Beth Kephart's Blog, page 231

That rain you hear — that lightning and thunder?

It feels like this to me.The heatwave is gone.I shall think again, and write, and dance.

In which I finally get my hummingbird shot

It's not perfect. I wish it were sharper. National Geographic wouldn't be impressed.



But all summer long I've been trying to capture one of these dear little creatures on film.  I have let the tulip vine grow messy with the hope of a seduction.  I have not brought the glads inside for the same reason.



Hummingbirds are easy, my friend Mike once said.  But hummingbirds have eluded me. I have waited years.



I have a family now.  This one's mate was just a white glad down.

How do we spend our time: Around the World in One Day

I have been thinking about how people spend their time.  About what we do when heat overtakes us, or horrific news erupts, or dreams are crushed, or people disappoint us.  About how we show those we love that we do love them.  About how we make time's passing matter.  The other evening, while at dinner, my son was explaining what matters to him when choosing friends.  "I don't want to spend that much time with people who spend too much time judging other people," he said, naming a top criteria.  I thought about me:  Do I spend enough of my own time not judging?



During this past week of both celebrating birthdays and escaping heat, I have found myself at more restaurants than usual, watching those at neighboring tables spend the great portion of their time interacting alone with their own jewel-encrusted phones.  Three teen sisters never once spoke to one another.  They texted, the three of them alone on their phones, through the lemonade, the salads, and the shared dessert.



How do people spend their time? 



How is a day delivered and consumed by a gardener, say, in Dubai, or by a man who is in radiant love?  Yesterday, I read a story I encourage you to read about the making of a documentary film based entirely on YouTube footage.  The story, which appears in the July 24, 2011 New York Times Magazine, was written by Adam Sternbergh and is subtitled "How more than 80,000 videos and 4,500 hours of raw footage turned into one unexpectedly emotional 95-minute movie."  The film, produced by Ridley and Tony Scott, was edited by Joe Walker.  From the story:

"I noticed fairly early on that a lot of men with very good cameras were taking beautiful pictures of their very beautiful girlfriends backlit in parks," Walker says. So they tagged all those clips "My Beautiful Girlfriend" and built a montage out of them.  Other tags included "Ablutions" and "Footwork." "So many people shot their own feet walking, we could have made a continuous 12-hour film out of people walking," he said. "We could have made a film out of watermelons. We could have made a film entirely shot by women named Linda...."

Read the whole story.  Watch a few of the clips here.  And ask yourself what film you'd make about the life that you are living.

Harry Kyriakodis: Generous Historian

This morning I want to—absolutely need to—stop and thank Harry Kyriakodis—lawyer, librarian, historian, writer, tour creator and giver, and owner of what he estimates is "the largest private collection of books about the City of Brotherly Love."



I knew Harry's name (I suspect that all Philadelphians researching Philadelphia do).  I had received correspondence from him during my involvement with Sam Katz on Sam's film series, Philadelphia: The Great Experiment. But I wasn't so certain that Harry would relish an email during one of the hottest weekends on record from a certain writer of Philadelphia tales.  I mean, with his own book— Philadelphia's Lost Waterfront —just now launching and a series of new Harry tours planned, would Harry really have the time to respond?



Somehow, he found or made the time.  Into my inbox came aerial views and maps, archival photography, notes from tours that Harry has given, URLS that directed me to the very things that I was seeking.  It will take me days to fully absorb the wealth of what is here.  But it took me no time at all to recognize the supreme generosity of this man.



I've just ordered Harry's new book and I'm certain that it's going to teach me many things about that other river—the Delaware.  Here's how the book is described on Amazon:

The wharves and docks of William Penn's city that helped build a nation are gone--lost to the onslaught of more than three hundred years of development. Yet the bygone streets and piers of Philadelphia's central waterfront were once part of the greatest trade center in the American colonies. Local historian Harry Kyriakodis chronicles the history of the city's original port district, from Quaker settlers who first lived in caves along the Delaware and the devastating yellow fever epidemic of 1793 to its heyday as a maritime center and the twentieth century, which saw much of the historic riverfront razed. Join Kyriakodis as he strolls Front Street, Delaware Avenue and Penn's Landing to rediscover the story of Philadelphia's lost waterfront.



