getty Museum Publishing $95.00). Barstow, who is the Assistant Curator of Manuscripts, quotes Thomas Aquinas that the reason for images in the church was to excite emotions by the visual. The book of hours was a little larger than 31/2" by 41/2" yet the artistry of Taddeo Crivelli is extraordinary. This book is considered the greatest of the Getty's Renaissance manuscripts. The book was a gift for the wedding of Andrea Gualengo and Orsina d'Este, who are seen in the painting of Saint Bellinas. There are two children in the painting , but Kurt said that they are not identified, though both Andrea and Orsina had children from prior marriages.

Books of hours were like day planners of private prayers. They were a social luxury and as such they shed a light on local customs and larger cultural patterns, such as devotion to a particular saint. In Ferrara the attention was on Saint Jerome with the image of the lion at his side. It is also a means of seeing the connection between devotion and works of art. In some cases the prayers are written out and in others a word or letter is used. I learned a new word, "Suffrages" which are short prayers to a saint. Another artist who did three or four paintings was Guglielmo Giraldi. Kurt Barstow has written this book in a flowing conversational style which defuses any fear of it being too academic. Art is a great way to teach history and to study the way people lived in that period.

And for those of you who have trouble telling the person you love how you feel, look no further. There is a delightful little book called THAT'S HOW MUCH I LOVE YOU (Tallfellow Press $8.95) with drawings by Claudia Nixon and words by Billy Merritt. No matter how high, how deep, how bright, how long, etc. "That's how much I love you." Have a happy Mother's Day.