Tom Glenn's Blog, page 34

New Interview Up

My second interview with Doug Llewelyn is now available online. You can access it at https://www.einnews.com/pr_news/578249458/best-selling-author-tom-glenn-to-be-featured-on-close-up-radio
Please take a listen and let me know what you think. 

Surveying My Kingdom

The listing of my treasures in this blog, which I completed yesterday, reminded me of an exercise I allow myself periodically. I call it surveying my kingdom. I wander from room to room in my house, trying to see my surroundings as a stranger might. I spend more time than usual by the windows studying the pond in back (north) of my house and the forest surrounding it. I gaze at length to the east out the windows overlooking an open field surrounded by the thick foliage of closely growing trees where all manner of wild animals venture.

I bought this house several years ago when I moved to Columbia from Ellicott City, some twelve miles to the north. I was looking for a place where the outside work would be minimal because I’m getting old, and physical labor is no longer my forté. I now live in one of the most beautiful cities in the U.S. next to a pond and surrounded by mature trees heavy in foliage. And the outside work is limited to trimming bushes along the walkway once or twice a year. I have achieved the dream of living in a beautiful place with almost no work to keep it up.

I’ve earned the right to survey.

Treasures (3)

My master bedroom has not escaped decoration with treasures. On the wall over the bed is a stylized print in blue and back of a Japanese nobleman complete with umbrella. On the wall opposite the bed is a reproduction of Gustav Klint’s Der Kuss (The Kiss) in all its color and gold leaf. On the sidewall is a costume sketch for the character of Roxanne from the 2004 production of Edmond Rostand’s Cyrano de Bergerac at the Shakespeare Theater in Washington, D.C.

The walls of my office on the lowest level of my split-level house are also decorated but not with objets d’art. One wall is covered with pictures of my family—my children and grandchildren. The walls on both sides of the descending steps are taken up with 23 award certificates I’ve received, mostly for my books with a few for my volunteer work.

The most honored exhibit in my house is the wall in the dining room where my Who’s Who, Top Professional, Top Artist, and Last Man Out awards are displayed. As I have written here before, these honors humble me.

That’s what comes of an artist/writer/spy travelling to the farthest corners of the earth with enough money to buy mementoes. It may sound overwhelming to the casual reader, but it’s home to me.

Treasures (2)

As may be obvious from what I have said so far, my treasures aren’t worth much in money, but they are invaluable to me. One example is the North Vietnamese combat helmet sitting on a table in my living room. It is olive drab in color, decorated with a round metal piece an inch and a quarter in diameter showing a gold star against a red background. According to the internet, it is the People’s Army of Vietnam (North Vietnam) Surplus Military Emblem. Another American (I can’t remember who) gave me helmet to thank me for my service.

Other rooms sport other memorabilia. In the piano room, in an honored spot on the wall, is a photo of two combat boots. The picture is labelled “Do what you have to do, whatever it takes.” That’s the motto of one of the characters in my novel, Last of the Annamese, set during the fall of Saigon. The picture was a gift to me from the photographer who took the picture and found the empty boots haunting. To me they symbolize combat death—all that’s left of their owner is the boots.

Close by is a watercolor painting of the cathedral in Kiev seen behind two modest dwellings with freshly washed garments hanging from a clothesline. Hanging next to the painting is a round brass tray some two and a half feet wide filled with a colored engraved depiction of a phoenix. Sitting on a cabinet beneath the pictures is black carved head of the Egyptian queen Nefertiti. Beneath the windows looking out to the east are two round porcelain garden seats. Both are white. One is decorated with pictures of dragons against a foliage background; the other is three elephant heads joined at the back. The three-headed white elephant was the royal symbol in the kingdom of Laos. It is called Airavata.

Next to the piano is a round, dark brown, wooden drum table, some two and a half feet high with a removable top. I’m not currently storing anything inside the table. Not far away are three porcelain elephants from Vietnam. They are several feet high, brilliantly colored, and decked out with intricate howdahs (riding seats).

In the adjoining room, the sunroom, adjacent to the deck at the back of the house, are more treasures. Hanging on the wall above my reading chair is a reproduction of the head of the virgin from Michelangelo’s sculpture, the Pietà. Mary’s face captivated me when I first saw it, and now I can look upon it at will. Opposite the chair is my bright green temple dog, a hyperbolic ceramic rendering of a Chinese dog with a ball in its mouth primed for play. Above the fireplace is hung a circular green Aztec cut-out silhouette of a solemn face encircled by intricate patterns and set against a tan background.

More next time.

Treasures

Scattered throughout my house are objets d’art collected during my many years of travelling abroad on intelligence assignments. As a speaker of seven languages, I was sent to many different countries, mostly in Europe and Asia, to collect data on a variety of targets over a period of thirty-five years. I am an artist by nature and loved to accumulate curios from all the places I worked. The problem is that the locations I visited, what I did, and who I worked with after 1975 are all still classified. The end result is that a visitor to my home will see all manner of art from places I can’t admit to have ever visited.

My time up to and before 1975 has been declassified. That means that the thirteen years which I spent mostly in Vietnam are no longer secret. So the many art pieces from Vietnam need no explanation.

