Ajax Minor's Blog, page 8

The Old Soul: A Short Story

Over the next month I am going to post work by a pair of authors, neither published. One is a storyteller, the other a poet. As a matter of full disclosure, the author of this week’s short story is my sister, Joanne Sinsar Trebbe.  I believe she is a real talent.

I first read a composition she wrote in the sixth grade. Boy, was I impressed with her talent, and I encouraged her to write more. Unfortunately, the demands of family limited her creative output. But what she has produced has real merit.

If you like this story, give a shout on Facebook or Twitter, or here on my Ajax Minor site and encourage her to publish what I think is a terrific novella for children, ‘Charlie’. It is about a little boy, Charlie, who is a giant and lives among we normal sized humans.

(As for the poet, you’ll hear more about her when I publish one of her poems in a few weeks.)

As for The Old Soul, the inspiration for the context is drawn from our own mother’s stories about her childhood during the Great Depression. YES, she did live in a house where the only source of heat was a coal stove in the kitchen. Our grandfather worked for the New York, New Haven and Hartford railroad in Danbury, CT. For those who know Danbury, once the Hat City of the World, the house was on East Liberty Street.

Click here to read “The Old Soul,” by Joanne Sinsar Trebbe » and don’t forget to let her know what you think!

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Icarus Rising by N.W.Moors: A Review

So do you like mythology? Particularly Greek mythology? And did you like American Gods by Neil Gaiman? How about American Gods with a smile? How about Romance? If your answer to any of these questions is YES then you should read ‘Icarus Rising,’ by N.W.Moors. And if you didn’t answer YES you may still want to read the book. You might develop a new fondness for myth and legend.

In the original story, Daedalus, an inventor, angers King Minos and has to get his butt out of Crete. So he invents a pair of wings which contain wax. He tells his son, Icarus, to fly at a ‘middle height;’ not too close to the sea or his wings will become damp and heavy and he will plunge into it and not too high otherwise the sun will melt the wax. Well, Icarus is the typical boneheaded kid and gets cocky, flies too high, the sun melts the wax on his wings and he plummets to his death in the sea. Later Daedalus builds a temple to the sun god, Apollo.

Well, Moors puts a twist in the story and it turns out Apollo holds a grudge against Icarus’ arrogance, as does his sister Artemis, goddess of the moon. He is forced to suffer a set of wings that pop out of and back into his body in a painful process. What makes them POP? That’s part of the fun of the story so you’ll have to read it! Anyway, poor Icarus wanders around Hades for a few millennia but then is given a ‘Second Chance,’ is sprung from Hades and lands in the 21st century. After that things get very interesting. But nobody likes spoilers and when I review I avoid synopses. You can go to Amazon for that, so let’s talk about the book and the writing.

Moors’ prose is clean, clear and direct. It is especially fun to see how the ancient Greek gods, Apollo, Athena and Artemis deal with life in our century. The characters develop. And for those of you who have followed my blogs, you will know that I believe it is not plot or character alone that drive a story but rather character development. Character development not only drives a story but is a mark of good writing. And it isn’t only the gods that grow but also Icarus and a young lady and bookstore owner in Devon, CT by the name of Eve.

Which means there is some romance too. Now I am not an aficionado of Romance, but I know it when I see it. And the romance is fun. As a matter of full disclosure, while I do not read romance I’m a Hallmark movie addict. So when I say there is some romance in this tale I think I know what I’m talking about!

If I had one quibble with the storyline it is that I would like Icarus (aka Russ) and Eve to have found themselves in one more really bad jam. But I won’t quibble. I’ll just tell you to buy the book.

Oh, and I should say that Icarus Rising is the first book in the Second Chances series. I like second chances, as is evidenced by my own fantasies, and the next book will have a protagonist that is especially near and dear to me. So enjoy Icarus and save some room for Book Two!

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A Video!

