Thoughts of Spring and Michael Perry

Merry Week after Christmas. We are still playing holiday tunes here at LDD, and will continue to do so until we have played all 55 Christmas Cd's at least once. No sense closing out this beautiful season after only a few days!

This loopy weather shut me down for a day and half. It would have been longer, but when people get to stay home from work and school because of a storm, apparently they shop. Making sure that everyone gets the books they want to give as gifts feels pretty good. Despite the UPS and FedEx weather delays, 98% of the special orders placed the week of Dec. 24Th made it here on time for happy gift giving.

A pattern has been established, hasn't it? One day of snow, one day off for clean-up, followed by another day of snow. Today, there will be snow, and again on New Year's Day. Therefore, I am sending you lovely thoughts of spring, along with the tranquil picture to set your heart to dreaming of sniffing lilacs and roses...and maybe your neighbor's Johnsonville brats.

I had planned a blog-cation until after inventory, but today I got an email from Mike Perry. As long as I decided to share that, I thought a few other comments would fill out the space nicely. Mike's new book is done and due out in May. Julie Lindemann and Johnie Shimon, of Manitowoc, did the cover photography for this one, as they have for all Mike's books. He did hint that I should anticipate the new book with caution, sardonically posting the May date, and adding "if publishing still exists." It's a crazy business, and the changes are coming fast. For those Mikeaholics out there - never fear. I am sure to receive an Advance Reader copy. When that happens, I will tempt you with enough details to make you jealous, and to tickle my sensibilities out of my wintry doldrums. I can't wait.

You may not hear from me again until after inventory, scheduled for January 10. Right now I am doing the pre-inventory work. This is the part of the bookbiz I don't like, nor do I understand it much. I count...1 book, 2 books, 3 books...and then I have some random number to turn over to my accountant. GRRRRR! I vaguely recall failing math in high school. I always figured why count when I could read a book instead?

Thank you all for sharing bits of 2008 with me. I hope that it was a groovy year for you, and that 2009 is even better. Stay positive...smile...have a spot of bubbly.

Christmas Salvation

So, this is Christmas. How about one of those dazzling holiday letters filled with an account of my year - the friendships made, the friends lost, the goodness shared, and deeds well-done, and maybe a little naughtiness?

The reality is that I like receiving those state-of-one's-life letters. Do you read Marge Miley's column in the HTR? Often, when she gets a letter from an old friend, she shares bits and pieces with her readers, and even though I don't know who she is talking about, I find the homey notes charming, and full of the warm exchanges we aren't so good at these days.

But, instead of a Christmas letter, I am sharing some holiday happenings from the past few days. Let us begin with the lovely art offering at the top of the page. This is a white elephant gift that has been making the rounds in our book group for a few years. We have a love-hate relationship with this Readers' Digest Santa. Susan brought him all the way from Illinois many years ago. I can't recall the lucky recipient that year, but each year, we wait to see who brings in the largest gift bag or box because we know the Santa with the Gerri-curls is hiding inside.

After a few years of enthusiastically trading him from person to person, he disappeared. We tried to figure out who had had him. Had he been destroyed when Mary's basement was flooded? Did Denise get him the year she moved to Madison on us? Todd, our one and only male, who came to one meeting, and then to our Christmas soiree...surely Todd must have him! Or, perhaps Cindy ended up with the elfish fellow. Our annual party the year Santa went missing proved to be the last she was healthy enough attend. We sadly said goodbye to her a few months later.

We worried about this little Santa; we hoped that he would return, and crossed our fingers that if he did, someone else would wind up with the cheery, seasonal albatross for a year. When he reappeared this year, everyone was elated, sort of. We talked about our disappearance theories and that gave us a moment to remember Cindy together. It turns out that Steph had him all the while. She missed a couple of our holiday parties, and was quite coy and cagey for years concerning his whereabouts. I know that if I ever have a big secret to share, it will be with Steph!



If I sent out Christmas cards, this is the picture you'd see this year. On Friday, the day of the huge snow dump, our FedEx delivery man came in with a heavy box filled with special order Christmas books. He put it on the counter and said "Hey Bev, got a shovel? I'm gonna dig you out." Now, you all know how much snow there was, and how much footage I have here to be cleared, but he had at it, all the while, his truck was in the middle of New York Ave, running. Pretty soon, our regular snow blower fellow started up, but if that hadn't happened, I'm sure he'd still be out there! How's that for a Christmas gift!

