If you’re not doing anything this Friday, July 31st, why not come to the fundraiser at the Hotchkiss Library in Sharon, CT, where I will be signing books?

It won’t be just me (and I won’t be making this face, promise), many of your favorite authors will be there including Frank Delaney, Michael Korda, playwright David Rabe and Francine Du Plessix Grey. It starts at 6:00, the admission is $25.00 and that includes an open bar! And it’s for a great cause – a library!

Hope I see you there. Sharon is a beautiful town. Speaking of beautiful towns, I’m in Manhattan again this week. Last night I went to see West Side Story with my daughter and some friends. Midtown has been a mess all summer because the mayor came up with this crazy scheme of closing off traffic in Times Square and opening the blocks up to pedestrians and sitters.

Yes, the city has put down bleachers and lawn chairs right in the middle of Times Square so that people can sit back on their haunches and look at the traffic that is log-jammed for miles, because of them. My daughter is EXTREMELY tired of hearing me gripe about this.

Here’s the leaning tower of Samsung.

The play was fun. All the great songs and dancing. All the “Daddy-O” and those menacing West Side dancing/snapping finger gangs (one note to the wardrobe director – maybe have the guys tuck the backs of their thongs inside their jeans). The hopelessly corny love banter between Maria and Tony and then all the pretty young men fighting each other to the death with lethal ballet spins and those crazy jazz kicks. Jazz kicks will send you flying and lay you flat out, even if they never make contact with your body. I learned that last night. Beware of the jazz kick if you ever find yourself alone at night, on Manhattan’s West Side. You’re fine on the East Side.

I recently read an article suggesting that scolded dogs look guiltier if they are actually innocent. I was amused that somebody actually took the time to do a scientific study to determine what anybody who has carefully watched the behavior of their dogs already knows. Dogs display submissive behaviors – cowering, lowered tail, etc – when they anticipate punishment. This has nothing to do with “guilt.” I truly believe that humans are the only species that have saddled ourselves with the emotions of guilt, regret, remorse and shame and we are so childishly narcissistic, as a species, that we assume that other species (especially those we dearly love) experience the world in exactly the way that we do.

Though I know animals don’t feel guilt, I am convinced that they feel sorrow, grief and loss. They pine for other animal or human companions that have died (or are just on vacation). And I think they have a sense of the soul as well. This I learned from a horse vet. We had to put an old horse down once, years ago. I told the vet that I wanted to move the horse away from the paddock so that the other horses wouldn’t see what was happening. Anyone who owns or cares for horses knows that they form deep, deep attachments to one another. I thought the horses would react to the death of their friend like we would, and might blame the vet and even myself for the horse’s death.

We did move the horse away, but the vet said to me, “I’ve put down the lifelong pasture buddy of a horse, right next to him, many times. The healthy horse might be trying to crowd its way between me and his ailing friend. But the minute the horse is dead,” the vet said, “the living horse has no idea who the dead horse is anymore, even if his body is lying right there in front of him. It’s as if he never laid eyes on him before.”

Why do I think that’s one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever been told? That the life’s essence is what the horse recognizes in its mates, not the physical characteristics, and once that essence or spirit is gone, there is nothing left, in the mind of a horse.

One of the reasons I haven’t blogged in a few days is because I’m still having problems with my camera. The camera that I loved so much, but dropped in a puddle. So today, I decided to take a few photos with my iphone camera. I am always pleasantly surprised at the quality of the iphone photos. The color is often quite nice. If only it had a zoom. But here are a few shots of what I call my “Bridge of Sighs.” It’s the bridge I drive across on my way home from New York City. When I reach the far side of the bridge I feel like I’m home. Then I sigh.

Some shots of the lake. See what I was saying about the color?

Well, it’s not as beautiful as the Bridge of Sighs in Venice, but it has a lot of local lore. A body, wrapped in a blanket and chains, was found floating in Lake Lillinonah, near the bridge a few years back. Another body, that of a suicide victim, was recovered a a couple of years ago as well. A very dreadful crime happened in 1997, involving the murder of a 13 year old girl named Maryann Measles. I won’t detail here. Please don’t open the link unless you are prepared to feel very sad.

