Chris Bohjalian's Blog, page 33
April 1, 2012
Village Peeple descend upon Middlebury, Vermont
Sometimes great art demands brutality, and so Leigh Boglioli, 13, savaged her Peeps. Leigh, a 13-year-old seventh-grader from East Middlebury, Vermont, began by slicing single ears off of select rabbit Peeps and glued them on to other ones, creating mutated, three-eared Peep bunnies. She beheaded other pink bunny Peeps, reattaching their little pink heads onto other little green bunny bodies. The result? Mutated multi-color Peeps. And she bought any chick Peeps she could find with deformed eyes. Then, in the midst of this small world of Picasso Peeps, she built a model of a nuclear power plant cooling tower out of cardboard and aluminum foil – and placed a Band-Aid across one wall.
The result? A Peeps diorama Leigh christened, “New Wildlife Discovered in Vernon, Vermont.” Vernon, of course, is the site of the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant, still operating despite the expiration last month of its 40-year license. “I worry about Vermont Yankee,” Leigh said. “It’s run its course.”
Leigh’s Peeps statement is one 24 Peeps dioramas you can see through Thursday at the Vermont Folklife Center in Middlebury. It’s a part of the Center’s first ever “Peeps Show:” Dioramas made from the iconic marshmallow and sugar candy. The inspiration behind the show is operations manager, Sarah Stahl, who is a big fan of the “Washington Post’s” decade-old Peeps diorama contest. She said it was a natural for Middlebury, given the Folklife Center’s tradition of hosting an annual gingerbread house competition in December.
Indeed, some of the artists who are a part of the “Peeps Show” are experienced gingerbread house architects, such as New Haven’s Grace Tolles, 7. As if it were a gingerbread house, almost all of her Peeps diorama is edible. Inspired by a Caribbean cruise she took in January with her mom and dad, she called her diorama “Tiki Peepi,” and it features Peeps surfboarding on a sea made of vanilla frosting colored blue, with other Peeps sunbathing on a graham cracker beach. Even the boombox in the sand is edible: It’s a piece of chewing gum.
Ann Demong, a Folklife Center board member and a retired educator, loves the idea of working with Peeps: “I’m amazed at all the ideas people came up with. Peeps are a form we see all the time, and then here you see them completely re-imagined.” Demong, like many of us, is also a little dazzled by how large a Peep gets in the microwave. She created a Peeps can-can and mini Moulin Rouge stage for her diorama.
And while a lot of the dioramas were built around puns – including a terrific Peeps chess set by 10-year-old Ryan Gladstone titled “Chick Mate” – there were many that depended only on the chicks and bunnies…and available Barbie Doll clothing. Exhibit A would be seventh-grader Jenna Baginsky’s “Peeps Fashion Show,” a meticulously rendered (and illuminated) catwalk and crowd. “It wins the best use of Barbie Doll halter tops, bar none,” the Folklife Center’s Sarah Stahl told me.
Other ones that were mighty impressive? The staff and residents of the Helen Porter Healthcare and Rehabilitation Center created the “Helen Porter Peeps Square Dance,” with most of the Peeps in miniature wheelchairs and walkers. Eileen and Krystian Gombosi built an elegant “Princess and the Peep.” And Grace Tolles’s dad, Doug, focused on Easter with a recreation of da Vinci’s “The Last Supper.”
Doug’s version, “The Last Peeper,” has a bit of a Dan Brown “Da Vinci Code” edge to it. “Which one is Judas?” he asked me at the opening.
His “Last Peeper” won’t last as long as da Vinci’s “Last Supper,” of course. Peeps go stale fast. Or they’re eaten. (Or, often, they’re eaten when they’re stale. Many Peeps aficionados prefer them a little crisp.) But as Picasso said, “Everything is a miracle. It is a miracle that one does not dissolve in one’s bath like a lump of sugar.” He was, I am quite sure, talking about Peeps.
* * *
This column originally ran in the Burlington Free Press on April 1, 2012. Chris’s new novel, “The Sandcastle Girls,” arrives on July 17. You can learn more about it and add it to your Goodreads "to-read" cue by clicking here:
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13...
The result? A Peeps diorama Leigh christened, “New Wildlife Discovered in Vernon, Vermont.” Vernon, of course, is the site of the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant, still operating despite the expiration last month of its 40-year license. “I worry about Vermont Yankee,” Leigh said. “It’s run its course.”
Leigh’s Peeps statement is one 24 Peeps dioramas you can see through Thursday at the Vermont Folklife Center in Middlebury. It’s a part of the Center’s first ever “Peeps Show:” Dioramas made from the iconic marshmallow and sugar candy. The inspiration behind the show is operations manager, Sarah Stahl, who is a big fan of the “Washington Post’s” decade-old Peeps diorama contest. She said it was a natural for Middlebury, given the Folklife Center’s tradition of hosting an annual gingerbread house competition in December.
Indeed, some of the artists who are a part of the “Peeps Show” are experienced gingerbread house architects, such as New Haven’s Grace Tolles, 7. As if it were a gingerbread house, almost all of her Peeps diorama is edible. Inspired by a Caribbean cruise she took in January with her mom and dad, she called her diorama “Tiki Peepi,” and it features Peeps surfboarding on a sea made of vanilla frosting colored blue, with other Peeps sunbathing on a graham cracker beach. Even the boombox in the sand is edible: It’s a piece of chewing gum.
Ann Demong, a Folklife Center board member and a retired educator, loves the idea of working with Peeps: “I’m amazed at all the ideas people came up with. Peeps are a form we see all the time, and then here you see them completely re-imagined.” Demong, like many of us, is also a little dazzled by how large a Peep gets in the microwave. She created a Peeps can-can and mini Moulin Rouge stage for her diorama.
And while a lot of the dioramas were built around puns – including a terrific Peeps chess set by 10-year-old Ryan Gladstone titled “Chick Mate” – there were many that depended only on the chicks and bunnies…and available Barbie Doll clothing. Exhibit A would be seventh-grader Jenna Baginsky’s “Peeps Fashion Show,” a meticulously rendered (and illuminated) catwalk and crowd. “It wins the best use of Barbie Doll halter tops, bar none,” the Folklife Center’s Sarah Stahl told me.
Other ones that were mighty impressive? The staff and residents of the Helen Porter Healthcare and Rehabilitation Center created the “Helen Porter Peeps Square Dance,” with most of the Peeps in miniature wheelchairs and walkers. Eileen and Krystian Gombosi built an elegant “Princess and the Peep.” And Grace Tolles’s dad, Doug, focused on Easter with a recreation of da Vinci’s “The Last Supper.”
