surreal tulip weather in magic skagit February 9, 2010

I can’t recall a cold February in recent years.  The warmest February I experienced was in 1986 while I was attending Western Washington University.  I remember sitting in Boulevard Park soaking in the rays around Valentine’s Day.

El Niño (the little boy or to some people, the little brat), has brought warm and sunny weather to the Pacific Northwest.  Not that I’m complaining, except that I’m concerned about the bare mountain ranges.  And of course, the Winter Games in Vancouver has come close to disaster without snow up in the Canadian ranges.  I heard the athletes will be skiing and sledding on a blend of fake snow and straw.  I wonder how that will work out for skiers who are used to skiing on snow packs.

Here in Skagit Valley where tulip fields rule during the month of April–well, we might be in trouble too if the tulips bloom in March.  Skagit Tulip Festival scheduled a worldwide tulip festival for April so if the tulips shrivel by that time, it could end in tears. Two years ago, they experienced the opposite problem, snow in April and delayed blooming for the tulips.  But this year, with the daffodils already blooming along with fruit trees, the tulips might come earlier than planned.

Still, despite whatever consequences this bright winter weather brings, I’m enjoying it at the moment, soaking in my share of vitamin D and not getting any work done.  Spring fever came early.

In praise of the prologue February 2, 2010

I read recently in a guide to literary agents complaints by agents about prologues.   Three agents detested prologues and gave the impression that most agents feel the same way.  Yet, half the novels I read start with prologues.  I’m in favor of prologues.

One of the complaints by an agent was that authors dump all of their back story in their prologues.  Which is true to an extent.  But a writer worth her salt knows how to write back story in a prologue without giving the entire story away.  You just need to know how to blend dialogue with the back story, and set the tone for the novel.  One of the most clever prologues I have read recently is in Rebecca Wells’ latest novel, The Crowning Glory of Calla Lily Ponder.  Short, sweet and sets the tone for the entire novel, which falls between mystical, whimsical and a folkloric commentary of the Deep American South.

When I wrote all of my novels, I didn’t originally include a prologue.  In fact, I wrote the prologues after the fact.  I did this, not because I enjoy annoying literary agents or editors, but because the stories needed a map and an introduction that explained the circumstances of my characters.  I have been told by other authors that this is a big “no, no”, but without reading the entire novel, how can they know that?  My novels draw comparisons to jigsaw puzzles, and every piece, including the prologue and epilogue, must be in place in order for readers to view the picture, including the inner workings of my characters. 

A novel without a prologue is like a road trip without a map, or sex without foreplay or an opera without an overture.  It would feel like jumping in the deep end of the pool without a proper swimming lesson or embarking into the forest without a trail.  Sure, the reader can clear their way through, and struggle to figure out why the characters act the way they do, or how they ended up in their current predicament while the author tosses out one small bread crumb of clues at a time.  But I’m not much of an adventurer and I’m curious about why people act the way they do? What rotten thing happened in their childhoods to cause them to be squeamish in certain situations? Why does Agnes hate the French (Agnes et Yves)? How did Joan of Arc end up married to Francis of Assisi (All Saints’ Day)? How did the saints end up in modern Manhattan?

So I write prologues.  This isn’t a confession.  I also include some back story at the beginning of my novel, but I don’t dump it on readers.  And a real no-no, I start Chapter One of All Saints’ Day with a flashback to a past life.  I thought of deleting that scene, but that was the scene that started me writing the novel in the first place so I left it intact.  If it wasn’t for that scene haunting my morning pages and my dreams for a year, that novel would have never been written, and my screenplays would have never been adopted into novels.

A writer must follow their own set of rules, regardless of trends.  I’m in favor of prologues.  I sing praises to them.  I encourage well-written prologues.

Wild West! January 28, 2010

Genre: Magic Realism

Synopsis: A couple backtracks through a mountain pass and past lives in search of healing old wounds.

From The Wild, Quilted West

(short story excerpt)

I was travelling in the mountains with a man that I never thought I would see again.  And the whole thing started when reading about Lila Downs cabaret singing mother sparked a past life memory.  The mountain quest had more to do with healing scarred souls than anything else, that is if we didn’t get lost along the way.  I had never been good at reading maps, but I understood the path of the soul.

     “You are the one who told me to take this road,” Teshi scoffed.

     “Alright, I read the map wrong.  No need to get so cross,” I countered.

      I studied the worn map.  “Okay, let’s backtrack and we will find the right road.”

