Connie Martinson Talks Books - Cable televison author interviewer

September - October 2001 columns

CONNIE MARTINSON TALKS BOOKS

10/26/2001

Amos Oz's new book, "The Same Sea" (Harcourt $24.00) is a lyrical, sexy, innovative novel that includes the author, as narrator, interfacing with his characters. It is written with the maturity and mellowness of acceptance that Oz seems to have developed in his later years. The rebel as writer is now in his sixties.

Amos told me that this book reconciles for him his mother's death by suicide when he was twelve. It is the pivotal event in his life. Like all children who experiences such a loss, he felt betrayed and guilty that he wasn't good enough for her to want to live. In the book, Nadia, the mother, dies of cancer but Oz writes of the anguish and the pain the woman endures with great empathy. He writes, "What's left is a wish that the pain will go away that is will all go away and stop bending over her."

But she does not die as a character, her spirit still talks to her son, Rico, who goes on a walking tour of Tibet. Rico leaves behind his father, Albert, his girlfriend, Dita, who writes screenplays, and his best friend, Giggy Ben-Gal, the epitome of the young Israeli entrepreneur.

And then there is the Narrator, Amos Oz, who not only is the writer but whose characters correct him and his writings. I teased Amos that he had incorporated Pirandello's "Six Characters In Search of An Author" but he corrected me by saying that his characters had not only found their author but were instructing him.

The writing shifts from prose to blank verse and back to linear prose, with each of the characters taking center stage with a soliloquy based on their emotional reaction to the events taking place. Albert, the widower and father, is beset by sexual attraction to his son's girlfriend, Dita, who has moved into Rico's room while he is gone. Dita is a sensual being, who likes men and sex, and is not above sleeping with Rico's best friend as well as his father. Albert is also the object of a "casserole" widow, Bettine, who likes to read Chekhov, and who phones the Narrator to tell him, "Just sit down and get on with your writing".

I asked Amos Oz about his reactions to what is happening Israel? He said that he felt that despite the ugliness of the killings most Israelis and Palestinians recognize that there will be a Palestinian state eventually and that they will all have to get along.

I am endlessly fascinated by pop-up books. There was a golf book a few years a go that was sensational and there are always children's pop-up books; but now there is a book for psychoanalysts or Halloween. It is called "The Pop-Up Book of Nightmares" (St. Martin's Press $29.95). It is created and written by Gary Greenberg, illustrated by Balvis Rubess and pop-ups by Matthew Reinhart. This is not for little children. The nightmares include the "car accident", "falling" which is a work of art out of Hitchcock, "infestation" will curdle your blood, "drowning", "the haunted bedroom" and the nightmare that did come true, "Apocalypse" with the city in the background. Despite the horrors depicted, this book is a collaborative work of art, it deserves a viewing place in the house.

Graeme Base, who last wrote "The Worst Band in the Universe" including a CD with his music, has returned with "The Water Hole" (Abrams $18.95). He combines his art of animals and nature with a counting book, a story book, and a study of ecology. When the water hole dried up, all the animals went away. Then "It rained and rained and rained and rained…" and all the animals came back. Graeme writes that the book was inspired by a four week sight seeing safari through Kenya and Tanzania. But the drawings of the ten waterholes include sights from India, Himalayas, and the Glapagos Islands, among others. "Ten" is inspired by his homeland, Australia.

I was delighted to receive Doris Fisher's song book, "You always Hurt the One You Love and the Great Songs of Doris Fisher" (Universal Music Publishing Group $12.95).Her father, Fred, wrote "Peg O'My Heart" and her brother, Marvin, wrote "When Sunny Gets Blue". Doris often wrote with Allan Roberts. They wrote that unforgettable song "Put The Blame on Mame" that Rita Hayworth sang in "Gilda". If you have a piano player in your family, which I do, he or she will love reading the music and playing it on the piano, and the book will remind you that there was a time when songs had lyrics that said something.

Blue Dog has competition. George Rodrigue, the artist and creator of "Blue Dog" has fallen in love and his new book "Blue Dog Love" (Stewart, Tabori & Chang ) with its red velvet cover and cut out heart with Blue Dog peering through, is co-written by George and Wendy Rodrigue and edited by David McAninch. Wendy writes about meeting George and telling herself not to make any long range plans, "First, George Rodrigue is not a normal human being, and second, I am more of a risk taker then I gave myself credit for." They fell in love and they did get married. Wendy is a beautiful blonde whom George paints sitting in back of Blue Dog with a hot dog halo over her head. This will no doubt be a big Valentine Book, but love is a year round sport so why not a Valentine in November?

