Making Memories

From James Grippando

You Want to Make a Memory?

In case you don’t recognize it, that’s the title of Bon Jovi’s latest hit song, The Grippandos were watching American Idol as a family when it debuted on national television. My wife is younger than I am, and Bon Jovi is straight from her era (I’m somewhere between The Who and U2). My daughter is only eleven, but she digs Bon Jovi too, and that song is on her iPod.

I have a couple of things to say about this Bon Jovi resurgence. One, while watching the major league baseball playoffs this autumn, I was surprised to see that John Bon Jovi looks as goofy as I do in a Yankee's cap. Two, I have to confess that the Bon Jovi song has been in my head over the past few days, triggered mostly by all our preparations for our family trip to NYC. Because all romantic and sexual innuendo aside, that’s exactly what we’re doing . . . making memories.

Neither my wife nor I are New Yorkers, but this marks our fifth consecutive Thanksgiving in NewYork City. We go each year with another family, whose last name is Strump, but if you say it real fast it sounds like Trump, which doesn’t hurt for dinner reservations. We do all kinds of fun things, but mostly what I love about this trip is that we are making some really great memories for our kids.

My first trip to New York City wasn’t until I was in college. Back then, New York was on the verge of bankruptcy and wasn’t exactly the safest city. I have to say that I was intimidated. Now, I love it that my two older kids (11 and 9) act like the own the most amazing city in the world. They know the difference between long blocks and short blocks. They hale cabs. They have their favorite rock to climb in central park, and they’ve named the polar bears in the Central Park Zoo. They can point out the relative advantages and disadvantages of skating at Woman Rink versus Rockefeller Center, they know exactly where the American Girl store is, and they know how to get there from the NBA Store.

Thanksgiving in New York takes some practice to perfect. Our first year, I have to admit, was not so good. We watched the parade from a terrace about 30 stores above Broadway. It was cold and windy, and my wife’s a good sport, but I could tell that she wished we were back in Miami complaining about how hot it always is on Thanksgiving Day. That first year, we also did Thanksgiving dinner at the Plaza, which was mediocre. Now however, we have it nailed. I won’t bore you with every little detail, but if you’ve ever thought about doing New York and the Macy’s Parade, here are four “Thanksgiving in New York” tips that might make your trip a little more special.

First, where do you watch the parade from? We’ve tried various places, but the last three years we’ve done breakfast at Jean George at Columbus circle. I think it’s perfect. It’s at ground level, and the restaurant has two-story walls of glass that face Central Park West. If it’s bad weather, you can stay inside, drink hot chocolate, and see everything from your table. If you want to go outside, you can stand on the sidewalk by the heaters, and the only people who can stand out there with you are guests at the hotel or customers of the restaurant. In other words, unlike the W in Time Square or other places we’ve tried, you can actually see the parade without standing on someone else’s shoulders.

Thanksgiving Day can be tough and very boring for the kids, because many of the typical New York destinations are closed. We make this our day to skate at Rockefeller Center. No line. If you go the next day, be prepared to wait two or three hours.

Thanksgiving dinner in New York has become one of my favorite new family traditions. My pick is the King’s Carriage House. It’s a small restaurant (it was once an actual carriage house) that serves up traditional Thanksgiving fare by candlelight. It feels more like a New England Inn than the Upper East side.

This is a family trip for the most part, but we do one grown up dinner without kids. One of my personal favorites is Grammercy Tavern. Last time Tiffany and I went there I happily discovered that the general manager was once a lawyer at my old law firm—in fact, I was the hiring partner who gave him his job. It’s fun to see lawyers with the guts to move on to another career and do what they really love to do. Grammercy is now the #1 rated restaurant in New York, according to Zagat’s. Not to be missed, and there is something about the décor that feels very Thanksgiving to me. Try it.

So, here’s hoping you have a wonderful Thanksgiving. I know we will!

Paul will be back (a couple pounds heavier) with his regular slot next Tuesday.

True love never runs smooth

Patty here…

Back 1595, William Shakespeare wrote a play called A Midsummer Night's Dream, in which the father of protagonist Hermia forbids her to marry Lysander, the love of her life. Lysander comforts her by saying, “Aye me! For aught that I could ever read, Could ever hear by tale or history, The course of true love never did run smooth.”