     Teshi sulked, “Backtrack? I thought that’s what we were doing.”

     We drove in silence for a few minutes in silence.  I stared at the mountain crevices and I swallowed hard to stop my ears from popping.  I wondered if taking the ascension experience literally was the right way to go.  Teshi and I searched the mountains for an Old West town where we would heal ourselves.

     Our collective lives had been heading for trouble for a few years.  His music career crashed and burned.  I too found myself on the wrong end of the music business.  Instead of performing my compositions, I end up writing about the lives of other more fulfilled musicians.  I also encountered financial trouble and health issues that refuse to heal no matter how much energy I tossed at them.

    While all of this was going on, I kept remembering this old life in 1840s Oklahoma.  A real beauty back then, I sang in saloons and pleasured some men on the side.  I lived the life of a true libertine, often throwing my head back in hearty laughter. I wore sleek white gowns and long white silk gloves like a bride of the southern plains.  Similar to Jeanne d’Arc, I could hold my own with these men, even winning a hand or two at cards.  Then he came swaggering into the saloon like a cowboy in some Hollywood western.  Little did I know that when I exchanged haughty glances with him, that he would suck me of my life force and leave me dying like a wounded dog on the ice covered ground.

    Hans arrived from Germany in search of prosperity promised to all those willing to explore, rather exploit, the New World.  And I, the town’s welcoming wagon, permitted this man into my life.  At first, I held my own, but even then, we quarreled about the other men in my life.  We quarreled about my music profession and how that certainly was not the type of work for a real lady, and certainly not the kind of woman he would ever marry.

     As time went by, I lost more energy and a will to live.  I fought off his abuses, reluctantly mothered two children for him and lived my life trapped between four walls.  He kept my family and friends at bay.  I sang to myself to heal the bruises and broken bones.  I sang with the caged canaries to keep myself sane.  I quilted and I knitted alone like a proper lady of the West, but deep down, I just wanted to end my life.

     Then one day, the big blow came.  Hans made the decision to take the family to California so that he could prospect for gold.  He did not dare go alone leaving me to the men and the temptation to return to my former lifestyle.  So we hooked up with a wagon train and endured an arduous journey.  I eventually died from pneumonia during a snow storm in the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

    Not long after that, Hans realized that he did love me.  He realized the mistakes he had made.  He abandoned the children and locked himself away in a mountain cabin.  For years he lived in the wild like some old timey hermit.  Then when he could not bear his grief any longer, he shot himself in the head.

     I watched all of this as I hovered above him.  My former sandy-haired husband seemed so frail that I could forgive him from a distance.  However, we had already set a dark energy in motion that would haunt us in another lifetime, if we should actually meet.

     Teshi and I wound our way through dusty mountain roads in search of a town that I recalled from my childhood.  Surely I thought we could find it, relive the events from the past and release them once and for all.  But no matter how hard we tried, the little town eluded us.  The gas meter reminded us of the precious fuel and time we wasted on the Quixotic Journey.  Would our friendship even survive the strain of the holiday?

     I spotted a lookout point ahead.  “Hey, let’s stop there.  We can eat the lunch that I packed and take our eyes off of the road for a bit.”

    He safely pulled the rental jeep to the side of the road.  We hiked up a narrow trail until we reached the lookout point.  I felt dizzy when I looked out at the vista, but I refrained from complaining since it was my idea to stop there.  I grabbed the baguette, cheese and olives from my backpack while Teshi laid out a picnic blanket on the mossy earth.

     The pale sun danced in his olive green eyes and he brushed his chocolate-colored hair from his face.  I tried my best not to fall in love with him again, knowing the suffering that it caused me.  I silently reminded myself that he and I were only on the holiday to liberate ourselves from life-threatening energy.

    I pulled out my raincoat and laid it down on the ground.  I sat down and toss an olive in my mouth.  I glanced at Teshi.  “I have to pee.  Do you think there is a toilet around here?”

    Teshi laughed, “I doubt it.  Sorry, you are going to have to squat over the earth like our ancestors did.”

     “I shouldn’t be such a wimp, but I am a spoiled city girl.  What do you think they did when they were on those wagon trains? The men could easily take care of the problem, but women were, how should I phrase it, overdressed?”

     Teshi finished chewing on a large piece of bread he stuffed into his mouth.  “You are the one with the past life memories so you tell me.”

     “Those memories never went into the finer details, just the bigger picture.”

