The Key

I don't usually write in verse, but after spending a week at the Peninsula Writers Summer Retreat on Glen Lake, I felt inspired:

The key is on the table

When I arrive at cabin 5

The large green plastic tag

Is a remnant of the motel era

Before magnetic passcards frustrated entry

Until swiped just right

for a green light.

Shoil is already there unloading her red gas hog,

Claiming the cushy chair in the corner,

Rearranging the furniture to her liking.

Trish comes next with a printer the size of a baby grand

Then little Wendy who flits around like a glowing Tinkerbell

Except when she disappears into her den.

Shoil must have turned on the light over the sink

and for seven days and nights it watches us

Fixing ribs, tacos, soup and spaghetti

And boxes and bottles and more boxes of wine

WaRshing dishes with a capital R

Setting a buffet to share with friends

And the key is still on the table.

When the sun sets behind the gator

The sink light remains on

Inspiring the tapping of keys

Listening to the secrets of Cabin 5 shared in a circle

Waiting for the smokers who sneak outside

Guiding the late night potty run

And sending off the early morning walker

Trish who talks with her hands

Decides midweek to move the table

Squeak, screech, hobble, hobble

In front of the couch

As a home for her computer and creating

While watching the lake

But the key remains on the table

She adds a green light to the deck

In case Gatsby comes to call

And swims and shivers her way to a raft in the sun

The tower of TP on the back of the stool

Only dwindles by two --amazing

Until Wendy confesses she’s been holding in

Shoil packs first, plotting a course from

Glen Arbor to TC to Lansing and beyond

Then Trish takes one last drive around the lake,

Tells Carol’s poem with her fingers,

 and fades into the night.

The final day finds Wendy and Sue

Using the table as packing central

Dividing up celery and cashews

Praying for pitched recyclables

Drinking the last of the wine.

Time to find the switch

to turn off the light over the sink

Wheel the suitcases, haul the printer

And cooler and boxes and bags

There’s a new green light on the deck,

To remind Gatsby and the literary world

We were here

But as we close the door

The key is still on the table

Breadcrumbs

 

Remember how Hansel and Gretel left a trail of breadcrumbs when they went into the woods so they would be able to find their way home?
   Well, I just returned from a whirlwind visit to Colorado and I felt like I was leaving a trail of bits and pieces of myself for some yet-to-be-determined purpose.
    Some of the leavings were intentional, such as the book I was reading. I enjoyed Boone's Lick by Larry McMurty of Lonesome Dove fame. I'm familiar with the Boone's Lick trail in Missouri which attracted me to the book in the first place. But the story is told from the perspective of a 14-year-old boy, so I gave it to Steve's 14-year-old grandson, Trevor, a lanky lacrosse player in Steamboat Springs.
    But most of the crumbs I left behind were a combination of debris and dementia. Like the water bottle left at the security checkpoint at Denver International Airport. It joined overflowing bins of toothpaste, soda bottles and toothpaste that violated the 3-ounce limit. Or the swimsuit I forgot hanging to dry in a condo bathroom in Winter Park. Or the breath mints I left on the kitchen table at Steve's son's home in Conifer. The hand lotion on a coffee table in Winter Park. The reams of notes I brought along for a long-distance phone conference on Michigan's upcoming Wilde Awards, no longer needed and pitched in a Colorado wastebasket.A business card handed to a woman who asked about my books at a Steamboat party.
    I gathered a few crumbs as well, mostly hugs and kisses and laughs with relatives and friends. A few pictures. Memories.
     But will the trail grow cold, the bread crumbs disappear, before I head that way again?

Book of Mormon

        Can you enjoy a play but not like it? Can you learn from something you find repulsive?
         I had the opportunity to travel to Chicago over Memorial Day weekend and see The Book of Mormon. I went with my eyes open. I knew this was going to be very tongue in cheek ...to the point of gagging.
         I knew I would be offended by the language, and I was. This is comedic cursing, using four-letter words not because they are appropriate to the context but because they aren't, and therefore it's funny. It's written by the same team that created the uber offensive animated series, South Park.
         Although the play lampoons organized religion, especially the Church of Latter Day Saints, it's actually more insulting to African cultures because the most offensive behavior is reserved for  the villagers who are being visited by LDS missionaries.
         But even in this context, I found little nuggets of truth in the story--the way Christians sometimes act like people ought to be able to ignore biological urges that go against the teaching of the church,  the way the message of salvation can sometimes seem irrelevant to current problems, and the way some Christian tales seem as conveniently  fictional as "Star Wars."
         I don't turn to musicals for religious teaching, but I believe all creativity emanates from a central fount of truth and inspiration. I think these creators were making fun of musicals as much as anything, and yet the songs are snappy and fun, the dancing was great, and the plot, though predictable, actually works pretty well. So I suppose enjoying it means I missed the point.

