June 30, 2011

Upstairs on 7th meets (Re)Making Love

Girl walks into a dress shop feeling frumpy and comes out with a hot black dress and a book party. The store is Upstairs on 7th and the owner and CEO is Ricki Peltzman. Here she is: gorgeous and fashionable. Don't you love that necklace? You could buy it from her!

Photo from Upstairs on 7th
And here's what happened: I live in the Penn Quarter (downtown D.C.) where Forever 21 makes me feel forever 61—and I've been searching for a store where a woman my age might find clothes that are both funky and elegant. So, somehow I wander into her store that is inside the building where the fab Tosca Restaurant resides (Barack took Michelle there recently!) and Ricki, while I'm trying on clothes, reasonably priced and gorgeous, asks me what I do. I say, "Oh, I'm a writer." She says, "Books?" I say, "Well . . ." Not so good here at self-promotion. She wheedles it out of me; I try to get her to buy the Kindle version but she wants my book in her hand, and as I live barely three blocks from her, I go home to get a pair of shoes to try on with the slinky black number and bring her one that she promptly buys.

See this image to the left from her website and you'll know why I wanted to buy everything in her elegant shop that is truly a salon in the way literary folk used to know of such great places.

So Ricki reads the book, starts while I am still in the store (read the ending!) and then that night stayed up late with what she calls a-can't-put-down memoir. The next day she gets to the store early and before her educated and elegant clients begin to wander in, she finishes the book. And while she's reading, she e-mails me (Of course, I wanted to be on her e-mail list for sales and news! You should too; she sends her stuff all over the U.S.). As I like to say in the memoir, I am not making this up: Virtually all the e-mails had this subject line "OMG This Book":

Ricki (e-mail #1): Every ROM-COM you mention I LOVE although so far you have not mentioned The American President, one of my all time movies ever and one I think I have seen at least 100 times. Just too adorable and funny. And also Sleepless in Seattle which I am a total sucker for. I think when I was very young and newly married A Man and A Woman was my favorite movie for the longest time. The music at the end when he is driving to see her was masterful. I love the mentions of all the restaurants that are around here and which we eat at all the time. The bread alone at Zaytinya makes me swoon. I could eat just that and be thrilled!

I love your La Perla story. Hilarious. Especially that you spent all of that for so little pieces. Only Jewish women could understand this I think.

I read in bed and when I got up at 6 I got my coffee from the trusty Miele machine and sat on the porch and read until 8:30.

We will have to do a book party. This is way toooo good.

Ricki (e-mail #2); they were coming every 15 minutes; I guess the book is a fast read!): So I have the book on my desk and this customer tells me that she is just retired from being a happy housewife since her husband left her and I tell her she HAS to come to the book party! And then all her friends signed up on my email so they can hear when it is so they can attend also. So when shall we do it? I will have everyone over for drinks and a light supper and you can talk about it and then sell lots of books.

Ricki (e-mail #6); she arranged the book party in the other three; I think there were eight e-mails in all; I was afraid to leave my computer on a Saturday afternoon for fear of missing one of these!): I LOVE LOVE LOVE YOUR BOOK. I have customers here but I am just at the part where you are in Paris with your tiny appliances.

And then she blogged about the book and the party. She then caters the party in her shop: food from Tosca and champagne. Here are a few photos and then some thoughts about all this.
Don't you love that bracelet????

Ah the women, the books, the shop!


The slinky black dress that will go from summer to winter. You gotta get this one!
I sold 18 books at the party and Ricki has since sold five more! Can you believe this amazing woman?

At the party, I read Chapter 8, Deceptive Cadence that I wrote while listening endlessly to the Schubert in G Flat Major and one woman told me she wants to give me a book party at her home in Dupont Circle, have me read this chapter and have a pianist play the Schubert in G. I'm having lunch with her in a couple of weeks (gorgeous, sophisticated, successful woman!). Whether or not that happens, I think I've made a friend.

And get this: I'm telling this story to a banker-guy I know and he sends an e-mail to his wife and a bunch of her friends and copies me. Here it is: The subject line is "Literature, Wine, Writing and Italian Clothes":

Ladies,

How well do I know the women in my life?  I have begun the planning of an event for all of you which will feature Mary Tabor, an author friend of mine who also teaches at GW. You will all read her recent book, discuss it with her and discuss writing. Add some Roy Family wine to honor my favorite female winer proprietor and the beautiful clothes from Italy and Europe with Chris.