     “Are you sure that you have the right man because I don’t recall this life at all?”

     “I feel the dynamic with you.  After I met you, my music career crashed and I felt this horrible chill in my body that would not go away.”  I showed him my goose bumps.

     “So what does that tell me? We might just be on a wild goose chase and wasting expensive gas in the process.”

     I stretched my legs.  “No, it’s true and it happened.  Recently when I was reading about quilting, I found this story about the pioneer women leaving the Midwest against their best wishes.  Their husbands made the decision to take the family out west and the wives were forced to leave their parents, brothers, sisters and dearest friends.”

     “So what does that have to do with me?”

     “Let’s just say, that when I read that information I saw your face in my mind’s eye and I felt outrage towards you.”

     “So then you called me and took me away from my work.”

     “What work? Your career had just about ended.  Your friends weren’t talking to you any longer. Your bands were striking record deals behind your back.  What else can I add to the list?”

     He chewed on the remaining bread and stared off in the distance.  “Maybe you are right.  Maybe we did live that life, but what does it have to do with us now?”

     “You can’t see the patterns repeating themselves? Here you are again prospecting in the United States, but of course, you search for a new type of gold.  What about your tantrums of jealousy when other men glance at me?”

    He folded the picnic blanket while I grabbed my backpack.  We ambled back to the car as he reflected on my question.

     “I don’t know what to say, but I have so many questions not just about our relationship, but relations between different cultures, different people, and different nations.  Why do we all play so many games?”

    We climbed into the jeep and drove off to our destination.  Like two bloodhounds, we believed that we would just sniff out the “cowboy” town.  Perhaps the smell of barbecued animal flesh would have set us on the right course.  What a chilling thought.

     “What games were you referring to?”

copyright Patricia Herlevi, 2008

nice & spicy (film review of Ginger and Cinnamon) January 22, 2010

I miss the pleasure of sitting in a cinema house watching a first run or festival film.  It’s ironic that the town where I live does offer me an old cinema house and plenty of art films which I cannot attend because I would miss the last bus home.  So I suffice by checking videos from the library and that allowed me to discover the Film Movement Presents series.

Last night I watched a 2002 Italian romantic comedy, Ginger and Cinnamon and true to its moniker of romantic comedy, it falls on the lighter and funnier side.  Though the film’s characters, Stefania (Stefania Montorsi), her 15-year-old niece Meggy (Martina Merlino) and her x-boyfriend Andrea (Giampaolo Morelli) and a young virgin male out to lose his virginity (Alberto Cucca) involve themselves in a comedy of errors, which will remind some viewers of Shakespeare’s comedies and others of Eric Rohmer’s comedy of error and morality repertoire.

Stefania and Andrea break up at the film’s opening. We see each of them complaining to anyone who will stop and listen.  Stefania comes off as neurotic though still adorable, and Andrea seems like a bit of a slacker and too sensitive to handle Stefania’s histrionics.  After they break up and the wounds are still fresh, Stefania’s 15-year-old niece shows up at the door. She snuck out of her camping tour group, sprayed her hair blue and red, and used a tool kit of manipulative skills to get her aunt to take her to a Greek Island for lovers.  The niece, Meggy (not her real name), has embarked on a quest to lose her virginity.

The precocious and slightly devious teen considers herself an epicurean and like many girls her age, believes that her first sexual encounter will cause her to experience multiple orgasms, which is laughable to many of us more experienced adults.   She philosophize that a person should not be in love with her first sexual partner and instead should gain sexual experience before encountering the man they will love for the longer haul.

So Stefania and Meggy head out to this sexy island which lives up to its reputation of horny people from all over the world cruising the beaches and nightclubs.  Some folks don’t even wait until they get to the island and had sex in public on the ferry.  So Meggy joins the cruisers until she encounters Andrea perched on a rock learning how to draw the landscape.  He dismisses Meggy at first, but eventually offers friendship to the teen without knowing that he’s been targeted for her deflowering.  Never mind that he’s twice her age and never mind, that Meggy doesn’t know his true identity as her aunt’s former lover.

The comedy of errors occurs mainly with Stefania (who is unaware of the identity of her niece’s love object), giving advice on how to compete with the former girlfriend.  But this ginger and cinnamon cake keeps appearing.  It’s the same cake that Andrea once baked for Stefania and eventually the connection is made with Meggy learning an important lesson and Stefania healing some of her neurosis.