Doug’s version, “The Last Peeper,” has a bit of a Dan Brown “Da Vinci Code” edge to it. “Which one is Judas?” he asked me at the opening.
His “Last Peeper” won’t last as long as da Vinci’s “Last Supper,” of course. Peeps go stale fast. Or they’re eaten. (Or, often, they’re eaten when they’re stale. Many Peeps aficionados prefer them a little crisp.) But as Picasso said, “Everything is a miracle. It is a miracle that one does not dissolve in one’s bath like a lump of sugar.” He was, I am quite sure, talking about Peeps.
* * *
This column originally ran in the Burlington Free Press on April 1, 2012. Chris’s new novel, “The Sandcastle Girls,” arrives on July 17. You can learn more about it and add it to your Goodreads "to-read" cue by clicking here:
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13...
March 25, 2012
"Mad Men:" A Proustian madeleine back to my childhood
My father and my godfather, best friends from childhood who died within weeks of each other last year, were mad men who weren’t wild about “Mad Men.” They had watched the AMC-network phenomenon about 1960s-era ad executives – an adulterous, amoral, hard-drinking lot in the TV drama – and could not understand my wife’s or my affection for the show. “It’s all fiction,” my father told me once. “What we did was nothing like that.”
Maybe. But among the reasons I am looking forward to the show’s special two-hour season premiere tonight at 9 p.m. is that elements of “Mad Men” feel to me like one brilliantly rendered Proustian madeleine. My father was no Don Draper – and not simply because Jon Hamm has a lot better hair – and my godfather was no Roger Sterling, but the two of them were advertising executives who often worked together and seemed to love their Madison Avenue lifestyle. And whenever I watch the show, I see uncannily accurate Kodachrome slides from my childhood. I know those offices from the weekdays when, holding my hand, my mother would take me to visit my father at work. I know those suits. I know those rotary telephones. I know those gray metal filing cabinets.
My sense is that this is indeed a part of the show’s appeal, even for viewers a generation younger than me who don’t recall being served big chunks of iceberg lettuce as a kid and being told it’s a salad. Or savoring frozen supermarket rolls that are supposed to pass for fresh bread. Or, yes, watching TV in the living room after your dad has come home from work, and eavesdropping as your parents discuss their separate days over Scotch, their faces obscured by – in my mother’s case – cartoon plumes of toxicity from a steady stream of Eve cigarettes. “Mad Men” is a stylish show and it captures the good, the bad, and the ugly of the era.
And here’s what I mean about the specific and strange ways that the show resonates for me, and why it may be a more accurate depiction of the era than my father was ever willing to admit. Although he insisted the program was pure melodrama, he did agree to watch it with me whenever I was visiting him in Florida on a Sunday night and the show happened to be on. In one episode we watched together, a creative team is working until the small hours of the morning.
“We used to have to do that with Howard Hughes,” my dad said, smiling at a memory.
I turned to him. “You worked with Howard Hughes?” I asked. “As in the gazillionaire?”
My dad nodded. “When he was with TWA. We used to have two account teams to deal with him: One during the day and one at night. You never knew when he was going to call and suddenly appear in New York for a meeting,” he said.
My father insisted that the agencies were not as horrifically sexist as they seem on the show, believing (or, at least, claiming) that advertising actually offered opportunities to women before some other professions. Maybe. Maybe not. But he readily admitted that there might have been as much drinking. And certainly there was as much smoking.
Was there as much drama? Unlikely. But you never know. I say that because my godfather always wanted to write a memoir about his years in advertising, and this was well before “Mad Men” arrived in 2008. I don’t know how far he got, but he may have been on to something.
The key, of course, is that “Mad Men” is about an era and a moment in history that was rich with change. It’s about considerably more than advertising, although I do love Don Draper’s soliloquies about slide projectors and lipstick. It’s about wildly dysfunctional and wildly interesting people, who live daily with almost Shakespearean regret, desire, and ambition.
Was that my father? It’s all of us.
Which is why, perhaps, I’ll be tuning in tonight.
(This column originally appeared in the Burlington Free Press on March 25, 2012. Chris's new novel, "The Sandcastle Girls," arrives on July 17.)
Maybe. But among the reasons I am looking forward to the show’s special two-hour season premiere tonight at 9 p.m. is that elements of “Mad Men” feel to me like one brilliantly rendered Proustian madeleine. My father was no Don Draper – and not simply because Jon Hamm has a lot better hair – and my godfather was no Roger Sterling, but the two of them were advertising executives who often worked together and seemed to love their Madison Avenue lifestyle. And whenever I watch the show, I see uncannily accurate Kodachrome slides from my childhood. I know those offices from the weekdays when, holding my hand, my mother would take me to visit my father at work. I know those suits. I know those rotary telephones. I know those gray metal filing cabinets.
My sense is that this is indeed a part of the show’s appeal, even for viewers a generation younger than me who don’t recall being served big chunks of iceberg lettuce as a kid and being told it’s a salad. Or savoring frozen supermarket rolls that are supposed to pass for fresh bread. Or, yes, watching TV in the living room after your dad has come home from work, and eavesdropping as your parents discuss their separate days over Scotch, their faces obscured by – in my mother’s case – cartoon plumes of toxicity from a steady stream of Eve cigarettes. “Mad Men” is a stylish show and it captures the good, the bad, and the ugly of the era.
And here’s what I mean about the specific and strange ways that the show resonates for me, and why it may be a more accurate depiction of the era than my father was ever willing to admit. Although he insisted the program was pure melodrama, he did agree to watch it with me whenever I was visiting him in Florida on a Sunday night and the show happened to be on. In one episode we watched together, a creative team is working until the small hours of the morning.
“We used to have to do that with Howard Hughes,” my dad said, smiling at a memory.
I turned to him. “You worked with Howard Hughes?” I asked. “As in the gazillionaire?”
My dad nodded. “When he was with TWA. We used to have two account teams to deal with him: One during the day and one at night. You never knew when he was going to call and suddenly appear in New York for a meeting,” he said.
My father insisted that the agencies were not as horrifically sexist as they seem on the show, believing (or, at least, claiming) that advertising actually offered opportunities to women before some other professions. Maybe. Maybe not. But he readily admitted that there might have been as much drinking. And certainly there was as much smoking.
Was there as much drama? Unlikely. But you never know. I say that because my godfather always wanted to write a memoir about his years in advertising, and this was well before “Mad Men” arrived in 2008. I don’t know how far he got, but he may have been on to something.
