Chris Bohjalian's Blog, page 24
May 26, 2013
The medals have finally come home
U.S. Army private Corrado Piccoli was killed in France in the summer of 1944. This is, in most ways, a very old story – 69 years old, to be precise. Moreover, Piccoli was only one of the tens of thousands of Americans killed in battle that season. Posthumously, he was awarded the Purple Heart.
And yet his story is newsworthy now. Why? Because of that medal – and because of the efforts of Georgia, Vermont’s Zachariah Fike, a captain in the Vermont Army National Guard. Piccoli’s Purple Heart was the first of 60 that Fike has rescued from pawnshops, antique stores, and online auctions and returned to the recipients’ families. He is in the process of finding the rightful owners of 180 more.
“People sometimes think it’s a scam and I want money when I first track down a family,” Fike told me over coffee at Muddy Waters on Main Street in Burlington, Vermont. “But it’s the right thing to do. I consider myself a compatriot. As Americans, we owe these people so much.” To find Piccoli’s family demanded serious detective work: A trip to Watertown, New York. and the high school there. Unearthing a 1941 high school yearbook. Finding the soldier’s grave in the cemetery. An Internet search for family members. Finally he was able to return Piccoli’s medal to Adeline Rockko, now 86 years old, and today the medal is displayed at the Italian American Civic Association in Watertown, New York.
Fike, 32, is a Purple Heart recipient himself. He’s a self-described army brat, born in Germany to a pair of Army drill sergeants. (His mother, he says, was among the first female drill sergeants.) In the small hours of the morning on September 11, 2010, he was wounded in a Katyusha rocket attack at Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan.
Without exception, the families have been profoundly grateful to have the lost medals returned. Fike shared with me an example of how these precious mementoes are lost – and found:
“A married couple in Pennsylvania is exercising on their community track, and as the husband bends down to tie his shoe, he sees a Purple Heart in the snow. The owner had given the medal to his granddaughter, before dying in 2009. The granddaughter carried it with her in her pocketbook. But then her car is broken into and her purse is stolen. When the thieves were emptying the purse, they threw the medal away.”
Whenever Fike comes across a Purple Heart on ebay or in a pawnshop, he buys it with his own money. Before returning it to the family – often in a ceremony with the family and a local chapter of the Military Order of the Purple Heart – he pays to have it mounted and framed. He covers his own travel to wherever the family lives: “We try to honor and symbolize who the soldier was – to celebrate the sacrifice and what he meant to his country.”
To fund his efforts, he has now started a non-profit organization called “Purple Hearts Reunited.”
“I knew this was my calling as soon as I got started,” he said. “It’s my mission in life. I’m giving these families a ceremony that is meaningful and joyful, and they will always have that memory.”
And, of course, they will also have the medal.
Tomorrow is Memorial Day – a day in which we remember our veterans who have died. It’s a tradition that dates back, at the very least, to 1868. Thanks to Fike, now soldiers such as Corrado Piccoli are not merely remembered: Their legacies have been linked with their sacrifice. The medals have come home.
* * *
To learn more about Fike’s project to return Purple Hearts to their owners or families, visit www.purpleheartsreunited.org .
The column appeared originally in the Burlington Free Press on May 26, 2013.
Chris's new novel, "The Light in the Ruins," arrives in six weeks now.
And yet his story is newsworthy now. Why? Because of that medal – and because of the efforts of Georgia, Vermont’s Zachariah Fike, a captain in the Vermont Army National Guard. Piccoli’s Purple Heart was the first of 60 that Fike has rescued from pawnshops, antique stores, and online auctions and returned to the recipients’ families. He is in the process of finding the rightful owners of 180 more.
“People sometimes think it’s a scam and I want money when I first track down a family,” Fike told me over coffee at Muddy Waters on Main Street in Burlington, Vermont. “But it’s the right thing to do. I consider myself a compatriot. As Americans, we owe these people so much.” To find Piccoli’s family demanded serious detective work: A trip to Watertown, New York. and the high school there. Unearthing a 1941 high school yearbook. Finding the soldier’s grave in the cemetery. An Internet search for family members. Finally he was able to return Piccoli’s medal to Adeline Rockko, now 86 years old, and today the medal is displayed at the Italian American Civic Association in Watertown, New York.
Fike, 32, is a Purple Heart recipient himself. He’s a self-described army brat, born in Germany to a pair of Army drill sergeants. (His mother, he says, was among the first female drill sergeants.) In the small hours of the morning on September 11, 2010, he was wounded in a Katyusha rocket attack at Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan.
Without exception, the families have been profoundly grateful to have the lost medals returned. Fike shared with me an example of how these precious mementoes are lost – and found:
“A married couple in Pennsylvania is exercising on their community track, and as the husband bends down to tie his shoe, he sees a Purple Heart in the snow. The owner had given the medal to his granddaughter, before dying in 2009. The granddaughter carried it with her in her pocketbook. But then her car is broken into and her purse is stolen. When the thieves were emptying the purse, they threw the medal away.”
Whenever Fike comes across a Purple Heart on ebay or in a pawnshop, he buys it with his own money. Before returning it to the family – often in a ceremony with the family and a local chapter of the Military Order of the Purple Heart – he pays to have it mounted and framed. He covers his own travel to wherever the family lives: “We try to honor and symbolize who the soldier was – to celebrate the sacrifice and what he meant to his country.”
To fund his efforts, he has now started a non-profit organization called “Purple Hearts Reunited.”
“I knew this was my calling as soon as I got started,” he said. “It’s my mission in life. I’m giving these families a ceremony that is meaningful and joyful, and they will always have that memory.”
And, of course, they will also have the medal.
Tomorrow is Memorial Day – a day in which we remember our veterans who have died. It’s a tradition that dates back, at the very least, to 1868. Thanks to Fike, now soldiers such as Corrado Piccoli are not merely remembered: Their legacies have been linked with their sacrifice. The medals have come home.
* * *
To learn more about Fike’s project to return Purple Hearts to their owners or families, visit www.purpleheartsreunited.org .
The column appeared originally in the Burlington Free Press on May 26, 2013.
Chris's new novel, "The Light in the Ruins," arrives in six weeks now.
May 20, 2013
Hollywood's blockbuster season is here: Duck.
It was over thirty years ago that the Hollywood Blockbuster Season gave us “Odorama.” Yup, 1981’s version of 3-D was a scratch and sniff card with numbered aromas. When a number flashed on the screen, we in the audience would scratch. It was a John Waters gimmick for his film, “Polyester,” which has been used only sparingly since. I saw the film, but all I recall are the ovals on the scratch and sniff card – and one “aroma:” stinky shoes.
We are now once more in the midst of the Hollywood Blockbuster Season, which is kind of like hurricane season except all of the mayhem is digitally rendered and the only casualty is the nation’s collective hearing. I shudder when I think of how many hearing hair cells in my ears have been pummeled by Cineplex explosions, engines, and screams. As a middle-aged man, I may actually have more hair in my ears than I have hair cells. It makes a guy miss “Odorama.”
Nevertheless, I like this season. I really do. When it comes to movies, I have the emotional depth of a thirteen-year-old. A new Batman movie? I’m there. A new Jackass movie? My wife and I are there together. (Diligent readers will recall that my wife and I did not merely stand in line for a recent Jackass film, we were among the first in line on opening night. We were also – by far – the oldest people there. When it comes to movies, apparently neither of us has a whole lot of pride.)
These days a summer blockbuster is likely to come at us – quite literally – in 3-D. We have the technology and so we use it. Baz Luhrmann’s 3-D “The Great Gatsby” opened earlier this month. J.J. Abrams’s 3-D “Star Trek into Darkness” opened this weekend.
Historically, this has been the case with most technologies: When we can do it, we will do it. Among the rare cases when we have not leveraged an invention are the nuclear bomb – at least so far, thank heavens – and supersonic passenger flight. The Concorde allowed people to fly between North America and Europe in less than half the time that it took a traditional passenger jet, but in its nearly three decades of operation, there were relatively few takers. Saving a few hours wasn’t worth the extra cost.
But filmmakers are using 3-D a lot, especially for the movies that premiere in the summer. As anyone who has seen Luhrmann’s 3-D “Gatsby” knows, we don’t merely don the plastic glasses now for the likes of Iron Man, Superman, and Thor. We don them for James Gatz and Daisy Buchanan. Meanwhile, consumers are starting to spend serious scratch to bring 3-D TVs and home theatres into their living rooms.