I bring this up because of two recent e-mails I received from readers about Tucker Sinclair’s love life. After finishing SHORT CHANGE, one woman said about my heroine’s conflicted romance with homicide detective Joe Deegan: “Why did you have to make it like real life?” Then a couple of days ago I got an e-mail from another reader who suggested that I add a new love interest for Tucker, just to give Deegan something to think about. Coincidentally, I did just that in my fourth book COOL CACHE, which is due out on June 3, 2008.

I don’t like fictional romances to run smoothly, especially in crime novels. Case in point, Michael Connelly’s Harry Bosch has a tortured love life. The poor guy just can’t seem to get it together romantically, and I feel for him because of it. Happy couples are lovely to have as friends, but they aren’t very interesting to read about. I prefer two evenly-matched people who have an underlying love for each other but differing agendas that keep them apart, at least until the end.



I also like reading about people who are thrown together because of circumstances beyond their control, and then are forced to stay together until the crisis is over. In his book, How to Write a Damn Good Novel, James Frey calls this phenomenon a crucible, a term he attributes to Moses Malevinsky in The Science of Playwriting (1925).

“Think of the crucible as the container that holds the characters together as things heat up. The crucible is the bond that keeps them in conflict with one another. Characters are in the crucible to stay if their motivation to continue in conflict is greater than their motivation to run away from the conflict. You know you have failed to put your characters in a crucible if your readers are apt to ask questions like: “Why doesn’t the knight just go home and forget about slaying the dragon?”

“Without a crucible to contain the characters there can be no conflict, and without conflict there is no drama. Any time you put your characters in a crucible, the antagonist and protagonist, for their separate reasons, are committed to continuing the conflict until there is a final resolution—until the marriage takes place, the battle is won, the fortune is divided, the pirates have been sent to the briny deep, or whatever.”

Diana Gabaldon throws her main characters into the crucible in her novel The Outlander, a book that combines history, romance, and a touch of woo woo. Claire and Jaime are strangers, but they’re forced to marry in order to save Claire’s life. The law (or the politics of the time) is their crucible.

In Paulie’s novel Solomon vs. Lord, Steve Solomon and Victoria Lord are opposing lawyers in a court case. Duty to their clients is their crucible.

I’m considering sending Tucker on a cruise with the two men in her life, someplace exotic—St. Petersburg or perhaps Costa Rica. The boat will be their crucible. Shuffleboard anyone?



So what about you? Do you like romance in crime fiction? Are you partial to happy couples, or are you a fan of the Hepburn/Tracy and Moonlighting’s Maddie/David sort of relationship?



Happy Monday!

Icing On The Cake

from Jacqueline

(Having trouble with our blogger today, and cannot add graphics - sorry!)

There’s a tendency, among writers and non-writers alike, to talk about the blank page that looms forth in front of you, and you’re thinking, “How the heck am I going to fill that thing.” It’s a story that is familiar to so many, and we all nod our heads and say, “Yep, that’s me.” But the truth is that the task in front of us isn’t necessarily paralyzing, nor is it to do with one blank page. That “oh heck” feeling comes in many different packages. And sometimes it comes as “oh heck lite” and sometimes it graduates to “oh ...” (add own favorite expletive).

So, now you know, I have just started a new book. Yesterday. I knew I did not have a dose of the famed writer’s block, even though I had set November 1st as the start date and that was two weeks ago. I knew that, eventually, I would knuckle down to the page, because I regard deadlines as sacrosanct, and I’ve a pretty packed schedule before this book’s due at the end of March (almost two months out on book tour early next year, plus three major papers to write for my course). In the two weeks between the agreed-with-self start date and the actually-hit-the-keys date, I have been mulling and mulling and mulling (and it wasn’t wine I was mulling, it might have been more productive if it was) the story in my head until it began to spill over, out of my mind, through my fingers and onto the page. Sometimes I think it’s a bit like baking a cake. You do all the ground work – you blend your characters, scenes, the arc of your story and you let it cook away in your imagination (at a medium temperature for months), then one day it’s cooked and ready to ice. Ah, the icing. That’s where you fill your icing bag with words and phrases, with images, wit, sadness, grief, laughter and everything that brings story to the page. You choose your design, and on the day of writing you squeeze that icing out with all the control, dexterity and creativity you can muster. And one day you have something you can put on the table in front of guests.