The key, of course, is that “Mad Men” is about an era and a moment in history that was rich with change. It’s about considerably more than advertising, although I do love Don Draper’s soliloquies about slide projectors and lipstick. It’s about wildly dysfunctional and wildly interesting people, who live daily with almost Shakespearean regret, desire, and ambition.
Was that my father? It’s all of us.
Which is why, perhaps, I’ll be tuning in tonight.
(This column originally appeared in the Burlington Free Press on March 25, 2012. Chris's new novel, "The Sandcastle Girls," arrives on July 17.)
March 21, 2012
The Sandcastle Girls -- the video trailer
If you have 29 seconds. . .
And that is all it takes. . .
You can get a short video preview of "The Sandcastle Girls."
Simply click here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulNlvy...
It was produced by Doubleday Books.
And if, after viewing, you want to add the novel to your Goodreads "To Read" cue (No pressure!), here's that link:
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13...
The novel arrives in less than four months now: July 17.
Thanks so much for watching -- and reading. I am, as always, more grateful than you know.
And that is all it takes. . .
You can get a short video preview of "The Sandcastle Girls."
Simply click here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulNlvy...
It was produced by Doubleday Books.
And if, after viewing, you want to add the novel to your Goodreads "To Read" cue (No pressure!), here's that link:
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13...
The novel arrives in less than four months now: July 17.
Thanks so much for watching -- and reading. I am, as always, more grateful than you know.
March 18, 2012
My wife has found eliminating her late mother’s mail is a great game of Whack-a-Mole.
Since my mother-in-law died last year, the vertical post that shoulders our mailbox here in Lincoln has been getting a serious workout. My wife is the executor for her mother’s estate, and so she now receives her mother’s mail. And my mother-in-law, though dead ten months, still gets a lot of mail. Sondra Blewer is not merely still alive in her family’s hearts, she is still alive for no fewer than four or five-dozen non-profits, historical societies, hospitals, and small, unbelievably obscure theater groups. There are also a lot of direct mail marketers that remain convinced they can win back her business. Trust me, they can’t.
My wife has found eliminating her mother’s mail is a great game of Whack-a-Mole. She informs one group that protects whales that her mother has passed away, and another group protecting elephants rears its head. She throws away two solicitations for low-interest credit cards and receives two advertising circulars from drugstores or department stores nearly three hundred miles away.
Now, I am not telling you this because I have anything against wildlife, credit cards, or theaters that host Lithuanian dance troupes interpreting Arthur Miller. I like them all. I am telling you this because close to 100,000 postal workers are likely to lose their jobs in the next four years as the U.S. Postal Service tries to figure out how to remain viable in the digital age. There’s a chance that the processing facility in White River Junction, Vermont will close in May, costing 245 northern New Englanders their jobs.
Here’s the reality: Last year the Postal Service lost over five billion dollars. That’s a lot of money for even Bill Gates, Jay Z, and Lady Gaga – not to mention a business that makes a sizable chunk of its change 45 cents at a time. In the last decade, the percentage of people who pay their bills on-line has climbed from 5 percent to 60 percent. Increasing the cost of a first-class letter to 50 cents would cover only a fifth of that five billion dollar shortfall.
The fact is, of course, that the personal letter sent through the mail was feeling its age well before the Internet made it almost obsolete. Last month, Rick Hampson wrote an absolutely fascinating and beautiful eulogy for the personal letter in “USA Today.” As far back as 1990, I wrote an article for this paper about how archivists’ jobs were changing because no one penned (or typed) letters anymore. These days, finding a personal letter in your mailbox is as rare as a good hair day for Uncle Fester.
Now, I’m part of two industries that are being compelled by the digital age to change at Nascar-like speeds: Books and newspapers. So, I’m sympathetic to the plight of the postal worker. But I also know that we have to live in this world – not another.
And here, right now, are the people who need the postal service: J. Crew, J. Jill, and J. Peterman. So do all those wonderful non-profits that look out for children and whales and colleges. The mail remains a vital part of their marketing plans.
So, perhaps the Postal Service’s fiscal woes can be solved by a business plan that doesn’t revolve around first-class mail, but focuses instead on the people who really need it: Catalog companies, businesses, and fundraisers. They still depend on the mail as an effective advertising medium – and almost nothing can kill an effective advertising medium. They’re like vampires.
Would this make such facilities as the one in White River Junction viable? Let’s see.
Which brings me back to the work my wife is doing and all those envelopes we now get that are addressed to Sondra Blewer. As Jerry Seinfeld’s fictional postman, Newman, observed, “The mail never stops. It just keeps coming and coming and coming! It’s relentless!”
It is. But there will indeed come a day when my wife no longer gets circulars and solicitations addressed to her mother. And I will be sad. In the mail are reminders of who my mother-in-law was and what she loved – which is reason enough to wander out to the mailbox.
* * *
This column originally appeared in the Burlington Free Press on March 18, 2012. Chris’s new novel, “The Sandcastle Girls,” arrives on July 17. To decide if you want to add "The Sandcastle Girls" to your Goodreads To-Read cue, click here:
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13...
My wife has found eliminating her mother’s mail is a great game of Whack-a-Mole. She informs one group that protects whales that her mother has passed away, and another group protecting elephants rears its head. She throws away two solicitations for low-interest credit cards and receives two advertising circulars from drugstores or department stores nearly three hundred miles away.
Now, I am not telling you this because I have anything against wildlife, credit cards, or theaters that host Lithuanian dance troupes interpreting Arthur Miller. I like them all. I am telling you this because close to 100,000 postal workers are likely to lose their jobs in the next four years as the U.S. Postal Service tries to figure out how to remain viable in the digital age. There’s a chance that the processing facility in White River Junction, Vermont will close in May, costing 245 northern New Englanders their jobs.
Here’s the reality: Last year the Postal Service lost over five billion dollars. That’s a lot of money for even Bill Gates, Jay Z, and Lady Gaga – not to mention a business that makes a sizable chunk of its change 45 cents at a time. In the last decade, the percentage of people who pay their bills on-line has climbed from 5 percent to 60 percent. Increasing the cost of a first-class letter to 50 cents would cover only a fifth of that five billion dollar shortfall.
The fact is, of course, that the personal letter sent through the mail was feeling its age well before the Internet made it almost obsolete. Last month, Rick Hampson wrote an absolutely fascinating and beautiful eulogy for the personal letter in “USA Today.” As far back as 1990, I wrote an article for this paper about how archivists’ jobs were changing because no one penned (or typed) letters anymore. These days, finding a personal letter in your mailbox is as rare as a good hair day for Uncle Fester.