Lillinonah is a manmade lake, created by the flooding of a valley many years ago. There are supposed to be houses at the bottom. Houses, cars, bodies, who knows what all else lies beneath. The surface is sometimes algae green, sometime a sort of deep, deep blue. It’s often dotted with boats in the summer and it sparkles under the sun and captures its last rays at the end of the day.

One winter day, I drove across the bridge and the lake was frozen. All was bright white under the morning sun – the sky, the snow-covered ground, the frozen lake. Far out on the center of the lake a person was dancing. It was the most unusual thing. The person wasn’t skating, but rather, was spinning and sliding and dancing. There was just the person in the sun and a dancing shadow flitting across the ice, then whirling round and round.

A poem called The Bridge of Sighs was written by Thomas Hood in 1844, about a homeless woman who threw herself off Waterloo Bridge in London. These are the first verses. The rest of the poem can be found here.

The Bridge of Sighs
by Thomas Hood

One more Unfortunate
Weary of breath,
Rashly importunate,
Gone to her death !
Take her up tenderly,
Lift her with care;
Fashion’d so slenderly,
Young, and so fair !

Poor Maryann Measles and her family. I never drive across the bridge without thinking about her.
And then I’m across, and I feel like I’m home. And I sigh.

Somebody recently suggested to me that I appear to be a very high self-monitor. I took this as a compliment, as I am not often called a “very high” anything. So, I did a little research and came across this “Self-Monitor Scale.”

Yes, indeed, I score EXTREMELY high on the self-monitoring scale, but as I answered the questions, an uneasiness came over me. There are 25 questions, but here are the first five, and my answers:

(T) (F) 1. I find it hard to imitate the behavior of other people. FALSE You’d swear it was my mother/daughter/Don Knotts in the flesh if you saw me do the impersonation.
(T) (F) 2. My behavior is usually an expression of my true inner feelings, attitudes, and beliefs. FALSE, seriously, I’d have no friends.
(T) (F) 3. At parties and social gatherings, I do not attempt to do or say things that others will like. FALSE. It’s not that I need people to like me. I need them to love me.
(T) (F) 4. I can only argue for ideas which I already believe. FALSE. Please.
(T) (F) 5. I can make impromptu speeches even on topics about which I have almost no information. TRUE! Finally a true! Yes, I am an expert on many things about which I have no information.
(T) (F) 6. I guess I put on a show to impress or entertain people. I guess I sort of do…
I think you’re getting the idea here. Being told you’re a “high self-monitor” is actually a nice way of saying that you’re a giant blowhard. An Ass. A social chameleon.

According to Wikipedia, Stanford University students scored much higher than psychiatric inpatients on the self-monitoring scale. Okay, well, it looks like I’m not a sociopath, but couldn’t they have used a less diverse control group than psychiatric inpatients? Where do I stand in relation to “normal” people. I must be like the normal people. Or, at least, be extremely well-liked by them.

It’s really hard work this constant self-monitoring. I think it’s why I live in the country. No need to make impromptu speeches to the dogs. I’m not saying I never do, there’s just no need.

Many famous authors – Eudora Welty, Joan Didion, Virgina Woolf, John Gardener, Stephen King, Edith Wharton, Anne Lamott, Annie Dillard (I’m sure I’m leaving out the most obvious) have written essays and/or books about the craft of writing. I was recently doing some research about Robert Louis Stevenson and learned that he wrote a book called, The Art of Writing. I had read most of the above authors’ works on their craft, but had not been aware that R.L. Stevenson, probably my very first favorite author (my mom read us A Child’s Garden of Verses before we went to bed each night, when we were very small) had wriiten one, and now I’m in the middle of it. Thought I’d share something he wrote about the use of words:

“Now the first merit which attracts in the pages of a good writer, or the talk of a brilliant conversationalist, is the apt choice and contrast of the words employed. It is, indeed, a strange art to take these blocks, rudely conceived for the purpose of the market or the bar, and by tact of application touch them to the finest meanings and distinctions, restore to them their primal energy, wittily shift them to another issue, or make of them a drum to rouse the passions.”

The apt choice and contrast of words.

Here’s a passage from Mr. Stevenson’s own Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Let’s see what he was carrying on about.