10/19/2001

For the past seven years Steven B. Sample, President University of Southern California, and Warren Bennis, the guru of Leadership training, have been co-teaching an undergraduate course on leadership for Juniors and Seniors. Both are successful men with not insignificant egos. But it has worked and Steven Sample has authored "The Contrarian's Guide To Leadership" ( A Warren Bennis Book, Jossey-Bass $24.00) which is one of the best books I have read, because it is easy to read and his points make sense.

Sample writes, "…think gray, see double, never completely trust an expert, read what your competitor doesn't read, never make a decision yourself that can be reasonably be delegated to a subordinate, ignore sunk costs, work for those who work for you, know which hill you're willing to die on, shoot your own horse, sometimes allow the led to lead the leader and know the difference between being leader and doing leader."

Thinking gray and free means one should not form an opinion until all the facts have been presented. This negates the tendency of people, leaders included, to think black or white, or what Sample calls binary thinking. The leader should also listen gray or attentively. For truthful opinions in an inner circle, he looks to the line people and his wife, not the staff people who tend to tell the leader what they think he wants to hear and will close access to the leader. Steve Sample tells a funny but true story of phoning the department head whose secretary answered the phone, said her boss was busy ,wanted to know what it was about since her boss did not return phone calls. Sample called the man at 1:00 am and said that this was the only time he could reach him since he did not return calls. This is unacceptable to Sample.

When we talked I asked him about that expression from his father's farm neighbor that a man owes it to his horse to shoot it himself, which translates in business that if a subordinate is to be fired, do it in person. His father's other ethical philosophy refers to the hill one is willing to die on, only don't tell anyone else what hill that is. As for reading matter, Sample recommends Machiavelli's "The Prince" which he claims is the most misunderstood supertext of all. He explains his reasons on page 111.

I asked him about the changes he has brought to USC. He has doubled the applicants for enrollment, the SAT scores of the applicants have risen over two hundred points, the school has implemented a new B.A.-M.D. program which guarantees thirty-seven incoming freshman a place in the medical school four years later. USC has increased the option for minor fields of studies in the undergraduate program. President Sample says that it is necessary for the leader to develop a role and mission statement and to develop a relationship with the publishers and producers in the media before an event occurs that requires more than a simple statement. Rather than move from downtown Los Angeles, USC chose to strengthen the neighborhood and the public schools which surround the campus. And one cannot forget that USC's Schools of Communications, Film and Writing are considered to be in the top echelon in the country.

This book could be called a Chap book for leaders. So how many of you leaders out there return your calls yourself?

Roberto Loiederman has co-authored with Richard Linnett "The Eagle Mutiny" (Naval Institute Press $32.95). It is an incredible history of Clyde McKay and Alvin Glatkowski, who, on March 14, 1970, commandeered the Columbia Eagle because it was carrying napalm to the troops in Vietnam. The book is divided into the early history of Clyde and Alvin. Clyde came from an army family in San Diego. By age nineteen he had run away from home, jumped ship and joined the French Foreign Legion, deserted the Legion, been arrested in Morocco for a hit and run accident and been in jail in Spain and Morocco. Alvin came from an abusive family. He married and his wife was expecting a baby when he joined up with Clyde at the Seafarers International Union in Long Beach.

Against all ship orders, Clyde brought a gun on board and Alvin bought one in the Philippines and smuggled it back to the ship. From that moment it was just a matter of when they would take over the ship, put thirteen men out to sea in a life boat and hold the captain and the engineer at gun point until they landed in Cambodia. They offered the cargo to the Cambodian government who granted them political asylum. Asylum lasted two days when a coup took place and the two men were placed on a prison ship.

The last part of the book is Glatkowski's trial for mutiny, kidnapping, assault and neglect of duty. McKay and another man escaped from the jail in Phnom. Loiederman has returned to Vietnam to try to trace what happened to them. There are different stories of two Americans which all end with their deaths. Glatkowski served his sentence and today lives quietly in California. The napalm still ended up in US hands.

It is a true story that reads like fiction. Bob Loiederman, who has a Masters in English, shipped out on fourteen different merchant ships, three of which went to Vietnam. When we talked he told me that there was a definite division between the older sailors and the younger ones, like McKay and Glatkowski. The older ones drank booze and the younger ones smoked pot. This is a book that veterans of WWII, Korea, Vietnam and the Gulf War will appreciate.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center-Museum of Tolerance Library and Archives is holding its fourth annual "Write To Tolerance". The 2001 program, "The Dreams of Every Child Through the Lens of the Native American Experience" and the presentation of The Once Upon a World Children's Book Award to Kirkland Hill for "The Year of Miss Agnes" will take place on Sunday, October 21 at the Museum of Tolerance, 9786 W. Pico Blvd. For more information, call (310)772-7605.

Last week I mentioned the Freedom To Write Awards fir Pen Center USA-West which will be presented Wednesday, October 24th at the Millenium Biltmore Hotel. Some of the other winners are for fiction, Diana Wagman for "Spontaneous" an outstanding and unique novel that will awe you with the story and with her writing. I am honored to be asked to present her with the award.

