Philip Caputo's Blog, page 7

JOURNAL OF A PLAGUE YEAR # 4

May 18 — This weekend, we attended – if that’s the right word — a virtual memorial service for our friend Karen Wessel Marcus, who died of Covid19 two weeks ago. It was streamed live from St. James Episcopal in Scarsdale, N.Y., Karen’s church, and also the church Leslie and I were married in nearly 32 years ago. The experience was a little strange, watching and listening to the priest, the deacon, and the organist on a laptop screen from the back deck of our Arizona house, 2,500 miles away. This is how we mourn when a medieval epidemic strikes a 21st-century world. But the ceremony was beautiful and dignified, a fitting farewell to a dignified and lovely woman.

Immeasurably more fitting than the goodbyes that were bid during the Black Plague in the mid-14th century, when the dead were dragged out into the streets, picked up like trash by carters, and wheeled off to be cremated. These are dark times for our entire planet, this blue orb spinning in a solar system midway between the heart of our galaxy and its far boundaries, but the times are not as dark as they were then. Historians estimate that 25 million people, one third of Europe’s population at the time, died of the “black death” between 1347 and 1351. The plague lingered on, erupting in sporadic outbreaks for hundreds of years afterward. It swept London in 1665, killing 70,000 people in that city alone (I’ve plagiarized the title of Daniel Defoe’s 1722 account of that epidemic, Journal of A Plague Year). This is not to minimize the suffering that the families of our country’s 90,000 dead are undergoing; but it is to put the pandemic in historical perspective. And so, to return to Karen’s memorial service, I think its scriptural reading has something to say to us, has something to say especially to the huge majority who have escaped infection but are experiencing economic anxieties, in some cases facing economic ruin:

A Reading from Matthew 6:25-34

‘Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink,* or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life?* And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? Therefore do not worry, saying, “What will we eat?” or “What will we drink?” or “What will we wear?” For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But strive first for the kingdom of God* and his* righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. ‘So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today.

Yes, from the vantage of my comfortable old age, I realize that among small business owners who may have to close their doors forever, among the millions of unemployed who fear they won’t be able to make rent or car payments, or buy groceries, or pay their utility bills, Matthew’s exhortation may elicit bitter cries or sardonic laughter. Oh, yeah, and just when will our Heavenly Father make me whole? I’m not making a religious pitch here. I myself, and Leslie, too, would feel a lot more confident about the future and the futures of our children and grandchildren if our national leaders were to muster a coherent, coordinated effort to meet this crisis, rather than the chaotic, politically charged response they have come up with so far. Nevertheless, I believe the human race is capable of learning from the past. Much of modern hygiene and sanitation, from running water to sewage disposal to the development of vaccines, originated in response to the plagues that ravaged the world centuries ago. I believe that we will get through this trial, if we have faith in ourselves and in medical science as well as faith in God.

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JOURNAL OF A PLAGUE YEAR #3

May 13, 2020

We have been more or less sheltering in place at our winter home in Patagonia, Arizona, for the past two and a half months. I use the qualifying term “more or less” because in this sparsely populated region there is ample room to go hiking, birding, and horseback riding without running into crowds, or even one other human being for that matter. This prevents our going stir-crazy, which I’m sure we would have done if we’d returned to Connecticut a week ago, as we’d planned before the pandemic struck. Back there, a severe lockdown is in effect, and for good reason: Fairfield County, Connecticut, our home county, had recorded 13,488 cases of the Covid19 Virus as of yesterday, with 1,046 deaths; here, in Santa Cruz County, 51 cases have been confirmed, with 0 deaths. That’s 0 as in none. To put a finer point on grim statistics, the number of confirmed cases in Fairfield County alone exceeds the total number in the entire state of Arizona (11,736), while the Arizona death count is “only” 562.