“It was by this time about nine in the morning and the first fog of the season. A great chocolate-coloured pall lowered over heaven, but the wind was continually charging and routing these embattled vapours; so that as the cab crawled from street to street, Mr. Utterson beheld a marvelous number of degrees and hues of twilight; for here it would be dark like the back-end of an evening; and there would be a glow of a rich lurid brown, like the light of some strange conflagration; and here, for a moment, the fog would be quite broken up, and a haggard shaft of daylight would glance in between the swirling wreaths.”

Beautiful. Spooky words for a spooky story. Dark and light. Jekyll and Hyde. I especially love the use of light, an artist’s technique which I blogged about once before.

Okay, back to my primitive dragging and pushing around and general abuse of words.

“After a full belly all is poetry.”
— Frank McCourt (’ Tis: a Memoir)

I have just learned that our friend Frank McCourt passed away today.

Denis and I first met Frank several years back when he and his wonderful wife Ellen moved to our town in Connecticut. Frank was, of course, a very famous writer by then, having published Angela’s Ashes which was an international bestseller and probably his most well-known book, though he has written several other great books as well. I’ve read all of Frank’s books, but Angela’s Ashes is my favorite. Truly one of my very favorite books. I couldn’t put it down, once I started it and I stayed up almost an entire night with it, when my kids were still quite young and needed me to be a little bright in the morning.

Angela’s Ashes made me laugh and cry and then laugh again. There were some very sad parts, but I never understood it when people told me that they thought the book was “depressing.” To me, it was full of love and joy.
I’m sure many will be publishing their memories of Frank in the coming days. Here are mine:

Frank loved the United States of America and was very interested in politics. One year, I believe it was 2004, Denis and I ran into Frank and Ellen at the town hall where we all vote. Denis and I felt very patriotic because we had donated some money to our local Democratic candidate and now, we were voting. Ellen and Frank had also donated money to the same candidate (go Chris Murphy D-CT!), had thrown an event to raise money for him, had spent the past few days walking door to door in neighboring towns, introducing themselves and asking people to support their candidate, and now were voting for him. Yes, we felt slightly apathetic after that.

Once, when Ellen and I were griping to each other about a minor physical complaint that we both shared – wondering, should we have surgery or not have surgery, Frank declared, “Everything falls off on its own if you just leave it alone!” I say this now to anyone who has any physical complaint, or who is in a bad marriage or even just is having bad luck. “Frank McCourt says everything falls off on its own if you just leave it alone,” I tell my friends this, no matter what the problem may be, and it always, always makes them feel better.

Every spring, including this past spring, when Frank had been quite ill, he was the highlight of a fundraiser for a local arts group called ASAP – the After School Arts Program. The event is called A Celebration of Young Writers. Frank loved this event and always made a point of acknowledging the teachers of these young budding writers. “Never forget how important the teachers are,” he always reminded the audience. For, although Frank was an Irishman, a storyteller, a great American literary treasure and a patriot, he was first and foremost a great teacher and and we will all miss him very much.

Mothers and daughters are very much on my mind, so today, a poem about motherhood by Sylvia Plath.

Morning Song
by Sylvia Plath

Love set you going like a fat gold watch.
The midwife slapped your footsoles, and your bald cry
Took its place among the elements.
Our voices echo, magnifying your arrival. New statue.
In a drafty museum, your nakedness
Shadows our safety. We stand round blankly as walls.
I’m no more your mother
Than the cloud that distills a mirror to reflect its own slow
Effacement at the wind’s hand.
All night your moth-breath
Flickers among the flat pink roses. I wake to listen:
A far sea moves in my ear.
One cry, and I stumble from bed, cow-heavy and floral
In my Victorian nightgown.
Your mouth opens clean as a cat’s. The window square
Whitens and swallows its dull stars. And now you try
Your handful of notes;
The clear vowels rise like balloons.

Once upon a time there was a young woman named Patty Heffley who moved to New York City to be part of a scene. The punk rock scene. She found herself a cheap apartment on the fourth floor of the only residential building on a block near the meatpacking district and there she remained for thirty-one years, in relative obscurity.