And while 3-D is not a bad thing and it’s certainly not a gimmick thing, I wonder if it is quite so necessary. Is it as critical a cinematic breakthrough as sound – as talking pictures? As replacing black and white film with color film? As, for that matter, transitioning from film to digital technologies? To computer generated imagery and special effects?
The short answer? No. The truth is, we had 3-D in the 1950s. Who could possibly forget the 1953 3-D science fiction classic, “Robot Monster?” Okay, that’s a bad example. But you see my point. And while 3-D is better now and has the benefits of being married to CGI technology, I’m still not sure it’s essential for most movies. My favorite moment in Luhrmann’s “Gatsby” was that riveting, climactic scene toward the end when Daisy must choose between her husband and her lover. And that was all about writing and screenwriting and acting and directing.
Am I a dinosaur? Maybe. But I don’t think so. I just prefer my 3-D to be in the service of the Starship Enterprise.
(This article appeared originally in the Burlington Free Press on May 19, 2013. Chris’s new novel, The Light in the Ruins, arrives on July 8.)
We are now once more in the midst of the Hollywood Blockbuster Season, which is kind of like hurricane season except all of the mayhem is digitally rendered and the only casualty is the nation’s collective hearing. I shudder when I think of how many hearing hair cells in my ears have been pummeled by Cineplex explosions, engines, and screams. As a middle-aged man, I may actually have more hair in my ears than I have hair cells. It makes a guy miss “Odorama.”
Nevertheless, I like this season. I really do. When it comes to movies, I have the emotional depth of a thirteen-year-old. A new Batman movie? I’m there. A new Jackass movie? My wife and I are there together. (Diligent readers will recall that my wife and I did not merely stand in line for a recent Jackass film, we were among the first in line on opening night. We were also – by far – the oldest people there. When it comes to movies, apparently neither of us has a whole lot of pride.)
These days a summer blockbuster is likely to come at us – quite literally – in 3-D. We have the technology and so we use it. Baz Luhrmann’s 3-D “The Great Gatsby” opened earlier this month. J.J. Abrams’s 3-D “Star Trek into Darkness” opened this weekend.
Historically, this has been the case with most technologies: When we can do it, we will do it. Among the rare cases when we have not leveraged an invention are the nuclear bomb – at least so far, thank heavens – and supersonic passenger flight. The Concorde allowed people to fly between North America and Europe in less than half the time that it took a traditional passenger jet, but in its nearly three decades of operation, there were relatively few takers. Saving a few hours wasn’t worth the extra cost.
But filmmakers are using 3-D a lot, especially for the movies that premiere in the summer. As anyone who has seen Luhrmann’s 3-D “Gatsby” knows, we don’t merely don the plastic glasses now for the likes of Iron Man, Superman, and Thor. We don them for James Gatz and Daisy Buchanan. Meanwhile, consumers are starting to spend serious scratch to bring 3-D TVs and home theatres into their living rooms.
And while 3-D is not a bad thing and it’s certainly not a gimmick thing, I wonder if it is quite so necessary. Is it as critical a cinematic breakthrough as sound – as talking pictures? As replacing black and white film with color film? As, for that matter, transitioning from film to digital technologies? To computer generated imagery and special effects?
The short answer? No. The truth is, we had 3-D in the 1950s. Who could possibly forget the 1953 3-D science fiction classic, “Robot Monster?” Okay, that’s a bad example. But you see my point. And while 3-D is better now and has the benefits of being married to CGI technology, I’m still not sure it’s essential for most movies. My favorite moment in Luhrmann’s “Gatsby” was that riveting, climactic scene toward the end when Daisy must choose between her husband and her lover. And that was all about writing and screenwriting and acting and directing.
Am I a dinosaur? Maybe. But I don’t think so. I just prefer my 3-D to be in the service of the Starship Enterprise.
(This article appeared originally in the Burlington Free Press on May 19, 2013. Chris’s new novel, The Light in the Ruins, arrives on July 8.)
May 12, 2013
Mother-s Day -- by the book
If you are a little boy and want to test your mother’s love, color in the leaves on the dust jacket of her first edition of Harper Lee’s novel, “To Kill a Mockingbird.” Or draw the Starship Enterprise and a Klingon battle cruiser in the sky on her first edition of Ernest Hemingway’s “The Old Man and the Sea.” I did both.
In all fairness, I’m not sure my mother viewed either book as an “investment.” They just happened to be first editions because my mother was a voracious reader and bought both novels soon after they were published. Nevertheless, she made it clear when I shared my work with her that she would prefer that I didn’t use book covers as coloring books in the future.
She had, in hindsight, a pretty impressive library, and when I was a boy the books sat in long rows of floor-to-ceiling bookcases that one of my father’s best friends, Bob George, built against the dark wood paneling of our family room. And it was a pretty eclectic collection: Alongside the Saul Bellows and the Philip Roths, there was a lot of stuff that was seriously steamy. We’re not talking handcuffs-on-the-cover steamy, but plenty of passages that I couldn’t wait to share with my friends. Exhibit A? Xavier Hollander’s “The Happy Hooker.” Exhibit B? Mario Puzo’s “The Godfather.”
I’ve thought a lot about my mother’s library lately, and not merely because today is Mother’s Day. My most recent novel channels select moments from my childhood, and as I have talked about the book on the road, I’ve found myself flashing back to my boyhood – and, in some ways, why I write books for a living in the first place. My father always believed that my mother was instrumental in my becoming a writer, if only because she was always reading and sharing her love of fiction with me.
But here is one footnote that I never really focused on until this spring: The way it was my blond, blue-eyed Swedish mother – not my Armenian father – who helped connect me to my Armenian literary ancestry. Over the years, she bought me a lot of books, but among them were three that I recall instantly: “My Name is Aram,” Pulitzer Prize-winning writer William Saroyan’s tales of growing up amidst the Armenian community of Fresno, California; “The Forty Days of Musa Dagh,” Franz Werfel’s magisterial epic of the 4,000 Armenians who held off the Turkish Army in the first summer of the Armenian Genocide; and Michael Arlen’s memoir of his reconnection with his Armenian heritage, “Passage to Ararat” – a winner of the National Book Award.
My mother died when I was a much younger man and struggling sometimes mightily and sometimes pathetically to carve out a career as a writer. Given that she was a pretty astute reader, she must have realized that my earliest books were utter train wrecks. Even a mother’s love couldn’t have made her blind to the disaster that was my “apprentice” work. Here is the first sentence from my first published novel: “Lisa Stone slept curled in a ball, a grown woman rolled on her side into a croissant.”
But she kept giving me books. Certainly part of the reason was simply that we both loved to read. But she also knew that I loved to write. Looking back, my sense is that many of the books she gave me were presents born somewhere in that foggy intersection between inspiration and hope. They were a mother’s love made manifest in pulp and ink and glue.
Which is, of course, one of the many things that good mothers do. They prod and they pray and they hope. They are encouraging; they are the last to give up. I had one of those moms. My daughter does now.
Happy Mother’s Day.
(This column appeared originally in the Burlington Free Press on May 12, 2013. Chris’s new novel, “The Light in the Ruins,” arrives in less than two months now.)
In all fairness, I’m not sure my mother viewed either book as an “investment.” They just happened to be first editions because my mother was a voracious reader and bought both novels soon after they were published. Nevertheless, she made it clear when I shared my work with her that she would prefer that I didn’t use book covers as coloring books in the future.
She had, in hindsight, a pretty impressive library, and when I was a boy the books sat in long rows of floor-to-ceiling bookcases that one of my father’s best friends, Bob George, built against the dark wood paneling of our family room. And it was a pretty eclectic collection: Alongside the Saul Bellows and the Philip Roths, there was a lot of stuff that was seriously steamy. We’re not talking handcuffs-on-the-cover steamy, but plenty of passages that I couldn’t wait to share with my friends. Exhibit A? Xavier Hollander’s “The Happy Hooker.” Exhibit B? Mario Puzo’s “The Godfather.”
