I subscribe to Word.A.Day for a daily dose of a new, maybe useful word. Today the feature was the book Never Again, about a gambler who yearns to correct the mistakes of his past by not doing (or saying) anything again. Interesting premise, but the writer set himself the task of repeating no word, ever. So we begin: “”When the racetrack closed forever I had to get a job.”
Fair enough. Soon we come to: “Environmental breakdown hillsides, counterpotentially, demonstrate stumps bristling clear-cut floodplain backdrop.” Or: “Juicier diversions’re proposed.” And writing’s not hard enough? The mind reels. Although thinking of ways to make writing harder is (yet another) delicious diversion from the writing process.
Let’s make writing harder
Irma’s big city
My protagonist Irma speaks of Pescasseroli, the biggest city she knows, just visible from her own village. Her mother has never been to its far edge. Pescasseroli is bigger now than it was in the 1880s, still small, but you’ll find there the very best “Brutti ma buoni” (“ugly but good”) meringue cookies.
We are immigrants
Today, Martin Luther King Day, I am reminded yet again of how uneasily our blended nation holds its diversity. Shortly after the time frame of my novel (1880s), researchers were hired to create tests “scientifically proving” that 80% of immigrants from Southern Europe were “cretins,” genetically prone to criminality and depravity. And yet we are all immigrants or descendants of immigrants and all of us have been at some time strangers in a new land. A review of When We Were Strangers, just posted on Bookworm’s Dinner asks, and one must ask, how far we have come in our discourse and actions in the last two centuries.
Visiting Opi
Here is one of the finer streets of Opi in Abruzzo, where my protagonist Irma found safety and yet the ultimately strangling circumstances that forced her to leave seems to be named for a pagan goddess of abundance. There is beauty in abundance there now, in delicious views, hikes through the mountains and valleys, and in the bakeries one of my favorite Italian cookies, brutti ma buoni [trans: ugly but good], a chewy meringue base that will drive tasters a bit mad. I’ve never found a recipe here that quite duplicates that madness — but I’m still trying. You can read about Opi’s checkered history and find links to the national park where Opi nestles, guest houses, hotels and restaurants here.
My books arrive!
This morning, UPS showed my box of author books loaded on a truck in Knoxville at 5:00 a.m. Twelve hours later they arrive in the midst of a sudden sleet shower. Beautifully packed, altogether beautiful, the fruit of a long journey. My lovely idea of photographing Jesse the dog with box fails because of a poor camera, the blackness of Jesse drowning out all detail and most of all his unwillingness to pose. But never mind, the books are here and I’m making up a list of all the wonderful people who edited or critiqued or helped research or were just here during the journey.
Caught in Junkaroo
This New Years we were in Nassau in The Bahamas where the Junkaroo street parade begins on New Years Day about 2 a.m. and beats on until noon. Wafted with weed and eating conch fritters, Maurizio and I watched huge golden bird costumes go by, various mythical figures, feathered creatures, spectacular tribal dancers, and this figure I can’t get out of my mind. Dream image? Muse? The Other Side? I even had her very briefly as my Facebook self until a friend said no, no, no, too scary. Anyway, in my more prosaic life, I’m hard at work on my next novel, set in the 12th Century. I’m on the third chapter, tough going. I’d like the magic powers of Winged Woman to slice through all troubles but alas, writing doesn’t always go that way.
Opi in the snow
With snow covering Europe and much of the Northeast this Christmas, I imagine Irma in her small stone house in the flickering light and the endless cold but still in this serene beauty.
Bustle busting
Not all Victorians were bustle boosters. This cartoon is from Punch (1870). Bustles were hot, uncomfortable and cumbersome and an impediment to every useful activity except perhaps tatting.
[image in public domain]
Bequia and dry leaves
We just got back from a week sailing by Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, including the island of Bequia, with two main streets — Front Street and Back Street. A quiet, slow and lush island with elaborate, even stately bureaucracy to deliver the many stamps and documentsneeded for a night’s stay in the beautiful bay. “Bequian” seems a useful adjective.
Now back in Tennessee where it is cold and gray and still there are leaves to rake, as there will be until spring. In the meditative state that endless raking engenders, I was thinking that raking is like editing. You do it and do it, and perhaps the raker sees some progress — many leaves moved from here to there, but to the outsider little may seem different. The yard is still messy. Until one day it is not.
Irma’s ship, the S/S Servia
In When We Were Strangers, Irma crosses the Atlantic on the Servia. This was a real ship that received heavy use in transporting emigrants. I liked the name, but took the liberty of having the ship leave out of Naples rather than her standard port of Liverpool. You can read about the Servia’s long history and see photographs and drawings here. I discovered this site after writing the novel; much of my description of ship conditions during Irma’s voyage comes from Philip Taylor’s classic study: The distant magnet: European emigration to the USA.Passenger lists from various European cities can be found through the Immigrant Ships Transcribers Guild.
pamelaschoenewaldt.com 