Amy Neftzger's Blog, page 9

Plans for My Bookish Trip to New York

I’m headed to New York this Spring for Book Expo America. Since my trip is a very bookish one, I’ve started putting together a list of bookish things to do while there. Here’s what I have so far. Please feel free to list any additional suggestions in the comments.


Central Park
I’ve been to New York a number of times on business and have never had the opportunity to see Central Park. On this trip I'll make time to go there. Aside from all the books that mention the park, such as the famous scene near the end of Catcher in the Rye that takes place at the carousel, there are also statues of writers such as Robert Burns, Sir Walter Scott, and William Shakespeare. Bronze writers - how fun is that???

The Algonquin Hotel
Dorothy Parker and the round table. Need I say more?
Note to self: pack extra snark and wit. And shoes that go with snark and wit.

The New York Public Library
I’d really like to meet Winnie the Pooh, and this is where he currently lives along with the original Piglet, Kanga, Eeyore, and Tigger. I'll ask him what it feels like to be 90 and kept in a glass cage.

McSorelys Old Ale House
Many literary types have passed through this pub  - including  John Lennon, who just happens to be one of my favorite lyricists. The pub calls itself the oldest operating saloon in New York and it’s the setting of e e cumming’s poem “i was sitting in mcsorley's” (the title makes it a bit obvious).  Oh yes, Abe Lincoln has been there, too.

Strand Books
I just want to go in there and small all those books! This is an independent family-owned bookstore that opened in 1927. If I can find a member of the Strand family, perhaps I can interview the person and find out what they know that Border’s didn’t.

White Horse Tavern
The famous place where Dylan Thomas drank himself to death (18 shots of whiskey). Other literary patrons who were more modest in their drinking behavior include Jack Kerouac, James Baldwin, and Norman Mailer. Note: by “modest” I simply mean that they stopped before the point of death.

Chumley's
This legendary bar is closed right now due to collapsed chimney a few years ago. But if it opens again I'll be going there to check it out and breathe in the ghosts of literary greatness. Former patrons include writers such as Hemingway, F Scott Fitzgerald, and T S Eliot. It is rumored that Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald’s wedding reception took place there, also.

Minetta Tavern
Another literary tavern rife with the spirits of writers such as Ernest Hemingway, Ezra Pound, Eugene O'Neill, E. E. Cummings, and Dylan Thomas.

Pete’s Tavern
This tavern calls itself “the oldest continuously operating restaurant and bar in New York." O. Henry was a regular customer at the establishment, as it says along the edge of the awning (extra points for subtlety!). I might actually check out the food here so that I have enough energy to make it to the next literary tavern.

This is my list for now. As you can see, I’ll be drinking a lot. It seems to be a tradition for writers in New York and, therefore, I’ll be doing my part to maintain the custom. I hope my traveling buddies are diligently building up a tolerance so they can keep up with me.

Recipe: Miss Havisham’s Broken Heart Valentines

I have teenage children who refer to Valentine’s Day as “Celebrate You’re Not Single Day.” I realize that the commercialized version of Valentine’s Day is not everyone’s favorite celebration and that it can even be a painful reminder to those of us who are uncoupled, whether a teenager or not. So in an effort to have some fun with this holiday and to twist things around, a few years ago I started shaping Rice Krispie treats into hearts. Then I broke the hearts and made them “bleed.” It occurred to me that this is exactly what Miss Havisham* would do and, being a lover of literature, I have therefore named these treats after her.  I'm including it today as part of the Southern Writers "Eat My Valentine" Blog tour (see the schedule in the right margin).  Below is the recipe.


Step One:

Mix up a batch of Rice Krispie treats following the directions on the box. I do a variation of this that is 1 stick of unsalted butter slowly melted with one bag of large marshmallows. Once the marshmallows are completely melted I add a teaspoon of vanilla extract (you can use peppermint extract or another flavor to mix things up a bit.). Finally, add the Rice Krispies and Stir to coat evenly.