One of my favorite winter events is the European Christmas Market at the Osthoff in Elkhart Lake. This wonderful camel was parked outside the main entrance. He licked my hand, gently. He must have liked what he tasted, because he smiled ever so nicely for this picture.

This is Snarky Cat. You can find him warming his butt atop the lighted display case at Two Fish Gallery in Elkart Lake. Although cats make me itch and sneeze, I look forward to visiting Snarky a couple time a year. Two Fish is a beautiful little gallery, with an artsy garden. Both the gallery and the garden are open year round.

Well, 2009 is creeping up, but not before you all spend time with family and friends having yourself a merry little Christmas.

From all of us here at LaDeDa...thanks. We are cherish your friendship and are grateful for your support. To regular readers of Fine Print on a Monday...thanks for not reporting me to the Stupid Squad. I hope my babblings have filled some spare time in your lives. Stay tuned! There's sure to be more nonsense in 2009.

I'm reading Little Women.

If Man Works Hard the Land Will Not Be Lazy … by guest blogger Steve Head

Today’s title is taken from a Chinese proverb cited in Malcolm Gladwell’s, Outliers, The Story of Success. You might be familiar with his earlier books, The Tipping Point, How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference, and Blink, The Power of Thinking Without Thinking. Both best sellers.

Like the earlier books, Gladwell takes a phenomenon wrapped in conventional wisdom and dismantles it. By looking at the contents page you will discover Opportunity and Legacy are the broad concepts he uses to de-construction our notions of success.

Starting with the Canadian junior hockey league championship, where the players involved have not made it to the finals through the influence of parents or their business connections, financial contributions, or the schools they attended, but through their ‘individual merit’. Or so we think.

While Gladwell does not dispute the talent and hard work of these hockey players, by the end of the first chapter the ‘individual merit’ myth is dismantled and replaced by a surprising explanation that goes well beyond hockey. Along with junior hockey players, Gladwell looks at Bill Gates, The Beatles, and a host of other accomplished, and not so accomplished, individuals to populate his investigation into success.

Gladwell mines a wealth of information from psychological studies and measures, historic analysis, student achievement scores, cross cultural comparisons, and emperical data, all detailed in the Notes section with references.

At first I thought the new book was not as good as the previous two. By the time I finished the Epilogue my opinion had changed. Like the earlier books, Gladwell not only challenged conventional wisdom, he revealed some of the underlying dynamics of human behavior.

My sister contends she only reads one book a year. I am going to suggest Outliers be her 2009 book. It is relatively short at 285 pages with generously spaced text in a readable font, as well as being written in an easy to digest style. Like Tipping Point and Blink, Outliers is filled with information and concepts useful to people in all walks of life.

Call Me Madame (Bovary)

My goal to fill in some reading gaps led me to Gustave Flaubert's controversial novel, Madam Bovary. The story is quite simple, really, and not uncommon. Emma Bovary longs for romance and takes what she believes is a shortcut to living her dreams by marrying the first man who offers to rescue her from her mundane, rural life with her father. Although her husband was well intended, and blindly in love with her, Emma soon tires of her place as a doctor's wife in provincial, 19th century France. Her desire for fine things escalates, as does her roantic dream to escape from the boredom and emptiness of her life. What has she to fill her days but cooking, picking out drapery and wall-coverings, and looking nice for her husband? What adventerous option does she have but adultery?!

Well, this book caused quite a stir, and Flaubert was put on trial for challenging the mores of the time. Although the author's voice is heard throughout the novel, chastising and ridiculing the protagonist, (bordering on mysogeny) public sentiment swelled against Flaubert, with people fearing that Emma's freewheeling lifestyle would lead to the decay of public decency. Flaubert's defense was that it was the very decline of morals that provided him the material for the book in the first place!