But if you stop to think about the actual task ahead at any point, it’s like looking down when you’re climbing up – don’t do it.

A couple of years ago, I was putting off the start date on MESSENGER OF TRUTH, my third novel, I began having severe pains in my finger joints. Great, I thought, just what every writer wants – arthritis in the fingers. I massaged my joints, I rubbed everything from Devil’s Claw to Emu oil into my joints; I bought a hot wax hand bath; herbal mitts that you nuke to warm up your digits – anything to take away the pain. And I called my friend Vicki, who does various types of healing. She looked at my fingers and said, “You need to get writing.” I told her that I wrote every day. “No,” she said, “Your book’s stuck in your fingers – start it and the pain will go away.”

So I did, and it did. Make of that what you will.

Last week my fingers began to hurt again, and I knew it was time to get writing. And yesterday I began. 1500 words. Stephen King (I’ve said this before, I know), in his book, “On Writing,” says that you can write the first raw draft of a book in three months if you write 1200 words a day. Ever since I read that, I’ve tried to follow his advice. Sometimes I write more, but never less. It’s a benchmark, and it works for me.



But I know it’s important to cut yourself some slack – breaks work, setting treats works (when I’ve finished my 1200 words, I’ll go for a hike!), walking works. We all have our writing rituals, our processes, that work for us, that’s how we get books, articles, academic papers and blogs written. And when you’re a writer, you write – that’s what you do. Even if you put it off for a while.

The Miami Book Fair

The year I was promoted to a supervisor in my police job I thought I had traveled all I ever would in one year. I supervised one of the early Internet predator taskforces and visited cities all over the country to meet with other police agencies to develop guidelines for the difficult investigations. I was also sent to a management school, which was one week a month for six months. There were the usual survival and tactical schools in Tallahassee and a National Guard base named Camp Blanding. It was part of the challenge of moving up the ladder and becoming the best supervisor I could be. I knew I’d been to Tallahassee a lot when a clerk at the residence Inn I usually stayed at greeted me by name and knew which room I preferred.

This year’s travel schedule may eclipse the year I spent 70 nights in hotel rooms. I still travel in my day job but not like the year I described above. But now I have book festivals to visit, library talks and a book tour to add to my hotel total. Except for the tour almost all the travel is on weekends and close enough to drive.

In addition to Florida stops I visited festivals or bookstores in South Carolina, Texas, Georgia (twice), Arizona, California, Alabama, New York and Tennessee.

It was this travel hangover that caused me to skip getting a room for the Miami Book Fair this past weekend. Instead, I zipped down the seventy-five miles from my house to the dead center of downtown Miami. It was a long, fun, tiring and ultimately worthwhile day, which I now have to view as more exhausting than just getting a room. But my rationalization that I had not been at my house for a full weekend for the past six weeks, which included a vacation, and that I would be attending the Vero Beach Book festival next week, caused me to become homesick for my own bed. And even though I rumbled into the driveway at two Sunday morning, about eighteen hours after I had departed, it felt good to wake up and not worry about driving any where for an entire day.

This is in no way a complaint or whine, despite how it’s laid out. I am fortunate to be in this position and generally enjoy these events. Since I thought to bring my camera I even have evidence of my adventure in the “Latin Riviera”. Let me take you on a brief tour of the greatest book fair in the United States.


One of the driving forces of the Bookfair is Mitchell Kaplan of Books & Books. Here he is with an elderly patron of the book fair better known as crime writer Tom Corcoran.

My panel was for the Florida Book Award winners. Here we are after the talk at our signing. From left to right is our moderator Dr. Wayne Weigand, Daina Chaviano, me, James Kimbrell, Tony D’Souza and Michael Grunwald.. It was nice to meet such fine writers.



I was on the panel for Escape Clause winning the best novel in popular fiction.

Here I am with Jeffery Toobin, author of the current bestseller on the Supreme Court, The Nine.


This is Christine Kling, Hyacinth and Nick Stone, author of the Thriller Award winning Mr. Clarinet.


And finally my hero, Chris Matthews of Hardball.


It was a good day and I still smile at the thought of it. Even if I didn’t stay overnight in a hotel.

And yes, most of the post is just an excuse to show off my photo with Matthews.

What events to do you like to\travel to attend?