As a story, the film provides entertainment.  Sunny cinematography of the Greek island coupled with 1980s pop (which works well with the transformation of Stefania who sings along with one of Boy George’s love songs in a bar and dances to the Village People’s YMCA also in a bar), and more recent world music certainly add to this entertainment value.  Stefania Montorsi who also co-wrote the script with her husband Daniele Luchetti and Ivan Cotroneo, certainly adds some allure to the film and she is a pleasure to watch.  She possesses one of those intriguing faces where cameras love to roam and she also possesses comic timing.

I found some of the music interludes (think Westernized Bollywood), distracting and too cheesy.  Of course fans of Mamma Mia! (I am not one of them and found that popular movie the equivalent of cinematic trash), will enjoy these hokey interludes, but I think the film would have been better without them.  I enjoyed the lighthearted romp, the humor poked at idealistic teens and a woman in her thirties already enduring a sort of midlife crisis, which in itself is laughable.

Yes, this Italian comedy falls on the warm and spicy side.  And if you have access to it, you might also find that it offers an enjoyable escape to everyday life.  Certainly it reminds me of Rohmer’s Claire’s Knee with its precocious teen flirting with an older man.

scattered brain or has spring fever come too early? January 18, 2010

I promised myself that I would write two magazine queries today.  And yet, thoughts race through my head, ideas crop up needing my attention, the social networking takes up time and there is the business of healing this head cold before it turns into something worse.  Though I feel pretty healthy at the moment.

The sun has come out to play and I want to be out in it basking in its vitamin D.  I want to stroll on my favorite streets, watch birds and frolic like Saint Francis on a spring day.  I don’t feel like researching literary agents, writing queries, editing my work or networking–not today.

Perhaps if I go for that stroll, my mind will stop racing and I can get to work on those queries.  It’s like John Lennon once sang, “no one told me there would be days like this.”

my nose runneth over January 17, 2010

I took a trip out-of-town yesterday, a lovely free bus ride past the farmlands of Mount Vernon, Fidalgo Island, and Deception Pass State Park landing me in Oak Harbor.  We had been experiencing stormy weather, but yesterday felt calm and peaceful.

One of my favorite pleasures of riding the bus is to spot birds along the side of the road.  I did not see any besides snow geese in a field near Bow on the way to Oak Harbor, but on the return trip, I spotted two hawks, though I might have misidentified a kestral for a hawk.  I think I was the only person on the bus that actually cared about the hawks since some people seem disconnected from anything natural and spotting a hawk hardly excites them.

When the bus arrived at March’s Point, I saw four horses grazing in a field, two pinto, a dapple and a chestnut.  I felt this sudden overpowering urge to get off the bus and hang out with the horses, but since they were on private property and I did not wish to wait another two hours for a bus, I refrained.  I love horses so it took will power to keep me bolted to my seat.

Today I fight off a cold.  I am hoping to win the fight because this runny nose is driving me crazy.  I don’t catch colds or the flu.  But spending too much time on public transportation might be too much for my overworked immune system.  I will not use this cold as an excuse not to complete my synopsis for Agnes et Yves or to get to work on two new queries to magazine editors.

I wish I had chocolate, the dark kind, the dark and bitter kind to motivate me.  That and I wish my nose would stop running.  It leaves me feeling like a drippy five-year old.  And now I need to quarantine myself for a day or two to stop the spread of the disease…

Nostalgia of a Generation X-er January 14, 2010

This is an excerpt from my short story, “Maggie Magdalene and The Summer of Love”.  For whatever reason, several literary journals rejected this story, but when I posted it on online literary sites, it received a lot of traffic.  The people have spoken.

(Starts on the third paragraph of the story).

But why focus on the later days when Maggie crashed on our couch lost in a chemical-induced stupor? She didn’t know which way the wind was blowing or the location of her children who had been taken into custody by the state of California.  In the early days when Maggie was barely out of her teens, she worked with some of San Francisco’s hottest musicians, recording in state-of-the-art studios and performing at various festivals or so she told us.  And it’s true that we acquired her first newly minted single sporting a carefree, wind in her hair photograph of Maggie holding an acoustic guitar.  I was too young at the time so I didn’t understand when the press compared her to Joni Mitchell and other folkies of that era.  Her songs were labeled, “Youthful and reaping vitality of the psychedelic movement.”