Now, I’m part of two industries that are being compelled by the digital age to change at Nascar-like speeds: Books and newspapers. So, I’m sympathetic to the plight of the postal worker. But I also know that we have to live in this world – not another.
And here, right now, are the people who need the postal service: J. Crew, J. Jill, and J. Peterman. So do all those wonderful non-profits that look out for children and whales and colleges. The mail remains a vital part of their marketing plans.
So, perhaps the Postal Service’s fiscal woes can be solved by a business plan that doesn’t revolve around first-class mail, but focuses instead on the people who really need it: Catalog companies, businesses, and fundraisers. They still depend on the mail as an effective advertising medium – and almost nothing can kill an effective advertising medium. They’re like vampires.
Would this make such facilities as the one in White River Junction viable? Let’s see.
Which brings me back to the work my wife is doing and all those envelopes we now get that are addressed to Sondra Blewer. As Jerry Seinfeld’s fictional postman, Newman, observed, “The mail never stops. It just keeps coming and coming and coming! It’s relentless!”
It is. But there will indeed come a day when my wife no longer gets circulars and solicitations addressed to her mother. And I will be sad. In the mail are reminders of who my mother-in-law was and what she loved – which is reason enough to wander out to the mailbox.
* * *
This column originally appeared in the Burlington Free Press on March 18, 2012. Chris’s new novel, “The Sandcastle Girls,” arrives on July 17. To decide if you want to add "The Sandcastle Girls" to your Goodreads To-Read cue, click here:
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13...
March 11, 2012
Punch the clock? Today I kiss it. (Also, why meteorologists are like Kim Jong-il.)
Today is the real first day of spring. Sure, there’s that fake one that Calendar Nazis insist is the start of spring: The Vernal Equinox. But that day is completely meaningless to real people: Nothing noticeable changes. Also, this year it’s going to fall on Tuesday, March 20, and no one likes Tuesdays. Tuesday is the Brussels sprouts of each week. Besides, the word “vernal” is – to quote Mark Breen – “so eighteenth century.” Breen is the Senior Meteorologist and Planetarium Director at the Fairbanks Museum and Vermont Public Radio’s “Eye on the Sky. If he says “vernal” is antiquated, it is. After all, when does a weatherperson ever make a mistake? Meteorologists in this country are like Kim Jong-il was to Korea: They are flawless and their wisdom unimpeachable.
Then, of course, there is the advent of meteorological spring, which occurred back on March 1. Here in the Northern Hemisphere, meteorological spring consists of March, April, and May. And while I like the simplicity of that definition, the truth is that most years, March 1 is no different from February 28 or 29. (The only exception to this rule is when the last day of February falls on a Tuesday. By default, March 1 has to be better.)
So, trust me: Today is the real first day of spring. Why? Because today is the first day of Daylight Saving Time. We all set our clocks forward one hour last night before going to bed, trading a paltry sixty minutes of sleep for the magnificent reality that it will be light out one hour longer today than it was yesterday. To quote that renowned meteorologist and role model for tween girls and club promoters everywhere, Paris Hilton, “That’s huge.” Life feels different today, especially late in the afternoon when there is still a little sun from the west. Depending upon what time you eat supper, you might actually be cooking or dining when it is light out.
How pronounced can this effect be on our psyches? Once, when my wife and I were in college in Western Massachusetts, we picked a weekend in March and went to visit her mother in northern New Hampshire. This was the Mesozoic era, so there was no television in the house. Or personal computers. Or smart phones with apps for “Doodle Jump” and “Fruit Ninja.” We were in a serious news void. When we returned to campus late Sunday afternoon, we were baffled because everyone was already eating dinner. We thought it was five o’clock; it was actually six. Daylight Saving Time had arrived.
Of course, even dinnertime is a slightly imperfect barometer of this change. When I visited my father the last years of his life, we used to go out for dinner with his girlfriend and pals when a lot of the world was finishing brunch. We weren’t just early birds: We were positively aboriginal. It’s always Daylight Saving Time in assisted living communities in South Florida.
Sharon Meyer, director of the weather department at Burlington’s WCAX, sees the onset of spring as more of a process – and a beautifully poetic one at that – of which the arrival of Daylight Saving Time is merely one more harbinger. “There are always so many steps along the way,” she told me. “When the sap starts running. When the ice is out. When my shoes and boots are always covered in mud. When the red-winged blackbirds are back. When the pussy willows are out.”
I take what Meyer says very seriously, because she forecasts the weather, and – remember – when is a weatherperson ever wrong? In this case, she’s absolutely right: There are steps along the way.
It’s just that for me, the biggest game changer is Daylight Saving Time.
* * *
This column originally appeared in the Burlington Free Press on March 11, 2012. Chris's new novel, "The Sandcastle Girls," arrives on July 17. You can add it to your Goodreads "to read" shelf here:
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13...
.
Then, of course, there is the advent of meteorological spring, which occurred back on March 1. Here in the Northern Hemisphere, meteorological spring consists of March, April, and May. And while I like the simplicity of that definition, the truth is that most years, March 1 is no different from February 28 or 29. (The only exception to this rule is when the last day of February falls on a Tuesday. By default, March 1 has to be better.)
So, trust me: Today is the real first day of spring. Why? Because today is the first day of Daylight Saving Time. We all set our clocks forward one hour last night before going to bed, trading a paltry sixty minutes of sleep for the magnificent reality that it will be light out one hour longer today than it was yesterday. To quote that renowned meteorologist and role model for tween girls and club promoters everywhere, Paris Hilton, “That’s huge.” Life feels different today, especially late in the afternoon when there is still a little sun from the west. Depending upon what time you eat supper, you might actually be cooking or dining when it is light out.
How pronounced can this effect be on our psyches? Once, when my wife and I were in college in Western Massachusetts, we picked a weekend in March and went to visit her mother in northern New Hampshire. This was the Mesozoic era, so there was no television in the house. Or personal computers. Or smart phones with apps for “Doodle Jump” and “Fruit Ninja.” We were in a serious news void. When we returned to campus late Sunday afternoon, we were baffled because everyone was already eating dinner. We thought it was five o’clock; it was actually six. Daylight Saving Time had arrived.
Of course, even dinnertime is a slightly imperfect barometer of this change. When I visited my father the last years of his life, we used to go out for dinner with his girlfriend and pals when a lot of the world was finishing brunch. We weren’t just early birds: We were positively aboriginal. It’s always Daylight Saving Time in assisted living communities in South Florida.