The picture may not be as rosy as those figures indicate. The Arizona Daily Star, published in Tucson, reported that a little over 150,000 people out of the state’s population of 7.3 million have been tested for the virus, giving it the lowest testing rate per-capita in the nation. And Santa Cruz County has the lowest rate of any of Arizona’s 15 counties. I don’t know why this is so. Arizona is a red state, and polls have consistently shown that the citizens of red states, as well as their governments, don’t take the pandemic as seriously as blue states. I don’t know why that is so, either. Maybe it’s because most red states are rural. Their comparatively low population densities result in fewer cases per-capita. At any rate, there probably are a lot of infected people statewide that we don’t know about. That could make Arizona’s modified re-opening from its modified lockdown dangerous. We’ll see if, two weeks to a month from now, hospitals and clinics become overwhelmed with the sick and the dying.

All that said, the evidence of my senses tells me that Leslie and I are better off here than back East. Patagonia, population 913, remains under some restrictions. Its one coffee shop, the Gathering Grounds, and its three eating and drinking establishments — the Wagon Wheel, the Wild Horse Saloon and Dining Room, and the Velvet Elvis Pizzeria — have been shuttered for weeks. The Wagon Wheel, which dates back to Patagonia’s rough-and-tumble past as a mining and cowboy town, serves take out (Leslie recommends the chicken chimichanga; my favorite is the tangy chicken chipotle). About a month ago, the town council passed a resolution mandating social distancing, among other things. Even when out of doors, no one is allowed to be within six feet of anyone else to whom they are no related. Violators, the ordinance states, will be warned by the town marshal (yes, we have a marshal, and he’s tall, like Matt Dillon in Gunsmoke) upon first offense; second offense carries a penalty of a $2,500 fine and up to six months in jail. I pointed out to my neighbor, a town councilman, that Patagonia doesn’t have a jail, has never had one, in fact. During its Old West days, drunks, rowdies, and other evildoers were chained to a large tree at the edge of town. Were I to get caught committing a second breach of the social distance law, I asked my neighbor, would I be chained to a tree for six months? He assured me I would not — I would be sent to the Santa Cruz County jail in Nogales, 18 miles to the south. From what I’ve heard about the county slammer, I think I’d take the tree.

For now, that’s the news from our high desert Woebegone.

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JOURNAL OF A PLAGUE YEAR

May 13, 2020

We have been more or less sheltering in place at our winter home in Patagonia, Arizona, for the past two and a half months. I use the qualifying term “more or less” because in this sparsely populated region there is ample room to go hiking, birding, and horseback riding without running into crowds, or even one other human being for that matter. This prevents our going stir-crazy, which I’m sure we would have done if we’d returned to Connecticut a week ago, as we’d planned before the pandemic struck. Back there, a severe lockdown is in effect, and for good reason: Fairfield County, Connecticut, our home county, had recorded 13,488 cases of the Covid19 Virus as of yesterday, with 1,046 deaths; here, in Santa Cruz County, 51 cases have been confirmed, with 0 deaths. That’s 0 as in none. To put a finer point on grim statistics, the number of confirmed cases in Fairfield County alone exceeds the total number in the entire state of Arizona (11,736), while the Arizona death count is “only” 562.

The picture may not be as rosy as those figures indicate. The Arizona Daily Star, published in Tucson, reported that a little over 150,000 people out of the state’s population of 7.3 million have been tested for the virus, giving it the lowest testing rate per-capita in the nation. And Santa Cruz County has the lowest rate of any of Arizona’s 15 counties. I don’t know why this is so. Arizona is a red state, and polls have consistently shown that the citizens of red states, as well as their governments, don’t take the pandemic as seriously as blue states. I don’t know why that is so, either. Maybe it’s because most red states are rural. Their comparatively low population densities result in fewer cases per-capita. At any rate, there probably are a lot of infected people statewide that we don’t know about. That could make Arizona’s modified re-opening from its modified lockdown dangerous. We’ll see if, two weeks to a month from now, hospitals and clinics become overwhelmed with the sick and the dying.