Jeepers! If that citizenry felt that this book was morally bankrupt, I'd like to hear their opinions on how our book, movie, and TV offerings we have evolved since then. That issue aside, the novel does pose some questions worth discussing. Why is it that we are so willing to embrace Emma and even forgive her? Who decides what actions are immoral, and are discreet immoral actions more forgivable than public actions? I think of poor Hester in The Scarlet Letter, made to publicly display her sin, while her co-offender was allowed to suffer his indignity in private - unacknowledged. Was Hester's sin greater than his? Are all indiscretions equal, or must we consider the reasons and the contexts? My guess would be that most of us would be situational moralists when it comes to our own lives, and somewhat more absolute when considering the lives of others.

Have you read Little Children, by Tom Perotta? Mary Ann's suburban situation is similar to Emma's. Her husband is a kook; she is uber-intellectual, and can't connect with any of the other well-outfitted moms. MaryAnn's angst draws her to the very handsome and obedient, Todd, who happily moves through life resisting the responsibilities of adulthood. What happens? Well, there's an affair, of course. There is no way the relationship will last, but for brief time, Mary Ann is happy, and I am happy for her. I'm not condoning their actions, but I think everyone should be happy. I just wish she could have found it in a less unconventional way.

This dicey subject came up again last weekend in the movie Waitress. Now, this is fun flick. The director, Adreinne Shelly, co-starred in the movie with Keri Russel, and was tragically murdered shortly before its release at The Sundance Film Festival. She effectively combines reality with daydream. There's a lot of inner conflict which we hear through the main character's self-talk. Jenna's life, I believe, is more complex than Emma Bovary's. She has an abusive husband, and can see no way to escape - unless you consider that she is the best pie baker in the county. Really, that's not much to go on when there is baby on the way. Enter a handsome, young doctor and OOPS!...there you have it, another dalliance! Jenna struggles with all aspects of the relationship, and although initial reactions to her may be that she is weak and silly, she turn out to be inteligent, courageous and strong.

All four stories reinforce that old idea of not throwing stones until you've walked a mile in someone else's shoes...or mixed enough metaphors to make the point. And, for those of us quick to judge, let me remind you of the lessons learned in that musical morality tune "Harper Valley PTA." The enticing, mini-skirted Mrs. Johnson sure stopped the good old boys on the school boad dead in their tracks, didn't she?

By the way, Flaubert was acquitted!

Here's a wonderful snow sculpture on the side of our store courtesy of Mother Nature. Today, I think the cold will leave me lonely, although the phone has been ringing constantly, and by 10:02, I alrady had thress customers. Tis the season, I guess! Stay warm, today!

The White Masai

Like Water for Chocolate gave me my first taste of multi-cultural literature, and from that point on, I was hooked. It might be an acquired taste, like foreign films, but so worth it. Last week, a 90 year-old customer called the day he returned from a 14 day trip to Africa. He promised to share his pictures with me, but wanted to let me know he was just too tired to do it that day! His call reminded me of a book I had stashed in a corner, waiting for the right inspiration, and David provided that for me.

I dug right in on Sunday morning. The White Masai is Corine Hofmann's "exotic tale of love and adventure." Hofmann is Swiss, and the book is translated from it's original German. So, as you would expect, the language is utilitarian...not as demonstrative as if it were being told by a native English speaker. Hofmann takes a break from running her bridal shop to travel to Mombasa with her current boyfriend. Within hours of arrival, she spots, and is taken with a handsome Masai. She appears to be obsessed at first, but her emotions are real. She returns to Switzerland, and begins the process of closing out her life there with the intention of returning to Africa, perhaps forever. Although Lketinga, her Masai warrior, welcomes her into his life, she quickly learns that the love and romance she sought with him is articulated quite differently in his culture. After overcoming severe obstacles, she moves into a tiny hut with him and his mother, and spends four years in a Kenyan village.

Two other books that I read in the past came to mind. Mango Elephants in the Sun:How Life in an African Village Let Me Be in My Skin, is by Susana Herrera. She isn't a good writer, but she is a marvelous storyteller. In 1992, Herrera went to North Cameroon to teach for the Peace Corps. Her experience helps cleanse some of the personal baggage that haunted her, and eventually, her focus shifts from herself to the children and the deplorable conditions under which they attempt to learn, survive and thrive. Mingled with the near heart-breaking accounts of suffering children, and abused women are hysterical stories about dining on termites, her near engagement to a tribal king, and the annual drunken elephant stampede.