Sharon Meyer, director of the weather department at Burlington’s WCAX, sees the onset of spring as more of a process – and a beautifully poetic one at that – of which the arrival of Daylight Saving Time is merely one more harbinger. “There are always so many steps along the way,” she told me. “When the sap starts running. When the ice is out. When my shoes and boots are always covered in mud. When the red-winged blackbirds are back. When the pussy willows are out.”
I take what Meyer says very seriously, because she forecasts the weather, and – remember – when is a weatherperson ever wrong? In this case, she’s absolutely right: There are steps along the way.
It’s just that for me, the biggest game changer is Daylight Saving Time.
* * *
This column originally appeared in the Burlington Free Press on March 11, 2012. Chris's new novel, "The Sandcastle Girls," arrives on July 17. You can add it to your Goodreads "to read" shelf here:
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13...
.
March 4, 2012
A completely hysterical trailer for the movie based on my 1992 novel, "Past the Bleachers"
I just found this on youtube.
It's a trailer someone (not Hallmark) made for the 1995 movie based on my novel, "Past the Bleachers." Note the pronouns and typos on the title cards and the Keane soundtrack. . .not from the movie.
I love it all.
Here is the link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRzs79...
It's a trailer someone (not Hallmark) made for the 1995 movie based on my novel, "Past the Bleachers." Note the pronouns and typos on the title cards and the Keane soundtrack. . .not from the movie.
I love it all.
Here is the link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRzs79...
Vermont hill town gets new Town Meeting Moderator for the first time in 25 years
Over thirty years ago, when Will Sipsey and Lisa Gray were living in Brighton, Mass., Lisa shared with Will a book she had brought home from the used bookstore in Cambridge where she worked: A dusty and dog-eared copy of everyone’s favorite page-turning bestseller, “Robert’s Rules of Order.” If you’re young and in love – and really into meetings – there is no hotter book you can share with someone than “Robert’s Rules of Order.” I once wrote an article for a women’s magazine about aphrodisiacs to take to the bedroom, and I must have devoted half my allotted space to “Robert’s.”
Okay, that’s an exaggeration. “Robert’s” never came up. The book, first published by U.S. Army engineer Henry Martyn Robert in February 1876, is not exactly the Kama Sutra, even if you’re the sort of person who visits websites about gavels late at night.
But the book held a quirky interest for both Lisa – a book collector – and Will. They still own that copy. Soon after they married, they moved to Lincoln, Vt. and tomorrow night, for his first time ever, Will Sipsey will be the Moderator for our village’s Town Meeting – our annual foray into legislative self-determination. He is following in the justifiably revered footsteps of David Marsters, who retired last year after moderating our meetings for a quarter-century.
Will, an information technology architect with IBM, plans to start his day tomorrow as he normally would. He will be at Bristol Fitness by five a.m. for an hour-long fitness class, and immediately follow that up with an hour-long spin class at 6:15. Then he will go to work. Will is 54, but he has a lot of energy. To wit: In his quarter-century of living in Lincoln, he served as a selectman for six years; he was on the zoning board for a dozen-plus years; and, at the moment, he is on the Burnham Foundation and is the chair of the Addison County Regional Advisory Transportation Committee.
So, why is he adding town moderator to his docket? “The first thing that came to mind was the girls,” he told me, laughing. “There are a lot of groupies who hang around backstage.”
The real reason, of course, is that he was pressed into service. He took the job because Marsters was retiring and no one else – including yours truly – was willing to man up. It was our town clerk, Sally Ober, who encouraged Will to run last year.
“I don’t like empty spaces on the ballet,” Sally said. “So I do try to recruit people to run. I wouldn’t be town clerk if someone hadn’t encouraged me.” She thought of Will because she had seen him moderate relatively contentious meetings when Lincoln was debating the construction of cell phone towers here. She felt he had done a terrific job making sure that all points were heard and the meetings remained on track.
Will admits he will be nervous on Monday night. “David is a tough act to follow,” he said. “And this isn’t a natural behavior for me. I’m basically an introvert.” He added that it’s easy to see how quickly a moderator can drown in amendments to amendments to resolutions. Consequently, he is trying to view this process a bit like he does his work: “In some ways, it’s reminiscent of computer architecture or a computer stack. Last in, first out.”
And the one word he dreads using? Germane. “I want to facilitate the process, not confront people,” he said. “And when you tell someone that something they’ve said isn’t germane, you’re telling them that something they’ve said is wrong.”
My sense is Will has nothing to fear. Yes, he will have to utter that dreaded G-word at least once or twice, because Town Meeting is, by design, a little messy. Even a gavel and a well-worn copy of “Robert’s Rules of Order” can’t keep a roomful of Jeffersonian-inspired Vermonters on track – which is how it should be.
I just hope tomorrow night I’m not the guy who chimes in with a brilliant point that isn’t. . .germane.
* * *
This column originally appeared in the Burlington Free Press on March 4, 2012. The paperback of Chris's most recent novel, "The Night Strangers," arrives on April 24.
Okay, that’s an exaggeration. “Robert’s” never came up. The book, first published by U.S. Army engineer Henry Martyn Robert in February 1876, is not exactly the Kama Sutra, even if you’re the sort of person who visits websites about gavels late at night.
But the book held a quirky interest for both Lisa – a book collector – and Will. They still own that copy. Soon after they married, they moved to Lincoln, Vt. and tomorrow night, for his first time ever, Will Sipsey will be the Moderator for our village’s Town Meeting – our annual foray into legislative self-determination. He is following in the justifiably revered footsteps of David Marsters, who retired last year after moderating our meetings for a quarter-century.
Will, an information technology architect with IBM, plans to start his day tomorrow as he normally would. He will be at Bristol Fitness by five a.m. for an hour-long fitness class, and immediately follow that up with an hour-long spin class at 6:15. Then he will go to work. Will is 54, but he has a lot of energy. To wit: In his quarter-century of living in Lincoln, he served as a selectman for six years; he was on the zoning board for a dozen-plus years; and, at the moment, he is on the Burnham Foundation and is the chair of the Addison County Regional Advisory Transportation Committee.
So, why is he adding town moderator to his docket? “The first thing that came to mind was the girls,” he told me, laughing. “There are a lot of groupies who hang around backstage.”
The real reason, of course, is that he was pressed into service. He took the job because Marsters was retiring and no one else – including yours truly – was willing to man up. It was our town clerk, Sally Ober, who encouraged Will to run last year.