Step Two:
Spread out a long sheet of wax paper. Spoon about 1.5 cups of the Rice Krispie mixture onto the wax paper. Use your hands to shape this mound into a heart. You can either grease your hands or place a sheet of wax paper over the mixture as you work. Repeat this step to make more hearts until you run out of mixture.
Note - You will need to work quickly.

Step Three:
Let the hearts cool and harden - like Stella’s heart in Great Expectations :)

Step Four:
Using a knife, cut a jagged line through each heart to “break” it.

Step Five:
Pour red icing or raspberry jam over the broken heart to make it bleed. You can also use cherry, strawberry, or another red colored jam.

Step Six:
Eat your broken heart out because being single never tasted so good.
Take THAT, Miss Havisham!


* Miss Havisham was the old spinster in the Charles Dickens novel Great Expectations. Because she had her own heart broken on her wedding day, she taught her adopted daughter, Stella, to break the hearts of young men.

Scarpati Interview: The Scorpions Deadly Sting Cover

Interview With John Scarpati

IntroductionYou may not know the name John Scarpati, but I’m positive you’re familiar with his work. He’s a photographer who has done hundreds of album covers, including a number of which became gold and platinum records. Take a brief moment to look over the list on Scarpati's Wikipedia page (note: Wikipedia only has a partial list of his covers). He’s also published a book of some of his images from the 80s called Cramp Slash & Burn: When Punk and Glam Were Twins.

Scarpati is not just talented and extremely personable, he’s also a friend of mine (because I only hang around the nicest people). So I spent a few hours talking with him about some of the work he’s done and he graciously answered my questions. Below is part of our conversation on the making of the Scorpion’s Deadly Sting album cover.

InterviewQuestion: What is a typical job like?
Answer: There are no typical jobs. One of my favorite aspects of photography is problem solving and that no two jobs are the same. Especially if you’re doing concept photography, you never know what it’s going to take to build and bring a concept to fruition. It could be location, studio, props, getting the right team together. You can never be completely ready for a shoot and that’s what excites me about what I do. every day is a new adventure with a new set of problems.

Question: Tell me about shooting the Scorpions “Deadly Sting” cover. What kinds of problems did you have and how did you solve them?
Answer: For the Scorpions cover we needed 300 live African Emperor scorpions as part of the set.

Question: How do you find something like that?
Answer: Turns out there’s a guy named Jules Sylvester  who supplies reptiles and insects for movies and photo shoots, so I worked with him. He brought us a few different kinds of scorpions and several hundred of each so that we could pick the ones we wanted.

Question: So then Jules handled the scorpions for you?
Answer: You actually need one certified scorpion wrangler for each hundred scorpions on the set. This is required for insurance, so we had 3 animal wranglers on the set.

Question: How did all those scorpions do on the set?
Answer: They got really aggressive under the lights because the tungsten lights are very warm. So we had a small window of opportunity to work with them before they became too aggressive and feisty.

Question: Is there a way to calm them down? Or how did you handle that?
Answer: They calm down when they’re cooler, so we had to cool them off in the refrigerator.

Question: Was this a special refrigerator unit?
Answer: It was a regular kitchen refrigerator. We unpacked everything to make room and the wranglers put the scorpions in containers so we could cool them down. We went back and forth between the refrigerator and the set. We had about 5 minutes under the lights before the scorpions became too aggressive and all hell broke loose where they tried to get out of the set.

Question: Did the scorpions naturally get into the poses you wanted or did you have to work with the temperature as they became more aggressive?
Answer: If they’re calm, you can blow on them with a straw to get them into the hero pose. So we had this small window of time where the wranglers were blowing on them and I had move the camera into the set and set the shot.

Question: What about the girl? Was she on the set with these scorpions?
Answer: The girl in that shoot was a lot safer than you might think. She was photographed separately against a 20 foot by 20 foot sky backdrop and the scorpions on her were ones that had died in transit. We superglued the dead scorpions into aggressive positions and placed them on the model’s body. Then we used photoshop to put the image of the model into the picture with the live scorpions.