All that said, the evidence of my senses tells me that Leslie and I are better off here than back East. Patagonia, population 913, remains under some restrictions. Its one coffee shop, the Gathering Grounds, and its three eating and drinking establishments — the Wagon Wheel, the Wild Horse Saloon and Dining Room, and the Velvet Elvis Pizzeria — have been shuttered for weeks. The Wagon Wheel, which dates back to Patagonia’s rough-and-tumble past as a mining and cowboy town, serves take out (Leslie recommends the chicken chimichanga; my favorite is the tangy chicken chipotle). About a month ago, the town council passed a resolution mandating social distancing, among other things. Even when out of doors, no one is allowed to be within six feet of anyone else to whom they are no related. Violators, the ordinance states, will be warned by the town marshal (yes, we have a marshal, and he’s tall, like Matt Dillon in Gunsmoke) upon first offense; second offense carries a penalty of a $2,500 fine and up to six months in jail. I pointed out to my neighbor, a town councilman, that Patagonia doesn’t have a jail, has never had one, in fact. During its Old West days, drunks, rowdies, and other evildoers were chained to a large tree at the edge of town. Were I to get caught committing a second breach of the social distance law, I asked my neighbor, would I be chained to a tree for six months? He assured me I would not — I would be sent to the Santa Cruz County jail in Nogales, 18 miles to the south. From what I’ve heard about the county slammer, I think I’d take the tree.

For now, that’s the news from our high desert Woebegone.

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JOURNAL OF A PLAGUE YEAR #2

I have to begin with an apology and a correction. In my last post, I misreported the date of Karen Wessel Marcus’s death as Sunday, May 3. It was actually Monday, May 4. During this pandemic, the days have lost their distinctiveness. Half the time, I don’t know if its Monday or Thursday. At any rate, my apologies to Karen’s family and friends for the error.

I won’t be writing about death in every post, but I have to now; two other friends died the same week as Karen: Marian Wood, who bought and edited my first book, A Rumor of War, and helped make it a success; and Dennis Ginosi, an old colleague from the Chicago Tribune.

Although their passing occurred during this pandemic, neither was caused by the Corona virus. That’s academic, as they’re gone and I’ll miss them both. I’ll devote this post to Marian.

She was a brilliant editor and vivid personality, feisty, witty, opinionated, formidably smart. Dark-haired and about five feet eight inches tall, she threw off an aura of glamour  — not high society glamour, nor the glamour of New York’s lit-crit world, but a kind of intellectual glamor. Once, in circumstances I cannot precisely recall, she and I were listening to a symphony on a car radio. She identified its composer, its title, and the movement we were hearing at that moment. I was impressed. She said that she and her classmates at Barnard College and Columbia University, where she did her graduate work, used to hold classical music contests. They would play a segment from a piece; whoever could identify the symphony or concerto, the part that was being played, and its composer was the winner. That’s what Marian Wood was doing while my bozo buddies and I were driving around in American Graffiti cars, rockin’ out to Buddy Holly and Carl Perkins.

Marian was a 37-year-old senior editor at Holt, Rinehart & Winston (now Henry Holt) in 1975, when the unfinished manuscript for my Vietnam memoir, A Rumor of War, landed on her desk. She later confessed to me that it sat there, unread, for nearly a month. At the time, with American society as bitterly divided as it is now, the Vietnam War was toxic as a subject for literature. A writer would have had an easier time publishing a book full of explicit sex in Victorian England. Eventually, her conscience got the better of her. She read the partial MS, liked what she saw, and decided to take a risk. She gave me a modest advance ($6,000), and marching orders to finish the damn thing. When the book was published in 1977, she backed it with fire and passion. A lot of worthy books are published and disappear. A Rumor of War became a national best-seller and received universal rave reviews on its own merits, but it owed no small measure of its success to Marian’s excellent editing and her fervent support.

She and I remained a team for next eight or nine years, through the publishing of my first two novels. We had fun working together, playing together as well. We got drunk a couple of times, she wined and dined me at posh restaurants like (the now closed) Lutece. Looking back, I think I was a little bit in love with her; she might have felt the same toward me, which complicated our relationship — we were both married. I sound that intimate note because when we parted company in 1986, our professional divorce had the aspect of a bitter marital divorce. In time, we smoothed things over, metaphorically kissed and made up. Marian left Holt to start her own imprint, Marian Wood Books, at G.P. Putnam’s Sons, working with internationally acclaimed authors like Sue Grafton, Philip Kerr, and Hilary Mantel.