“I don’t like empty spaces on the ballet,” Sally said. “So I do try to recruit people to run. I wouldn’t be town clerk if someone hadn’t encouraged me.” She thought of Will because she had seen him moderate relatively contentious meetings when Lincoln was debating the construction of cell phone towers here. She felt he had done a terrific job making sure that all points were heard and the meetings remained on track.
Will admits he will be nervous on Monday night. “David is a tough act to follow,” he said. “And this isn’t a natural behavior for me. I’m basically an introvert.” He added that it’s easy to see how quickly a moderator can drown in amendments to amendments to resolutions. Consequently, he is trying to view this process a bit like he does his work: “In some ways, it’s reminiscent of computer architecture or a computer stack. Last in, first out.”
And the one word he dreads using? Germane. “I want to facilitate the process, not confront people,” he said. “And when you tell someone that something they’ve said isn’t germane, you’re telling them that something they’ve said is wrong.”
My sense is Will has nothing to fear. Yes, he will have to utter that dreaded G-word at least once or twice, because Town Meeting is, by design, a little messy. Even a gavel and a well-worn copy of “Robert’s Rules of Order” can’t keep a roomful of Jeffersonian-inspired Vermonters on track – which is how it should be.
I just hope tomorrow night I’m not the guy who chimes in with a brilliant point that isn’t. . .germane.
* * *
This column originally appeared in the Burlington Free Press on March 4, 2012. The paperback of Chris's most recent novel, "The Night Strangers," arrives on April 24.
February 26, 2012
In honor of the Oscars, can writers on the red carpet really go glam?
The Academy Awards tonight could be a monumental evening for Oscar-nominated actresses Rooney Mara, Michelle Williams, and Jessica Chastain. Tomorrow, however, will be even better. Win or lose, Monday morning they all get to eat, probably for the first time since January. Make no mistake, a woman gives up a lot to win an Academy Award, of which flour in February and underwear on the big night are but two of the sacrifices.
Men have it much easier. I’ve never attended the Academy Awards, but once I gave a presentation about the movie, “Midwives,” to a group of TV executives and producers at the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. I ate plenty beforehand and was indeed wearing underwear.
A female friend of mine, an aspiring actress, thinks Hollywood’s sexism – the reality that beauty goes a long way for women – is unbelievably unfair. “How is it that Steve Buscemi and Paul Giamatti keep getting parts? Yes, they’re talented. I get it! But if a woman looked like that? Unemployable!” she once railed around me.
In any case, I would love someday to set foot inside the Kodak Theater – or what was called the Kodak Theater before the film pioneer went into bankruptcy. Now, I believe, the theater is just called Blockbuster. Or, if you’re there for a screenplay adaptation, Borders.
The truth is, I love the Academy Awards and I really look forward to this evening – and not merely because there is always the chance that Dame Judi Dench will have a wardrobe malfunction or James Franco will wake up. Some years, I actually play the whole Oscar ballot game. To make it really challenging, I don’t waste my time on the actors and actresses and directors. I focus on the technical achievement awards, because the toughest races are always between the folks behind the NAC Servo Winch System and the women and men who invented the volumetric suspended cable camera technologies.
Year after year, however, what fascinates me most is this: The reality that people – including me – spend so much more energy fixating on the Academy Awards than we do on the equivalent celebration of literary accomplishment, the National Book Awards. There are a lot of pretty obvious reasons for this. The movies are a much bigger business. Many more people see movies than read novels and memoirs or even crack the spine of poetry collections. And – there is no polite way to say this – actors and actresses are way better eye candy than poets, historians, and novelists. I’ve been to the National Book Awards a couple of times, and, trust me, it could be a convention of cloggers (the poets) and software designers with bad haircuts (everyone else). Sure, in the novelist camp we have Andre Dubus III and Ann Patchett – who just this week left Stephen Colbert speechless and pulled off some pretty awesome shoes on national television – but we also have a lot of serious writers who look like a Nick Nolte mug shot.
And yet there are just enough writerly rock stars to make for great TV. Dubus and Patchett are only two. Others? J. K. Rowling and Stephen King, for starters. Maya Angelou. Jodi Picoult. Joyce Carol Oates. One of the years I was at the National Book Awards, Steve Martin hosted, and he was every bit as funny as when he hosted the Oscars.
In all honesty, the National Book Awards are probably not ready to migrate over from BookTV (C-Span 2) to ABC. To begin with, we need a lot more awards. And an orchestra. And a nipple slip.
But someday, I hope, we will celebrate books with the same glamour we do movies, and my female peers can have the privilege of not eating, too.
* * *
This column originally appeared in the Burlington Free Press on February 26, 2012. Chris’s next novel, “The Sandcastle Girls,” arrives on July 17. You can add it to your shelves by following this link:
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13...
.
Men have it much easier. I’ve never attended the Academy Awards, but once I gave a presentation about the movie, “Midwives,” to a group of TV executives and producers at the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. I ate plenty beforehand and was indeed wearing underwear.
A female friend of mine, an aspiring actress, thinks Hollywood’s sexism – the reality that beauty goes a long way for women – is unbelievably unfair. “How is it that Steve Buscemi and Paul Giamatti keep getting parts? Yes, they’re talented. I get it! But if a woman looked like that? Unemployable!” she once railed around me.
In any case, I would love someday to set foot inside the Kodak Theater – or what was called the Kodak Theater before the film pioneer went into bankruptcy. Now, I believe, the theater is just called Blockbuster. Or, if you’re there for a screenplay adaptation, Borders.
The truth is, I love the Academy Awards and I really look forward to this evening – and not merely because there is always the chance that Dame Judi Dench will have a wardrobe malfunction or James Franco will wake up. Some years, I actually play the whole Oscar ballot game. To make it really challenging, I don’t waste my time on the actors and actresses and directors. I focus on the technical achievement awards, because the toughest races are always between the folks behind the NAC Servo Winch System and the women and men who invented the volumetric suspended cable camera technologies.
Year after year, however, what fascinates me most is this: The reality that people – including me – spend so much more energy fixating on the Academy Awards than we do on the equivalent celebration of literary accomplishment, the National Book Awards. There are a lot of pretty obvious reasons for this. The movies are a much bigger business. Many more people see movies than read novels and memoirs or even crack the spine of poetry collections. And – there is no polite way to say this – actors and actresses are way better eye candy than poets, historians, and novelists. I’ve been to the National Book Awards a couple of times, and, trust me, it could be a convention of cloggers (the poets) and software designers with bad haircuts (everyone else). Sure, in the novelist camp we have Andre Dubus III and Ann Patchett – who just this week left Stephen Colbert speechless and pulled off some pretty awesome shoes on national television – but we also have a lot of serious writers who look like a Nick Nolte mug shot.