A few weeks ago I gave an interview to King Grossman on his local show, local to Monterey CA that is, Artivism.  King is a great personality and a superb author in his own right. I reviewed his ‘Letters to Alice’ in this blog. Read it!

Anyway, we talked about a number of issues concerning authoring, writing and the creative process. And we will return to the topic of being a writer in coming weeks.

For now, we’ll just let the video speak for itself:

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Mothers: Part 2

Last week I wrote about my own mom. This week I’d like to discuss four other mothers in my life. Three moms in my novels: Kate in Sun Valley Moon Mountains (SVMM), Tiamat in SVMM and Camilla Limon in The Girl from Ipanema (TGFI). And most importantly, my wife, Linda, our daughter Katherine’s mom.

Being a mom was a challenge for Linda. How is it possible to nurture a child when she is cortically blind and deaf, can neither suck nor swallow and has Hi-Tone, Low-Tone CP (cerebral palsy). Our story has been well documented in my biography and on these pages, so I’d like to concentrate on how Linda managed to relate to Katie. Not an easy task. She had  observed motherhood in action all her life and prepared for the role for almost a year; then in a few short minutes everything about the job had to be rethought. Oh, Linda was a superb mother. She constantly comforted Katie as much as she could. It’s not that Linda could have done more, but rather Katie simply couldn’t receive the lessons that Linda might have offered.

So what else did Linda do? Remarkably, she tried to empathize with our daughter by trying to experience what it must have been like to have the handicaps with which Katie was saddled. What stands out most to me are two incidents. On one occasion we were driving down the steep winding road to our home in Castle Rock, CO.  This had always caused Katie distress. She had little balance and would wave her arms in search, I guess, of some stability. So that one time, Linda closed her eyes and held out her arms. I asked what she was doing. “Trying to see what it’s like to be Katherine.”

Linda said the experience was not only uncomfortable but downright disturbing. Then, one day, she started to cough violently. When I asked if she was alright, she said, “Yes. I was just trying to understand what it must be like not to swallow for even two minutes. It’s horrible.” It’s said that to understand someone, walk a mile in their shoes. Linda walked in our daughter’s booties. Since Linda couldn’t offer more than some small measure of comfort, she tried to understand what Katherine was going through. Remarkable. To me at least.

My fictional characters also had unique experiences with their offspring. Kate, of course, was Linda. I didn’t recount much of her time with Ur, which some people would have liked. In any event, I projected Kate forward in time to that point where parents have to let go. Kate was the most driven and objective of the characters on the Quest for Ur. But when the time came, she let go as all parents must, and as I believe Linda would have done with Katie. Her sole interest was her daughter’s happiness not her own.

Tiamat is another story. I did not recount her struggles with her son, Nick Beele, but they can be found in the Sumerian Creation Myth. Clearly Tiamat and her son didn’t get along. What is it like if parents and children simply don’t like one another? Or worse. If they are lucky, as Nick was, they will reconcile. In SVMM Tiamat says to Nick, rather poignantly, that while he had both good and bad in him, he was ‘mostly good’. Not everyone’s candidate for ‘mother of the year’ but Tiamat tried.

Finally, Camilla Limon in TGFI.  She was caught up in a battle between her son and her husband. Did she take sides? No. Did she become frustrated and angry. No. She expressed understanding and was a Rock. What more can one ask of a parent?

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Mothers: Part 1

In honor of this past Sunday’s Holiday we’re going to talk about Mom. This is fertile ground for an essay, since two of my main characters, Kate and Tiamat, were Moms with vastly different experiences. And since my wife, Linda, had a more difficult experience from most, as the mother of a damaged child. We’ll talk about that trio next week, in Mothers: Part 2; but I should start with my own mom.

Whew! Relationhips with parents are complicated for some of us. Complicated in my case by alcohol. See my short story ‘Bohlmann’s Boozers’. Discussions often range far from the praises and encomiums delivered on Mother’s and Father’s Days for some of us.