The walls of my living room are decorated with paintings, including oils from Vietnam—landscapes portraying the haunting beauty of tropical mountains and jungles. But among them is an American farm scene, a gift given to me after I did a presentation. It is labelled “Dr. Tom Glenn Eastern Idaho 1996.” Next to it is a portrait of an American Indian matron. And over the fireplace, in the place of greatest honor, is a large painting—three and a half feet by two feet—of a tiger. In the upper right-hand corner is a series of Chinese characters I haven’t been able to decipher. My best guess is that they are the signature of the painter.

More next time.

Top Artist

I’m humbled to report that the Marquis Who’s Who has named me as a Top Artist for 2022. You can visit their web page on me at https://marquistopartists.com/2022/06/15/tom-glenn/

Take a look and let me know what you think.

Silver Cups

I have had in my possession for more years than I can remember five small silver cups, all badly tarnished. They came to my attention recently when I was cleaning, so I sat down with a flashlight and a magnifying glass to examine them.

Two are identical tiny goblets, only two inches tall. On the bottom of one is a paper decal saying “Made in China”. The bowl portion at the top is plain with two slits, one on each side, suggesting that perhaps their purpose was to hold and display a business card. The stems are intricately carved with what looks like vegetation.

The third cup is not really a cup. It’s a round container an inch and a half tall with a removable top. On the bottom is written words so small I had to use the magnifying glass to read them: “Tiffany’s Makers Sterling 88670 L”.

The fourth cup is in the shape of drinking glass, known as a pint glass. It is three inches tall, just short of two and a half inches wide at the top and just over an inch and a half wide at the bottom. Below its rim is a decorated band will with miniscule pictures of dragons. Below the band, close to the middle of the cup, carved in tiny print, are the words, “SUZIE 2-11-1933”.

The fifth, the most ornate of all, is a cup with a handle, two-and-three-quarters inches tall, and two-and-a-half inches wide at both the top and the bottom. In a band below the rim are the words “MONTH JULY 8 YEAR 1935 BIRTH RECORD LBS 6 OZ 14 INCHES 19”. Below the band are carved pictures of a clock whose hands show five o’clock above a rising sun with the words “SUZANNE GLENN” on its upper rim. To the left of the clock and the sun is a stork carrying a baby in swaddling clothes. To the right is a fairy with a wand.

I remember enough about these cups to know that they were intended to celebrate the birth of me and my sister, Suzanne, who died of polio when I was four and she was a couple of years older than me. I don’t remember her birthdate, so I can’t tell which of the dates on the two different cups might have been that date.

I’ll continue to keep and treasure the five cups as mementos of a time long past. Someday my children will inherit them and catch a brief glance of a time long before theirs.

Trump Inviolable?

Day by day, I’m learning of more and more crimes committed by Donald Trump. And yet no one has indicted him. One story that caught my eye was that of the discovery that Trump had taken multiple boxes of classified material from the White House to his private residence in Florida after his defeat in the 2020 election. Had I, during my long career of handling highly classified material, walked off with a box of secret documents, I’d have been immediately arrested, indicted, convicted, and imprisoned. But nothing happened to Trump.

Why? Does being the president of the United States put one above the law? Is he allowed to repeatedly break the law with impunity?

I shake my head in disbelief as the stories of Trump’s crimes accumulate. What kind of a country do I live in where a president can do endless damage and yet remain scot-free?

We are closer to tyranny than I realized.

Recognition

For reasons unknown, I am suddenly receiving widespread recognition. Who’s Who worldwide and Who’s Who national have both recognized me as one of their luminaries for 2022. They also named me as a top artist and a top professional for 2022. My novel Last of the Annamese was just named the Human Relations Indie Book Awards 2022 Gold Winner for Historical Realistic Fiction. And I’ve been invited to do a total of four radio interviews on CUTV News Talk Radio with Doug Llewelyn.

I did the first of the interviews on Tuesday. You can listen to it at https://www.einnews.com/pr_news/578249458/best-selling-author-tom-glenn-to-be-featured-on-close-up-radio   After you get to the site, scroll down until you find a box with a regularly changing pictures of my books. Click on it, and you’ll hear a recording of the broadcast. Please let me know your reaction.

I’m mystified as to why all these honors are being bestowed on me all at once. But I am grateful. The thing I like best about the publicity is that it will encourage more people to read my books. These days, that’s one of the things I care the most about.

New Gun Legislation

The recently passed and signed national gun control legislation is a step—more like a gesture—in the right direction, but it won’t have much effect. It includes incentives for states to pass so-called red flag laws that allow groups to petition courts to remove weapons from people deemed a threat to themselves or others. It also expands existing provisi0ns to prevent people convicted of domestic abuse from owning a gun and expands background checks on people between the ages of 18 and 21 seeking to buy a gun.

But it does nothing to reduce the number of guns in the hands of U.S. citizens and will, therefore, do nothing to reduce the number of deaths due to gun violence.

The ratio between the number of guns in the hands of citizens and the number killed by guns is the same for all modern democracies worldwide—the more guns, the more who die from gunfire. The U.S. has the highest number of guns owned by citizens of any modern democracy—more than 120 guns for every hundred people—and the highest number killed by gunfire—21,653 so far this year as of June 29, 2022, according to the Gun Violence Archive.

I don’t know what it will take for Americans to realize that they must reduce the number of guns in the hands of citizens to reduce the number killed. I can only pray that my children and grandchildren are not among the victims.