Prospect

(All photographs of Prospect Cemetery in this post are by the tremendously talented Kevin Walsh of Forgotten New York, which The Village Voice rightly called "One of New York's best blogs." Many thanks to him for the use of his images.)

By Cornelia

Around 1990, when I last lived in Manhattan, my friend Ariel Zeitlin was working for a documentary filmmaker named David Tapper. One day she said to me, "I think I've met someone you're related to." One of her co-workers in the office was Cate Ludlam, and Ariel knew that Ludlam is one of my middle names.

A month or so later, she introduced us to each other at a party.

"We're definitely related," said Cate. "There were only three brothers named Ludlam who came over from England. One of them changed the spelling to Ludlum. All the people with those two surnames in America are related."

I'm named for Cornelia Parrish Ludlam, my great-great-grandmother. She and her sister Augusta married two brothers by the name of Smith, and omy mother's family's cemetery on tiny Centre Island is filled with Smiths and Ludlams and Underhills and Townsends. Cate told me she, too, had a cemetery up her sleeve--Prospect in Jamaica, Queens, one of the oldest on Long Island.

She'd gotten heavily involved in the place's restoration, and we promised to someday trade tours of our respective burial places. Last Thursday, I finally got to see Prospect, with Cate as my guide. It will be the focal point of my third novel, which will center on the discovery of a three-year-old boy's skeleton, turned up by a volunteer crew of Cate's some eighteen years ago.

Jamaica's Prospect Cemetery could well be the oldest cemetery in Queens, and perhaps all of New York City. It dates to 1668, and one finds buried within it 53 Revolutionary War veterans, 43 Civil War veterans, three Spanish-American War veterans, and members of many prominent Long Island families such as the Lefferts, Ludlams, and Duryeas.



When Cate first saw the place, Prospect's four-and-a-half acres bore more resemblance to an overgrown, abandoned lot than a family graveyard. The weeds and vines and nettles that had taken root sometimes stretched in great snarled piles to a height of twelve feet. Many of the gravestones and obelisks had been toppled by vandals, and a variety of homeless people had set up camp in tunnels carved through the riot of vegetation.

Because Prospect was privately owned, New York City never bothered with its upkeep--or that of the abandoned stretch of asphalt that ran to its entrance. The last interment was in 1988.

Richard Van Lew's headstone dates to 1812.

For the last eighteen years, Cate has devoted herself to renovating the grounds, and the small "Chapel of the Sisters" built there by Nicholas Ludlum in memory of his three daughters who died in their teens and twenties.



A native of Jamaica, Ludlum ran a successful local hardware business and wanted to give something back to his hometown. When Cate first saw the chapel, its floorboards were rotted through, its stained-glass windows smashed by thrown rocks.



On the day we visited, a crew of workman worked to install a heating system, and new floor joists were sturdily in place.



The broken windows have been carefully removed from their frames and sent to a stained-glass studio, where the missing pieces of colored glass are to be matched and replaced.

"Here lyes interr'd the body of Anne Carle,
who departed this life July 21st, 1751, aetatis suae [aged] 21."

As Cate led my mother and I outside, she began to show us her favorite headstones. She knows the names of many of the carvers who embellished each memorial with funerary art--death heads and angels that reflect the styles of passing decades and centuries.



Her favorite stone is the simplest of all, a simple rough shard of rock etched with the name and date of one Thomas Wiggens:


The carved side of this stone faces west, and Cate explained that at sunset, the rays penetrating the old trees of Prospect illuminate all the different colors and bits of mica trapped within the rock. "Someone loved this man a lot," she says. "They chose the most beautiful piece of stone they could for him."

She's recruited volunteers from every walk of life to help her clear and care for the grounds: local high school students, members of the National Guard, Explorer Scouts and groups of cops from the 103rd precinct. The day before she gave Mom and I the tour, she'd been hacking at weeds with a group of Mormon missionaries.

"Here lyes y. body of Judith, wife of Henry Ludlam,
who departed this life Aug. 25, 1712..."

Over the last eighteen years, Cate has raised upwards of $650,000 in grant money from various public and private sources. She's attended countless meetings of city councils and zoning boards, barreled through hundreds of pages of paperwork, rushed the ramparts of dozens of bureaucracies, all to save this bit of land and architecture from the ravages of time before there's nothing left to save.