When our daughter Katherine was born with a host of serious complications from her birth accident, Linda and I decided to seek counseling. It wasn’t as if we were unable to function. In fact, the reason we thought it wise to speak with a therapist is that we thought we were doing too well and might be setting up for more serious problems down the road. Linda didn’t relate to the first therapist recommended, so she went on to try a few more. It just didn’t work for her. At one visit, she told me that she ended up handing the professional a Kleenex and comforting her.

However, I liked the fellow we first met and continued with him for a year or more. Not surprisingly, we talked about my personal history.  I had a lot to say, especially about my problematic relationship with my dad. I’ll be writing about that next month, so we’ll just leave it there. In any event, we had a lot to talk about. But finally when he  asked me about my mother, whom he pointed out I had not mentioned, I drew a blank.  I really didn’t know what to say, since nothing salient sprang to mind.  My reaction, I thought, was odd.

My mother and I always had a good rapport, but I do not recall sharing any close physical contact. Her dad was from Wales and her Mom an old Connecticut Yankee.  Stiff upper lip and all that. I was very close to my maternal grandmother Jennie, whose name will be familiar if you’ve read ‘Sun Valley Moon Mountains’. I was close to all of my grandparents. But Grandma Jen and I never said ‘I love you’ until I was in college. Linda will often chide me that my mom must have tickled me with a feather as a child, since I’m not especially fond of hugs. I remember vaguely Mom reading to me as a child; an activity she complained about later to my sister. But she was always there for me after school or when I needed to be picked up at the movies. As for life lessons, my parents, and perhaps many of them from my conversations with other Boomers,  sort of left me on my own to sort things out. ‘The Greatest Generation’, having survived the Depression and a World War, felt they were owed some time to themselves. Hardly helicopter parents! More like the beer or martini would be served up after work, and parents were more like anti-aircraft batteries if we violated their space.

As I grew older my mother and I bonded some. I’d massage her feet for a quarter to buy a comic book, and she helped me with a couple of science projects. In high school, I was pretty much a grinder. But I’d unwind after a long day in classes with the ‘funnies’ and talk with Mom for a quarter hour before going up to my bedroom for four to six hours of homework. So we always had a relaxed, easy relationship.

A few years ago, I asked her if she had played sports in high school. I was interested, since I’ve spent my life trying to be an ‘average’ athlete. I thought maybe my problem was genetic.  She told me she had played basketball (which has always eluded me!) and softball. ‘What position,’ I asked. ‘Shortstop’ she replied. I had loved Little League but took refuge behind the plate and in the outfield. ‘Oh, it was easy,’ she said, ‘you just catch the ball and throw it.’ Say what?! I couldn’t imagine ever trying that position with my small, stone hands. I pressed her about her other activities. She had been Drum Majorette with the Hatters Drum Corps in Danbury, Ct. and had competed at the state level, winning some awards for baton twirling. She led the band and some call her ‘Skippy’ to this day. But she said, ‘I really didn’t like it. And I wasn’t really very good.’ I was shocked. Then she said, ‘In fact I never was really very good at any one thing. I wish I had some real talent like writing or painting or sewing.’

I protested but she pushed back. She was really serious. I had asked a few innocent questions and gained a window into her soul. Maybe we all should ask our Moms about themselves as people rather than thinking of them as performing a role. But I guess kids always think it’s all about them.

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Connecting the Dots: the Cascade of Consciousness

Sometimes the mind works in subtle but wondrous ways. Conclusions may arise from a handful of disparate facts. Over the past week or so, I was struck by two stories in the ‘paper’: Michelle Wolf’s comment about Sarah Huckabee Sanders as an ‘Uncle Tom’ for white women and Nicholas Kristoff’s editorial in the ‘failing New York Times’ about new border policy that separates parents from their children. And then I thought about ‘Uncle Tom.’

‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’ is one of the most influential books in American history. It has been said, perhaps apochryphally, that when Lincoln first met Harriet Beecher Stowe he is to have said: “so you are the little lady who started this Great War.” Apochryphal or not, there is truth in the statement. And interestingly, the element of the story that resonated most with Northerners was the fact that families were sold, broken up and children separated from their parents. That theme changed many minds and hearts in the Union.

Now, as Kristoff points out, children, with documentation, are being separated from their parents. Read, please read, Kristoff’s editorial cited above.  As a matter of disclosure, I, like Kristoff, am on the left side of the political fifty yardline. But I, like Kristoff, am not for ‘open borders’ and appreciate the rule of law. However, the current policy of taking even very young children from their parents is cruel and may leave lasting scars.

Nevertheless, this fact has hardly surfaced in the news. Perhaps because the noise over porn stars has drowned out the important stuff like a possible breakthrough with North Korea. Or is it that we simply that we don’t care, that there seem to be so many horrific acts being perpetrated that we have self-anesthetised our minds to block out the ugliness? Certainly, in the end, I hope the latter.

Kristoff’s editorial got me to thinking about the subtext of ‘Uncle Tom’ and then Michele Wolf’s comment about Sarah Sanders got me to thinking about Uncle Tom himself. Was Wolf being fair to Tom? Let’s go one step further, have we all been fair to Tom? In my humble opinion, far from being the fawning lap dog that comparisons are supposed to emphasize, I came away from Stowe’s novel regarding Tom as one of the most powerful characters in all of literature. Despite having his faith tested on Legree’s plantation, he remained true to his own personal philosophy of love and kindness.

In fact, Tom was beaten severely, not out of caprice and pure cruelty, but for refusing to obey his white master, Simon Legree.  The second beating was mortal. Tom refused to whip another slave in the first instance and then refused to tell Legree the whereabouts of two escaped black women who had been sex slaves for Legree. Tom did something I don’t believe I could do. Summon the courage to accept torture rather than commit a brutal act and, most importantly, ‘turn the other cheek.’ Most of us can’t. Simply follow the news cycle of people spewing hatred and venting their grievences through violence.

So was Tom a sychophant to the white man? Christ appears in my first novel, Sun Valley Moon Mountains, and is a different sort from the traditional picture painted by the New Testament. I am not spiritual, so maybe my view makes sense for me. But Jesus turned the other cheek. And so did Dr. King and Gandhi, in the face of guns and firehoses and attack dogs. They locked arms, literally and spiritually, with their followers and continued to march into the mouth of injustice; and they accomplished more through non-violence than all the bullets in all the wars of our time.

The thread then: Kristoff’s column led me to thinking about the book, ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’ and the separation of children from parents. And the comment about Sarah Sanders got me to thinking about the character Uncle Tom and the unfair way in which he has been abused and slandered. Tom pointed us in a direction on our moral compasses that we would do well to follow.

What does all of this have to do with ‘The Ur Legend‘? Well, as I said, Christ is a character in SVMM and his teachings lead us to consider King and Gandhi and Tom.  More than that, there is an allusion to ’emigration’ in Ur Book 2, ‘The Girl from Ipanema’, as well as in my forthcoming Book 3, ‘Kutusov’s Dream’.  Climate change, driven by an environmental disaster, turned North America and Western Europe into frozen fields. Many in the US escaped the frigid climate by emigating to Mexico and South America. I did not expand on this narrative, but maybe I should have. In any event, I wonder if Latins would have separated American families and how this would be received.

Finally, since I like to link blogs to my books, epistemology, or how we come to know things, is a subtext of SVMM.  It is certainly wondrous how the mind can make connections and tell itself stories and draw conclusions from them. As one of my friends has said, the brain is the most marvelous toy there is, and it’s FREE!

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Steinbeck: The Untold Stories, by Steve Hauk—a Review

I will say again that it is amazing how much excellent works is being produced by writers all over America. This week we post the second in a short series of reviews of works by ‘local’ authors on the Monterey Peninsula.

Brilliant. 5 star. Need I say more?