Ann Jones, an anthropologist who spent some time at UW-Madison, wrote Looking for Lovedu (pronunced Low-bay-do): A Woman's Journey Through Africa. While researching an unrelated topic, Jones ran across a minor reference to a matriarchal tribe in southern Africa. The primary "law" governing the tribe is that there shall be no conflict. When there is, all parties involved are punished equally, no matter who caused the problem, or how extensive the involvement. They were described as a peaceful community, and Jones set out to see if they still exist.

She and her British companion, Muggleton, (great name, huh?) drive from Tangier to Capetown, with a series of missteps and misfortunes along the way. Shortly thereafter, Muggleton decides he's had enough of crossing deserts, fighting of cholera, and eating bugs, and leaves Jones to make the trek on her own.

Jones' anthorpoligical interests and skills are evident throughout the book, and she combines the journal of her research with cultural and political history of Africa.

So, if you want a nice warm escape after shovelling our beautiful Wisconsin snow, slip off to Africa with one of these books. The Discovery channel is another nice option!

**********"A Taffeta Christmas" ended on a nice note yesterday. All our audiences were warm and friendly, but we could tell as the Sunday matinee people arrived, that the last show would be the best. The ushers and ticket takers all commented on how happy everyone who came in that afternoon seemed. Many attending seemed to know one another, and there sure was a lot of holiday hugging and happiness in the lobby before the show. They carried all that good cheer into the house with them, and the cast could feel it all the way up on the stage.

After the show was done, everyone pitched in to tear apart the stage, restore the lighting, organize the costumes, clean the dressing rooms, pack up the props...and then we all collapsed in the TV lounge to watch a DVD of the show. Usually, I can walk away from a show with ease, knowing that another project is on the horizon. This show was a little tougher to move beyond, and from the phone calls from cast and crew today, I can tell that others feel the same.

Still, it is time to move on. Time to gear up for the holidays, and snow shoveling, and warm nights in front of the fireplace. Most of that sounds real nice, doesn't it?

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like...Winter

What a day! I woke to find the first, magical snowfall of the season. No one had started blowing out their driveways yet, so the quiet white took center stage. Michigan Avenue is breathtaking with the trees lightly dusted. Ice storms are pretty amazing, too. The branches bend within inches of the road, and the sun bounces off the ice in all directions, creating sparkling prisms. The first colors in spring and the last in fall make me happy that I live in Wisconsin.

I just had to pull over this morning and take this picture. Two people stopped to see if I was having car problems. Must be "that happy yuletide spirit in the air."

**********Reading? Not much time for that now that "A Taffeta Christmas" is upon us. I decided to start reading books/authors I have missed , but feel I should know about. Anne of Green Gables took most of last week. What a wonderful, weepy story. I'm not sure if I will read the rest of the series. This weekend I spent some time reading a couple Rudyard Kipling short stories. Loved them! Kipling was 100% new to me, and I had no idea how rich and clever his work is. I will read more ASAP. Flaubert is also on my short list, as is a second try at Murakami. However, something tells me that after the show, I may simply settle in with a nice, winter mystery!

**********Dress rehearsal tonight. Full dress/make-up/tech tomorrow with an invited audience. Dark on Wednesday. Showtime Thursday-Sunday. Everyone is ready and anxiously awaiting the reaction from a audience. Yesterday, one of my neighbors sat in on rehearsal for a while. Afterwards, she commented on the quality people I spend my time with, but also remarked that this must be an awful lot of work. Well, she's right. But when you think about some people golf, some people play bridge. My friends and I play make-believe.

A few years ago, Emily Trask, friend and current grad student at the Yale School of Drama (I enjoy saying that!) wrote a telling essay about the relationship between audience and actor. Here it is.

Exit Lines

by Emily M. Trask

The rows are empty now, the theatre dark. Walking the isles, the seats loom lonely for the moment and call out to me, one by one, for a body to embrace. Their velvet is crushed and softly worn on their backs and bottoms from the shifting weight caused by laughter and tears , and the impatient smoker squirming until intermission. I assure them not to worry, and without looking back, am on my way. It echoes, the space that my shoes click through, and ricochets off the dreams and hopes of young, bright-eyed performers like me. Leaving the hollow, quiet walls, I disappear behind the curtain.

