In loving memory of Stephen W. Howe

PUTTING IN THE SEED by Robert Frost

You come to fetch me from my work to-night
When supper’s on the table, and we’ll see
If I can leave off burying the white
Soft petals fallen from the apple tree
(Soft petals, yes, but not so barren quite,
Mingled with these, smooth bean and wrinkled pea);
And go along with you ere you lose sight
Of what you came for and become like me,
Slave to a Springtime passion for the earth.
How Love burns through the Putting in the Seed
On through the watching for that early birth
When, just as the soil tarnishes with weed,
The sturdy seedling with arched body comes
Shouldering its way and shedding the earth crumbs.

Let’s read Edith Wharton’s THE CUSTOM OF THE COUNTRY. It’s one of my favorite books and I’m dying to reread it.

This book is delightful, you’ll love to hate the main character and you won’t be able to put it down.  Shall we discuss September 9th?

As many of you are probably aware, it is no longer enough to spend months and often years writing a book. Today an author must help sell the book, and by sell, I mean she must make each and every person in the northern hemisphere aware of obsessed with the book. She must make them understand that they need the book in order to survive in today’s world. She must make them wake up each morning and ask, “if not now, when? If not me, who? If not the …”

Wait, I’m not sure those are the questions.

The point is, like many businesses, publishers are struggling these days and they like it if their authors will pitch in and help. I regret not doing more to push my last book, but never mind, today I got to help my friend Julie Klam with the book trailer for her delightful forthcoming memoir, You Had Me At Woof.

Julie asked me several weeks ago if I would direct her book trailer and of course I was wildly flattered and within minutes of hanging up the phone with her I had launched myself on yet another fantastical voyage of delusion.  I decided that the Julie Klam book trailer would be such a smash that authors would say to each other, at cocktail parties, “You have a book coming out?  Is Ann Leary doing your book trailer?  You have to get Ann Leary to do your book trailer.  She did Salmon’s! She just did Elmore’s! She did Nora’s”  Yes, I would be the Annie Leibowitz of book trailers. Julie Klam is cut from the same cloth it seems, because she told me that within minutes of hanging up the phone with me she was tearfully rehearsing her acceptance speech for the book trailer award (we wondered if there must be such a thing and it turns out, there is).

Julie had been wowed by some of my recent work, but I had to confess to her that I only really know how to use a FlipCam, and so we decided that my son Jack, an actual film student who is working on a television crew, would be the co-director/cameraman/guy-who-does-everything-but-talk.  We discussed a few ideas, but Julie’s hysterical book is all about how out of control her dogs are; how they’ve destroyed her house, upended her relationship with her husband, scarred her daughter for life, etc, so we decided that her yappy, outrageously naughty terriers would be enough to carry the film, just by being themselves.

Here was the hitch: Julie’s terriers are so bad, so utterly devious that they will do the opposite of what she wants, NO MATTER WHAT. So today they conspired to be the most well-behaved dogs ever filmed.  Just to make fools of us. They couldn’t possibly have been more angelic. They made Cesar Millan’s dog, Daddy, look like a thug.  They made Lassie look like a crack whore.  I have never seen three more well-behaved dogs in my life.  Did I mention that they’re terriers? Boston Terriers?

Still, we managed to get some funny antics and we had a blast.  I must admit, I regretted wearing a sleeveless black top, because Julie also wore a sleeveless black top, but she has the arms of a ballerina. And though her dogs are mostly black, they manage to shed only their white hairs.

Anyway, as soon as it’s all edited it’ll be on YouTube where you can see it and tell all your friends. And then it’ll go viral. Next, there’ll be calls from Oprah, network and studio heads. And, of course, Julie and I will be offered our own television show.

I usually love to blog when we go away, but I didn’t take my laptop with us to Bermuda, so I’ll provide a tidy summary now.

First, Bermuda is very close to New York. We arrived in Bermuda in less time than it would have taken us to drive to Cape Cod, so you would think that Denis and I might have ventured there at some point in the last couple of decades, but we haven’t. Denis had never been to Bermuda before this trip. I went to Bermuda once, when I was in ninth grade. It was my first trip outside the United States and so I have always thought that my memories of the island’s beauty and tropical splendor were probably wildly inflated as they can be, by the limited perspective of my youth. I remembered walking off the plane and being dazzled by the warm salty air and the blue sky and the turquoise sea that had appeared, from the sky, to lap at the runways of the little airport. I went there with a very fun friend whose family used to live in Bermuda and we ran around with all her old friends to little island discos at night and were served pina coladas and all sorts of other frozen rum drinks because the drinking age there at that time was apparently 13.