Stay tuned for more detail.

R.

Should I be singing that song from The Sound of Music again?

So somewhere in my youth or childhood/ 
I must have done something good . . .


June 20, 2011

Angel on My Shoulder

Illustration by Kittenchops.com
Sometimes I want to break into song like my grandchild Lila, who at two years old knows the entire score of The Sound of Music! She can sing "I Must Have Done Something Good" and that's what I feel like singing today because CMash Loves to Read loves my memoir (Re)Making Love.

In early June she made me her Shining Light and put that light on this blog where literary work and writing and writers get discussed, among this and that that my guest bloggers write and where I first blogged this memoir.

Today I am her guest author. Please go and comment if you have read the book. And if you haven't, you might want to be a part of her GIVEAWAY of (Re)Making Love. She's got two signed copies of my book  that will be in a lottery and you could win one. Click on the word Giveaway in the preceding sentence.

Comment here because you care and definitely on Cheryl's blog because she is such a good soul. You have from June 20th to July 5th to comment and win!

Again, I offer a flower for the angel on my shoulder, Cheryl, who truly does love to read and has an open heart.

June 05, 2011

Go home to discover your memoir

In May I had the great pleasure to guest teach Joanne Glenn’s class on “Writing Memoir” at the Vienna Community Center in Virginia. I was hoping more of her students would contribute to this blog post, but two extraordinary women did. I made this offer to everyone in the class: Do this writing experiment (I guided them through it as a guided imagery free write—and they did love it!) and I will post on my blog 100 words of whatever you write.

The experiment you’ll see in a moment, but first I must tell you about another extraordinary event in my life that occurred simultaneously with Joann’s invitation and my visit. I grew up on Grantley Road in Baltimore. As I say in my memoir (Re)Making Love

“I grew up in a Baltimore row house with stairs to the second floor and stairs to the basement and a view from the front door to the back door and the clothes tree outside the door. My childhood house didn’t have hallways or a foyer. There was no place to hide anything or to hide. I could hear the neighbors when they argued and everything that everyone said inside my narrow house was fair game for anyone in the back, the front, up or down the stairs.”


Across the street lived Maxine Kahn, who (or should that be "whom"? Do we care?) you will meet today. I had not seen or heard from her since she moved away when we were both fifteen years old, and we were best, best friends: never-ending hours of Canasta gave proof to our love of cards—I went on to Bridge that nobody seems to play anymore—and to our ability to be with each other. She was my safe harbor when I was a child. Recently for some reason she decided to “google” me, found my website and me, and we’ve been corresponding ever since. And it turns out, that Maxine dabbles in poetry. Well, that’s what she calls it. I guess we’ll see about that.

What I am about to prove to you is that if you want to write a memoir, go home first. Here’s how you do it.

Here’s how Achamma Chandersekaran did it, first with my comments and then with her rewrite:

A Happy Home Full of Life

 We were the ‘singing family’-- My father and his 8 children. 

The scene I remember most is of us getting together to sing.  My father sat in his special chair with his favorite violin.   My brother, Joe, stood near a table as he didn’t like sitting down to play the violin.  My second brother, Thankan, had his flute and the youngest one, Marcel, sat on the floor to play the harmonium.  My sisters and I were the vocalists.   Oh, did we have fun! All the neighbors knew that we were all home for the holidays. 

Achamma,

This piece is very close to being. I struck through only one sentence. The reason is that the reader knows this. You need not state what you have proven through the details.

Now as to those details. They are marvelous, particularly the way Joe gets identified as not wanting to sit. We see where everyone is. I have a sense that it might help to “see” the father’s chair. Here’s why: Take your suitcase, as I like to say, and turn it into a painting. You’ve unpacked. Now look at what you’ve got as if it’s a canvas that you’ve begun. Take your writer’s brush and paint in again and again the details, all the concrete, small observations that make story live. The story is in the details.

But I am happy to publish this on my blog as is. Let me know about the strike through—something I think you should do—or if you want to add anything. I would title the piece simply “Singing,” for the same reason I give you for the strike through, but again this is your choice.

Here is Achamma’s rewrite:

Singing

We were the ‘singing family’-- My father and his 8 children. 

We were a unique family in the village and we did the singing as a family.  Girls singing in church was very unusual during those days. My father was the choir master and one of the very few in the village who could play a musical instrument.  One by one, as we grew up, we all joined the choir. Singing in the church got us into singing for any function that took place in the village. So the word ‘family’ is special to me.

