What if Good and Evil Had a Race?

The Boston Marathon is one of more than 500 marathons run in the world every year. Most of the participants are recreational runners. The marathoners train for sixteen to eighteen weeks . The first month they alternate short runs of three or four miles with carefully calculated days off. They add a weekly double-digit run the next month or two, adding a mile or so every week.

Marathoners eat healthfully; they hydrate as they run. Marathoners learn how to fuel up on protein bars and sports beans. They may have to nurse a pull or sprain along the way, but eventually they get back on their feet and make up for setbacks– all to be able to cross the finish line that ends a 26.2 mile run in four to seven hours. Recreational marathoners do not need to win. They just want to finish.

Boston Globe photo

It’s very disturbing to think that as today’s Boston marathoners were putting themselves through the stress and strain of training, someone else was putting the finishing touches on a scheme to take some of them and a portion of the city down.  The  unknown perpetrator must have obsessed over the power and the placement of two bombs destined to be detonated at the finish line at about the same time marathoners were getting caught up with the rhythm of their breathing, the swing of their arms, the pace of the run.

I wonder why one individual decides to direct one’s passion  toward the light – and the other to the darkness. Is it something one says or doesn’t say, over a period of time? An environment? A chromosome? A price? Once again, that shift in perspective made a tragic difference in innocent lives today

My own son and nephew, both of whom work in Boston, were too close to the danger for my comfort, that’s for sure. Their beloved Boston will not be quite the same ever again – especially on Patriot’s Day,the  traditional day of the marathon. But, like a runner's injury, this incident was a sprain of sorts.  Boston will rehab and will come out stronger, the way NYC has; the way Newtown will.

If Good and Evil had a race, Good would be the Tortoise and Evil would be the Hare

I pray tonight for the comfort of the families most impacted by today’s tragedy, the lives injured and lost, and for the first responders who, once again, choose to run toward the danger rather than away., 

Getting Through College and The Canterbury Tales

The fourteen line prologue to  Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, posted yesterday, brought a couple readers back to their college days - their late 60s college days - when just about every student was required to take British Lit! No matter what their major. 

Now, English majors at Dartmouth aren't  required to take even Shakespeare. How culture changes culture.

Kathy,who graduated from high school with me, commented that she could actually read Chaucer's introduction ("with effort" ) thanks to a college professor who drove her crazy  - both years she attended her class! (I'm guessing that was in British Lit I and British Lit II, recalling the canon of the day). 

Jack, a fellow writer, recalled how beautifully his "Brit lit prof" recited those lines, back in the day. Recently, Jack read the entire poem, as bawdy as it is beautiful. (About the length of ten-chapter novel, it's available online free for Kindle users, along with other ebook readers, and audiobook formats).

Kathy and Jacks' Chaucer tales of their own bring me to mine. 

During the late 1960s, at my small, all women, Catholic college, every student had to take British Lit - I and II. In order to get through British Lit I, every one of those students had to memorize and recite the first fourteen lines of Chaucer's prologue.Even as an English major, I felt challenged! 

Practicing for days in my dorm, amidst  a backdrop of Beatles posters and the sounds of folk music, rock music, and a blending of both (thank you Bob Dylan), I discovered I could best learn and remember the archaic yet mellifluous Middle English when I sang the words to the tune of "Leaving on a Jet Plane," a John Denver song (most popularly covered by Peter Paul and Mary).

When I arrived for my "recitation appointment" I brought my guitar. Left it outside the good professor's office  until, after stumbling through a few, "Whan that aprill -s," I asked her if I could go get it. Use it. The poetry/music connection further intrigued her.

Strumming away I breezed through the fourteen lines. Still can - if I sing them!

Try it for yourself!

And, oh yes, here's the modern English translation of the prologue I posted yesterday.
How did you do?

When April with his showers sweet with fruit

The drought of March has pierced unto the root

And bathed each vein with liquor that has power

To generate therein and sire the flower;

When Zephyr also has, with his sweet breath,

Quickened again, in every holt and heath,

The tender shoots and buds, and the young sun

Into the Ram one half his course has run,

And many little birds make melody

That sleep through all the night with open eye

(So Nature pricks them on to ramp and rage)-

Then do folk long to go on pilgrimage,

And palmers to go seeking out strange strands,

To distant shrines well known in sundry lands. 

Wherefore Art Thou - Springtime?

I've been busy trying to wrap up winter. Trouble is, my first  attempt - March 21 -  the temperature froze any thought of clearing a garden bed or two. Then, a week after a sunny but chilly Palm Sunday (on which my 8-month-old grandson was baptized) Easter morning rolled in  with more of a Jack Frost than Easter Bunny overtone.

Good thing rabbits have fur.

April fooled me further with more extended low temperatures. And now, after too brief a reprieve, I've got the heat on again as I watch a  cold heavy rain fall outside.

My daffodils and tulips are clearly confused.