In her later years, she became something of a recluse, working out of her home on the North Fork of Long Island. We stayed in touch, off and on. She phoned me in 2008 with news that her husband, Tony Wood, had died. Gradually, however, “off and on” became more off than on. In late April, I had a dream about her, the details of which fled my mind as soon as I woke. But I had a feeling that I should call or write her and find out how she was faring in the pandemic. Less than a week later, I got an email from her niece, Nina Eigerman, telling me that Marian had stopped eating and appeared to be near death. The coincidence with my dream was eerie. She wasn’t afflicted with the Corona virus. Her condition, Nina went on, was one of general decline.

“She fell at home about a year ago, and could no longer manage the steep stairs in her Greenport home,” Nina wrote.  “I think she hated that.  And she took the deaths of some of her key authors, Philip Kerr and Sue Grafton, quite hard.  They also led to her being pushed out of Penguin, despite the success of Fowler’s last novel.  Without her work, and limited in her movements, I think she was a bit adrift.  Her circle got smaller and smaller, and I suspect it just didn’t seem worth it.”

Another email arrived on May 3, informing me that Marian had passed the previous night, age 82. Nina wrote that Marian had a copy of A Rumor of War at her side table. “I thought you would want to know that she kept it close until the end.”

I was touched, and I was heartbroken, picturing the young, vibrant, fiery woman I’d known going gently into that good night. 

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JOURNAL OF A PLAGUE YEAR #1

JOURNAL OF A PLAGUE YEAR

This will be the first of periodic blogs I plan to post during the pandemic of 2019-2020.

May 6, 2020 — Karen Wessel Marcus, my wife, Leslie’s, best friend since sixth grade, died of the Coronavirus Sunday night at 9:16 p.m. Eastern time. Her death came almost one month to the day after her 67th birthday. She’d been in the ICU ward of Lawrence hospital in Bronxville, NY, for more than two weeks, on a ventilator and in an induced coma. After many ups and downs, she underwent complete organ failure, and would have suffered a great deal if she’d miraculously survived. In the 55 years they’d known each other, Leslie and Karen were almost like sisters, yet without the petty annoyances and rivalries that sometimes arise between siblings. They shared everything, spoke to each other about virtually any subject without reservation. One aspect of their relationship I found charming was their habit of calling one another by their maiden last names, so Leslie was always “Ware” and Karen “Wessel.” I remember receiving a note from Karen shortly after I married Leslie in 1988. “Take care of our Ware,” she wrote on behalf of herself and her then-husband, Fraser Marcus.

Karen was a quirky woman with a sense of adventure, and she took a childlike delight in new experiences, such as the time we took her out star-gazing in the hills near our place in Arizona. She practically clapped when we showed her the Orion Nebula through our eight-inch telescope, and the Pleiades and celestial beacons like Sirius, Canopus, Arcturus. She’d lived in London for many years, and took her young son, Austin, trekking the Tunisian desert and checking out volcanoes in Iceland. Later on, divorced and back in the U.S., she got a notion to travel to places she and Austin had never seen. The destinations were not always exotic. Karen might say, “Let’s go to DesMoines! We’ve never been to DesMoines!” And then the two of them would board a plane for Iowa. I’d often wondered what Austin, by then in high school, told his classmates what he’d done on the weekend or on spring break. I went to DesMoines with my Mom?

Karen was kind and self-effacing, to the point that she’d referred to herself as “egoless.” My three granddaughters met her and liked her immediately when we journeyed to Nova Scotia, where Leslie’s extended family maintains a summer house. We sailed and canoed during the day and played pool or penny-ante poker at night. Karen was without fail delightful company.