I’ve thought a lot about my mother’s library lately, and not merely because today is Mother’s Day. My most recent novel channels select moments from my childhood, and as I have talked about the book on the road, I’ve found myself flashing back to my boyhood – and, in some ways, why I write books for a living in the first place. My father always believed that my mother was instrumental in my becoming a writer, if only because she was always reading and sharing her love of fiction with me.
But here is one footnote that I never really focused on until this spring: The way it was my blond, blue-eyed Swedish mother – not my Armenian father – who helped connect me to my Armenian literary ancestry. Over the years, she bought me a lot of books, but among them were three that I recall instantly: “My Name is Aram,” Pulitzer Prize-winning writer William Saroyan’s tales of growing up amidst the Armenian community of Fresno, California; “The Forty Days of Musa Dagh,” Franz Werfel’s magisterial epic of the 4,000 Armenians who held off the Turkish Army in the first summer of the Armenian Genocide; and Michael Arlen’s memoir of his reconnection with his Armenian heritage, “Passage to Ararat” – a winner of the National Book Award.
My mother died when I was a much younger man and struggling sometimes mightily and sometimes pathetically to carve out a career as a writer. Given that she was a pretty astute reader, she must have realized that my earliest books were utter train wrecks. Even a mother’s love couldn’t have made her blind to the disaster that was my “apprentice” work. Here is the first sentence from my first published novel: “Lisa Stone slept curled in a ball, a grown woman rolled on her side into a croissant.”
But she kept giving me books. Certainly part of the reason was simply that we both loved to read. But she also knew that I loved to write. Looking back, my sense is that many of the books she gave me were presents born somewhere in that foggy intersection between inspiration and hope. They were a mother’s love made manifest in pulp and ink and glue.
Which is, of course, one of the many things that good mothers do. They prod and they pray and they hope. They are encouraging; they are the last to give up. I had one of those moms. My daughter does now.
Happy Mother’s Day.
(This column appeared originally in the Burlington Free Press on May 12, 2013. Chris’s new novel, “The Light in the Ruins,” arrives in less than two months now.)
May 5, 2013
Hope springs eternal: Play ball!
You might not know it from what I share in this column, but I played some pretty serious football and baseball as a boy.
First of all, I was on the same high school football team – the illustrious Bronxville Broncos of Westchester County, N.Y. – as Roger Goodell. Yup, that Roger Goodell. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell. The only difference between us was that he starred at tight end and it was going to take a bus accident in which two-thirds of the team broke their legs for me ever to play in a game. The one time my name appeared in any newspaper in the context of football was when our field goal kicker and I had to swap jerseys so he could play cornerback that afternoon. He happened to kick a winning field goal that day that was, by high school standards, spectacularly long. I got the credit in a newspaper story and, yes, felt pretty horrible. In any case, I was on Roger’s team.
And one year when I was a Little League baseball pitcher, I made the All Star team. Not kidding. I started the All Star game and gave up, I believe, a thousand runs. Okay, maybe not a thousand. But a lot. It might have been as many as eighteen. My strength as a pitcher was pinpoint control, which is indeed rare in Little League. I didn’t walk a lot of people. Unfortunately, my fastball topped out at about ten miles an hour. Umpires and batters alike would doze off waiting for the ball to travel from the pitcher’s mound to home plate. During that All Star game, my control eluded me. The game might still be going on if the coach hadn’t finally given me the hook.
I mention this because Little League baseball is back. I live no more than 150 yards from the baseball field here in Lincoln, Vermont, and while I don’t watch a lot of games, every season I will watch a few. Eight years ago, when my daughter was still in the Lincoln Elementary School, I knew who most of the ballplayers were. Now I haven’t a clue.
Of course, when I would watch an occasional game two decades ago, before my daughter was born, I didn’t know the names of most of the ballplayers either. Neither did Ken Lougee. Who was Ken Lougee? Ken was a neighbor here in Lincoln, a much older fellow who passed away years and years ago. But when Ken was an old man and I was a young man, sometimes we would watch the games together and talk about baseball and, yes, the meaning of life. Neither of us had an answer, but it didn’t matter because part of the meaning of life is simple human connection. He would carry his aluminum lawn chair with the nylon webbing to the grass on the small hill on the third base side of the diamond, and there we would discuss how we had come to Lincoln and the state of the world. Ken was smart and funny and kind. Our conversations would be interrupted – as are all conversations at a Little League game – by the metallic ping of baseball and bat, and we would stop in mid-sentence to watch what was transpiring on the field.
Which brings me back to my own career as a pitcher. Perhaps my favorite memory of my years on the mound is this. It is late on a Saturday morning and the game is perhaps half over. Between batters, I gaze into the small bleachers along the third base side and I’m surprised because there is my father. He had been on a business trip and wasn’t due home until much later that day. But he has, I realize, caught an earlier flight. And there he is, watching.
“Baseball is continuous,” poet Donald Hall has reminded us, “like nothing else among American things, an endless game of repeated summers, joining the long generations of all the fathers and all the sons.”
Maybe that’s why I watch. Maybe that’s why Ken and I used to watch together.
It’s that time of the year. Suddenly it’s spring, even here in Vermont.
(This column appeared originally in the Burlington Free Press. Chris’s new novel, “The Light in the Ruins,” arrives in two months.)
First of all, I was on the same high school football team – the illustrious Bronxville Broncos of Westchester County, N.Y. – as Roger Goodell. Yup, that Roger Goodell. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell. The only difference between us was that he starred at tight end and it was going to take a bus accident in which two-thirds of the team broke their legs for me ever to play in a game. The one time my name appeared in any newspaper in the context of football was when our field goal kicker and I had to swap jerseys so he could play cornerback that afternoon. He happened to kick a winning field goal that day that was, by high school standards, spectacularly long. I got the credit in a newspaper story and, yes, felt pretty horrible. In any case, I was on Roger’s team.
And one year when I was a Little League baseball pitcher, I made the All Star team. Not kidding. I started the All Star game and gave up, I believe, a thousand runs. Okay, maybe not a thousand. But a lot. It might have been as many as eighteen. My strength as a pitcher was pinpoint control, which is indeed rare in Little League. I didn’t walk a lot of people. Unfortunately, my fastball topped out at about ten miles an hour. Umpires and batters alike would doze off waiting for the ball to travel from the pitcher’s mound to home plate. During that All Star game, my control eluded me. The game might still be going on if the coach hadn’t finally given me the hook.
I mention this because Little League baseball is back. I live no more than 150 yards from the baseball field here in Lincoln, Vermont, and while I don’t watch a lot of games, every season I will watch a few. Eight years ago, when my daughter was still in the Lincoln Elementary School, I knew who most of the ballplayers were. Now I haven’t a clue.
Of course, when I would watch an occasional game two decades ago, before my daughter was born, I didn’t know the names of most of the ballplayers either. Neither did Ken Lougee. Who was Ken Lougee? Ken was a neighbor here in Lincoln, a much older fellow who passed away years and years ago. But when Ken was an old man and I was a young man, sometimes we would watch the games together and talk about baseball and, yes, the meaning of life. Neither of us had an answer, but it didn’t matter because part of the meaning of life is simple human connection. He would carry his aluminum lawn chair with the nylon webbing to the grass on the small hill on the third base side of the diamond, and there we would discuss how we had come to Lincoln and the state of the world. Ken was smart and funny and kind. Our conversations would be interrupted – as are all conversations at a Little League game – by the metallic ping of baseball and bat, and we would stop in mid-sentence to watch what was transpiring on the field.
Which brings me back to my own career as a pitcher. Perhaps my favorite memory of my years on the mound is this. It is late on a Saturday morning and the game is perhaps half over. Between batters, I gaze into the small bleachers along the third base side and I’m surprised because there is my father. He had been on a business trip and wasn’t due home until much later that day. But he has, I realize, caught an earlier flight. And there he is, watching.
“Baseball is continuous,” poet Donald Hall has reminded us, “like nothing else among American things, an endless game of repeated summers, joining the long generations of all the fathers and all the sons.”
Maybe that’s why I watch. Maybe that’s why Ken and I used to watch together.
It’s that time of the year. Suddenly it’s spring, even here in Vermont.
(This column appeared originally in the Burlington Free Press. Chris’s new novel, “The Light in the Ruins,” arrives in two months.)
April 28, 2013
What it means to be Boston Strong
It has been almost two weeks now since the Boston Marathon ended in a nightmarish terrorist attack; it has been nine days since Boston was paralyzed by a manhunt and Watertown was a battleground. The news cycles are moving on.