But, pretty soon, I expect, I will be able to conduct my yearly spring ritual. That would be greeting the true signs of spring  with a quick recitation of the prologue to Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. In Middle English. The Middle English that comes between Old English (incomprehensible) and Shakespearean English. The passage  looks both strange and familiar in its homage to springtime.

Whan that aprill with his shoures soote
The droghte of march hath perced to the roote,
And bathed every veyne in swich licour
Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
Whan zephirus eek with his sweete breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
Tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the ram his halve cours yronne,
And smale foweles maken melodye,
That slepen al the nyght with open ye
(so priketh hem nature in hir corages);
Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages,
And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes

Can you detect the hints of spring in those lines? 

We'll see how well you did tomorrow. 

In the meantime, take a look at what the best little theatre group in Boston, MA is up to:

Repeating My Sandy Hook Promise

 .  .  . to have conversations on all of the issues . . .  

According to this week's New York Times, the vast majority of the American public wants background checks for sales of guns. I don't think our Founding Fathers would have rejected that notion if guns were as accessible in their day - at conventions and on the Internet -- as they are today. Yet, I never would have guessed Stephen King, master of contemporary American horror and, some would say, gore, would so deliberately enter the American debate on gun control on the side of more regulation.  

Photo from Google images

                                                                                      

 Not only does his creatively sinister mind wage in on the issue that has been pushed to its tipping point by the Sandy Hook tragedy last month; he does so with precise measures of common sense and just a touch of the macabre. It’s as if this writer of extreme fiction took the Sandy Hook Promise with one hand placed over his heart and the other atop a copy of Carrie.

The acclaimed author of real and psychological horror does not suggest repealing the Second Amendment’s Right to Bear Arms. King's Kindle single Guns, published this month, offers a concise rationale that  boils down the issue of gun violence and control to three “reasonable measures” that would curb gun violence 

                                                                                                                                                    

• ·         Comprehensive and universal background checks
• ·         Ban the sale of clips and magazines containing more than ten rounds
• ·         Ban the sale of assault weapons such as the Bushmaster and the AR-15

As a longtime teacher of the argumentative essay, I’d give King an A+ on his essay (an accolade he can add to his National Book Award in 2003), not just  because I agree with him, but because he presents his case so well. It’s worth $.99 just to see how carefully he did his homework (research) and structured his argument.*

Yet, it is not King’s rhetoric I am most impressed with. It is the personal narrative that opens the piece about steps he took in the late 1990s, almost fifteen years before Sandy Hook. That was when he pulled Rage, a novel he  wrote in 1977 (under the pseudonym of Richard Bachman), out of print because it had come to be loosely connected to four different teenagers who committed school shootings.

King addressed the difficulty he had making this choice in a keynote address  to the Vermont Library Conference in 1999, clarifying he did not feel that, just because these troubled teenagers had copies of Rage, they committed the shootings. “My book did not break them or turn them into killers; they found something in my book that spoke to them because they were already broken,” King said.

King’s statement reveals what rational Americans know: there is no simple cause and effect to maniacal acts of violence, acts that take a greater toll when guns are accessible. Yet, even though King believes in the First Amendment's Freedom of Speech as well as the Second Amendment, he agreed to surrender a portion of his right to free speech, because, as he states in Guns, “I did see Rage as a possible accelerant, which is why I pulled it from sale. You don’t leave a can of gasoline where a boy with firebug tendencies can lay hands on it.”

King admits regretting having to remove the book from, essentially, the reach of deranged teens, but he goes on to say he did it because it was the right thing to do.

Let’s look at this: In King’s case, the morally right thing for him to do was to voluntarily give up a bit of his First Amendment Right – Freedom of Speech – even as  essential as that right is to a writer.

With King as a model of reasonable concession, it should not be too much to ask an adherent of the Second Amendment, the Right to Bear Arms, to voluntarily give up the bit of the arsenal that has repeatedly become the mass destroyers of innocent lives. Innocent lives like the 20 first-grade children and six adults of Sandy Hook Elementary School who were gunned down because of a lethal mix of mental illness, accessible weapons, a culture’s penchant for violent entertainment, etc., all of which King addresses in Guns  -  just as he is compelled to address  the most real horror he has ever put to mind: the “gore-splattered rooms and hallways (of Sandy Hook Elementary School) when the first responders entered them."

*proceeds of King's Kindle Single Guns goes to the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.

Small Presses March to Independent Beats

Thank goodness for small, independent presses. Writers like me, who lack the Internet presence major publishing houses require, have a chance with them.    .

March is Small Press Month. “Small” as in annual sales under $50 million - with fewer than ten titles published a year .If the Big Publishing Houses were corporate banks, the small presses would be credit unions. More accessible. Friendlier. Geared towards a particular neighborhood.

A database on the Poets and Writers magazine website lists hundreds of small presses, alphabetically and by genre: poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction. I found a small publisher for my memoir on a list from the Writer magazine. Both of these sources are reliable, which begs a distinction that must be made between small presses and vanity presses.