For creative nonfiction, Miles Corwin for "And Still We Rise" which revolves around an inner city highschool; for research nonfiction, A.J. Langguth "Our Vietnam: The War 1954-1975 which you may remember I wrote about last spring and predicted it would win awards, it is superb! Poetry winner is Susan Rich for "The Cartographer's Tongue", Children's Literature is Elissa Haden Guest "Iris and Walter"; Translation goes to John Felstiner; Journalism to Erin Aubry Kaplan for "Blue Like Me"; Drama to Prince Gomolvilas for "The Theory of Everything"; Screenplay to Susannah Grant for "Erin Brockovich" and Teleplay to David Rintels for "Nurenberg". On a personal note, if David's and my grandmother were alive in Boston, they would be thrilled, actually they are near each other in Wakefield, MA. The Award of Honor will go to Otis Chandler and the Special Honoree to Eric Lax, who has done such a superb job during his tenure as president of PEN Center USA West.

10/12/2001

For the past seven years Steven B. Sample, President University of Southern California, and Warren Bennis, the guru of Leadership training, have been co-teaching an undergraduate course on leadership for Juniors and Seniors. Both are successful men with not insignificant egos. But it has worked and Steven Sample has authored "The Contrarian's Guide To Leadership" (A Warren Bennis Book, Jossey-Bass $24.00) which is one of the best books I have read, because it is easy to read and his points make sense.

This book could be called a Chap book for leaders. So how many of you leaders out there return your calls yourself?

10/05/2001

On April 5,1976 a sick, old man, suffering from malnutrition, bed sores, kidney failure, and all the ailments that would occur to a man hooked on drugs, died in a darkened hotel room in Acapulco, Mexico. The man was Howard Hughes, but as far as the Mexican officials knew he was still alive when he was carried onto his private plane. Richard Hack has written "Hughes, The Private Diaries, Memos and Letters", "The Definitive Biography of the First American Billionaire" (New Millenium $28.00).

This was some life. Hughes begins as his mother's boy while his father is off trying to stake an oil claim. But it is in the mechanics of oil digging that Hughes' father will begin the family fortune with his drill bit. Mostly educated by his mother, he attended the Fessenden School in West Newton, MA. He attends the Thatcher School in Ojai, CA and it is there that he is informed by his uncle that his mother has died. Howard is sixteen. He is eighteen when his father dies. From then on, he was free. He felt no loyalty to any relative, nor to any man or woman unless they served his purpose.

He married his first wife, Ella Rice, because he felt it would give him a look of maturity at nineteen to have a spouse. On the back of an envelope Hughes listed his three desires, to be the best golfer in the world, to be the best pilot and to be the best movie producer. Two out of three isn't bad. He broke records as a pilot, and he did win the first Academy Award as Richard Hack reminded me when we taped.

Hughes' list of accomplishments boggles the mind. Hack pointed out that he invented the first cell phone, Direct TV and I mentioned that those of us who lived on Coldwater Canyon were the first recipients of cable because Hughes' doctor, Norman Crane, lived on the street and Hughes wanted him to have clear reception. Until I read Hack's book I did not know that Crane was with the Hughes entourage in Mexico. To the end Hughes was a stubborn SOB who would do things his way even if it meant his death.

And then there were the women. Billie Dove, Jean Harlow, Lana Turner, Susan Hayward, Terry Moore, Jean Peters and Ava Gardner who threw an object at Howard that knocked out his front teeth. I asked Richard why these women stayed faithful to Hughes? Hack felt that they liked "Mothering " him. His only male friend was Cary Grant, and his scout for the women was Johnny Meyer, the 5% man. And, there were the nameless little girls who would be brought to Hollywood thinking he would make them a star.

Reading about Hughes, in the flesh, after reading Harold Robbins' "The Carpetbagger" so many years ago, this is a case of life being better than fiction. After all who could conceive of a scene where the hero is testing his plane, the XF-11 and as he loses altitude, crashes into 803 N. Linden Drive in Beverly Hills. There is damage to some homes, but our hero sustains some burns, is taken to Cedars Sinai and proceeds to act like a sultan with his harem. There was always something salacious in Hughes ' relations with women. And no one can admire his treatment of Noah Dietrich and of Robert Maheu. Hughes liked "metriculous" people and he got it but good with Bill Gay and the group that surrounded him in Vegas and were with him until the very end. In typical Hughes fashion, he died without living a will. He must have been fascinating like a mongoose, if not, this book is.