A few years later, Maggie told us stories about how she hung out with Lou Reed of the Velvet Underground, Bob Dylan and Jim Morrison. Those were Maggie’s glory days and something from a past era.  In 1970, her husband Paul had been sent off to fight the war in Vietnam because he couldn’t just burn his draft card like the rest of his friends.  And in any case wanting to experience free love, Maggie did her share of getting naked with the natives as she worded it in secret confessions to my mother who in turn blushed.  Maggie watched my mother stirring chocolate chip cookie batter with disdain.  My mother warned Maggie of certain consequences to her actions, but Maggie, not believing in the birth control pill or moderation of anything she considered pleasurable, threw caution to the wind.  A year later, Maggie gave birth to her first love child and the second one the following year.

I never could understand what my mother, Clarisa and Maggie had in common besides bonding over a bottle of wine they stole from the head sister at their Catholic boarding school.   She sat crossed legged with her flowing Indian skirt tucked under her and a wrinkled tie-dye that had seen better days covered the remainder of her body. 

In the background we could hear a Jethro Tull record spinning on a second-hand stereo that Maggie picked up at Goodwill.  Maggie chugged down a beer and spoke complete nonsense while her poet lover stuffed his face with my mother’s enchiladas, trying to compliment my mother in broken Spanish.  Meanwhile, the record ended, but I was the only one that seemed to notice so I rose from the torn linoleum floor and flipped the record.  Swirling flute hung in the air while Maggie’s nonsensical words punctuated each musical phrase.  The atmosphere grew tense.

 I could tell my mother felt nervous, especially with the strange man in our presence.  She asked about the whereabouts of Maggie’s children.  Maggie told us that she left them with the neighbor lady the previous night.  We learned that she had a regular habit of dumping her children off to anyone who would take them for the evening.  Obviously they were cramping her style.  She rationalized that her studio apartment was too small and didn’t allow her the privacy that she required.  But as soon as she landed a recording contract, she and her children could move into a real house and she sarcastically added, live the American dream.  After all, isn’t that what everybody wants? 

(I normally write in the third person, but for this particular story I became the voice of a young girl raised in the 1960s and early 70s.  Towards the end of the story, you realize that she is in her 40s reflecting on a bygone era.  I actually felt emotional and weepy writing this story because I felt for the characters and the losses they experienced.  But then that’s usually how it is for me when I am writing.  I lose myself in my characters to the point where my reality completely disappears and melds with the time, place and situation of the story).

it couldn’t happen to a nicer gal January 13, 2010

This excerpt is the first chapter of my novella, Agnes et Yves.  The synopsis and more chapters can be viewed at http://www.authonomy.com/ViewBook.aspx?bookid=12767

Genre: Comedy/Romance/Literary Fiction/Popular Culture/Travel

Pitch: 

An American Francophobe arts journalist pursues a steamy affair with a flamenco don juan, until a Parisian painter and a transportation strike derail her plans.

 

Chapter One:

It couldn’t happen to a nicer gal.

San Francisco, 2001—Agnes peered out at the Bay Bridge out a panoramic window.  She listened to her editor, Bernard Sari debate with his publisher over the phone, and to the clicking of keyboards of her colleagues as they raced towards another magazine deadline.  Agnes strode past art and film festival posters as she made her way back to her disorganized cubicle.  She rubbed out the wrinkles in her forties ivory suit and tied one of her Campers sneakers.  She sat at her desk and ran a comb through her tangled chocolate hair.  She pulled out a compact and fixed the subtle makeup that highlighted her brown doe-eyes.

     The perky blonde Jane Liberty caught Agnes’ eye.  Jane sighed and shrugged her petite shoulders.  “Hey, I saw the most beautiful French film last night.  I’m still reeling from it.”

     Agnes scoffed at Jane.  Why was her coworker so in love with the French? She always watched the latest Parisian cinema followed by a day of swooning at the office.

     “Why does everyone love the French? Personally, they put my teeth on edge.” Agnes fidgeted with a postcard of Gaudi’s Sagrada Familìa. “You’d never catch me dating a Parisian man.”

    Jane chuckled.  “Oh, really, why do you hate the French so much?”

   A frown spread across Agnes’ face as childhood memories tormented her.  If only Jane had not brought up such a touchy subject.  “Why do some dogs despise cats? I’m telling you, the French are all pretentious bores and the sooner we learn that, the better for all of us.”

     Balding middle age Bernard lumbered towards the women.  He handed Agnes a folder. 

“Sorry to hear you think that way because I’m assigning you this in-depth article on the local French expatriate painters.  I heard a rumor about such a community hanging out in Potrero.  And I want you to investigate.”