About three weeks ago, Leslie and I were hiking in Arizona when Karen responded to a text from Leslie, who hadn’t heard back from her for awhile. Karen texted, “I’ve got the virus.” She had noticed the symptoms two weeks earlier but had not called a doctor, choosing instead to quarantine herself. She had told only her mother, brothers, and son. We were at a loss to explain this reticence, this extreme sense of privacy. Leslie tried to convince her friend to FaceTime with a doctor and get tested, but the advice wasn’t taken, and it was too late anyway. That night, unable to get out of bed, Karen called 911. An ambulance brought her to the hospital. Seventeen days later, Mark texted Leslie that her friend had passed. Leslie has been in tears, off and on, ever since, recalling a sisterhood that endured for more than half a century. In my mind, I multiply Leslie’s grief, and the grief of Karen’s family, by 72,271 — the number of U.S. deaths from Covid-19 as of Monday, May 4 — but no mathematics can communicate so much loss, so much sorrow.       

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JOURNAL OF A PLAGUE YEAR

JOURNAL OF A PLAGUE YEAR

This will be the first of periodic blogs I plan to post during the pandemic of 2019-2020.

May 6, 2020 — Karen Wessel Marcus, my wife, Leslie’s, best friend since sixth grade, died of the Coronavirus Sunday night at 9:16 p.m. Eastern time. Her death came almost one month to the day after her 67th birthday. She’d been in the ICU ward of Lawrence hospital in Bronxville, NY, for more than two weeks, on a ventilator and in an induced coma. After many ups and downs, she underwent complete organ failure, and would have suffered a great deal if she’d miraculously survived. In the 55 years they’d known each other, Leslie and Karen were almost like sisters, yet without the petty annoyances and rivalries that sometimes arise between siblings. They shared everything, spoke to each other about virtually any subject without reservation. One aspect of their relationship I found charming was their habit of calling one another by their maiden last names, so Leslie was always “Ware” and Karen “Wessel.” I remember receiving a note from Karen shortly after I married Leslie in 1988. “Take care of our Ware,” she wrote on behalf of herself and her then-husband, Fraser Marcus.

Karen was a quirky woman with a sense of adventure, and she took a childlike delight in new experiences, such as the time we took her out star-gazing in the hills near our place in Arizona. She practically clapped when we showed her the Orion Nebula through our eight-inch telescope, and the Pleiades and celestial beacons like Sirius, Canopus, Arcturus. She’d lived in London for many years, and took her young son, Austin, trekking the Tunisian desert and checking out volcanoes in Iceland. Later on, divorced and back in the U.S., she got a notion to travel to places she and Austin had never seen. The destinations were not always exotic. Karen might say, “Let’s go to DesMoines! We’ve never been to DesMoines!” And then the two of them would board a plane for Iowa. I’d often wondered what Austin, by then in high school, told his classmates what he’d done on the weekend or on spring break. I went to DesMoines with my Mom?

Karen was kind and self-effacing, to the point that she’d referred to herself as “egoless.” My three granddaughters met her and liked her immediately when we journeyed to Nova Scotia, where Leslie’s extended family maintains a summer house. We sailed and canoed during the day and played pool or penny-ante poker at night. Karen was without fail delightful company.

About three weeks ago, Leslie and I were hiking in Arizona when Karen responded to a text from Leslie, who hadn’t heard back from her for awhile. Karen texted, “I’ve got the virus.” She had noticed the symptoms two weeks earlier but had not called a doctor, choosing instead to quarantine herself. She had told only her mother, brothers, and son. We were at a loss to explain this reticence, this extreme sense of privacy. Leslie tried to convince her friend to FaceTime with a doctor and get tested, but the advice wasn’t taken, and it was too late anyway. That night, unable to get out of bed, Karen called 911. An ambulance brought her to the hospital. Seventeen days later, Mark texted Leslie that her friend had passed. Leslie has been in tears, off and on, ever since, recalling a sisterhood that endured for more than half a century. In my mind, I multiply Leslie’s grief, and the grief of Karen’s family, by 72,271 — the number of U.S. deaths from Covid-19 as of Monday, May 4 — but no mathematics can communicate so much loss, so much sorrow.       

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VIDEO INTERVIEWS: MY WRITING INSPIRATIONS, THE VIETNAM WAR, AND SERENDIPITY

Below is a video interview that I did at the Miami Book Fair in November 2019, following the launch of Hunter’s Moon. Raymond Elman interviewed me for the Miami arts e-magazine Inspicio, and Lee Skye and Rosy Ayala handled the taping and production.