Question: Were you glad to be done working with scorpions when the shoot was over?
Answer: Actually, I picked the biggest scorpion on the set, which turns out was also the oldest, and I kept him for a pet for about three years until he died. It was a normal lifespan for a scorpion because he was already old when I got him, but I named him Klaus, after the lead singer of the Scorpions.


Finally, take 2 minutes to watch this short video on the making of Scarpati's book Cramp, Slash & Burn. Some of the canvases will be on display at Bongo Java in Nashville during the month of May.



Cramp, Slash & Burn... "When Punk and Glam were Twins" from john scarpati on Vimeo.

More about Scarpati:

He wanted to be a painter.
He wanted to be a rock star.
He ended up being neither – and both.

Links:
Scarpati’s Website
On LinkedIn
Scarpati's Wikipedia Page

More Info on Cramp, Slash, and Burn:
CSB Website
CSB on Facebook
Online Book Preview
thebook@crampslashandburn.com

Links for Scarpati's Book Eyes Wide Open:
Online Book Preview
Eyes Wide Open on Facebook

Book Review: Insane City by Dave Barry

I received a free advance review copy of Dave Barry’s new book Insane City, which released yesterday in hardcover.  Here’s an excerpt from the description of the book:

“Seth Weinstein knew Tina was way out of his league in pretty much any way you could imagine, which is why it continued to astonish him that he was on the plane now for their destination wedding in Florida. The Groom Posse had already sprung an airport prank on him, and he’d survived it, and if that was the worst of it, everything should be okay. Smooth sailing from now on.

As it turns out, it’s not smooth sailing, it’s more like a trip on the Titanic. And the water below him is getting deeper every minute. By the end, amid gunfire, high-speed chases, and mayhem of the most unimaginable sort, violent men will fall, heroes will rise, and many lives will change.

Seth’s, not least of all.”

I’m a fan of Dave Barry’s nonfiction. How could I not be, considering that we share the same hobby of making up bands names?  However, I confess that I have never read any of his fiction before this book.

My first impression is that this reads more like a movie instead of a book, especially given the way that the dialog is written and the scenes described. In fact, this would probably make a great summer movie for people who enjoy films such as Bridesmaids and The Hangover. There are so many wacky things taking place and the plot moves constantly. Throughout the book Dave put his characters in some hilarious, not to mention embarrassing, situations.

While some of the general plot is predictable, most of the specific (and often bizarre) situations are not and the book is full of one liners that will make you laugh out loud. While this isn’t great literature or a book with thought provoking insights, it continues to do what Dave Barry does best: makes you laugh.

Notes on The Treadmill of Life

Sometimes it feels like we’re stuck on the treadmill of life and it can feel like we’re continually running and going nowhere, so it’s important to maintain a healthy perspective at all times. I’ve made a list of reminders for myself to help with this. These may be useful to some of you, so here they are:

1. The treadmill is there for you: you are not there for the treadmill.  Don’t let it consume you.

2. Trials and tribulations are like putting the treadmill on an incline.  These moments will be painful, but your butt will thank you later for the awesome shape it’s in. (Note: insert “soul” in place of “butt” to make this sound more intellectual).

3. If you don’t get off the treadmill once in awhile you’re going to get a serious cramp.  Vacations prevent cramps.  In addition, your cramps impact everyone in the gym of life - so don’t be selfish and work yourself into painful spasms that cause you to disrupt the world with your annoying screams. You really do need a rest once in awhile.

4. Take time to think about where you are and where you’re going. The treadmill doesn’t actually move. It’s a process and not a destination, so slow down.  You won’t get there any faster than the guy on the treadmill next to you - running faster will only shorten your time. 

5. Cross training makes you a better person. Try something new once in awhile.

Like exercise, life is something that you shouldn’t just talk about. Get out there and live it.

Don't Fear the Reading

I recently attended an event where I heard one of the speakers say that he didn’t read any fiction books if he didn’t like the author’s message. I realize that we all have different reasons for why we read the things we read, but I lose respect for people who tell me that that don’t read a particular author because they disagree with the message.