    “Why are you assigning me French painters? Why not give the assignment to Jane—the self professed Francophile?”  Agnes tossed the folder on a pile of papers that accumulated on her desk.  How dare he assign me such a despicable article? Besides, I can’t stand Protrero.

     Jane smiled eagerly at Bernard who in turn chuckled.  “You expect me to put a Francophile on a story about French painters? Whatever happened to objectivity? The last thing I want is one of my journalists turning in a drool-covered article.”

    Jane protested, “I’m a professional and I can write an objective piece about French painters.”

     Bernard handed Jane a folder. “I’m glad to hear it.  Can you also control yourself around smoldering Spanish musicians? I want you to turn in a report on a flamenco troupe that’s currently touring the U.S.”

    Agnes sulked.  “Why did you assign the French painters to me and give the smoldering Spaniards to Jane? I adore flamenco and Jane doesn’t know anything about that majestic country.”

     Jane interrupted, “And when was the last time you traveled to Spain?”

    “I haven’t gotten around to it yet, but I have a good grasp of it.  I listen to flamenco and I eat paella.  I even learned Spanish from a Spaniard.”  Agnes shot a smug look to her boss and co-worker.

   Bernard turned on his heels and returned to his tidy office.  He glanced over his shoulder at Agnes.  “I’d like to know why you despise the French.  If you are going to have a successful career as an art critic, then you’d better learn to love them.  They’re all over art, you might say.”

   Agnes countered, “Do you want a laundry list? Let’s see.  They eat frog legs and snails as if that’s civilized.  The men collect mistresses.  Oui, ma chèrie, je taime, je taime, je taime. And the women, although immaculately dressed and coiffed, seem rather catty to me.  Try getting to know one of them!”

     “Point well presented.  Now go and meet some real French people that don’t meet your list of stereotypes.”

     “That will be difficult.”

    Gleeful, Jane shuffled through her folder, knocking out a photograph of the flamenco guitarist, Pablo Vera-Sanchez onto her immaculate desk.  Agnes snatched the photograph and stared at it longingly.

     “This is Pablo Vera-Sanchez!”

      Jane peeked at the photograph and shrugged. “Who is he? I’ve never heard of him.”

      “If you know so much about Spain, how come you haven’t heard of one of the country’s most famous musicians? I’m surprised.”

   “Yeah, how do you know of him?”

     She confessed.  “I met him a couple of years ago when he was teaching a workshop here.  And his troupe performed at Herbst Theatre.  We…oh, never mind.”  If only Jane knew.

     Jane glanced at her press release.  “It looks like Pablo has moved up in the world.  His troupe is scheduled to perform at the opera house this time.”

     Agnes’ eyes widened.  “Don’t forget to take me along with you to the performance.”

     “That’s not a problem, but I have a favor to ask of you first.  I doubt you will like it.”

*

     Later that evening Agnes allowed her friend to drag her to an old art nouveau cinema house.  She sunk into her red plush seat as she anticipated the horrors of another Godard classic.  The screen flickered as the title Contempt appeared in bold letters.  She hardly felt in the mood for another Francophile excursion with her wide-eyed friend.

   Halfway into the film a naked Brigitte Bardot hogged the screen.  Jane discretely wiped a tear from her eye and other movie goers sniffled in the background.  Someone crunched popcorn in the seat behind Agnes and the buttery smell upset her stomach.

    Tension built in her body until she could not withstand the torture any longer.  She shouted at the screen.  “Ugh! Oh, oui—Go on and pout some more!  That will get his attention!”

    Movie goers shouted back at Agnes while Jane sunk down in her seat. She glanced at her troublemaking friend.  “I can’t take you anywhere.  Will you please behave yourself?”

    “Hanging out in an art house theatre with Francophiles watching one of Godard’s films is not my idea of a good time.  I think Contempt has an appropriate title because that’s exactly how I feel towards it.”

    “You’d better get used to the French since you’ll be spending a month with them.”

     “I know.  Come on, trade with me.”

     “I would if I could, but have you ever experienced Bernard’s wrath?”

     The women shuddered.

     After the film finally ended and theatre goers reclined in their seats pontificating about the virtues of Godard’s repertoire, Agnes bolted out of her seat and she dragged Jane out of the theatre.