Her father had a sense of humor, otherwise why call a daughter Smooch? Yes, that's the author's name, Smooch S. Reynolds, President and CEO of The Repovich-Reynolds, an executive search firm, and the book is "Be Hunted! 12 Secrets To Getting On The Headhunter's Radar Screen" (John Wiley $16.95). Smooch defines the differences between a Retained firm that is looking for you and the Contingency firm that keeps a list of resumes, etc. and the latest on the Internet which may or may not be confidential. Some bosses take a dim view of their employees looking for a job while working for them. Yet, one has a better job chance when the applicant is working. A small case of Joe Heller' s "Catch 22".

So, how do you catch the eye of an executive head hunter? Start writing articles for your trade paper, take up every offer to speak, net work. Smooch walks the potential candidate through the steps in the book. First comes the telephone call, then the longer in depth interview on the phone, next comes the meeting between the head hunter and the prospective candidate. Don't be late, don't lie about degrees, etc. and don't ask the head hunter out on a date. Finally, the hunter arranges the meeting with the decision making head in the new company.

Strange, as I'm writing this about Smooch's work, it seems not unlike what Johnny Meyer was doing for Howard Hughes. And, remember, you are not the only candidate, and you may not be the finalist. After all, there is still only one Miss America. This is a great book for any graduating person, they may not be ready for the executive wash room but it will help them know how to handle their interviews and the necessity of writing a thank you note. An e-mail does not do it. Not according to Smooch Reynolds.

There are two wonderful books of short stories, writers who know how to take you to new worlds. Etgar Keret, is an Israeli author, who is currently at the International Writers Conference at the University of Iowa Writers' Group. His book is called "The Bus Driver Who Wanted To Be God & Other Stories" (St. Martin's Press $19.95). His concepts of people living near the hole that will lead to Hell in "A Souvenir of Hell", the longer novella of a world of people who have committed suicide in "Kneller's Happy Campers". Keret, who is thirty-four, opens the reader to the young people of Israel, who live in a Satre world of "No Exit". I asked him about his life in Tel Aviv and the attitude of his generation? He mentioned that he had been with David Grossman, an active participant in Peace Now, whom he said is pessimistic for the first time in his life.

The other fiction writer of note is Katherine Haake, "The Height And Depth of Everything" (University of Nevada Press ). Katherine explores the experiences of the woman who comes West to Montana, leaving responsibilities and family ties to find her own way. She also writes in a unique style that encompasses her own life, the fictional story she is telling and the oft heard conversation at the next table that will set off an imagining of other lives. She weaves her stories in a way that reminds one of an Edward Hopper painting.

Her story, "This Is Geology To Us" captures the moments of the 1994 earthquake. "We know earthquake weather when we see it- hot and still and completely aseasonal, a whisper-quiet stunned sort of day….We know too, like an intruder we have seen before, at once the awesome crack in the night. But what we are never quite prepared for is our delayed response, the way our fear increases in the days and weeks that follow, the sequence of aftershocks, our powerful imaginations and palpable apocalyptic dread.". Katherine is a Professor of English at Cal State University at Northridge, where she is writing a book on how one teaches English writing.

My mother believed that there were no natural beauties after eighteen, which is why God made make-up. Six months before she died, her doctor thought she was dying that day, because he had never in fifteen years seen her without makeup. I write this because there is a book she would have loved by Cynthia Robins, "The Beauty Workbook" "A Commonsense Approach to Skin Care, Makeup, Hair, and Nails" (Chronicle Books $24.95). Robins gives excellent and healthy advice on avoiding sun burns and over exposure. As for makeup, throw it out if it is not used and has gone beyond the date. Also practice, practice, makeup is not a tattoo, it can be washed off. The most valuable creation from my point of view is Max Factor's invention of "The Concealer". Any way you look at this book, there's something for every one, including the graphic artist, who will love the way the book is laid out.

9/28/2001

Along with all the horrors of September 11th, this was a wake-up call to make sure that your estate is in order. The book to refer to is Gerald Condon, Esq. and Jeffrey Condon, Esq.'s "Beyond The Grave" (Harper Business $17.00) subtitled "The Right Way and the Wrong Way of Leaving Money to your Children (and Others)". This is the revised edition of the book that the Condon father and son wrote a few years back, but as we know the laws keep changing. As a matter of fact, the best advice is ,"Don't die till 2010" according to the Inheritance Laws of this year. Seems there won't be any inheritance tax that year. And, if you trust that won't be repealed, I have a bridge to sell you.

You can protect your money for those you love. Let's begin with the situation of two or more children, one is a success, the other two aren't. They advise the parent to leave the estate in equal amounts to all the children. Did the parent loan a child the down payment for a house? Was it a loan or a gift? If it was a loan, don't die with the loan outstanding or the child will be assessed by the estate. It goes without saying that you want to program your inheritance plan to keep your children and property out of Probate Court. Or as Jeffrey said, when we talked, that if you do nothing the law will do it for you.