But among the elements of the story that will stay with me a long time is this: The reaction of my good friend, Khatchig Mouradian. Khatchig lives in Watertown and the firefight between Tamerlan and Dzhokar Tsarnaev and the Boston police occurred in his neighborhood. When I woke up that Friday morning, April 19, and saw Watertown was in the news, I texted him to make sure he was safe. His response? “I just gave an interview to a newspaper in Turkey. I said I’m so used to explosions that I slept through them.”
Khatchig grew up in Beirut during that country’s cataclysmic civil war. He spent so many nights in bomb shelters teaching his younger sisters to play chess – taking their mind off the reality that their home was, once again, being shelled – that both girls would grow into Lebanese chess champions and win numerous regional and international tournaments.
Likewise, there are my friends from Israel who, at different points in their lives, knew that any moment a bus might burst into flames or a missile might explode in the street.
Obviously our country is not exempt from terror. At different times in the past two decades, we have been targeted by foreigners and by our own citizens. We all know the worst examples of each: The attack on the World Trade Center in Manhattan on the one hand, and the bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, on the other.
And we will be attacked again. The FBI and the Department of Homeland Security may unravel and stop a thousand schemes, but eventually they will miss one – as they did with the brothers Tsarnaev. This is not a criticism of either organization; it’s only an acknowledgment that perfection is impossible in this game. We’re not talking nine innings; we’re talking every single day of every single year. And this is a very violent world.
But we don’t live under the shadow of terrorism the way some parts of the world do. We don’t for two reasons: First of all, because even though perfection is impossible, we come impressively close. Second, because even though we know the violently alienated are out there, we don’t let them win. We go about our lives.
Sometimes, I’m frustrated with our country. Most recently I was aggravated when we failed to achieve meaningful gun control, despite the horrific slaughter at an elementary school in Connecticut last December. But more times than not I am proud of who we are and what we accomplish. The heroism of the runners and doctors and first responders that followed the Boston Marathon bombing is another legacy to that tragic moment in our history. So was the work of our law enforcement officials. The spirit of Boston in the days after the attack has left me moved and inspired.
Which brings me back to my friend in Watertown. Khatchig is the editor of “The Armenian Weekly” and a genocide scholar. If anyone understands the historical context of violence and terror, it’s a genocide scholar. If anyone understands a world where people detonate bombs designed to kill innocent people, it’s a fellow who grew up in Beirut. He also happens to be one of the smartest people I know. This was his response when I asked him what it felt like to witness the sort of violence he knew from his childhood and young adulthood in Lebanon occur in his neighborhood in Massachusetts:
“It is when hatred and violence strike close to home – whether home is Beirut or Watertown – that our true commitment to the values and principles on which we pride ourselves is tested. Terror is defeated by upholding those principles – across the board and all the time – and not by renouncing them with the excuse of making home a safer place. That, for me, is homeland security.”
It will be long after the news cycles have moved on that we have fully regained our equilibrium. In the meantime, I will take pride in the people of eastern Massachusetts, and comfort in the courageous way they have, pure and simple, gone on living. That’s what it means to win. That’s what it means to be Boston Strong.
(This column appeared originally in the Burlington Free Press on April 28, 2013. Chris’s new novel, “The Light in the Ruins,” arrives on July 9.)
But among the elements of the story that will stay with me a long time is this: The reaction of my good friend, Khatchig Mouradian. Khatchig lives in Watertown and the firefight between Tamerlan and Dzhokar Tsarnaev and the Boston police occurred in his neighborhood. When I woke up that Friday morning, April 19, and saw Watertown was in the news, I texted him to make sure he was safe. His response? “I just gave an interview to a newspaper in Turkey. I said I’m so used to explosions that I slept through them.”
Khatchig grew up in Beirut during that country’s cataclysmic civil war. He spent so many nights in bomb shelters teaching his younger sisters to play chess – taking their mind off the reality that their home was, once again, being shelled – that both girls would grow into Lebanese chess champions and win numerous regional and international tournaments.
Likewise, there are my friends from Israel who, at different points in their lives, knew that any moment a bus might burst into flames or a missile might explode in the street.
Obviously our country is not exempt from terror. At different times in the past two decades, we have been targeted by foreigners and by our own citizens. We all know the worst examples of each: The attack on the World Trade Center in Manhattan on the one hand, and the bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, on the other.
And we will be attacked again. The FBI and the Department of Homeland Security may unravel and stop a thousand schemes, but eventually they will miss one – as they did with the brothers Tsarnaev. This is not a criticism of either organization; it’s only an acknowledgment that perfection is impossible in this game. We’re not talking nine innings; we’re talking every single day of every single year. And this is a very violent world.
But we don’t live under the shadow of terrorism the way some parts of the world do. We don’t for two reasons: First of all, because even though perfection is impossible, we come impressively close. Second, because even though we know the violently alienated are out there, we don’t let them win. We go about our lives.
Sometimes, I’m frustrated with our country. Most recently I was aggravated when we failed to achieve meaningful gun control, despite the horrific slaughter at an elementary school in Connecticut last December. But more times than not I am proud of who we are and what we accomplish. The heroism of the runners and doctors and first responders that followed the Boston Marathon bombing is another legacy to that tragic moment in our history. So was the work of our law enforcement officials. The spirit of Boston in the days after the attack has left me moved and inspired.
Which brings me back to my friend in Watertown. Khatchig is the editor of “The Armenian Weekly” and a genocide scholar. If anyone understands the historical context of violence and terror, it’s a genocide scholar. If anyone understands a world where people detonate bombs designed to kill innocent people, it’s a fellow who grew up in Beirut. He also happens to be one of the smartest people I know. This was his response when I asked him what it felt like to witness the sort of violence he knew from his childhood and young adulthood in Lebanon occur in his neighborhood in Massachusetts:
“It is when hatred and violence strike close to home – whether home is Beirut or Watertown – that our true commitment to the values and principles on which we pride ourselves is tested. Terror is defeated by upholding those principles – across the board and all the time – and not by renouncing them with the excuse of making home a safer place. That, for me, is homeland security.”
It will be long after the news cycles have moved on that we have fully regained our equilibrium. In the meantime, I will take pride in the people of eastern Massachusetts, and comfort in the courageous way they have, pure and simple, gone on living. That’s what it means to win. That’s what it means to be Boston Strong.
(This column appeared originally in the Burlington Free Press on April 28, 2013. Chris’s new novel, “The Light in the Ruins,” arrives on July 9.)
April 21, 2013
It's in the bag -- even the air horn, duct tape, and corkscrew
The other day we had some massive trees cut down in our yard and the fellow taking them down wanted to be sure that he didn’t accidentally incinerate the center of Lincoln by dropping a six-story maple on the lamppost at the edge of our driveway and causing an electrical fire. That would have put a damper on everyone’s afternoon. So he first made sure that the wiring in the lamppost wasn’t live. Then, after the tree was gone and he was wiring the lamp back together, he asked me if I had some electrical tape. I said sure and was about to run into the basement of the house to get some.
Before I had started for the front door, however, my wife said to him, “Here. I have some.” Then she reached into her purse and tossed him a roll.
“You keep electrical tape in your purse?” I asked.
She shrugged. “Of course.”
I should note that my wife is not an electrician and her purse is hip and small and Italian. It’s from San Gimignano, Italy, a village that is known for its medieval towers, its hip little purses, and its two (Two!) museums of torture. Yup, bring the kids: It’s Disney designed by Torquemada.
In any case, I was curious what else women keep in their purses. So I asked. Here are a tiny few of their answers.
Lecia Balian: “Empty Ziploc baggies for collecting seeds or plant cuttings. A magnet. An ace bandage. A micro-recorder. Ear buds. Tic Tacs. Lip gloss. A vintage German folding knife. Two Pilot pens. Toothpicks. My wallet.”
Bobbie Moser: “An anti-static sheet that you use in clothes dryers. I rub it on my head to take the static out of my hair on winter days.”
Deedee Swenson: “Water purifying tablets.”
Rose Mary Muench, who happens to be my wonderful aunt and a second mother to me: “Swiss Army knife (your grandmother, Higoohi, always had a knife in the car to peel fruit for trips to the Armenian Alps), hearing aid batteries, black indelible marker, craft glue, pen, glasses, tape measure, toothpicks, Tic Tacs, cell phone, and the usual stuff.”