     They climbed into Jane’s fire red jeep. Jane slipped an Edith Piaf CD into the player and turned up the volume.  “Autumn Leaves” sung in French, blasted from the speakers.  Agnes frowned and turned down the volume.

     “Are you trying to torment me some more? I cannot stand Edith Piaf’s quavering vocals.  Can’t she sing about something happy?”

      Jane merged into traffic.  “And you wanted to cover flamenco.”

     “It’s hardly the same thing.  The Spanish have a lot of reasons to feel depressed.  After all, they have the misfortune of living next to France.”

   Jane replaced the Piaf CD with the soundtrack for Gigi and she smiled dreamingly as the music wafted through the car and out onto the San Franciscan streets.  Agnes cringed listening to “Thank God for Little Girls”. Does Jane have any non-French recordings?

    Jane turned onto Market Street and headed past the Financial District and through China Town where the flashing lights and signs in characters momentarily distracted Agnes and she thought of Chinese take-out, then changed her mind.

     “I’d rather listen to the morose Piaf than this pervert going on about little girls!”

     “He’s not a pervert.  Maurice Chevalier is a French classic and women find him charming.”

      “As a member of women-kind, I must ask you to speak only for yourself and all your Francophile colleagues.  And anyway, why are you so obsessed with French culture? Did you get straight A’s in high school French?”

     Jane headed towards North Beach.  The scene transformed into Italian restaurants, bistros and cafes.  Suddenly Agnes felt hungry.  “Would you like to stop at Caffè Trieste?  I’m craving pasta.”

     “You were asking me earlier why I obsess about French culture.  If you’d like to know, my mother had many French colleagues and I spent a summer in Paris.  I wouldn’t say that the French are parfait, I mean they smoke like chimneys and you’re right about men pestering women, but there’s something that…oh, never mind.  You would never understand, at least not in this lifetime.”

    Agnes felt a chink in her armor while her friend waxed about the French’s many virtues.  She redirected her thoughts to memories of her time when a certain Spanish musician seduced her.  Then she felt a jolt back to reality as Jane swerved another car.  California drivers!  The only thing worse are French drivers.

 

deep freeze and a road trip January 13, 2010

This is an excerpt from a short story I wrote for an anthology contest.  The story was not chosen, but I still think it is one of the best stories I have written with magic realism elements.

Genre: Fiction/Magic Realism/History/Romance

Word count: 3,209

Synopsis:  Clara and Michel take a road trip throughout the United States, documenting Clara’s mixed heritage while the thirty-year old American also heals wounds sustained by her Sami ancestors.

Tropical Blizzard (The Return of the Ancestors)

One day I woke up quit my job and bought a camera.  I phoned Michel via transatlantic call and offered him the chance of a lifetime to document stories of authentic Americans.  He had just broken up with the lover that replaced me.  I thought our strained friendship could be salvaged.  We collaborated on a documentary about American Indians many years ago that led to an intense relationship.  So I imagined I could rehash those feelings in Michel by recreating the circumstances that first brought us together.

     We emptied our bank accounts, rented a car and equipment then set out on an adventure that I thought would heal a rift with my native country.  We collected stories of Puerto Ricans in New York, Navajo in Arizona and Swedes in Minnesota.  As we preserved those cultures on tape, I hoped to find my heritage in the tangle of roots.  I came up empty handed.

     Everything seems foreign to me now that I have touched upon a family secret that was buried for three hundred years.  It recently unearthed itself with such force that I could no longer play the role of the good American girl.  I feel savage when I think about the fires of long ago that burnt my ancestors and destroyed their spiritual connection to the earth.  I want it back.

     We had been driving all night as cold starry skies watched us journey along the California coast.  Crisscrossing the States for the past few months, Michel and I took turns at the wheel. We often found our selves crawling into the beds where strangers left their psychic imprints.

     As I grip my hands on the wheel, navigating the icy roads, I feel Michel stirring next to me.  I wonder what real foreigners dream about when they visit this wide expanse we call America when we feel like the center of the universe, or its proper name the United States, when we wish to distinguish ourselves from the other Americas.

     Michel seems to have a good understanding of the American way.  He hardly ever complains about U.S. politics. He is not the first foreigner I loved.  Although I would never consider myself a diplomat of foreign relations, I dated Germans, Canadians and even one Irish musician.  I have always grappled with this American identity so I could never just accept it at face value.

     Michel awakens and glances at me.  “Are we almost there?”