Well, actually yes, I do.  ‘Steinbeck: The Untold Stories’ is a small masterpiece. Only ‘small’ in the sense that it is a slim volume, but comprised of a great number of stories, all economical and precisely penned. The stories are Hauk’s fictional accounts of real incidents and real people in the life of John Steinbeck, on whom he is an expert. Hauk’s voice is consistent throughout. It is easy, conversational, as if you were sitting in his living room, or better yet, around a wood stove in an old, local general store.

But the color of each story is different, depending on the personalities and background of the central characters.

Colin McCann in his ‘Letters to a Young Writer’ claims that language drives a story. I write, as Ajax Minor, and have never thought of language as the life’s blood of a book. But after reading Hauk’s ‘Stories’ I’m not so sure I’m right in all cases.

The brilliance of Hauk’s stories is that each is shaded in the language of the protagonists, from the first, ‘John and the River,’ about ‘kids’, to the immigrant ‘Olie’ and on to Steinbeck himself, ‘The Gaunt Visitor;’ the former sounding as if coming from the mouth of a 10 year old, the latter dark, Steinbeck in his later years. And there are housepainters, drunken disappointed wives, gas station owners, the lot.

The book is delightful and a great read, at your leisure over a few weeks, or all in one bite!

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‘Letters to Alice’ by King Grossman: a Review

This week and next it will be my pleasure to publish reviews of books by two authors, local to the Monterey Peninsula, King Grossman and Steve Hauk. The books are special not only because they are ‘local’ but because both are especially good! It is truly amazing how much great writing is penned that doesn’t always make it to the Bestseller List. But read the review, then read the books and jusdge for yourself.

Following is a review of King Grossman’s ‘Letters to Alice’:

Brilliant.

In a word, my reaction to King Grossman’s novel, ‘Letters to Alice’. It is about artistic endeavor, mostly about writing, and the need for a ‘muse’ to drive inspiration. I am a writer, as Ajax Minor, and had never really thought about the importance of a ‘muse’. I’ve never had one, as far as I know, and have only drawn inspiration from real life. Other artists have heads bursting with ideas, such as Picasso or the Beatles, and may need neither muse nor personal history to motivate. Not being a genius I wouldn’t know. But Grossman’s characters’ search for muses embeds a central question in the book: Is it possible to have more than one muse? And in a practical sense, can a person love more than one other man, or woman. The answer seems to be ‘yes, but not without complications and pain’.

The really brilliant aspect of this book is its construction as a novel within a novel. One story is contemporary and concerns a couple, Frazier and Margaret, writers, struggling to improve their art and also their marriage. The other is about, and it appears written by, Margaret’s grandmother, a novelist in Stalinist Russia.

There are not many books written this way. ‘Grapes of Wrath’, ‘War and Peace’, ‘Moby Dick’ and Updike’s ‘Memories of the Ford Administration’ come to mind. It is a real skill to pull this off, but Grossman does! And while the two books within ‘Alice’ are very different in style, the voice of the writer is the same. Deeply involved with his characters.

Colum McCann in ‘Letters to a Young Writer’ claimed that language drives a story. I was skeptical. I don’t view my own writing that way. But ‘Alice’ proves his point. Frazier and Margaret, and especially Frazier, are self absorbed. So there is a lot of self reflection. Thus the prose is dense. It has to be. The only quibble I have is that it could use a bit of thinning.

Also, Grossman’s metaphors are terrific and that is a gift. But sometimes the metaphor can distract readers and not allow them to paint the scene in their own minds. That being said it is highly readable.

As for the parallel story, the main character, Katya, is other directed and the prose is cleaner, more direct. And I’ll have to admit to a fascination with Russian and Soviet history, so I was hooked.

Bottom line, buy the book and read it!

P.S. This week on FB and Twitter I’ll be discussing topics relevant to Soviet and Russian history.

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Email and Insult

Email doesn’t do ‘tongue in cheek’ very well.