Sarah Potwin: “A bottle of maple syrup. As displaced Vermonters, we’re disgusted to find regular syrup at restaurants here in Florida.”
Judy McCarthy: “A small oral airway in case I need to do CPR.”
Ferg Pat: “An air horn that my mother’s husband found at a tag sale.”
Jan Morse: “A telescoping back scratcher.”
Seaason Violi Whitney: “My purse is pretty standard for a mom of five. Snacks, straws, napkins, crumbs, spare change. But I have a box in the car that has some ‘emergency’ supplies: pantyhose (for a spare fan belt and as a filter or sieve) tampons (they make a great water filter), duct tape (duh), aluminum foil (works as a reflector or an insulator), plastic wrap. And I have the standards: water, flashlight, blankets, crackers, cans of food, and a can opener.”
Liz’beth Statska: “Blister balm stick for sad feet.”
Connie Ogle: “I used to keep a corkscrew, until the TSA got touchy about us carrying them on planes.”
Sharon Hopwood: “A copy of the U.S. Constitution.”
Julie Foster: “A harmonica. It makes me feel spontaneous and fun.”
Deborah Bird: “A leash, in case I find a loose dog.”
Lorinda Henry: “A small cotton towel to cut down on paper waste in bathrooms.”
Elizabeth Seidler: “Duct tape. It can be used to restrain someone on a plane. A baseball. A small heavy flashlight with a fairly long wrist cord. It can also be used as a weapon. A safety pin or two on my key chain. Those are my staples.”
The biggest surprise of all, however, may belong to Stephanie Furtsch. One evening when she was at a Chinese restaurant with her son and daughter-in-law, Andrew Furtsch and Joan Heaton, she saw her grandson, Matt, was struggling mightily with his chopsticks. No problem, according to Andrew: “My mom reaches into her purse and pulls out a set of plastic, one-piece, child-friendly chopsticks.”
Now that’s – to allow myself a very bad pun – clutch.
(This column appeared originally in the Burlington Free Press on April 21, 2013. The paperback of Chris’s novel, “The Sandcastle Girls,” is now on sale.)
Before I had started for the front door, however, my wife said to him, “Here. I have some.” Then she reached into her purse and tossed him a roll.
“You keep electrical tape in your purse?” I asked.
She shrugged. “Of course.”
I should note that my wife is not an electrician and her purse is hip and small and Italian. It’s from San Gimignano, Italy, a village that is known for its medieval towers, its hip little purses, and its two (Two!) museums of torture. Yup, bring the kids: It’s Disney designed by Torquemada.
In any case, I was curious what else women keep in their purses. So I asked. Here are a tiny few of their answers.
Lecia Balian: “Empty Ziploc baggies for collecting seeds or plant cuttings. A magnet. An ace bandage. A micro-recorder. Ear buds. Tic Tacs. Lip gloss. A vintage German folding knife. Two Pilot pens. Toothpicks. My wallet.”
Bobbie Moser: “An anti-static sheet that you use in clothes dryers. I rub it on my head to take the static out of my hair on winter days.”
Deedee Swenson: “Water purifying tablets.”
Rose Mary Muench, who happens to be my wonderful aunt and a second mother to me: “Swiss Army knife (your grandmother, Higoohi, always had a knife in the car to peel fruit for trips to the Armenian Alps), hearing aid batteries, black indelible marker, craft glue, pen, glasses, tape measure, toothpicks, Tic Tacs, cell phone, and the usual stuff.”
Sarah Potwin: “A bottle of maple syrup. As displaced Vermonters, we’re disgusted to find regular syrup at restaurants here in Florida.”
Judy McCarthy: “A small oral airway in case I need to do CPR.”
Ferg Pat: “An air horn that my mother’s husband found at a tag sale.”
Jan Morse: “A telescoping back scratcher.”
Seaason Violi Whitney: “My purse is pretty standard for a mom of five. Snacks, straws, napkins, crumbs, spare change. But I have a box in the car that has some ‘emergency’ supplies: pantyhose (for a spare fan belt and as a filter or sieve) tampons (they make a great water filter), duct tape (duh), aluminum foil (works as a reflector or an insulator), plastic wrap. And I have the standards: water, flashlight, blankets, crackers, cans of food, and a can opener.”
Liz’beth Statska: “Blister balm stick for sad feet.”
Connie Ogle: “I used to keep a corkscrew, until the TSA got touchy about us carrying them on planes.”
Sharon Hopwood: “A copy of the U.S. Constitution.”
Julie Foster: “A harmonica. It makes me feel spontaneous and fun.”
Deborah Bird: “A leash, in case I find a loose dog.”
Lorinda Henry: “A small cotton towel to cut down on paper waste in bathrooms.”
Elizabeth Seidler: “Duct tape. It can be used to restrain someone on a plane. A baseball. A small heavy flashlight with a fairly long wrist cord. It can also be used as a weapon. A safety pin or two on my key chain. Those are my staples.”
The biggest surprise of all, however, may belong to Stephanie Furtsch. One evening when she was at a Chinese restaurant with her son and daughter-in-law, Andrew Furtsch and Joan Heaton, she saw her grandson, Matt, was struggling mightily with his chopsticks. No problem, according to Andrew: “My mom reaches into her purse and pulls out a set of plastic, one-piece, child-friendly chopsticks.”
Now that’s – to allow myself a very bad pun – clutch.
(This column appeared originally in the Burlington Free Press on April 21, 2013. The paperback of Chris’s novel, “The Sandcastle Girls,” is now on sale.)
April 14, 2013
We are still the mountain
IN THE coming days, Armenians around the world will come together to acknowledge what I have come to call “The Slaughter You Know Next to Nothing About.” April 24 marks the 98th anniversary of the night the Armenian religious and intellectual leaders were rounded up in Constantinople — and the start of the Armenian genocide.
And yet most of North America probably can’t find Armenia on a map. Certainly only a few of us could pinpoint the mountain of Musa Dagh. Yet Musa Dagh has become for me — an American who is half-Armenian and half-Swedish — the story that brings the Armenian genocide to life.
In the summer of 1915, roughly 4,000 Armenians from six villages in southeast Turkey refused to be marched from their homes by Turkish soldiers and gendarmes into the Syrian desert to die. Roughly 1.5 million of the two million Armenians in Turkey would perish in the First World War, many of them by starvation, dehydration, and disease in the unforgiving Syrian sands.
But not those 4,000. They climbed Musa Dagh, at the edge of the Mediterranean Sea, and used rifles and a few captured cannons to hold off the Turkish army for nearly two months. The women sewed a flag with a red cross on it and dangled it over the side of the cliff that faced the sea, and eventually a French battleship saw it and rescued the Armenians.
If anyone knows bits and pieces of this story, it is likely through German writer Franz Werfel’s magisterial 1933 novel, “The Forty Days of Musa Dagh.” The novel was an international bestseller when it was published, though it was loathed early on by the Nazis. When the Germans were mercilessly putting down the Warsaw Ghetto uprising in 1944, the soldiers were surprised by how many copies of the novel they found among the dead Jewish fighters. It was my Swedish mother who gave me a copy when I was teenager.
Last year I saw that hand-sewn red cross flag. I held one of the rifles the Armenians had used from atop Musa Dagh. The flag and the artifacts sit in a community room beside the school and church in Anjar, the Lebanese town where the French eventually settled the survivors of Musa Dagh. Outside the building is a massive statue that looks at first glance like a sword with its blade in the earth, but on second becomes a cross. And on a mural inside that community room is a summit with an inscription that reads, “Let them come again. We are still the mountain.”
I journeyed to Anjar, as well as to Beirut and Yerevan and the “Bird’s Nest” orphanage in Byblos — where Danish missionary Maria Jacobsen saved the lives of thousands of Armenian orphans — for a lot of reasons.
First, there was my novel, “The Sandcastle Girls.” It’s a love story set in the midst of the Armenian genocide in the First World War. Every day that I was writing the book I felt a tug: I needed to view the bones that were pulled from the sands of Der-el-Zor. I needed to pause before the statues of Saroyan and Mother Armenia that anchor Yerevan’s streets and parks. And I needed to walk the grounds of the monastery at Khor Virap and gaze across the Turkish border at Mount Ararat.