They broke the longer interview into a series of short topics, ranging from my experiences with journalism and writing to looking back at my first book, Rumor of War, and the war that inspired it. Each segment runs between 30 seconds and 5 minutes. Click on any video to watch.

 

INTRODUCTION

 

INSIGHT & INSPIRATION: 2:37 min.

Q: “Can you tell us about Hunter’s Moon, your latest book?”

 

RESILIENCE: 3:35 min.

Q: “Your first book, A Rumor of War, was a landmark exposure of the Vietnam War for most people. What did it feel like to transition from being a gung ho marine to losing faith in the U.S. military command? And were you aware of the anti-war protest movement back home?”

 

SELF-CONFIDENCE: 3:14 min.

Q: “Where did you grow up, and when did you first believe that you could be a writer?”

 

CRITICAL THINKING: 1:41 min.

Q: “I consider journalism to be an art form, but journalists I talk with insist that they aren’t making art. What are your thoughts?”

 

SERENDIPITY: 3:10 min.

Q: “Is there anything you learned in school that helped shape your writing or gave you the confidence to start writing?”

 

SELF-CONFIDENCE: 2:30 min

Q: “What were you thinking, and feeling when you started to write your first novel? Are you a person who has great confidence that they can do anything?”

 

UNDERSTANDING THE BUSINESS OF ART: 2:03 min.

Q: “After “Rumor of War” became a runaway bestseller, did you feel like you had a safety net for the rest of your life?”

 

SERENDIPITY: 1:18 min.

Q: “What’s been the role of serendipity in your work?”

 

EMPATHY: 2:35 min.

Q: “Rumor of War” has so much authenticity. What was your reaction to the Vietnam War films “Platoon” and “Apocalypse Now”?

 

OVERCOMES CHALLENGES TO SUCCEED: 0:28 sec.

Q: “Do you still have dreams about Vietnam?”

 

CRITICAL THINKING: 0:50 sec.

Q: “If we knew then what we know now, would we have done anything different regarding the Vietnam War?”

 

These interviews originally appeared at “Philip Caputo: Author, Journalist, Vietnam Veteran”

http://inspicio.fiu.edu/interviews/philip-caputo/

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INTERVIEW ON AMERICA’S #1 TRAVEL SHOW

This link — https://rmworldtravel.com/podcasts/20... — will take you to RM World Travel, America’s number one travel show on radio. This broadcast, which aired March 28, is worth listening to in its entirety. Perhaps it will offer you an escape from the restrictions of social distancing and lockdowns, as well as relief from news about the Coruna virus pandemic. But if you don’t have two hours to spare, you can listen to Rudy Maxa’s 10-minute interview with me on Hour 2, Segments 3 and 4, beginning at 24:10 on the timer. The topic is my 2012 travel memoir, The Longest Road, describing a 4-month journey my wife, Leslie, and I took, towing a small Airstream trailer from Key West, Florida to Prudhoe Bay, Alaska. We sought from Americans of all walks of life an answer to the question, What holds such a large, diverse nation together? That’s as relevant today, in this age of bitter, partisan division, as it was eight years ago.

2020

 

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IMPERIAL COLLEGE REPORT ON COVID19

The web is full of misinformation about the Corona Virus, as it is about far too many things. Below is the link to an authoritative and thorough analysis completed by a team of epidemiologists and statisticians at the Imperial College in London. Their report was sent to the White House as well as to Whitehall, and was largely responsible for convincing the Trump administration that the Covid19 pandemic is extremely serious and not a hoax, a Democratic plot to make the president look bad, or merely a passing contagion easily contained. The report is 20 pages long and not an easy read, especially for a layman — I was up till midnight last night poring over it — but it’s the best thing I’ve seen yet on what strategies to employ in combatting the disease, and their likely outcome. Parts of it are alarming (e.g. if nothing were done and the virus allowed to run its course unimpeded, total deaths in the U.K. would rise to 510,000 and in the U.S. to 2.2 million!) but by and large it is a sober, clear-headed analysis.

Imperial-College-COVID19-NPI-modelling-16-03-2020

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KEEPING THINGS IN PERSPECTIVE

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