The scene I remember most is of us getting together to sing. My father sat in his special chair with his favorite violin. My brother, Joe, stood near a table as he didn’t like sitting down to play the violin. My second brother, Thankan, had his flute and the youngest one, Marcel, sat on the floor to play the harmonium.  My sisters and I were the vocalists

All the neighbors knew that we were all home for the holidays. 

And here is how Evelyn Caballero did it:

Married to Market and Cooking

Mommy cooked every meal and always served Daddy first at the family table.  She went to market weekly buying fresh fruit, vegetables and fish for his favorite dishes.  She continued this habit after we left home, even when he at 89 became terminally ill.

No one knew he would leave us that late afternoon in May of 2010.  Mommy served him breakfast.  That evening she repeatedly said , “I greeted him then I went to the kitchen to cook his breakfast…

She never went to market and rarely cooked after Daddy died.  Daddy and Mommy were married 65 years.

Here is Evelyn’s piece with my edits:

Mommy cooked every meal and always served Daddy first at the family table. They were married 65 years.[I moved this up because it is basic info the reader needs quickly so that she knows how long Mommy did this.She went to market weekly buying fresh fruit, vegetables and fish for his favorite dishes.  She continued this habit after we left home, even when he at 89 became terminally ill.

No one knew he would leave us that late afternoon in May of 2010.  Mommy served him breakfast.  That evening she repeatedly said , “I greeted him then I went to the kitchen to cook his breakfast… .”

After he died, she stopped going to market. She didn’t cook. cooked after Daddy died.  Daddy and Mommy were married 65 years. 

All the changes here are to give punch to the ending and an echo to the opening line. The key metaphor here is cooking. Even though “rarely” cooked is more accurate, the writer can choose the stronger, more emphatic choice. In essence—meaning, sure she had to eat, but “cooking” was gone with your father—I suspect my phrase is pretty accurate. If not, don’t use it.

And here is Maxine Kahn’s poem. She didn’t do the free write, but she did go home to find her poem:

 Summer Nights in Baltimore

I remember summer nights in Baltimore
We were ten back then in 1956
Boys in crew-cuts
And girls in swinging pony tails and short summer dos
From early light til dark
We ran up and down hot city streets and sidewalks
Escaping the heat on cool, wet summer lawns
We jumped and twirled
In and out of rotating sprinklers
And small round plastic pools
That dotted backyard lawns
Innocent and joyous
We lept about in shorts and skimpy shirts
Arms and legs poking out, lean
Brown as chestnuts
From long hours spent under the sun
We ran in packs then, into the twilight – til dark
Our feet snug in nifty blue Keds, and white PF Flyers
Carrying empty mayonnaise jars
With holes punched into their lids
Air vents for our future captives – lightning bugs
Like shooting stars – elusive
Speeding by in the night sky
Lightning bugs -
Our nighttime summer companions – our prey
Flashing on and off like Christmas lights
Disappearing and reappearing in a blink
As if playing hide-and-seek with us
Trying to outwit us
But for the glory of the hunt
We persist
Our voices rising into the night sky
One after another, claiming victory in the chase
“I see one, over there….no,  there its goes…it’s over there….I got it”
“And there’s another…..I got that one.”
Shouts my next-door neighbor,  Ronnie Aaronson
As he quickly snatches a set of lit wings
Out of the dark, and into a small fist 
Pulsing with warm yellow light
And carefully transfers each glowing catch
Into a jar
Then another and another, again and again
Two, three, four …
All blinking on and off
A light show behind glass walls
We are mesmerized by the sight of it
These flaming jeweled wings
Warming and lighting their temporary glass homes
We come together to compare, to see
Who has the best catch of the night
We huddle closer
To view the accumulated light from our jars
Now reflected onto our faces
Distant voices edge into our circle of excitement
It is our parents, perched above the street
Observing from railed cement porches
Connected to
The long stretch of red brick row houses
That lined our beloved Grantley Road
Our parents,
Sitting and rocking back and forth
On squeaky metal gliders
Sipping cool summer drinks
Calling our names out
Across lawns and into the streets
Waving us home for the night
We resist the calls
Wanting to stay in our huddle of friendship
But, as darkness falls, we give up our night chase
And head home
Our precious cargo in hand, lighting the way

More on Maxine and home and memoir in an upcoming post.