One magical summer evening, a bright spotlight shown into Patty Heffley’s living room. The light had been erected on the abandoned elevated railroad tracks that had been silent for decades. It was now an elevated park, and the designers had thoughtlessly placed a spotlight on a walkway and pointed it right at Ms. Heffley’s apartment. Ms. Heffley blinked out her window into the bright glare and realized that her days of walking around the apartment in her undies were over. Did Ms. Heffley stomp over to City Hall to lodge a complaint, or file a suit against the developers of the High Line park, or organize her neighbors and form a committee to save the neighborhood?

No, Ms. Heffley did not. Because Ms. Heffley was now a New Yorker and while there are types of New Yorkers who love to take action for and against any changes to their neighborhoods, there are other types who came to New York seeking the spotlight. Patty was one of these, and after three decades, when the spotlight finally came to her, she knew just what to do. She turned her fire-escape into a stage and formed the Renegade Cabaret. She and her beautiful and talented friends were the stars. Their audience: the world – or that small, elevated part of it that is drawn to the northern end of the High Line park each week to be entertained.

And she lived famously ever after!

The End.

Well, that’s my version of Patty’s story which has already been told in the New York Times and the Washington Post, and, I imagine, scores of other blogs. My daughter and I set out last night to see the show, which was scheduled to begin at 9:00. I forgot my camera, so the photos here have been lifted from the web.

Since it was Bastille Day, last night’s show had a French theme. There were articles of bright red and black lingerie decorating the “set”. There were strings of lights and a lantern and flowers and there was Patty Heffley, the hostess, who smokes on stage like Denis Leary, Puff-puff-puff-puff-puff. Talk. Puff-puff-puff-puff-puff, who introduces the acts.

Then a man named (I think) John DePinto played a lovely, mournful song on his accordian – the kind you might hear in a French cafe. Then, Elizabeth Soychak - one of the beautiful stars of the cabaret, sang April in Paris a cappella, and a case of the goosebumps swept through the audience – which was, and always will be- standing room only.

There were other acts. Another gorgeous talent, Mary Foster Conklin (pictured at the top of this post), who from where I stood, looked quite like Marion Cotillard – but maybe it was the French get-up, sang a lovely song in English and one in French, and a woman named Amber read a poem.

There were two acts, and at the end of each, Ms Heffley, who is a CHARACTER and a wonderful Mistress of Ceremonies, lowered a big decorated basket down to the street, where people were able to help themselves to CDs of the performers (”just drop in ten bucks”) or to just drop in donations to help keep the cabaret alive.

If you live in the New York area, go, some night soon, to see the sunset over the Hudson, and to hear talent that matches (if not surpasses) any that you’d find on a Broadway stage. It’s silly to make the Broadway comparison really, because in a theater, you don’t have the background music of cars whooshing up and down the highway, distant sirens, and the regular barking of a uniformed security guard hollering, from a nearby overpass, “NO CONGREGATIN’ ON THE OVERPASS!” “MOVE IT ALONG!”

Thank you Patty Heffley and friends, for a wonderful evening!

There’s this great/evil online shopping site called Gilt Groupe that I got suckered into joining some time ago. The way they lure you in is by sending you an email that says that your friend has invited you to join the very exclusive Gilt Groupe. They make it sound like it’s just you, Tinsley Mortimer, Celery Kemble and a few others who have been asked to join, but in fact, your “friend” gets $25 for each friend they ask and anyone can join. The Gilt Groupe has daily sales that begin at noon and include some top designers at incredibly reduced prices.

Because my friend recommended it, and it cost nothing, I “joined.” It seemed innocent enough. They send you emails telling you which designers will have sales that day. Not long after I joined, they were featuring a designer that I happen to like, so I logged on that afternoon and was blown away by this sale. Dresses that had been 1200 were now 200. Tops that had been 60, were now 20! I decided that I would purchase a few items, but when I clicked on the “buy” bar, I was informed that the items were sold out.

Very quickly I learned that the sales start at noon, and all over America, and perhaps the world, there are compulsive shoppers waiting with their perfectly manicured index fingers poised, twitching and trembling, at 11:59, for the sales to begin. By 12:15 all the great stuff is usually gone.