There is, of course, an irony here. Ararat, the majestic 17,000-foot massif that dominates the western vista from Yerevan and symbolizes our heritage, isn’t even inside the country’s borders: It’s across the guard posts and fencing in Turkey. So, of course, is Musa Dagh.
Another reason for my journey was my father, an Armenian-American who died just as I was finishing the novel, and his parents, Armenian immigrants — and genocide survivors. These are the sorts of subterranean emotional currents that can inspire a novel and draw a person at mid-life to the Middle East and a small, landlocked country in the Caucasus Mountains. And Armenia is small. Barely three million Armenians live there, compared to approximately seven million outside the country. That’s how big the Armenian Diaspora is: 70 percent of Armenians don’t live in their homeland. And yet, we have retained a national identity: Our sense of a shared history and our sense of place.
Which brings me back to that community room in Anjar and the mural. My sense is that whoever wrote on the wall there, “We are still the mountain,” wanted the sentence to be interpreted two ways. Certainly he meant Musa Dagh: Attack again if you want, we are still those warriors. But he also meant Ararat: Even here in Lebanon, we are still Armenians.
Most of the time when I was in Armenia, clouds masked the summit of Ararat, even when I was at Khor Virap. Around 6 a.m. on my last morning, however, soon after I had climbed into a cab for the airport, I was greeted with a sign that the cosmos is not completely detached: The peak of Mount Ararat, snow-covered even in May. I asked the driver to stop. And there, against a sky that grew from agate to cerulean, I watched the nearly full moon set over the mountain. It was a poignant, powerful, and perfect way to remember that while April 24 is about mourning the dead, it is also about the triumph of the living — and how, indeed, we are still the mountain.
(Chris Bohjalian’s 14th novel, “The Sandcastle Girls,” will be published in paperback this week. This column appeared originally in the Boston Globe on April 14, 2013.)
And yet most of North America probably can’t find Armenia on a map. Certainly only a few of us could pinpoint the mountain of Musa Dagh. Yet Musa Dagh has become for me — an American who is half-Armenian and half-Swedish — the story that brings the Armenian genocide to life.
In the summer of 1915, roughly 4,000 Armenians from six villages in southeast Turkey refused to be marched from their homes by Turkish soldiers and gendarmes into the Syrian desert to die. Roughly 1.5 million of the two million Armenians in Turkey would perish in the First World War, many of them by starvation, dehydration, and disease in the unforgiving Syrian sands.
But not those 4,000. They climbed Musa Dagh, at the edge of the Mediterranean Sea, and used rifles and a few captured cannons to hold off the Turkish army for nearly two months. The women sewed a flag with a red cross on it and dangled it over the side of the cliff that faced the sea, and eventually a French battleship saw it and rescued the Armenians.
If anyone knows bits and pieces of this story, it is likely through German writer Franz Werfel’s magisterial 1933 novel, “The Forty Days of Musa Dagh.” The novel was an international bestseller when it was published, though it was loathed early on by the Nazis. When the Germans were mercilessly putting down the Warsaw Ghetto uprising in 1944, the soldiers were surprised by how many copies of the novel they found among the dead Jewish fighters. It was my Swedish mother who gave me a copy when I was teenager.
Last year I saw that hand-sewn red cross flag. I held one of the rifles the Armenians had used from atop Musa Dagh. The flag and the artifacts sit in a community room beside the school and church in Anjar, the Lebanese town where the French eventually settled the survivors of Musa Dagh. Outside the building is a massive statue that looks at first glance like a sword with its blade in the earth, but on second becomes a cross. And on a mural inside that community room is a summit with an inscription that reads, “Let them come again. We are still the mountain.”
I journeyed to Anjar, as well as to Beirut and Yerevan and the “Bird’s Nest” orphanage in Byblos — where Danish missionary Maria Jacobsen saved the lives of thousands of Armenian orphans — for a lot of reasons.
First, there was my novel, “The Sandcastle Girls.” It’s a love story set in the midst of the Armenian genocide in the First World War. Every day that I was writing the book I felt a tug: I needed to view the bones that were pulled from the sands of Der-el-Zor. I needed to pause before the statues of Saroyan and Mother Armenia that anchor Yerevan’s streets and parks. And I needed to walk the grounds of the monastery at Khor Virap and gaze across the Turkish border at Mount Ararat.
There is, of course, an irony here. Ararat, the majestic 17,000-foot massif that dominates the western vista from Yerevan and symbolizes our heritage, isn’t even inside the country’s borders: It’s across the guard posts and fencing in Turkey. So, of course, is Musa Dagh.
Another reason for my journey was my father, an Armenian-American who died just as I was finishing the novel, and his parents, Armenian immigrants — and genocide survivors. These are the sorts of subterranean emotional currents that can inspire a novel and draw a person at mid-life to the Middle East and a small, landlocked country in the Caucasus Mountains. And Armenia is small. Barely three million Armenians live there, compared to approximately seven million outside the country. That’s how big the Armenian Diaspora is: 70 percent of Armenians don’t live in their homeland. And yet, we have retained a national identity: Our sense of a shared history and our sense of place.
Which brings me back to that community room in Anjar and the mural. My sense is that whoever wrote on the wall there, “We are still the mountain,” wanted the sentence to be interpreted two ways. Certainly he meant Musa Dagh: Attack again if you want, we are still those warriors. But he also meant Ararat: Even here in Lebanon, we are still Armenians.
Most of the time when I was in Armenia, clouds masked the summit of Ararat, even when I was at Khor Virap. Around 6 a.m. on my last morning, however, soon after I had climbed into a cab for the airport, I was greeted with a sign that the cosmos is not completely detached: The peak of Mount Ararat, snow-covered even in May. I asked the driver to stop. And there, against a sky that grew from agate to cerulean, I watched the nearly full moon set over the mountain. It was a poignant, powerful, and perfect way to remember that while April 24 is about mourning the dead, it is also about the triumph of the living — and how, indeed, we are still the mountain.
(Chris Bohjalian’s 14th novel, “The Sandcastle Girls,” will be published in paperback this week. This column appeared originally in the Boston Globe on April 14, 2013.)
April 7, 2013
Throwing the book (seller) at comedy
Josie Leavitt is coming to Burlington, Vermont tonight and hoping to kill.
“I bombed. I killed. The language of comedy is all very violent,” she said. It’s worth noting that Leavitt said this in almost the same tone of voice with which she had gleefully shared with me the color of the nail polish on her toes: “Flashbulb fuchsia.” She’d just had a pedicure.
Tonight she will be a self-proclaimed comedy diva at the FlynnSpace at the Flynn Center for the Performing Arts. There, along with three other women – some of whom started as students in the standup comedy class she teaches at the Flynn – she will be hoping to kill. When you’re a comic, killing is good; bombing is bad.
And usually she does kill. I’ve seen Leavitt and I’m a fan – and not simply because I’m a novelist and she’s a bookseller by day, co-owner of the Flying Pig Bookstore in Shelburne, Vermont. I’m a fan because she’s very funny. My wife’s a fan, too.
People used to make jokes about female comedians, but no more. At least no one does who has a brain or eyes or who has spent even a nanosecond watching TV. In addition to the standup genius of such women as Amy Schumer or Lisa Lampanelli or Sarah Silverman, there has been the inspired TV and film work of Mindy Kaling and Tina Fey and Kristen Wiig.
This June marks the twentieth anniversary of Leavitt’s first time doing standup in a club. It was June 4, 1993, 10:20 at night. She was at a club called “Don’t Tell Mama” on the edge of Theatre Row on Manhattan’s West Side. “I had a five-minute set and everything worked,” she recalled. “I left my body. My life changed.” Back then she was an English teacher by day, but she spent the next three years working the bars and comedy clubs, sometimes bombing but more often killing.
When she moved to Vermont in 1996, she expected to continue teaching. Instead, with her partner Elizabeth Bluemle, she opened a children’s bookstore in Charlotte, because jobs were scarce, Elizabeth had been a children’s librarian, and – oh, by the way – there was an empty building for lease just west of U.S. 7. They killed there, too, and in 2006 moved to a bigger location in Shelburne, where their store is today. But she resumed her standup career, and tonight marks the 30th time that she has performed “Standup, Sit Down, and Laugh” at the Flynn. Leavitt curates the show, which means that she picks the comics.