One of the key issues with this statement is that there is no way to know an author’s message until you’ve read the book. So there’s an underlying issue that this individual doesn’t want to listen to viewpoints different from his own. If his primary desire is to be closed minded, then why is he reading at all? Reading opens up worlds. If your desire is to enclose your world as much as possible, then opening a book is the wrong place to go.

Just because an author has different religious or political beliefs doesn’t mean that the author can’t tell a story or has nothing valuable to say. If the author views the world differently, it can get us thinking about our own views in a way that strengthens and refines them. This is a good thing.

The Murakami quote in the meme at the top of this post is one of my favorites. Reading stretches the mind and opens up worlds. Reading books from different perspectives is an artistic dialog between the author and reader. No one has to be right or wrong. It’s really about the conversation. And the more we converse, the more potential we have to make the world we live in a better pace.


So don't be afraid to read about different perspectives. You may even discover new things about yourself.

Making Up Band Names ... Again!

Been a little swamped in the new year, but I suddenly realized that I haven’t made up any new band names for awhile. So here we go ...

Illicit label
A Rap/ Hip Hop band that cross markets in the liquor industry to endorse a spirit of the same name. Whenever I’m in the “Wine and Spirits” store I often ask the manager for the section of “slightly mischievous but not quite evil spirits,” so perhaps Illicit Label Spirits will use my tag line on the bottles and it they will say: “slightly mischievous, but not quite evil. Illicit in both label and attitude.”

Eyesore Across the Alley
A Grunge Band, of course. All the band photos should be taken in alleys where famous people have died.

Small Gods
This is the name of one of my favorite books by Terry Pratchett and as soon as I saw the title I thought it would be an awesome band name. So here it is. After all, rock stars are really small gods in our culture so why not be honest about it?

Downtown Beaver Dam
A bluegrass band.  That jug player better hit his pitch or we’re not letting him choose the contents of the jug.

Crime Slut
This is another all girl band and all I can visualize is black leather and glossy red lips. If you dress the women appropriately it doesn’t matter what they sound like.

Your Conscience
I just think it would be funny for the band to announce “Thank you for coming to hear us. We are Your Conscience.”


For those of you who missed them, my previous posts on band names with such classics as “Funky Cupcake” and “Pancake Maggots” are located and .  Enjoy and keep rocking in the new year!

Timing in The New Year

 I don’t make new year’s resolutions and I pay little attention to the calendar cycle. In fact, I started following John Lennon’s advice and stopped counting my life by years so long ago that whenever I’m asked my age I have to calculate it. For those of you unfamiliar with the quote, John said, “Count your age by friends, not years. Count your life by smiles, not tears.” I measure my life by the quality of the friends I have and not the quantity.

We put so much emphasis on taking stock of our lives at the end of a calendar year, but I’ve learned that the seasons of life rarely follow this schedule. The Bible tells us that there is a time for every season under heaven. However, our individual seasons don’t always follow nature’s patterns and cycles.

I make new resolutions when I need them. Timing is everything, so don’t wait for the calendar to tell you when to make a change. Make it when the time is right.

Here are the two rules I follow when it comes to making resolutions:

1. The time to make a change is when you realize that you need it.
2. The time to move forward is always.

Secondly, it’s always an appropriate time to surround yourself with the right people. These are the ones that aren’t usually born into your family but that you’re lucky enough to find. The ones who inspire you and help you to become the best version of you possible. If there was a new year’s resolution worth making, it would be to spend more time with these people and develop those relationships in the coming year. Two of my favorite quotes explain why:

“Let us be grateful to the people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.”
    ― Marcel Proust

“A dream you dream alone is only a dream. A dream you dream together is reality.”
    ― John Lennon

Happy New Year. May you develop the most positive relationships, and may you work together with those you love to make your dreams reality.

Mr Hankey Christmas Cookies (How to Make)

My kids are teenagers who love Southpark, so I started making these Christmas cookies last year and they’ve been a big hit with my kids as well as with a large number of my adult friends. They’re not difficult tot make, but they do take a little time, so here’s my little tutorial on how to make them. I’m posting written instructions and I also filmed some video so that you can see how I did it.