The new normal

One of my favorite children's books is Leo the Lop. My son Ryan and I often read this delightful story about a lop-eared bunny who wants desperately to have nice tall ears like the other bunnies. He feels defective because he's different. He tries all sorts of machinations to make his ears look like other bunnies' ears until he finally realizes that lop is normal for him.

Looking for Normal, the latest offering from Actors' Theatre, is the adult version of the same story. (See review) A man feels defective because he believes he is a woman trapped in a man's body. He decides to go through a sex change operation which reminds me so much of all the efforts Leo made to look "normal."

But unlike Leo who finally accepts himself as he is, the man in Looking for Normal goes through hormone injections, electrolysis and reconstructive surgery to make himself "complete." And that's nothing compared to what he puts his family through in trying to cope with their feelings for this man turned woman. The situation is a real test of love and friendship. The ultimate question is does gender really matter? Can you still hang out, drink beer and watch the game with dad if he's wearing a dress? Can your son still inherit the family farm if he's a she?  

Dog Gone it!

  

Even a cute little blonde dressed in bright pink can be upstaged by a dog, even a little dog whose legs look too long for his body and whose pointy little ears keep flopping over. That was the lesson offered this week at Grand Rapids Civic Theatre's DISH.
      Breighanna Minnem, 19, of East Grand Rapids,  was dressed in hot pink from head to toe to welcome dishers and talk about the upcoming show, "Legally Blonde."  She'll be portraying Elle, a California Valley Girl who takes Harvard by storm to reclaim her man.  But Elle's purse-size pooch, CeZar demanded most of the attention at the DISH event, wrapping his pretty pink leash around the actress and eventually riding off on his owner's shoulders. In the play, CeZar will have to share the scene-stealing with Jake, his gigantic canine buddy with a tongue a big as CeZar. 
       The dogs are an important part of the story, Breighanna, says, because the story champions individual differences and accepting people, and dogs, just the way they are. 
       In recognition of the importance of pets, Civic will sponsor an Adopt-a-pet event on opening night, May 31, with representatives of the Humane Society bringing in kittens, dogs and various other "creatures" for audience members to adopt.  Don't worry, you don't have to take your new pet into the theater. That would be way too much upstaging. You can purchase the pet and pick it up at the Humane Society on Saturday.
      

The other shoe drops...

     Earlier this year I reported that my book, One Shoe Off, was in the running for the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Awards. In the semi-final round, however, trimming 100 mystery candidates down to five, One Shoe Off did not make the cut.  I thought I would keep the bad news to myself, but friends have been asking, so here's what the Publisher's Weekly reviewer had to say:
      

The prose is above average in this complex, ambitious novel, but the characters are too flat and the action is too episodic to hold a reader’s attention. Josie Braun, divorced mother of an eight-year old son, is city editor of the Jordan Daily News, a newspaper published in the Chicago suburbs in 1985. Josie and her colleague Ormand “Duke” Dukakis, a married reporter and recovering alcoholic with whom Josie had a brief affair the year before, investigate a murder discovered at the same time that veteran reporter Maggie Sheffield suffers a massive stroke. While conducting the investigation and helping to care for Maggie, Josie finds clues -- one being a woman’s distinctive red shoe -- that might solve the mysterious disappearance 30 years earlier of news editor Zelda Machinko, herself a crime investigator. As Josie learns more about Zelda, eventually even dreaming of her, Josie finds that the crimes of the present are linked to those of the past. Unfortunately, even though she appears in only a few flashback scenes, Zelda, with her refreshingly frank, sometimes cynical, and always snappy first-person narration, is a much more interesting character than the bland Josie, whose story is told in the third person. Moreover, Duke’s constant animal-centric exclamations such as “Walrus whoppers!” and “Pigeon paste!” are never as clever as the author seems to imagine, and quickly grow tiresome. One finishes this novel wishing that the author had told Zelda’s story instead of Josie’s, or at least given the scene-stealing Zelda equal time. 

   Obviously not a winning review, but not horrible either. In fact, as a reviewer myself, I have to agree that Zelda is definitely more punchy than Josie, though I'm not sure I'd want to build a series around her. So, there you have it friends. The other shoe.

Anything Goes!

The world has gone mad today
And good's bad today,
And black's white today,
And day's night today, 

Sounds  like a pretty good description of 2013 doesn't it? Well, would it surprise you to know that Cole Porter penned those lyrics about that wild and crazy time...1934?

Last night when I was reviewing the new Broadway Tour at DeVos Performance Hall, I couldn't help but enjoy the great lyrics in Porter's songs, his ridiculous rhymes as well as his amazing vision.

In olden days a glimpse of stocking
Was looked on as something shocking,
But now, God knows,
Anything Goes.
Good authors too who once knew better words,
Now only use four letter words
Writing prose, Anything Goes.