There are all sorts of wonderful term like "Protection Trusts", usually used by a depression era parent, or a "Transparent Trust" which is used to protect your money for your grandchild and keep it from your son-in-law's second wife. If it is not in the will, it can end up in your child's spouse's pocket by your child's will, by a gift as your child puts the inheritance in a joint account with rite of survivorship, if your child dies first, Bingo!, it's in the other's pocket, and by law if the child lives in Hawaii where when one spouse inherits, the other has some rights to the money.

The authors practically write soap opera scenarios on family dynamics and inheritances. Then there is the step-mother plot. The one where she gets to live in the house until her death and the step children watch every step she takes. Then, there is the plot of the child who is the caretaker for the elderly parent and wants the will to be changed in his/her favor. There are solutions for most of these problems.

Given your children are terrific, they won't put you in a Charles Dickens nursing home, look into the House Trust, the Family Real Estate Limited Partnership, using life insurance to provide the money to pay the death tax, the Generation Skipping Exemption Trust and sales to children and the Self-canceling installment Note. And last but definitely not least, Spend your money! You earned it and there are no rewards for the biggest piggy bank when you die.

Carol Muske-Dukes is a writer whose books one hates to finish. She weaves a world, pulls you in with the story and lets you luxuriate with the pleasure of reading. Her latest book, "Life After Death" (Random House $23.95) is the story of a marriage. How well do we really know the person to whom we are married? Is it only when he or she dies that in going through their papers that we find other lives that we never knew existed? Boyd Schaeffer is furious at her husband, Russell, for leaving their five year old daughter, Freddie, alone in the park when he was supposed to be watching her. In her anger she turns to him and says, "Why don't you die?" The next day, he has a fatal heart attack on the tennis court.

Carol Muske-Dukes has set the novel in Minnesota. Boyd had been a practicing doctor in obstetrics in New York City. She had a patient die unexpectedly on the operating table during an abortion procedure. Devastated by the death and by the ugly front page headlines, Boyd marries Russell, gives up her medical practice and moves back to Minnesota where his family controls large real estate interests. And where his widowed mother lives. She is his confidante. She is the one who knows that he has been told by the doctor that he has a bad heart condition. She is the one who said that there should be no autopsy.

After his death, Boyd has to make funeral arrangements. The funeral director, Will, has never married, he is still grieving over the death of his twin sister when they were in their teens. He is facing the brute of business, the conglomerate that wants to buy his three funeral parlors. Muske-Dukes describes his dilemma ,"Much to his dismay, he has just seen his own future in the death industry right in front of him, on his own desk, a glossy stock brochure and prospectus. Here is a huge conglomerate trying to buy up all the mom-and -pop funeral homes, of which his holdings are an example, How does one repel the advances of these sharks?" Will worries that there will be no personal embalmers, such as a wonderful character in the book, "Griggs" who is like an escort for the body over the bridge from life.

Carol Muske-Dukes portrays Boyd's confusion over Russell's death and the fact that both she and Freddie feel his presence in the house and in their lives. Boyd has to face the problem of earning a living again and functioning without a man in her life.

One might have thought that this book was autobiographical since the author's husband, David Dukes, died on a tennis court; but this book was written, according to her, well before that catastrophic event. That is the ugly side of life imitating art, which this book is.

Fans of Ray Bradbury are in for a three pronged treat, two new books, "A Chapbook for Burnt-Out Priests, Rabbis And Ministers" (Cemetery Dance Publications $25.00),which is self-explanatory. The other new book, a novel, is "From The Dust Returned" (William Morrow $23.00). It is a book that he began many years ago in tune with Charles Addams, the artist. It is reminiscent of "Dandelion Wine" and "The Halloween Tree" in that it celebrates the Eternal Family and a marvelous relative, the beautiful Cecy, who only wants to be in love, so much so that she can inhabit other bodies and convince them to fall in love.

For some families, Thanksgiving brings them together, for Ray Bradbury it is All Hallow's Eve. When I talked to Ray, I said that this book is a Valentine to Halloween and all his fans.

And for the third Bradbury achievement, a wonderful night in theatre of "Falling Upwards or To Eire is Human, to Forbid Divine" at the Theatre West. Stories similar were in "Green Shadows, White Whale" but here the lead character reminded me of Burgess Meredith, whom Ray told me had a great influence on his life and who introduced him to Charles Laughton who gave Ray the courage and mental permission to write plays.

"Writers Bloc…" has a superlative author, Bernard Schlink, ("The Reader"& "Flights of Love")on Thursday, October 11th at 7:30pm at the Museum of Tolerance. Call 310-335-0917 for information and reservation.

Another great literary event is the Eleventh Annual Literary Awards Festival from PEN Center USA West on Wednesday, October 24th at the Millenium Biltmore Hotel. Freedom to Write Awards will be given to Chris Abani of Nigeria and XU Wenli of China.