She freely admits that she tries out material on customers when she is at work at the Flying Pig, which is an added benefit to shopping there when she kills – and a chance to heckle when she bombs.
She also teaches standup these days at the Chittenden Regional Correctional Facility in South Burlington: “I never find out what the crime is until after the class. I want to work with the inmates as comics and judge them as comics; I want to help them become better writers and speakers. It helps them with their parole hearings and job interviews. If they can write a joke, they can write a resume.” Of course, even the very good inmate comedians don’t put “killed” on their resumes.
What she finds particularly interesting about her gig as a jailhouse comedy coach is this: “The men are much more respectful than the women. The women push the boundaries more.”
Leavitt’s routines tend to be about her own experiences and what’s going on in her life right now.This is her strategy even if her life is awash in disaster. “How can I make something funny?” she asks herself. “If I can do that, it takes so much angst out of life. It’s a fun way to live.”
So, what might be in store for us tonight? She returned last Sunday from Florida. On Tuesday she had her gall bladder out. And at home she has a 15-year-old dog with dementia.
That feels to me like the makings of a pretty good set.
* * *
IF YOU GO:
What: “Stand Up, Sit Down, and Laugh”
When: Sunday, April 7, 7 pm
Where: FlynnSpace
How much: $12
(This column appeared originally in the Burlington Free Press on April 7, 2013. The paperback of Chris’s novel, The Sandcastle Girls, arrives next week.)
“I bombed. I killed. The language of comedy is all very violent,” she said. It’s worth noting that Leavitt said this in almost the same tone of voice with which she had gleefully shared with me the color of the nail polish on her toes: “Flashbulb fuchsia.” She’d just had a pedicure.
Tonight she will be a self-proclaimed comedy diva at the FlynnSpace at the Flynn Center for the Performing Arts. There, along with three other women – some of whom started as students in the standup comedy class she teaches at the Flynn – she will be hoping to kill. When you’re a comic, killing is good; bombing is bad.
And usually she does kill. I’ve seen Leavitt and I’m a fan – and not simply because I’m a novelist and she’s a bookseller by day, co-owner of the Flying Pig Bookstore in Shelburne, Vermont. I’m a fan because she’s very funny. My wife’s a fan, too.
People used to make jokes about female comedians, but no more. At least no one does who has a brain or eyes or who has spent even a nanosecond watching TV. In addition to the standup genius of such women as Amy Schumer or Lisa Lampanelli or Sarah Silverman, there has been the inspired TV and film work of Mindy Kaling and Tina Fey and Kristen Wiig.
This June marks the twentieth anniversary of Leavitt’s first time doing standup in a club. It was June 4, 1993, 10:20 at night. She was at a club called “Don’t Tell Mama” on the edge of Theatre Row on Manhattan’s West Side. “I had a five-minute set and everything worked,” she recalled. “I left my body. My life changed.” Back then she was an English teacher by day, but she spent the next three years working the bars and comedy clubs, sometimes bombing but more often killing.
When she moved to Vermont in 1996, she expected to continue teaching. Instead, with her partner Elizabeth Bluemle, she opened a children’s bookstore in Charlotte, because jobs were scarce, Elizabeth had been a children’s librarian, and – oh, by the way – there was an empty building for lease just west of U.S. 7. They killed there, too, and in 2006 moved to a bigger location in Shelburne, where their store is today. But she resumed her standup career, and tonight marks the 30th time that she has performed “Standup, Sit Down, and Laugh” at the Flynn. Leavitt curates the show, which means that she picks the comics.
She freely admits that she tries out material on customers when she is at work at the Flying Pig, which is an added benefit to shopping there when she kills – and a chance to heckle when she bombs.
She also teaches standup these days at the Chittenden Regional Correctional Facility in South Burlington: “I never find out what the crime is until after the class. I want to work with the inmates as comics and judge them as comics; I want to help them become better writers and speakers. It helps them with their parole hearings and job interviews. If they can write a joke, they can write a resume.” Of course, even the very good inmate comedians don’t put “killed” on their resumes.
What she finds particularly interesting about her gig as a jailhouse comedy coach is this: “The men are much more respectful than the women. The women push the boundaries more.”
Leavitt’s routines tend to be about her own experiences and what’s going on in her life right now.This is her strategy even if her life is awash in disaster. “How can I make something funny?” she asks herself. “If I can do that, it takes so much angst out of life. It’s a fun way to live.”
So, what might be in store for us tonight? She returned last Sunday from Florida. On Tuesday she had her gall bladder out. And at home she has a 15-year-old dog with dementia.
That feels to me like the makings of a pretty good set.
* * *
IF YOU GO:
What: “Stand Up, Sit Down, and Laugh”
When: Sunday, April 7, 7 pm
Where: FlynnSpace
How much: $12
(This column appeared originally in the Burlington Free Press on April 7, 2013. The paperback of Chris’s novel, The Sandcastle Girls, arrives next week.)
March 31, 2013
Fit to be (neck) tied? Yes. Today.
Other than weddings and funerals, there are only two times a year when I am likely to wear a necktie to the church here in Lincoln, Vermont: Christmas Eve and today, Easter Sunday. This is true with the vast majority of men in the congregation. There are usually 100 to 125 people in the sanctuary most Sundays, maybe 40 of whom are adult males, and other than our pastors and Mike Harding — who is jaunty enough to pull off a bow tie — it’s rare to see more than a necktie or two. We are, after all, a rural congregation halfway up Vermont’s third highest mountain.
But I’d wager that the dress code has grown more casual at most churches — much as it has on most airlines. We used to dress up for church and when traveling on a jet. These days, if it’s a warm morning in July, people will wear flip-flops on otherwise bare feet in both a sea level church and when traveling at 35,000 feet. (Reason number 17 why we need to cut the women and men with the TSA a little more slack: all those bare feet in the TSA body scanners.)
Now, my point is not to sound like a fuddy-duddy curmudgeon decrying how these days we all dress like teenagers on springbreak. I have absolutely no desire to wear a necktie to church more than two or three times a year. And if someone (not me) wants to walk around barefoot in the security line at Burlington International Airport, that’s between them and their travel-size tubes of Tinactin.
But I do love the way that even in a small rural church here in the middle of Vermont we still don our Sunday finest come Easter morning. There are actual bonnets in the sanctuary. There are men in neckties. There are women in heels. It’s terrific.
When I was a little boy, I had what could be called my Easter uniform because I only wore it on Easter: White shirt, clip-on red necktie, blue blazer. It was weirdly patriotic. And while the necktie is as red in my memories as it is in the Kodachrome photographs I found a few years ago in my father’s old photo albums, it’s a far cry from a Wall Street power red. It’s more like Easter egg red — a pastel. Besides, it’s a clip-on. How powerful can a clip-on necktie ever be?
Still, give me a necktie and I feel pretty darn dashing. This is true, apparently, even when I am wearing a clip-on. Exhibit A? One Sunday morning when I was a little kid in church in that blue blazer and red clip-on, I stood up in the pew while the rest of the congregation had their heads bowed in silent prayer and broke the quiet by shouting at the top of my lungs, “Sugar Pops are tops!” The way my parents would tell this story years later, my mom instantly reached out with one arm and took my knees out from under me, so I fell back into the pew like a marionette whose strings have been cut.
David Wood, the pastor at the United Church of Lincoln, has a collection of ties that can only be called ... eccentric. I have seen him preach in Veggie Tales ties, Peanuts character ties, and Star Trek ties. And yet, somehow, he pulls it off. The look might not get five stars from the fashion police on TV, but it works here in Lincoln.
And it works here on Easter. Year after year, the church is never more crowded than it is today. This is the case with most churches. After all, churches everywhere right now are celebrating the reality that even in a world where it sometimes seems as if the jaded rule and snark is king, there is still room for faith and hope ... and joy. And I can’t think of a better reason to get dressed up and wear a necktie.
Happy Easter. Happy Passover. Peace.
(This column appeared originally in the Burlington Free Press on March 31, 2013. Chris's new novel, "The Light in the Ruins," arrives July 9.)
But I’d wager that the dress code has grown more casual at most churches — much as it has on most airlines. We used to dress up for church and when traveling on a jet. These days, if it’s a warm morning in July, people will wear flip-flops on otherwise bare feet in both a sea level church and when traveling at 35,000 feet. (Reason number 17 why we need to cut the women and men with the TSA a little more slack: all those bare feet in the TSA body scanners.)