About the Author

Harry Kyriakodis is a staff attorney for the American Law Institute and ALI-ABA Continuing Professional Education. He is a producer of teleseminars for ALI-ABA and has been the librarian for both organizations since 1992. A historian and writer about Philadelphia, Harry has collected what is likely the largest private collection of books about the City of Brotherly Love: about two thousand titles, new and old. He is a founding/certified member of the Association of Philadelphia Tour Guides and has lived at Pier 3 Condominium at Penn's Landing since 1997, when and where his fascination with Philadelphia's waterfront district began. Harry regularly gives walking tours and presentations on this and other unique yet unappreciated parts of the city for various groups. He is a graduate of La Salle University (1986) and Temple University School of Law (1993) and was once an officer in the U.S. Army Field Artillery.

Harry, I am grateful.  Like my dear friend Adam Levine, who taught me so much about my river, the Schuylkill, you haven't simply accumulated a wealth of knowledge.  You have made it your business to share it. 

At the Historical Society of Pennsylvania

I spent the swelter of yesterday at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania—reeling through old Philadelphia newspapers, studying the 1860 Smedley's Atlas, reading the tiniest guidebook I've ever seen (it fit in the palm of my hand, had been produced for the representatives of a 19th century pharmaceutical conference), and finding (miraculously!) precisely what I'd come for.  Some of this was sheer good fortune.  Some (Smedley's Atlas) came at the suggestion of the extraordinarily knowledgeable people who staff HSP.  I am grateful.



A day of research is a gift.  It opens a story out and forward. 

Lostness to Foundness, or how I write, at first

For two months, I allowed myself to grow lost inside the Dangerous Neighbors prequel that I'm writing. Let the research take me where it would, let myself obsess over William and his troubles, took up residence with secondary characters, old machines, hominy men.  You can't write a book if you can't get lost, and a book won't breathe—can't breathe—until you've followed loose ends, unraveled tangents, stayed the purposeful course of not precisely knowing.  You have to write what you won't keep to find what is worth keeping.  Lostness is foundness, in writing. 



It wasn't until today, then, that I printed the 50 pages I have written and sat down with them in a fan-assisted room (oh, this weather).  I was surprised by what I had.  I was intrigued by what was missing.  And I knew, sure as I know anything about tensions and rhythms and novelistic pacing, that a big event was needed, round about page 24. 



"What are you working on?" my son asked, about two hours in.



"Listen to this?" I asked him.  He sat near the fan and I read.



"Very interesting," he said, when I was done.  The arch in his eyebrow was lifted higher.  "Going to be a good one."

A wholehearted (unpaid!) endorsement for Blurb.com

This is a brief, unpaid endorsement for Blurb.com, an internet service that has made me happy throughout the creation of Fragment to Whole, a collection of my University of Pennsylvania student's finest work; Berlin (you can view that photo album, which my husband designed based on our collective photos of Berlin, here), and The London Diaries, a 40-page collection of emails and photographs that our son sent home during his six weeks abroad. 



I have no ulterior motives in telling you this (trust me). It's just that I can never help myself when I find something I love—a person, a book, a movie, a dish, a place, a face, a garden.  Here, then, is something I add to the list—Blurb, where you can make your own books and keep your memories safe.

Faces and Fiction

Sometimes I'll be hurrying through my file of photographs in search of one thing and come upon a forgotten other.  That just happened here.  I took this photograph a few years ago during a city dance competition.  I loved everything the young man's expression had to say.  No portrait had been planned, and yet a portrait had been taken.



I was lucky that way with my research today.  My imagination failed me, so I turned to old newspaper stories, circa 1871.  Today the truth was bigger and more shocking and more rife with possibilities than that which I'd been conjuring in the sullen heat with my eyes half closed.  I'm glad I remembered to think and seek beyond myself.



Finally and most importantly:  Yesterday we celebrated my son's birthday.  Today we celebrate my husband's.  My room is a mess with the remnants of gifts given.  Now out to a restaurant for dinner.

Intense, Other-Oriented, Keen

Toward the close of my session with Joan Kaywell's truly welcoming and intelligent University of South Florida class of teachers and writers, Joan asked me how I would describe myself.  Edit yourself into just three words, she said. 



I am, of course, incapable of brevity and so went on about vulnerability and a quest for beauty.  Joan let me stumble about for a bit before she disclosed the words she would attach to me:  Intense, Other-Oriented, and Keen.



When a certain lovely gift arrived from Joan two days ago, there those words were again, as an AKA.  I think Joan probably knows me better than I know myself.



Thank you, Joan.

The YOU ARE MY ONLY Q and A/Pre-Launch Guide

I have been so grateful to those of you who have written to me about YOU ARE MY ONLY.  You do this author's heart a whole lot of good.



It occurred to me that it might be helpful to answer some questions in a broader format, and so I have prepared this new permanent page for the blog, featuring a Q and A, a list of upcoming appearances, a glimpse of an early review, and contact information.



It can all be found here.