The small press (like larger university presses) accepts quality manuscripts – and rejects substandard ones. Small presses also distribute their books and pay royalties. Vanity presses are virtually printers. They accept all manuscripts and sell the manuscript-turned-book, in volume, back to the writer. End of contract.

Writing magazines regularly feature articles like “Bigger Isn’t Always Better,” by Jeff Reich. He says the less-is-more perspective allows a small press to focus “on quality not quantity.” Big Name Publishers like Big Name Clients. They often opt for celebrity over craft – and hire a ghost writer for the celebs who can’t write.

My Memoir
on amazon
on bn.com
on iBooks

Small presses give writers like you and me a chance to tell our stories. Last year, after a number of really "complimentary rejections" from the likes of HCI and S & S, the independent  start-up, Signalman Publishing, accepted my memoir, Staying Alive: A Love Story. Since publication the book was nominated for the 2012 Christian Small Press Association Book of the Year, received a 2011 Readers Views Award, and has been recommended by the American Institute of Health Care Professionals.Yet it didn't have a chance with a Big Publishing House.

Jack's memoir
on amazon
on bn.com

Recently Signalman published a beautiful memoir by Jack Sheedy,a Connecticut writer who reviewed my book for The Catholic Transcript last year. As poignant and entertaining as Jack's, The Sting of the Heat Bug is, his story of growing-up- Irish couldn't make it through the likes of Random House or Penguin Books - because Jack, who has been writing for The Catholic Transcript for years, isn’t well known enough. An independent press like Signalman Publishers offers him the chance to put his story “out there” even though Jack is not trending on Yahoo. Not yet anyway!

John McClure, president of Signalman Publishing, says, “small publishers can and do release titles that offer the reader unique insight on a topic without the filter of commercial success blocking it.”

Yet, small presses can be profitable. Only after corporate publishers repeatedly rejected Paul Harding’s Tinkers, did the new, unheard of Bellvue Literary Press (named after the New York hospital) publish the novel. Then Tinkers picked up a 2010 Pulitizer Prize.

Jack and I are available for co-readings and book signings in Connecticut. Email me at laurabhayden@att.net if you would like us to visit your book club or organization.

If at First You Don't Succeed, Blog, Blog Again

It’s has been a Red-Letter Week for the Mommy of the Bride blog, which made its debut just over 2 years ago.  Over 130 posts later, mommyofthebride.blogspot.com has attracted 20,000 hits! (Thank you)

NOT ME!

How did I start blogging?

Two years ago I came very close to securing an agent for my memoir. Shortly after I queried, she asked for the opening chapter. A week later she requested three more. Promising! Even though I thought her reply sounded a little odd.I see on your website that you are a stand-up comedian. Do you intend to leverage your contacts in the comedy world to promote this book?

ME!

Apparently, when Ms. Prospective Agent googled my name, she left out the middle initial “B” and got the Official site of Laura Hayden stand-up comedian instead of laurabhayden.com – writer.

I sent the chapters along with this clarification: I have to inform you – and this is not a bad thing – that I am not exactly who you think I am! 

I explained her Internet faux pas, redirected her to my writer’s website and downplayed the mistaken identity by quipping, I may not be performing monologues onstage, but my students say my puns are “pretty darn funny." Keep it light, I thought.

Her answer shot back, it seemed, instantly. I'll be honest, I only requested your work because of a misunderstanding. I figured a comedian dealing with loss would attract at least a look from a major trade house editor. While I think the idea is well conceived and the writing samples are excellent, I simply don't feel you have the platform necessary to meet with success in this highly competitive market. Editors look for nonfiction authors to come with a media presence.

And she advised me to start a blog.

Well, I did. Decided to focus on the future instead of the past (though the past sneaks in regularly).

20,000 + posts later, it’s time to shop another book.

Red Carpet Worthy Dressing

Octavia Spencer at the 2013 Academy
Awards wearubg Tadashi Shoji - again1
Photo by Getty

What does Octavia Spencer and the Mommy of the Bride have in common?

We both love Tadashi Shoji.

But it’s not what you think.

We’re not interested in him romantically.

Just fashionably.

Earlier this week Octavia walked the 2013 Academy Award Red Carpet in a Tadashi Shoji gown. He’s the same designer she wore last year when she won the best supporting actress Oscar. His dressmaking has a knack for flattering less than perfect female figures with strategially snug tucks of material over their assets and a flow of fabric over their liabilities.

I wore Tadashi Shoji to my daughter’s wedding. Off the rack TS. Actually, off an eBay store site.

The online gown caught my eye after a number of disappointing visits to bridal shops. It’s  difficult to find petite sizes, even in these specialty stores. (My once-favorite Marshalls department store has shrunk its petite department so much, it no longer exists).



Bride and MOTB (in her Tadashi Shoji gown).



When I saw that the Tadashi gown was available in a range of sizes, including my petite-medium-ish domain,I clicked it into my cart and let parcel post do the rest.

Once out of the package, all it needed was a steaming.