     I stare at him through a drowsy haze.  “We have two hundred more miles to go.  Look, I’ve got to pull over somewhere.  I can hardly stand this Kerouac adventure at my age.”

     Michel fails to get my joke.  As usual it got lost in translation.  “You are the one who said you wanted to search for your true identity.”

     As we draw closer to finishing our project, I realize that my mission of finding my identity has not been accomplished.  Not to mention that my savings have almost been depleted.  “Yeah, well, I’m not going to find it traipsing across the country in an overpriced rental car.”

    I pull over to a rest stop.  I stumble out of the silver Datsun and stretch while breathing in the crisp air.  Michel watches me pensively then he slowly climbs out adjusting his parka.  We saunter to the vending machine.  We grab a couple of cheese sandwiches and coffee.  Michel pulls the plastic off of his sandwich gazing at me.

     “This is the life, no?”

     I sigh, “I’m sorry that I dragged you through this.”

     Michel stares at the sun rising in the distance.  “I am fine with it.  I have enjoyed making this video about your country.”

     I gulp down my coffee and burn my tongue in the process.  “But don’t you see this isn’t my country? I have so little in common with the people we met.   I know it sounds crazy but I don’t fit in here.  I mean, how many Sami did we meet? Zero.  I had little in common with the Puerto Ricans in New York.”…

The entire story is available for publication.  copyright Patricia Herlevi

bon anniversaire Jeanne d’Arc (belated) January 12, 2010

Depending on how evolved you are you will either take this troubadour song as literal or figurative.  It is a bit of both.

I wrote “Maiden on Fire” in 2005 and it is one of six troubadour songs written for Christian saints or avatars.  A funny story accompanies the first reading of this song/poem.  I attended an open mic for poets at a small bookstore in Seattle.  When I first arrived I tried to make small talk with the other poets, who in turn snubbed me.

So when it was my turn to read my poems I went up to the podium and stared out at a sea of scowling faces (I’m not joking).  I read my first two poems to a luke warm response and then when I read the troubadour song/poem about Jeanne d’Arc the room fell silent and the expression on the other poets’ faces lightened up a bit.  By the time I walked back to my seat, the poets actually spoke to me.  Not that I cared by that point.

This poem was also published in “Licton Springs Review,” the literary journal of North Seattle Community College in 2007.  I gave several readings of this poem afterward throughout Seattle.

Maiden on Fire

I once walked in your skin, replacing my maiden frock

with a suit of armor.

I once saw through your eyes and

I heard the angels speak to me the way

they once spoke to you.

I felt your heart beating in my chest.

She never tasted a husband’s kiss.

She never traded chain mail for white silk lace.

She never felt the love of children in the night,

crawling under her quilt, protection of Jeanne’s might.

She never saw the strawberry fields again,

where it began, a twisted fate that refused to wait,

always racing forward towards its death.

She never enjoyed the country she liberated,

sharing a cell with rats, dying at inquisitors’ hands.

A pretender to the throne (Charles VII of France), betrayed her trust.

Weak men do exist, they do exist.

And if she had been permitted to grow old

on the fat and honey of the earth,

if she had been allowed to raise consciousness

of the peasants minds, what would have transpired?

I once walked in her shoes.

I once saw the same sky raining down on you.

I felt the same hunger, passion and desire.

I walked in her skin and saw the world through her eyes–I

was dazzled, stunned and amazed at the visions I saw.

It all came to being, manifested, unforgotten.

But she was not made for this earth’s soil,

she was not born to labor and toil, but

a virginal sacrifice born to feed the hungry flames,

a young life up in smoke, heavenward.

For those who do not know,

she was not born to bear fruit,

and not all fruit makes it to the harvest

and not all fruit ripens on this barren earth.

copyright Patricia Herlevi (unauthorized duplication is prohibited)

In 1989 I composed a song called “Green Eye Moss Stare”.  I had no idea what the song was about or who it was about until around 2002 when I translated the lyrics into Spanish and added new words to the only English verse, “After the flames, the birds still sang.”  Those words popped into my head and with those words I saw a brief image of Jeanne d’Arc.

Below I am including two verses of the song as it is now performed.  This is the English version.

“I give you a foot, a hand, I give you a face.

And all my emotions strewn out among the many places.

Devoured by your flames, I know all about her.

I feel the gaze upon your stare, I feel my spine chill.

Like a thousand ghosts that dance in these skeletal walls.

And after the flames, the birds still sang. 

I know all about her.”

1989, 2002, copyright Patricia Herlevi