And, if you have dreamed of sharing a dinner and talking with your favorite author, there are fifty-four different venues and authors to choose from on November fifth. Call the Library Council at 323-466-8977. At the time of the printing, George Plimpton. Carol Muske-Dukes, Michael York, Stephan Cannell, and David Nasaw were just a few of the authors, and speaking of David Nasaw, don't miss reading his award winning biography of William Randolph Hearst, "The Chief" (Houghton-Mifflin $16.00) it's one of the best books I read this summer.

9/21/2001

When I talked with Rabbi Harold Schulweis about his book "Finding Each Other In Judaism" (UAHC Press), a few weeks ago, I knew it was a book that would offer help, clarity and consolation; but I had no idea how immediate those needs would be. The book contains meditations on the rites of passage from birth to immortality. Many of those meditations are in the form of poems that Rabbi Schulweis has written.

The title comes from a sentence that Franz Kafka wrote to his father with whom he had great differences, and to whom he wrote that he hoped that they could find each other in Judaism. The book celebrates the use of rites in bringing the family closer. He bemoans what he calls "riteless passages" and "passageless rites". He defines "riteless passages" as secular marking of life's stages without religious or spiritual meaning. As an example, he writes of the man whose father has died, who turns to the Rabbi and asks, "Now, tell me how to mourn."

The opposite is the "passageless rite" in which, for example, the Passover Seder Dinner is observed but in a manner that desacralizes. To inform, he has tried to connect behaving with believing, so that each section begins with rabbinic and philosophic interpretation, folkloristic parables and insights. It is the story of life from the covenant at birth to the first day at school, bar/bat mitzvah, marriage, to cutting the fringes of the prayer shawl laid upon the body of the deceased to prayers of remembrance and the sense of the sacred underlying all of them.

As we talked, I asked Rabbi Schulweis to read his poem " A Parent's Ambition" in which he quotes Ezekiel Nissim, "Protect my children from my secret wish to make them over in my image and illusions. Let them move to the music that they love dissonant perhaps to me." And ending with Schulweis' words, "Let them imitate God, not us. Let them be freed of servitude to anyone. Give us the wisdom to let go of them, The moral way to hold them close.". The other wonderful poem relates to his grandson's Bar Mitzvah, "In him, I am continued. In his chanting is confirmation of my immortality."

Rabbi Schulweis adds two topics not usually covered in spiritual books, divorce and reconciliation in families. Divorce's fee is usually paid by the psyche of the child or children. Reconciliation between brothers and sisters begins with not rehashing the past. Begin with today, here and now. Life is too short for families not to talk.

In illness and in death, the cry is "Why, Why me !" Death is not a moral judgement by God. The meditations are based on the talmudic sages who understood that nature is the creation of God but not God's judgement upon us. Working out grief calls the mourner to recite the Kaddish for a period of eleven months, but there is a limit to mourning. Holding on, we learn to let go.

I asked Rabbi Schulweis if he had a favorite book? He paused as he answered , "The Book of Job". Job, who had the courage to question and challenge God. Job also had a second chance at life. May all those who mourn the loss of a loved one, a friend, a stranger find peace at this time. Additional books to help cope are books by Rabbi David Wolpe and by the late Rabbi Joshua Loth Liebman, "Peace of Mind".

Books can help take one's mind off the daily events. With that in mind, I suggest that you read Carol Risant's "Antiques Roadshow Primer" (Workman Publishing $19.95).

It is the introductory guide to antiques and collectibles from the most watched series on PBS. So is that lamp from your grandparents, really old and really valuable? The book is set up with color photos and sidebars with examples. And, yes, they do have estimated prices for certain objects.

Kenneth Davis has coined the title of "Don't Know Much About History", etc. Now he has written, "Don't Know Much About Planet Earth" (Harper Collins $19.95), "…Space",($19.95), "…The Solar System" ($15.95) and "…The Fifty States" ($15.95). As for example about California; did you know that California has the tallest waterfalls in North America: Yosemite Falls; or that Death Valley has the highest known temperature of 144 degrees. As for our beloved New York, did you know that the British renamed New Amsterdam, New York in 1664 for the Duke of York, Britain's future king. And that the Statue of Liberty, a gift from France, is still a reminder of hope and freedom - the reasons many people move to America. You can still climb 354 steps inside her to reach the crown. I still remember seeing her from a book party at Windows on the World at the Twin Towers. May God bless all those who lost their lives in that meaningless tragedy and bless America.