Two weeks ago I wrote a blog and a series of posts about North Korea, which is the setting of the first part of my book, ‘The Girl from Ipanema‘. On Facebook, tongue in cheek, I asked which was more likely: that Kim Jong Il, as he claimed, scored 11 holes in one during his first round of golf or that The Donald ‘didn’t have sex with that woman’ Stormy Daniels.

One gentleman was offended and replied that he could name ten Presidents whose DNA was all over the floor of the White House and not one was Trump. His politics were obvious. What was not obvious, to him at least, was that my question was meant to be tongue in cheek. I pointed out that it was meant to be taken lightly and with good humor as emphasized by the fact that I had quoted ‘The Willy’, from one of his first press conferences about the Monica Lewinsky dust up.

“Ah,” my correspondent replied. He had misunderstood my tone.

But email is like that. It doesn’t do ‘tongue in cheek’ very well.

I remembered that I written a short story about the evils of email. It may not be one of my best stories but it is SHORT. I share it here:  https://ajaxminor.com/stories/the-insult/

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Happy Easter! Right?

We all, atheist and believer alike, must have Faith. I will tell you it gets tested when you are struck with a catastrophe like losing a child.

I wished everyone a Happy Easter yesterday on Facebook and Twitter. I’m guilt free using Facebook since I’m guessing Cambridge Analytics wouldn’t care a bit about the holiday. Well, honestly, I never got much out of it either.

Bunnies and Eggs

As I said yesterday, the juxtaposition of Bunnies with Eggs is strange and borders on disturbing. Besides that, my memories are of being stuffed into an overly heavy and uncomfortable sport coat and tie, on an overly warm and sunny day, and sitting in a stuffy room with relatives. The ham was always a bit salty and desert was made by Grandma Jen (yup, basis for the same character in Sun Valley Moon Mountains). Now, Grandma Jen was the all-time best pie baker on the planet. Always used lard crust! But for Easter it was Paradise Delight: pineapple chunks and marshmallows. Not bad, but like Bunnies and Eggs, an odd combo.

Easter and Christmas

Christmas is a different story. All good! Of course, historians now believe Christ was born in the Spring. How they figured that out I haven’t Googled! But it is nice that Christmas cards all have a touch or more of fresh white snow rather than thick mud. And it’s pretty easy to figure out the switch. Christmas was rejiggered to occur at the Winter Solstice (which also features prominently in SVMM), a pagan holiday. Take away people’s parties and it might be difficult to recruit. Which of course left the Vernal Equinox, Pascua, free for a romp. (By the way, Easter appears to have been seasonally accurate.)

What about Easter as a religious observance? Resurrection certainly would be a cause for rejoicing. But it requires Faith. What about Pagans? There is an abundance of pagans and pagan deities in Sun Valley Moon Mountains.

Paganism and Faith

So what do I think about paganism? Hint: Linda and I celebrate the Winter Solstice every year. But (NO SPOILER) Jesus also makes an appearance in Sun Valley Moon Mountains.

What about Faith then?

Faith is important, epistemologically, since we can’t verify every ‘fact’ with direct observation. So we all, atheist and believer alike, must have Faith. I will tell you it gets tested when you are struck with a catastrophe like losing a child.

But I’ve written about my and Linda’s experience before: God, Grief and the Tao te Ching. So I won’t belabor that point.

Easter and Faith

But back to the subject of Easter and Faith, I would like to share one anecdote.

Linda’s dad, Willie as we called him, was a practicing Presbyterian. Went to church nearly every Sunday. Read the Bible at night. Served as Deacon of his church.  Many years ago, Willie (now deceased), turned to Linda and me and said:

“You know, I pretty much buy into the whole Christianity pitch. But two things bother me.”

“What would they be?” we asked.

“Immaculate conception and the resurrection.”

We said, “Willie, that’s pretty much the whole deal!” He humphed.

So what do YOU think about Easter?

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