Step 1:
Bake brownies in a 13x9 pan. I recommend using a pre-packaged mix instead of baking these from scratch because you’ll spend enough time decorating the cookies and the mix speeds up this first step. Make sure that the box is “family sized” or large enough to accommodate a 13x9 pan. If the mix is for an 8x8 pan, then use two boxes.

Step 2:
Remove the edges from the brownies. This part is a little crusty and doesn’t mold as well as the interior. Mr. Hankey’s body forms better if you don’t use this. My kids love eating the scraps.

Step 3:
Cut the brownies into 12 equal parts. Each part will make one Mr. Hankey cookie, so you’ll wind up with a dozen cookies from one batch. I usually bake 2 13x9 pans and make 24 cookies at once. They get eaten pretty quickly.

Step 4:
Shape Mr Hankey. Make sure your hands are clean and then use them to mold his body into an irregular tube shape. I also slightly pinch a little area around where his neck should be to help him take shape.

Step 5:
Make his hat. This time I used pre-rolled sheets of red fondant icing. You can find this anywhere they sell cake decorating supplies (such as Michaels or Walmart). I’ve also either used cherry fruit roll-ups or painted his hat on with red icing. The red icing tastes the best.

Step 6:
Use pretzels and white chocolate to make his arms. Lay down some wax paper and then place drops of melted white chocolate down on the sheet. Place the end of  a pretzel stick on then seal the top of his “mitten” with another drop of white chocolate.

Step 7:
Use melted white chocolate to make two white ovals close together for his eyes.

Step 8:
Glue his hat on using either melted white chocolate or white icing. Once the hat is glued on you can decorate the “fur” parts using more melted whit chocolate or white icing.

Step 9:
Add a drop of dark chocolate to each of his eyes for the pupils, and also use the dark chocolate to make his mouth.

Step 10:
Gently insert his arms into the sides of his body. I usually break off one-third to one-half of the pretzel stick to shorten it and make it look proportional to his body.

Take a picture because these cookies won’t last long. Everyone loves the novelty and these disappear in less than 48 hours.

Watch the video also, - seeing how it’s done is often helpful to understanding it better. Besides, it took me hours to edit it and I’d like my efforts to feel validated.  ;)

Sandy Hook: What to Do The Day After Tragedy

We’re all devastated by what happened yesterday at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut. There’s so much sadness in the loss of a child and we, as a nation, lost 20 of them all at once. When someone kills the innocent we all feel the sense of injustice. Many of us with children are mourning along with the parents who suffered loss as we realize how easily we could have been in their shoes. The 6 adults who died had dedicated their lives to teaching others. Yesterday they literally gave their lives. These teachers are heroes.

The loss is horrific. But what can we do? I have no long term answers, but I have a few suggestions on what to do right now, the day after. 


1. Mourn for those who died, even if you didn’t know them. We all lost something yesterday.

2. Pray for the families and community. The holidays will never be the same for them. Also, remember to pray for them during the next year when other holidays come around and these families have to deal with remembering their losses.

3. Remember that life is fragile. There is no guarantee that we or our loved ones will be here tomorrow.

4. Stop focusing on getting ahead in your life or career and put more time into simply spending time with the people who are most important to you. Remember that people and relationships are the most important things in this world.

5. Refrain from immediately using this incident as an opportunity to promote your political views either for or against gun control. The day after the event is a time to mourn, not a time to show which position is right or wrong. Your opinions won’t change what happened yesterday and there will be plenty of time for you to express them later.

6. Help someone else. Find a way to make the world a better place by giving your time or making a donation to a cause - or both. There are so many needs in the world and while you can’t restore these children to their parents, you can make a difference in the world that eases someone else’s pain or brings them joy. It's never a bad time to help a good cause.

7. Never stop being empathetic and don’t be afraid to cry. It’s what makes us human.


Note: If you have children who are having trouble dealing with this incident and need assistance in figuring out how to help them, try reading though these tips from the American Psychological Association.