Anyway, I sort of thought that returning to Bermuda would be like what happened when I reread Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead as an adult. The first time I read The Fountainhead I, a) fell in love with Howard Roark, b) determined to become a writer and c) developed a lifelong crush on all men working at construction sites. I was in the tenth grade at the time and, well, I just thought Dominique and Roark were insanely cool and sexy with their radical idea that brilliant men should be allowed to rape beautiful women and build skyscrapers however they damned well pleased. I felt that Dominique and Roark and I were kindred spirits. I hated traditionalism with them. I denounced pretentious building facades with them. I pretended that Roark was raping Dominique with them – knowing all along that she wanted him to give her the comeuppance she so richly deserved. When I read it again, as an adult, I have to say I was a little embarrassed for my younger self. I used to rave about this book. It was one of those books that I carried around with me, along with volumes of collected poems by Adrienne Rich and Sylvia Plath so that people would understand that I was a  young troubled genius. Just like those authors had once been. A young troubled genius who doodled pictures of ponies and puppies in the margins of the pages.

So I suspected that I’d go back to Bermuda with my jaded, somewhat wiser and more-travelled adult perspective and wonder at how I had been so enchanted by the island. But in fact, the island is enchanting, I had been right. It wasn’t like rereading The Fountainhead at all. Bermuda is beautiful. The houses are beautiful, the trees and gardens are beautiful, the people are beautiful and the beaches are unbelievably beautiful.

You can’t rent cars in Bermuda. All tourists must either ride in cabs or drive mopeds, which is what we did. The first day, on the way to the moped place, I said to Denis, “Let’s not get two, let’s get a double. We can pretend we’re in the movie The Deep. You be Nick Nolte and I’ll be Jacqueline Bissett. Only I’ll wear a bra.” Later, I said, “Actually, let’s pretend we’re in Easy Rider. You can be Peter Fonda and I’ll be Jack Nicholson.” When we saw the tiny scooter that we would be sharing I said, “Let’s pretend we’re riding on something that grown-ups would ride. Something that doesn’t look like it was taken off a merry-go-round.”

Meg, her husband Mark, Denis and I swam, ate, payed tennis, scooted about the island and on our last night there, some old family friends who are Bermudian, took us out on a sunset cruise on their boat, which was beautiful.

Looking for something nice to do this upcoming steamy Saturday? Well, if you live in or near Litchfield County, CT, I have a lovely plan for you.

First, arrive in Washington Depot at around noon and enjoy a tasty lunch at either The Pantry or Marty’s. Then, at 2:00, make your way over to the Hickory Stick Bookshop, where my friend Wendy Burden will be signing copies of her book Dead End Gene Pool until 3:00. I’l be there with her! It’s air-conditioned and, in my humble opinion, the nicest independent book store in New England.

After you’re done meeting Wendy, browsing, and perhaps purchasing a book for yourself or a loved one, hop into your car and head on over to Roxbury’s 36th annual Pickin’ and Fiddlin’ Contest – a really fun outdoor music festival to benefit the Roxbury Volunteer Fire Department. There are banjo players, fiddlers, and other strummers and pickers, young and old, from all over the country playing great bluegrass and country music all afternoon and evening. Bring the kids. Pack a picnic basket. It’s a blast, and for a great cause.

Or, if you’re not up for a crowd, drive to Steep Rock Land Preserve, which is about three minutes away from the Hickory Stick. I would suggest you walk, but it’s going to be so hot out. At Steep Rock, it always feels about 20 degrees cooler than everywhere else, because you are hiking along the cool rushing waters of the Shepaug River, under the shade of towering hemlock trees. You can sit on the river bank and read your new book, or chat with a friend, or even go in the river for a swim.

After your Steep Rock meanderings, head on over to the GW Tavern, also in Washington Depot, for a nice cold beer and a burger. My friend Joy is the bartender. She’s also an EMT in training, so be extra nice!