Now, my point is not to sound like a fuddy-duddy curmudgeon decrying how these days we all dress like teenagers on springbreak. I have absolutely no desire to wear a necktie to church more than two or three times a year. And if someone (not me) wants to walk around barefoot in the security line at Burlington International Airport, that’s between them and their travel-size tubes of Tinactin.
But I do love the way that even in a small rural church here in the middle of Vermont we still don our Sunday finest come Easter morning. There are actual bonnets in the sanctuary. There are men in neckties. There are women in heels. It’s terrific.
When I was a little boy, I had what could be called my Easter uniform because I only wore it on Easter: White shirt, clip-on red necktie, blue blazer. It was weirdly patriotic. And while the necktie is as red in my memories as it is in the Kodachrome photographs I found a few years ago in my father’s old photo albums, it’s a far cry from a Wall Street power red. It’s more like Easter egg red — a pastel. Besides, it’s a clip-on. How powerful can a clip-on necktie ever be?
Still, give me a necktie and I feel pretty darn dashing. This is true, apparently, even when I am wearing a clip-on. Exhibit A? One Sunday morning when I was a little kid in church in that blue blazer and red clip-on, I stood up in the pew while the rest of the congregation had their heads bowed in silent prayer and broke the quiet by shouting at the top of my lungs, “Sugar Pops are tops!” The way my parents would tell this story years later, my mom instantly reached out with one arm and took my knees out from under me, so I fell back into the pew like a marionette whose strings have been cut.
David Wood, the pastor at the United Church of Lincoln, has a collection of ties that can only be called ... eccentric. I have seen him preach in Veggie Tales ties, Peanuts character ties, and Star Trek ties. And yet, somehow, he pulls it off. The look might not get five stars from the fashion police on TV, but it works here in Lincoln.
And it works here on Easter. Year after year, the church is never more crowded than it is today. This is the case with most churches. After all, churches everywhere right now are celebrating the reality that even in a world where it sometimes seems as if the jaded rule and snark is king, there is still room for faith and hope ... and joy. And I can’t think of a better reason to get dressed up and wear a necktie.
Happy Easter. Happy Passover. Peace.
(This column appeared originally in the Burlington Free Press on March 31, 2013. Chris's new novel, "The Light in the Ruins," arrives July 9.)
March 23, 2013
Evolution: M&M. M2M. B2M. BM.
We are now on the cusp of an M2M world – M2M being the techie shorthand for machine-to-machine, not a typo for candies that melt in your mouth, not in your hand. And while I will always be more interested in a world that revolves around chocolate than I am in a world that spins around computers, I’m still intrigued by the M2M premise.
Essentially, the M2M revolution will be about machines communicating with machines. Very soon your life will be changed forever because you will be able to set your coffeepot with your phone or your tablet, instead of having to use your clumsy fingers or those timers that come with most coffeepots.
Okay, that’s a bad example.
Soon cars – some models already – will be hotspots, so you don’t have to depend on your phone to connect to the internet when you’re in a moving vehicle, because isn’t a hotspot that weighs three thousand pounds so much better than one that weighs a few ounces?
Okay, maybe that’s not a great example either.
But trust me: there are a million applications for M2M technologies. I still prefer to read books made of paper and get actual DVDs in the mail from Netflix, but I am nevertheless excited about the M2M future. Here are a few M2M applications that I personally could get behind.
We need to connect the heated seats of our vehicles to our tablets and phones, so we can warm them up before going outside in the dead of winter. Yes, there are plenty of automatic starters out there, but imagine how nice it would be to warm up the seats without having to warm up the whole car. We would spew a lot less exhaust into the atmosphere. Polar bears across the arctic would thank us.
We need to connect our TiVos to our phones so we can stop recording an episode of Saturday Night Live if we don’t like the musical guest or they try to bring back Doug and Wendy Whiner.
We need to connect the bar codes on bags of M&M’s to our bathroom scales, so we can decide if we really want those 230 calories.
We need to connect our television sets to our popcorn makers so that the popcorn starts popping the moment a three-minute commercial block commences.
We need to connect our home thermostats to our phones so we can warm up our houses an hour before we arrive.
Obviously there are thousands of better ideas. And there are millions of others that will be invented that are completely ridiculous. Just think of the ludicrous apps that now fill our phones, such as the ones that allow us to pretend to pop bubble wrap or replicate cat sounds.
Eventually, of course, our brains will become computers themselves and we will live forever as machines – or at least until our warranties expire. Then we’ll be taken with old laptops and half-empty paint cans to the hazardous waste corner of the local transfer station. I predict that this will be called B2M for brain-to-machine, and then – when we need an even shorter term – BM.
Frankly, I might call it “hell.” Sure, it would be nice if I could connect instantly with my TiVo. But I’m from a generation that took years to learn to program a VCR. I wrote my first novel on an electric typewriter. I remember 45rpm vinyl. And while M2M will make some things easier and perhaps even allow us to dial down our consumption of fossil fuels, the fact is that a lot of M2M technology will be about solving made-up problems.
Sure, I like the idea of being able to heat up a car seat without starting an engine. But the real goals of M2M technology should be about ways to solve actual social problems that dog our world – not merely making sure that our popcorn is popped during a commercial break of “American Idol.”
(This column appeared originally in the Burlington Free Press on March 24, 2013. The paperback of Chris’s novel, “The Sandcastle Girls,” arrives on April 16, 2013.)
Essentially, the M2M revolution will be about machines communicating with machines. Very soon your life will be changed forever because you will be able to set your coffeepot with your phone or your tablet, instead of having to use your clumsy fingers or those timers that come with most coffeepots.
Okay, that’s a bad example.
Soon cars – some models already – will be hotspots, so you don’t have to depend on your phone to connect to the internet when you’re in a moving vehicle, because isn’t a hotspot that weighs three thousand pounds so much better than one that weighs a few ounces?
Okay, maybe that’s not a great example either.
But trust me: there are a million applications for M2M technologies. I still prefer to read books made of paper and get actual DVDs in the mail from Netflix, but I am nevertheless excited about the M2M future. Here are a few M2M applications that I personally could get behind.
We need to connect the heated seats of our vehicles to our tablets and phones, so we can warm them up before going outside in the dead of winter. Yes, there are plenty of automatic starters out there, but imagine how nice it would be to warm up the seats without having to warm up the whole car. We would spew a lot less exhaust into the atmosphere. Polar bears across the arctic would thank us.
We need to connect our TiVos to our phones so we can stop recording an episode of Saturday Night Live if we don’t like the musical guest or they try to bring back Doug and Wendy Whiner.
We need to connect the bar codes on bags of M&M’s to our bathroom scales, so we can decide if we really want those 230 calories.
We need to connect our television sets to our popcorn makers so that the popcorn starts popping the moment a three-minute commercial block commences.
We need to connect our home thermostats to our phones so we can warm up our houses an hour before we arrive.
Obviously there are thousands of better ideas. And there are millions of others that will be invented that are completely ridiculous. Just think of the ludicrous apps that now fill our phones, such as the ones that allow us to pretend to pop bubble wrap or replicate cat sounds.
Eventually, of course, our brains will become computers themselves and we will live forever as machines – or at least until our warranties expire. Then we’ll be taken with old laptops and half-empty paint cans to the hazardous waste corner of the local transfer station. I predict that this will be called B2M for brain-to-machine, and then – when we need an even shorter term – BM.
Frankly, I might call it “hell.” Sure, it would be nice if I could connect instantly with my TiVo. But I’m from a generation that took years to learn to program a VCR. I wrote my first novel on an electric typewriter. I remember 45rpm vinyl. And while M2M will make some things easier and perhaps even allow us to dial down our consumption of fossil fuels, the fact is that a lot of M2M technology will be about solving made-up problems.
Sure, I like the idea of being able to heat up a car seat without starting an engine. But the real goals of M2M technology should be about ways to solve actual social problems that dog our world – not merely making sure that our popcorn is popped during a commercial break of “American Idol.”
(This column appeared originally in the Burlington Free Press on March 24, 2013. The paperback of Chris’s novel, “The Sandcastle Girls,” arrives on April 16, 2013.)