And yet there are just enough writerly rock stars to make for great TV. Dubus and Patchett are only two. Others? J. K. Rowling and Stephen King, for starters. Maya Angelou. Jodi Picoult. Joyce Carol Oates. One of the years I was at the National Book Awards, Steve Martin hosted, and he was every bit as funny as when he hosted the Oscars.
In all honesty, the National Book Awards are probably not ready to migrate over from BookTV (C-Span 2) to ABC. To begin with, we need a lot more awards. And an orchestra. And a nipple slip.
But someday, I hope, we will celebrate books with the same glamour we do movies, and my female peers can have the privilege of not eating, too.
* * *
This column originally appeared in the Burlington Free Press on February 26, 2012. Chris’s next novel, “The Sandcastle Girls,” arrives on July 17. You can add it to your shelves by following this link:
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13...
.
February 19, 2012
A bird in the hand? Flip it.
I am not especially accident-prone, but last month I broke my finger and mangled one side of it when I was putting away dumbbells at the gym. Yup: I was putting them away. Each one was 60 pounds and somehow I managed to get my right middle finger in between them or between one of them and the rack. It happened fast, as all dumb — and dumbbell — accidents do. One minute I was dropping the weights back onto the metal platform, and the next I was running my finger under the stream from the ice water fountain and trying to decide which expletives were suitable for a Wednesday afternoon at the gym. The finger looked like zombie lunchmeat.
So, for the last few weeks, my most prominent feature has been the way I am — and here’s a euphemism since this is a family newspaper and I’m a polite guy — flipping everybody I see the bird. The finger has either been swaddled and taped in gauze, or swaddled and taped and splinted. Either way, it makes for a great first impression, especially in a season with presidential primaries, political debates, and a State of the Union address. I have been everyone’s straight line.
Fortunately, I am not a surgeon or a concert pianist. So, for me — like for most people — a broken finger isn’t a big deal. I am, however, right-handed, and so it has been a tad inconvenient. I have always been a klutz (exhibit A, crunching my fingers between dumbbells), and so trying to do most things with my left hand has meant a whole lot of salad in my lap and a whole lot of nicks when I shaved. It has meant that I have to be a wee bit more careful when I slide my right arm through a sleeve, since it is usually those right fingers that lead the way.
But here is what I found most interesting the first two weeks after the accident: Because I had to do things slowly and methodically, I was, in some cases, weirdly competent. A perfect example would be the mornings when I would start a fire in the woodstove. Prior to breaking my finger, I would throw some newspaper and kindling into the bottom of the stove and then cavalierly toss in some logs. Some mornings it would ignite quickly, but other mornings I would have to rearrange the pyre until I got it right. With only my left hand, however, I found myself meticulously building a pyramid with long strips of newspaper I took the time to rip, carefully scattered tinder, and small logs positioned to allow plenty of air to circulate. Every single fire I built with only my left hand started easily. And while it took longer to construct them, in the long run it probably took less time than some of the blazes I would start when I had both hands and was far more casual in my design.
Moreover, I found myself unusually serene as I moved more slowly through the world. To begin with, I could no longer multitask: I couldn’t, for instance, talk to my editor or my agent on the phone while loading the dishwasher. It was one or the other because I had but one hand. And that, in turn, meant that I couldn’t do as much. And with diminished expectations came an unexpected tranquility, not the frustration I had anticipated. I let things go and, much to my surprise, the sun still rose.
In addition, I had to get over my profound germ-o-phobia. I have always been a manic hand-washer, surgically scrubbing my fingers before allowing them anywhere near my face. (I would bathe in antibacterial hand gel if I could squeeze enough into my bathtub.) But I could not get my broken right finger wet, except when I cleaned the wound, and so I had to get over my fear of cold germs and other flesh-eating microbial contagions.
Now, would I break my finger again to learn these lessons? Uh, no. But it has been nice to flip the bird at some of my sillier habits.
* * *
This column originally ran in the Burlington Free Press on February 19, 2012. Chris’s next novel, “The Sandcastle Girls,” arrives on July 17. To read the first 559 words here on goodreads, follow this link:
http://www.goodreads.com/author_blog_...
.
So, for the last few weeks, my most prominent feature has been the way I am — and here’s a euphemism since this is a family newspaper and I’m a polite guy — flipping everybody I see the bird. The finger has either been swaddled and taped in gauze, or swaddled and taped and splinted. Either way, it makes for a great first impression, especially in a season with presidential primaries, political debates, and a State of the Union address. I have been everyone’s straight line.
Fortunately, I am not a surgeon or a concert pianist. So, for me — like for most people — a broken finger isn’t a big deal. I am, however, right-handed, and so it has been a tad inconvenient. I have always been a klutz (exhibit A, crunching my fingers between dumbbells), and so trying to do most things with my left hand has meant a whole lot of salad in my lap and a whole lot of nicks when I shaved. It has meant that I have to be a wee bit more careful when I slide my right arm through a sleeve, since it is usually those right fingers that lead the way.
But here is what I found most interesting the first two weeks after the accident: Because I had to do things slowly and methodically, I was, in some cases, weirdly competent. A perfect example would be the mornings when I would start a fire in the woodstove. Prior to breaking my finger, I would throw some newspaper and kindling into the bottom of the stove and then cavalierly toss in some logs. Some mornings it would ignite quickly, but other mornings I would have to rearrange the pyre until I got it right. With only my left hand, however, I found myself meticulously building a pyramid with long strips of newspaper I took the time to rip, carefully scattered tinder, and small logs positioned to allow plenty of air to circulate. Every single fire I built with only my left hand started easily. And while it took longer to construct them, in the long run it probably took less time than some of the blazes I would start when I had both hands and was far more casual in my design.
Moreover, I found myself unusually serene as I moved more slowly through the world. To begin with, I could no longer multitask: I couldn’t, for instance, talk to my editor or my agent on the phone while loading the dishwasher. It was one or the other because I had but one hand. And that, in turn, meant that I couldn’t do as much. And with diminished expectations came an unexpected tranquility, not the frustration I had anticipated. I let things go and, much to my surprise, the sun still rose.
In addition, I had to get over my profound germ-o-phobia. I have always been a manic hand-washer, surgically scrubbing my fingers before allowing them anywhere near my face. (I would bathe in antibacterial hand gel if I could squeeze enough into my bathtub.) But I could not get my broken right finger wet, except when I cleaned the wound, and so I had to get over my fear of cold germs and other flesh-eating microbial contagions.