9/15/2001

Little did the U.S. Government realize that when they assigned Indian tribes to the unwanted land for their reservations that just maybe there might be valuable oil and mineral deposits as well as diamond veins under the earth. Margaret Coel has used her authentic knowledge of the Arapahoe tribe in Wyoming to give her thriller mysteries an added dimension. Her seventh novel is "The Thunder Keeper" (Berkley Prime Crime $22.95) which continues the Father John, the Jesuit Priest, and Vicky Holden, the Indian lawyer, involvement with crimes on the reservation. Margaret told me that she wrote non-fiction histories until 1995 when she wrote the first Vicky and Father John mystery.

They will always be attracted and tempted but he will always remember that he is a priest, which is why she is now living in Denver, Colorado. Vicky has left her abusive husband, Ben, and left her children with her mother on the reservation while she went to law school. This has all occurred in the previous six books.

Now they are facing the same killer who wants the vein of diamonds that runs under the reservation. The boss of the operation is in Denver and his henchmen are in Wyoming. After many chases and thrills, all will end as it should with the bad guys being destroyed. But, the difference is Coel's research which does give an added element. Margaret told me that she gives Father John a new assistant, who doesn't really want to be in Wyoming, in every book. In this book, Father Don Adams has come to get away but the woman he is trying to get away from sues him and the church for sexual misconduct. As Margaret says, "It's different every time" and she is a Catholic.

I was overwhelmed when I read Jimmy Santiago Baca's writing. He is brilliant. He writes with poetry and blood. His autobiographical book, "A Place To Stand" (Grove Press $24.00) can only be compared to Russian writers, such as Gorky and Tolstoy. He was born in Santa Fe, NM in poverty. He first remembers going to the prison in Forence, AZ. when he was five and his father was jailed for being drunk. His mother dyes her hair blonde for her Anglo boyfriend, Richard, whose parents do not like Mexicans. She takes her three children to their grandparents Baca and goes off with Richard.

After the grandparents die, Jimmy is put in an orphanage, when he keeps running away, his relatives send him to a Detention Center. He is given a chance to go to high school where he is befriended by the football coach. Jimmy is too ashamed to tell him that he doesn't know how to read. He leaves and goes to San Diego. At first he is able to make a living as a plumber assistant until he is required to have a license.

Living off the land he gets seduced by the easy money of drugs. He is arrested and he does do time. But nothing will compare to the arrest in Arizona where an FBI agent is shot and killed by one of his buddies. Because he cannot read the charges, he agrees to the plea the court appointed lawyer tells him to. The judge gives him a five to ten year sentence doing "hard time" in the prison in Florence, AZ.

Jimmy is tough. He fights the system. He is put in solitary, he is put in the tank, and he fights with a shank to defend himself. His anger is palpable. He writes, "It was the first time I ever beat a guy with an angle iron, and an ominous dread filled my heart as I prayed that I hadn't killed him, If I did, I was only defending myself. I did what I had to."

After two and a half years, he receives a letter from a member of a church that writes to prisoners. His name was Harry, he was from Phoenix, and he sent Jimmy the most precious gift, a dictionary first, and then some books of Mary Baker Eddy in English and Spanish so that Jimmy could compare the words.

Jimmy told me when we taped that Harry changed his life and he has never had the opportunity since he left prison to find him and thank him. Harry stopped writing to Jimmy when he found that he could not convert Jimmy to believing in God. But he gave Jimmy's name to an editor of a poetry magazine who took over for Harry in encouraging Jimmy.

He wrote, "Reading books became my line of defense against the madness. I began writing poems for cons in exchange for books; one of those books was Anne Sexton's poetry. She too had gone to an asylum but her poetry was inaccessible to me - too staged with academic technique and not spontaneous and from the heart. I started reading Ezra Pound and working with metaphors." By August, 1975, he is twenty-five and he writes his poem, "Healing Earthquakes", which includes the lines, "My soul came forth, dripping wet and cool and vibrant a handful of butterflies let loose to flutter like harmonica notes on blue-jeaned breeze worn at the knees … my soul came forth."

Finally, it is five years to the day. Jimmy is supposed to be released without going in front of the Parole Board, but Jimmy has so irritated the Warden that he gives Jimmy a hard test before letting him go in the middle of the night.

In the Epilogue, Jimmy talks about the difficulty he had being with people, he was "still a convict at heart". He marries a woman who was the counselor at a house for court supervised adolescents in Albuquerque. When he was thirty-one his mother came back into his life. She and Richard and their two children lived near by. Jimmy goes to interview her for a book for his sons.

He knew the questions to ask to open her up, but as he admitted to me, he didn't know how to heal and close her. His questions, and their affect upon her, made her decide to leave Richard who refused to let her go. He came home one night with a gun and shot her in the face five times and turned the gun on himself and shot himself in the head.

Jimmy told me that he still has the primal anger, but he uses it in his poetry. His latest book is called "Healing Earthquakes" (Grove Press $15.00) which is a 338 page poem of a man and woman before they meet, their erotic love affair, their family, their differences and split. It is a treat to read his words. If ever there was a reason to make sure that every child knew how to read, Jimmy Santiago Baca is the example.