"They wanted to mothball the chapel," she explained, as we picked our way through the rough forest toward the back of the lot. "That's the deathknell for any building." Thanks to Cate's efforts the once-abandoned street running alongside the entry gates is covered in handsome stonework and functions as a busy pedestrian thoroughfare toward the terminus of the E line of the subway system, cutting between Prospect and the City University's York College campus.

$150,000 has been spent to erect a beautifully patterned black iron fence around the perimeter of the grounds.

Even the rusted vent grates on the chapel's exterior have been replaced with new metalwork, cut with lasers to recreate the original pattern.



When the chapel is finished, Cate hopes to make it a centerpiece for the neighborhood--a place where the community can gather for meetings, gallery shows, readings of poetry and fiction.

As she and I worked our way further and further back into the woods, toward the setting sun, we discussed the murdered boy found here so many years ago, the boy whose story I hope to write about. His name was Andrew, and he was beaten to death by his mother's boyfriend, who then hid his body deep in the jungle that was Prospect--not even bothering to dig the three-year-old a grave.

"That little boy is what made me work so hard to save this place," Cate said. "I had to make sure that what happened to him could never happen here again, to anyone."

A Ludlam Family Tree, in Photographs

Edward Ludlam, born in 1812, was the father of


Cornelia Parrish Ludlam, who married

Isaac Smith (1845-1915), father of
Rita, seated right (Isaac and Cornelia to her left) and

Herbert Ludlam Smith, father of


Thurston Huntting Smith (right, with Cornelia, center),
who was the father of

Deborah Munson Smith (born 1939), mother of


(left to right) Cornelia, Race, and Freya,
seen here in 1970 outside Honolulu.

Internet Free Speech: Morons Run Amuck

By Paul Levine

We love the democracy of the Internet.

We love its free speech.

We love saying what we want on our own blogs. Or posting pithy comments on someone else's.

With newspapers (you remember those, right?), there's a problem. Readers can comment on stories right on the papers' websites. Unlike letters to the editor, there's no selection process. At least not initially. Case in point.

I'd missed the score of last Saturday night's Miami/Virginia football game, so around midnight I went on the website of The Miami Herald to learn that the winded Hurricanes had lost 48-0. Within minutes, the weasels -- cloaked in anonymity -- came crawling out of their holes. A few examples:

"The Negroes Miami recruits are lazy. That's why they suck. End of story."
Posted by: Smoke dope everyday
*********************

"I be ebonics majer at una'diversity ob mi'ami. i thinks my daddy be benni blades, faymiss hurri'cane footzbal playa."
Posted by: Quantavian Blades
*********************

"God doesn't like Miami because there are too many queers."
Posted by: Queer hating nation
**************************
"[University President] Donna Shalala has destroyed UM Football. This sawed off runt has single handedly ruined what was once a powerhouse. Her hand picked affirmative action coach is a disaster. He doesn't know which end is up, but hey...he's black and that makes you look good, right Donna? Enjoy the skybox with your snobby communist friends at Dolphin Stadium."
Posted by: FRED FREEP
***************************

"South Florida is a turd world country; Miami is Castro's toilet!"
Posted by: Che Guevara, Havana
**************************
"Donna E. Shalala must be getting Mandingo action from Shannon. It's the only plausible explanation for keep that no talent excuse for a coach at the helm."
Posted by: J. Moss


By yesterday morning, the comments had been removed by Herald personnel. But I wonder. Is that good enough? What can (or should) be done about racist, misogynist, homophobic and other crude, rude and lewd postings? With a traditional letter to the editor, you must give your name and a phone number for verification. What about the Internet? Any thoughts?

LOS ANGELES TIMES RIGHT ON WRITERS


Here's the lead on today's column by Patrick Goldstein in the Los Angeles Times.

As the strike enters its second week with the two sides as far apart as ever, it's hard not to take the writers' side. I'm not sure I'd go as far as Paul Haggis, who called the dispute "another example of massive corporate greed." But he's on the right track. When Tom Freston was fired from Viacom in 2006 he received $60 million in severance pay, more than all of the DVD residuals paid to WGA members that year.

THE REAL STEVE SOLOMON WRITES A BOOK WITH ACTUAL FACTS

Regular readers of the Naked Scribblers know that Steve Solomon is the co-protagonist of my "Solomon vs. Lord" series of legal thrillers.