If you are unable to do any of the above, why not order Wendy’s book from the Hickory Stick by calling their toll free number: 1-800-255-2665 and asking them to have Wendy personalize a book for you? That way, when we discuss the book with her in an upcoming live chat (to be scheduled soon, promise), you’ll already know what her signature looks like! Many people don’t realize that independent booksellers are happy to have authors sign books for individuals and then ship them out. Just try to get Amazon or Walmart to do that. They won’t. So go on the Hickory Stick website and if you see any upcoming author appearances, you can request a personalized, autographed book. It really makes a great gift.

Now, must study. Have a certain final exam tonight. Can somebody please tell me what to do to treat a priapism?

Photo by Phil Holland

Okay, I believe I might have a name for the blog. Don’t want to announce it yet because I want to make sure that it’s available.  I will say that I LOVE all your suggestions.

This morning I received an email from our friend Phil Holland in Greece.  He has composed another canto in his series The Dancer’s Craft, which is, essentially, a 30-year-long poem documenting the life, work and wild misadventures of choreographer/avant gardener Moses Pendleton. It doesn’t take 30 years to read it, you’ll read it very fast because it’s very good,  but that’s how long Phil has been working on it, which just makes me love him. Sticktoitiveness is a trait I highly admire in others because I lack it so.  I have  general awfuggitiveness.

Today’s installment of The Dancer’s Craft reveals the persistence of our gardener friend and his monomaniacal determination to cultivate his beloved sunflowers no matter what fate has in store for him.  We’ve had some fierce thunderstorms over the past few days (a girl and her horse were struck in a nearby town, but are thankfully okay),  but Moses had sunflower seeds to sow, so, sow he did.

The canto is supposed to be divided into 4-line stanzas.  But my software won’t allow me to separate the lines.  When I copy text, in this newish format, I have to … oh never mind, it’s insanely frustrating.  Just try to separate the stanzas in your mind.  And enjoy:

Canto for the Month of June

The air was heavy, turbid, close,

and smelled of earth and rain –

the dancer raced the clouds to weed

again at Quincy Lane.

He takes his trusty hoe in hand,

whose blade is like a beak,

and solo in the fields shows off

his dancer’s-craft technique.

He twirls his hoe, he slices,

he hooks weeds out by the roots,

witch grass and vetch go flying,

untouched are his sunflower shoots.

He must be in New York by eight,

he churns like a machine,

fast-forwarding along the rows,

in a sweat laced with caffeine.

And then the western sky goes dark,

and a single tongue of breeze

licks up the undersides of leaves

and whitens all the trees.

The dancer hears approaching

a sound like a speeding train,

and then he’s hit full-bodily

by a wall of pelting rain.

And then the sky’s ripped open

by a jagged, flashing blade,

the thunderclap which follows

explodes like a grenade.

The dancer’s sheathed in water,

his steel hoe bites the sod,

its shank of ash tight in his hands,

he’s a human lightning rod.

He holds his ground, in a fury

he hacks at the weeds in the rows,

he roars at the storm like Lear and Tom,

if he goes in a flash, he goes.

The worst of the front passes over,

the rain becomes gentle, and then,

as he finishes weeding, the sun comes out,

and he gets in his car again.

– Phil Holland

Stock photo. We don't feed or photograph bears.

Oh that bear. That effing bear!  Though he or she hasn’t returned, the dogs refuse to go outside without human escorts. Instead, they stand at our windows all day and bark at the woods.  Bark, bark, bark, bark, bark, bark, bark, bark, bark, bark. All day and most of the night. They have taken it upon themselves to unilaterally de-escalate their watch dog duties. From now on, they will no longer physically confront possible predators, but instead will just report on them from within the safe confines of our house.  They’ve gone from frontline soldiers to annoyingly repetitive reporters. There might be a bear. There might be a bear. There might be a bear, is what they’re reporting. Great. As informative and accurate as CNN.