Joel Hirschhorn, who won two Academy Awards for Best Song, has written "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Songwriting" with everything you ever needed to know to get on the charts. From suggestions on getting the "hook" to the importance of danceable rhythms to setting up a home studio to promoting one's material. How to pick a partner you trust. The advantages of collaborating. The book is loaded with true Backstage Banter, Trouble clefs and Lyrical Lingo boxes.

Currently, Joel has written the book, words and music for a new musical, "Musical Chairs" with a story written by his wife, Jennifer Carter, the first woman to go down to the Titanic, but this story is based on the Holocaust. It's playing at the El Portal theatre in the Valley. This brings to mind, that those of you who read Paul Zall's book, "Franklin on Franklin" can see some of Franklin's words come to life at Reprise's "1776" and, of course, Shakespeare's "Taming of The Shrew" is the basis for "Kiss Me Kate". Take a teenager and open their eyes to the magic of words, music and theatre.

9/7/2001

Spencer Nadler, author of "The Language of Cells: Life As Seen Under the Microscope" (Random House $24.95) does not put MD after his name on the cover but his original career was as a pathologist. A graduate of McGill University and Albert Einstein College of Medicine, he has been a practicing pathologist in Southern California for the past twenty-five years. But now the doctor is definitely a writer, which also did not happen overnight.

The book opens to four pages of color photos of cell slides taken from a microscope. Each of Nadler's true stories relate to these slides. He told me when we taped that except for two stories, the real names of the people involved were used. In talking with Spencer Nadler one can feel the frustration he felt as a pathologist in a velvet lab but also in being removed from the doctor-patient human contact. Thus, like a detective, he goes out to interview the cell's owner, in order to break out of "a surgical pathologists' ingrained myopia".

He begins with diagnosing the biopsies of a breast patient with three young sons. It is cancer. He writes, "Preoccupied with cancer cells, I have no social or psychological sense of a cancer patient. … observing so much of life through a microscope all these years has left me feeling, lately, that I've sampled too little, that I've missed the very warp and woof of it." The woman, Hannah Baylor, comes to his office to see her slides. He follows her progress through six years of treatment and to a final visit to his office with her young son, who wants to become a doctor. Hannah leaves to visit Maine in the fall to see the changing leaves.

With all the publicity about stomach stapling, there is a photo of a fat cell which belongs to Patti Fleming, her real name, who at 5'8" weighed three hundred and fifty-six pounds. Today she weighs one hundred and fifty-six pounds. She recounts for Spencer Nadler her helplessness and loneliness at being unable to lose her morbidly dangerous weight, the unfairness that her husband could eat the same foods and not gain an ounce.

Nadler comments that, "They overate. Despite studies that suggest altered metabolism or disturbed satiety signals as predisposing factors, one must overeat to realize morbid obesity (one hundred pounds or more above the ideal weight). Patti worked and carrying the excess weight left her emotionally and physically exhausted, her legs swelled, sciatica pierced "her lower back like a fiery poker". Too tired to cook, she bought fast food for her kids, her husband and herself.

Patti underwent the gastrointestinal reconstruction, the Rouxen-Y gastric bypass at UCLA; but she must commit to a draconian modification of her gastrointestinal tract, and her life. Her life will forever be altered. The operation is not without severe pain, her stomach goes from 1,700 millimeters to 35 millimeters and her small intestines are reconstructed to reduce the number of calories they can absorb.

As for brain cells, he recounts a happy ending for a woman with headaches which was caused by a perfectly round benign mass that was easily removed. He writes about his father's progress with Parkinson's whose signs can be subtle in the beginning until they give away " the body's morbid signals".

There is a lovely, true, love story about Morris Friedell, a sociologist retired from the University of California at Santa Barbara, entitled "Early Alzheimer's; A View From Within". It was diagnosed in 1998. Over the internet he has met an intelligent woman, Laura, from Bozeman, Montana. Laura is also in the early stages. Morris is going to Bozeman to share what life they have left .

There is a dynamic story of a veteran from WWII who was hit by a land mine and was left paralyzed. He has been in a wheelchair for over fifty years. In a graphic visit, he demonstrates to Nadler how he manages by himself. But Sam, as he is named, rants about the changes in staff at Veteran Hospitals and how the inadequately trained staff is impinging on his health.

In the epilogue of the book, he ties up the stories of life and death, including time spent with hospice patients, with the comments to Sam, "I assure him that I will always be there for him that I will see to his care outside of Veteran's Hospital as it becmes necessary. And I realize that I am preparing to put into practice what I have been trained to do. To personally help people."

Nadler told me that he visited many writers' conferences and that he learned as much from the networking as from the lectures. After this book, he may find himself a key-note speaker in demand.

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