Today, I was interested in a few things that were listed in the daily email and so, for the first time, I logged on at 12 sharp, and I actually was able to place a summer dress and a sweater that I really liked in my cart. I was told that the items would be held for ten minutes while I continued shopping. These two items were HUGELY discounted and this got my adrenaline pumping. I carelessly left the items in my cart and started scrolling through all the designers, panting and drooling, looking for other great buys.

I guess I thought that I would be alerted when my ten minutes were about to be up, but I was not, and when I went to checkout my items, it was 12 minutes after I had put them on hold, and they were gone. Sold out. This made me frantic. I realized that you must buy the things the minute you decide you want them, so I went back and looked through the few items that hadn’t yet been sold and actually purchased a top and a sweater that I don’t even like, and felt like I had won the lottery when I was allowed to enter my credit card information.

Only after I had completed the transaction did I realize what an ingenious strategy the Gilt Groupe employs. From the minute the sale begins, there is this pressing time constraint and all your most primal hunting/fighting/dominating instincts start coursing through your veins and I found myself in an absolute sweat as I scrolled through the items looking for something, anything that wasn’t sold out, and that would actually fit me.

Of course when my tie-died peasant skirt and weird asymetrical sweater arrive, it will be hard to recall the great sense of joy and triumph I experienced when purchasing them. They will either have to be returned, or will end up in the “guilt” section of my closet. That’s the place where I keep the spontaneous and ridiculous items that I purchased impulsively, and, now, out of a deadly combination of guilt and denial, keep because someday I might actually be invited on a safari where that Burberry pith helmet (75% off at Barneys!) will come in handy. Or to a ball where I can wear the puffy magenta gown that was originally 1500 dollars but I “stole” at a sale for $169 dollars. At the time I bought it, it didn’t occur to me that the reason it was on sale was because it’s puffy. And it’s magenta. It was $169.00! It had been $1500.00. I would own a $1500.00 gown but would only pay $169.00 for it!

I don’t know if anybody can relate.

Anyway, after making my obscenely oddball purchases (which I will return), I decided to look at the men’s sales, because sometimes I entertain the fantasy that my husband will actually wear something that I have chosen for him. I sometimes think he might want to hang up the leather jacket and jeans and try on something else.

The items I buy for him go in his own guilt section of his closet. He feels guilty about the fact that he hates what I purchased, so, after thanking me and telling me how much he loves it, he hangs it up and off he goes in his leather jacket and jeans.

Anyway, I thought I’d share with you some of the fashion-forward men’s designs that are on sale at Guilt Groupe today. This first item I am seriously tempted to buy him for his birthday, just to see the expression on his face:

I mean, seriously what’s sexier than a man-cape?

And I thought these might be just the thing for Denis. He doesn’t really own any “resort wear.” I love the black socks, they really “pop”. And Denis loves black!

And finally this great jacket. You can dress it up for a red-carpet event, or just throw it on over a pair of jeans:

Don’t get any ideas about logging on and buying them for your man. They’re in my cart….for another two minutes and 39 seconds.

I’ve been in the city for much of the summer because my daughter is taking a pre-college course there. A few of you have asked to see pictures of our critters, since it’s been awhile. So yesterday, I wandered around the farm and took some photos.

First, for you gardeners, what is wrong with this rose bush? It used to have roses on it. Of course, I have never fed it anything nor pruned it. It’s supposed to be “hardy” so I didn’t think I had too. Is it neglect or just too much rain?

As many of you know, we have three dogs, but my very favorite is Daphne. She is at my side ALWAYS when I’m home and has been very depressed this summer with all my comings and goings. She’s sporting a very flattering summer ‘do and was thrilled to see me yesterday. I think I might have to take her to the city this week, I miss her so.

In the summer, our horses spend the hot, daytime hours in their cool barn, with fans blowing the flies off of them. At night, they are out grazing in their field. I went up to to the barn for a visit and liked the way the light angled into Mark’s stall. I took these shots, which are color shots that have not been altered in any way, though they look black and white. He’s a black and white kind of guy.

Here he is in the light of day. Have I ever mentioned that I’m rather fond of this horse? I brushed him until his coat shone yesterday, my heart seriously sodden with love for this sweet, gentle beast.