Now they’ll only go outside if I’m with them, as if I have any method of defending us! I’m going to Netflix the movie Old Yeller for Lulu.  Lulu is a very large dog with a huge head and massive teeth.  I’m a feeble, middle-aged lady with an under-developed sense of coordination and a nervous disorder that is triggered by even the remotest possibility of danger.  I once semi-trampled a group of preschoolers at the Halloween haunted house that they used to have at Stew Leonard’s because I was scared out of my wits.  It was a haunted house that was designed for preschoolers so I think you can picture the level of horror. It wasn’t even dark inside, but as soon as we entered and I saw a dangling rubber spider, my adrenalin took over and, seizing my kids by the wrists, I dragged them from one end to the other in a nano-second, knocking children, strollers and friendly ghosts out of our path in our frantic exodus.

Thank you Amanda for this.  I’m heading out to CVS this morning to see if they have a can of “bear spray.”  Have also heard Raid wasp spray works because it can spray very long distances.  Have recently learned that many people hike with a can of Raid as it can be used not only against bears and rabid coyotes but also against human predators. Like any weapon, I hesitate to use it as it would be my luck that in my panic,  the can would fly from my grasp and then the bear would use it against me.

But enough about scary predators and yeller dogs. I have finally figured out how to use my new photo software. I attended a book party for my friend Sarah Albee last weekend.  Sarah is a best-selling author of children’s books. She writes many educational books and her most recent is about the history of sewage.  This is a woman who knows what kids like to read and learn about.  I once took my young children to a science museum in Paris and they spent the entire time marveling at an exhibit about plumbing. Dinosaurs? No thanks. Human waste and where it goes?  You could hardly see the exhibit through the hordes of admiring children. And though the children spoke many languages, it seems that the word “poo” is universal and almost always accompanied by fitful giggles.

Sarah’s book is called……POOP HAPPENED! Here’s the book trailer.

And here’s Sarah signing books at the party:

Oh for the love of Pete, I can’t get the stupid photo thing to work. Well Sarah’s beautiful, you can see her in the video. The party was at the home of Susanna Salk, also beautiful and also the author of a new book called A Room For Children, as well as several other lovely home-design books.

Well, this has been a long and exhausting post.  Did we set the My Antonia chat for tomorrow evening at 8?  I believe we did.  Hope you all had a chance to read it.

If you’re having trouble viewing, press here.

Just a reminder that this Saturday, May 15th is the 5th annual Celebration of Young Writers – a benefit for the nonprofit After School Arts Program in Washington, CT.  If you are in the Connecticut area, please try to come, it’s a great evening for a great cause.  For more information, click here.

Also, if you have time, that afternoon, right across the street at the Hickory Stick Bookshop, my friend Candace Bushnell will be signing copies of her new book, The Carrie Diaries.

The Carrie Diaries is currently #1 on the New York Times bestseller list for Young Adult fiction, and I’m planning to have Candace sign a bunch of copies for graduation presents. She will also be signing copies of her other bestselling novels, so stop in between 4 & 6 PM on Saturday and meet Candace.  If you can’t make it to the signing but would like to have Candace sign a book for you, just click here and the Hickory Stick will have her sign it and then they’ll ship it off too you. Try to get Amazon to provide that kind of service!

I had a full day.

I was up with the dawn because the puppy needed to go out and the animals all needed to be fed before I headed off to be on a television show.  I was co-host on Better Connecticut with Scot Haney again today and I couldn’t possibly have had more fun.  Here’s a clip that I was able to lift from the web.  I was given a DVD of the entire show and would like to figure out how to load clips from it onto the blog, because we had a woman celebrating her 102nd birthday on the show and she was amazing.  She was beautiful and bright and lighthearted and she had hand-crocheted the most intricately worked lace doilies for us.  I just loved meeting her. She was born in 1908.

Then I came home and had some fun taking photographs of animals enjoying the galley of my friend Julie Klam’s forthcoming book, YOU HAD ME AT WOOF.  My favorite of the photos is this:

That’s my friend Jenny Carolan’s dog Rugby, above. He is quite the character, as you can see.  I also like the photo below:

Okay, this is the best:

Alright, my favorite:

And then I went riding and found that I could videotape our silhouette – our shadow, on the grass, climbing up and down the hills with us.  I could have done a better job editing. At one point we were cantering quite fast and I had to mess around with the reins. It was a beautiful day for a ride. Hope you like the video.  If you can’t see the embedded video, click here.