Eventually you file in. Peering in pocket mirrors and toying with candy wrappers, not knowing me, I unknowing of you. Your whispers roll through the house like grey waves just before the storm breaks, and I feel it. Costumed, warmed, and lines memorized, I pace - breathe in the dark backstage air that always seems thickest before my cue, and I feel my stomach spin, loop, and fall. The "Fifteen Minute" call seals my fate, and slowly I step into my character, feet first like footed pajamas, zipping up her sides, settling in. Then I walk around a while, getting comfortable in another's skin - smiling how she would, feeling how she might. A feat so marvelously beautiful that, with your permission, I see the world through the tint of another's spectacles, achieved in its greatest effort now, even if only for a few hours. You see, in five minutes, she and I will step out in the puddle of light that spills on the stage and laps over the edge, illuminating the first few rows of faces and fading slowly past the third. And for just an instant I will hover there. In that moment we will meet, we three, and you will know, and we shall become a trio for a time in a dance of exits and entrances, ups and down - a theatrical waltz of audience, persona, and actor. Thebans and Thespians.

That is where I live, those hours where we have the opportunity to surrender, this moment of suspension, in taking you away, being taken away. Knowing something other than the now and ourselves, we meet the fertile ground of believing disbelief. We are all equal makers of this magic and share common roles. I know no other way than that, and never have hoped for different. So, I offer it all up for something I believe in. I give you these hours of rehearsals, the scratching memorization, the sighs of self doubt, the tears of passion and need, the memories of nights long gone, glimmer of curtain calls taken, characters misinterpreted, pauses held too long, the realization that in order to fly, you sometime must fall, the dreams of things to come, the fear that they won't, the hope, the character, the story that is you and me.

There now. I have laid it all on the line, willingly, readily, to be taken or declined. I wrap myself tightly in your hand with the program you roll and unroll in anticipation, and I ask you to step with me into the light here on stage where I almost understand, and split with self-exposure as someone else

And then, when it is all over, I go home, just like you do, run a warm bath, like you might, peel the fake lashes from my lids, wash the make-up from my face, the smoke from my hair, and forget the lines momentarily until tomorrow's dusting. And about that time, I pass the steamy streaked mirror and pause. Wiping the glass with the back of my hand, I make out the lips and the eyes and the ears of a rather plain girl. No Maggie the Cat or Lady Macbeth or Sally Bowles, just me. Yet, as I breathe in the heavy heated bathroom air, it spreads differently through my insides, like warm fingers reaching to something new. Stepped from and unzipped, I realize the world is still tinted a slightly different tinge that when this night began. "Her" shading lingers there behind my eyes, and I see the world, myself, revised after having viewed it from the stage.

Admittedly, I am proud of what it echoes here in this moment of suspension, under too strong bathroom lights where facades are known to melt. Not for the applause that will ring and fade, nor for the smiles or for the handshake, but for the twilight where we lived for a moment...you, me, and the story in one shared breath. I am changed and better for it. We are different for having know this and knowing each other in the vaguely intimate way. The fact that you felt, and I might have made you feel, coats my interior even when this hot breathe is exhaled and fogs the mirror of me again. Yet this time I don't bother to wipe the perspiration from the glass. The only reflection which needs seeing in not that of a plain, selectively shy, red-headed girl, but this reflection on and retention of knowing something other than myself, and therefore myself so truly through our collaborative suspension of disbelief.

We each have out own opening nights in life. Some occur every day, others on a grander scale. Time when we open our arms to what lies just beyond where we can see into the darkness of the auditorium, and we wait for our partner, our audience to file in and decide whether to dance or to deny. All we can do, standing isolated in the pool of light, is offer up our all in the chosen form, not knowing exactly why or where it's going, and leave the story behind in the form of our laughter and tears, there on the boards. This I do readily, in each pursuit, and every morning. It is all I know to do, and my life's philosophy. I open yet another "night" with this hymn of hopes of a somewhat foggy future there with you anticipating reaction, and awaiting the next few steps of the dance that will surly be long remembered after the curtain falls.