Now, would I break my finger again to learn these lessons? Uh, no. But it has been nice to flip the bird at some of my sillier habits.
* * *
This column originally ran in the Burlington Free Press on February 19, 2012. Chris’s next novel, “The Sandcastle Girls,” arrives on July 17. To read the first 559 words here on goodreads, follow this link:
http://www.goodreads.com/author_blog_...
.
February 18, 2012
The Sandcastle Girls -- the first 559 words
I found myself looking at the copy-editted manuscript the other day for my next novel, The Sandcastle Girls, and felt an unexpected twinge of excitement. The books arrives roughly five months from today. Here are the first 559 words — the first quarter of the prologue.
* * *
When my brother and I were small children, we would take turns sitting on our grandfather’s lap. There he would grab the rope-like rolls of baby fat that would pool at our waists and bounce us on his knees, cooing, “Big belly, big belly, big belly.” This was meant as an affectionate, grandfatherly gesture, not his subtle way of suggesting that if we didn’t lose weight, we would wind up as Jenny Craig testimonials. Just for the record, there is also a chance that when my brother was being bounced on Grandpa’s lap, he was wearing a white turtleneck shirt and red velvet knickers. This is the outfit my mother often had him wear when we visited our grandparents, because this was the get-up that in her opinion made him look most British – and he had to look British, since she was going to make him sing the 1964 Herman’s Hermits pop hit, “I’m Henry the VIII, I am.” The song had been popular five years earlier when she had been pregnant with us, and in some disturbingly Oedipal fashion she had come to view it as their song.
Yup, a fat kid in red velvet knickers singing “Herman’s Hermits” with a bad British accent. How is it that no one beat him up?
I, in turn, would be expected to sing “Both Sides Now,” which was marginally more timely – the song had been popular only a year earlier, in 1968 – though not really any more appropriate. I was four years old and had no opinions at all on love’s illusions. But I did, despite the great dollops of Armenian DNA inside me, have waves of blond spit curls, and so my mother fixated on the lyric, “bows and flows of angel hair.” I wore a blue mini-skirt and white patent leather go-go boots. No one was going to beat me up, but it is a wonder that a social welfare agency never suggested to my mother that she was dressing her daughter like a four-year-old hooker.
My grandfather – both of my grandparents, for different reasons – was absolutely oblivious to rock and roll, and I have no idea what he made of his grandchildren decked out for “American Bandstand.” Moreover, if 1969 were to have a soundtrack, invariably it would have depended upon Woodstock, not “Herman’s Hermits” or Judy Collins. Nevertheless, the only music I recall at my grandparents’ house that year – other than my brother’s traumatizing refrain, “Everyone was a En-er-e (En-er-e!)” – was the sound of the oud when my grandfather would play Armenian folk songs or strum it like a madman while my aunt belly-danced for all of us. And why my aunt was belly-dancing remains a mystery to me: The only time Armenian girls belly-danced was when they were commandeered into a sheik’s harem, and it was a choice of dying in the desert or accepting the tattoos and learning to shimmy. Trust me: You will never see an Armenian girl belly-dancing on “So You Think You Can Dance.”
Regardless, the belly-dancing – as well as my grandfather’s affection for his chubby grandchildren – does suggest that their house existed in a penumbra of playfulness and good cheer. Sometimes, it did. But equally often there was an aura of sadness, secrets, and wistfulness. Even as a child I detected the subterranean currents of loss when I would visit.
* * *
To see what the novel is really about, click here to read the Doubleday catalog copy:
http://chrisbohjalian.wordpress.com/2...
To add the novel to your goodreads reading list, click here:
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13...
.
* * *
When my brother and I were small children, we would take turns sitting on our grandfather’s lap. There he would grab the rope-like rolls of baby fat that would pool at our waists and bounce us on his knees, cooing, “Big belly, big belly, big belly.” This was meant as an affectionate, grandfatherly gesture, not his subtle way of suggesting that if we didn’t lose weight, we would wind up as Jenny Craig testimonials. Just for the record, there is also a chance that when my brother was being bounced on Grandpa’s lap, he was wearing a white turtleneck shirt and red velvet knickers. This is the outfit my mother often had him wear when we visited our grandparents, because this was the get-up that in her opinion made him look most British – and he had to look British, since she was going to make him sing the 1964 Herman’s Hermits pop hit, “I’m Henry the VIII, I am.” The song had been popular five years earlier when she had been pregnant with us, and in some disturbingly Oedipal fashion she had come to view it as their song.
Yup, a fat kid in red velvet knickers singing “Herman’s Hermits” with a bad British accent. How is it that no one beat him up?
I, in turn, would be expected to sing “Both Sides Now,” which was marginally more timely – the song had been popular only a year earlier, in 1968 – though not really any more appropriate. I was four years old and had no opinions at all on love’s illusions. But I did, despite the great dollops of Armenian DNA inside me, have waves of blond spit curls, and so my mother fixated on the lyric, “bows and flows of angel hair.” I wore a blue mini-skirt and white patent leather go-go boots. No one was going to beat me up, but it is a wonder that a social welfare agency never suggested to my mother that she was dressing her daughter like a four-year-old hooker.
My grandfather – both of my grandparents, for different reasons – was absolutely oblivious to rock and roll, and I have no idea what he made of his grandchildren decked out for “American Bandstand.” Moreover, if 1969 were to have a soundtrack, invariably it would have depended upon Woodstock, not “Herman’s Hermits” or Judy Collins. Nevertheless, the only music I recall at my grandparents’ house that year – other than my brother’s traumatizing refrain, “Everyone was a En-er-e (En-er-e!)” – was the sound of the oud when my grandfather would play Armenian folk songs or strum it like a madman while my aunt belly-danced for all of us. And why my aunt was belly-dancing remains a mystery to me: The only time Armenian girls belly-danced was when they were commandeered into a sheik’s harem, and it was a choice of dying in the desert or accepting the tattoos and learning to shimmy. Trust me: You will never see an Armenian girl belly-dancing on “So You Think You Can Dance.”
Regardless, the belly-dancing – as well as my grandfather’s affection for his chubby grandchildren – does suggest that their house existed in a penumbra of playfulness and good cheer. Sometimes, it did. But equally often there was an aura of sadness, secrets, and wistfulness. Even as a child I detected the subterranean currents of loss when I would visit.
* * *
To see what the novel is really about, click here to read the Doubleday catalog copy:
http://chrisbohjalian.wordpress.com/2...
To add the novel to your goodreads reading list, click here:
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13...
.