But did you know there's a real Steve Solomon who writes non-fiction, and that we've been friends since our days at Penn State? That's right. I stole a pal's name, and he hasn't sued me, even though he's a lawyer and his fictional namesake lives by a somewhat unconventional legal code: "When the law doesn't work...work the law."

Professor Stephen D. Solomon teaches at NYU and has just written "Ellery's Protest: How One Young Man Defied Tradition and Sparked the Battle over School Prayer."

It's the story of 16-year-old Ellery Schempp, who protested his high school's compulsory Bible-reading period. Schempp, a Unitarian, was tossed from class for reading from the Koran. The A.C.L.U. took up the cause, and in 1963, the Supreme Court ruled, 8-1, that requiring prayers and Bible reading in public schools was unconstitutional.

I agree with the decision but regret that it(along with Roe v. Wade a decade later) helped spark a conservative backlash that allowed right-wingers to take over the Republican party, the country, the world, and several solar systems.
*******************************
BEST MARGARET THATCHER ANECDOTE OF THE WEEK

Even if apocryphal, here's s a great anecdote from Peggy Noonan in the Wall Street Journal, and I say this even though the conservative columnist used it to pillory Hilary as a crybaby who plays the gender card:

The story as I was told it is that in the early years of her prime ministership, Margaret Thatcher held a meeting with her aides and staff, all of whom were dominated by her, even awed. When it was over she invited her cabinet chiefs to join her at dinner in a nearby restaurant. They went, arrayed themselves around the table, jockeyed for her attention. A young waiter came and asked if they'd like to hear the specials. Mrs. Thatcher said, "I will have beef."

Yes, said the waiter. "And the vegetables?"

"They will have beef too."

**************************************
BEST FRANK SINATRA ANECDOTE OF THE WEEK

This comes from "The King of Ring-a-Ding-Ding," James Kaplan's profile of songwriter Jimmy Van Heusen ("Swinging on a Star," "Come Fly with Me,") in "Movies Rock" magazine. Van Heusen and Sinatra were drinking and womanizing buddies who both lived in Palm Springs.

At 4 or 4:30 in the afternoon, Sinatra would call Jimmy up and simply turn on a blender full of ice next to the phone. Not a word was spoken; none needed to be. Margaritas were in process, the fun was starting.


Paul

The Face of War

Patricia Smiley

As a follow up to Jacqueline’s moving Veteran's Day post yesterday, I want to mention a poignant story that appeared on the front page of the Los Angeles Times on Sunday. It was written by Luis Sinco, a photojournalist who was embedded with Charlie Company of the 1st Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment during the battle for Fallouja, a conflict that left 100 Americans dead and 450 wounded, and killed 1200 insurgants. During the action, Sinco snapped a shot of Marine Lance Cpl. James Blake Miller that appeared on the front page of more than 150 newspapers and became a symbol of the Iraq war. It also earned Sinco a Pulitzer nod. The notoriety caused by the photo may have saved Miller’s life. Or not. This is the first segment of a two-part story about the trials and tribulations of one Kentucky country boy who came home but brought the war with him. It's also about a journalist who cared enough to become part of the story, albeit with mixed results.

Here’s a video told in Miller’s own words about his tortured life after leaving Iraq. Watch it if you can. The photos are stunning, and Miller's personal account will break your heart.



"You’re taught from the time you’re able to comprehend that to take another person’s life is completely and morally wrong. I mean, there just is no just in it, to try and live with some thing like that. There’s no way to put it into words."

—Lance Cpl. James Blake Miller

“To look back at it now and just think about holding a rifle and firing at another human being is gut wrenching as well as brain wrecking. How do you justify it regardless of what your causes are or what their causes are?”

—Lance Cpl. James Blake Miller

“How I feel about the war today I can sum up in one question. The same question that can be asked for Viet Nam. What have we gained as a country? What have we actually accomplished other than the loss of some damn fine people—people willing to give their life for the country that we have, for this nation, for the freedom that we have.”

—Lance Cpl. James Blake Miller

Between the hedges of the centuries
A thousand phantom armies go and come,
While Reason whispers as each marches past,
This is the last of wars—this is the last!"
--Lieut. Gilbert Waterhouse

If only...