tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-86042906311028161062024-03-05T00:40:10.108-05:00John HemingwayPersonal blog for John Hemingway, author of Strange Tribe: A Family MemoirJohn Hemingwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06835706404432796187noreply@blogger.comBlogger83125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8604290631102816106.post-61140706588519966462022-11-10T09:53:00.000-05:002022-11-10T09:53:17.420-05:00<p> Hello everyone,</p><p>This is just to let all of you know that I have switched over to Substack. My future posts including the one which was published today can be read at: <a href="https://johnhemingway.substack.com/">https://johnhemingway.substack.com/</a></p><p><br /></p><p>Have a great day!</p><p>John</p>John Hemingwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06835706404432796187noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8604290631102816106.post-11063656439986245482022-11-04T08:59:00.006-05:002022-11-04T09:04:44.882-05:00What's New<p> <span style="font-family: arial;"> </span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">So, after three years I've decided that it's finally time to write something else. I mean, not much has happened since then in the world, right? A couple of things, perhaps, such as a pandemic, the clot shots (safe and effective, not), the Biden Collective, Wokesterism, Mass Formation Psychosis, the war in Ukraine, runaway inflation, new exotic pronouns, men having babies, the death of Queen Elizabeth and Elon Musk buying Twitter, just to mention a few that come to mind.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>However, I think that in spite of everything we can all agree that things could have been a lot worse. Trump could have been elected, or Biden could have taken his oath of office in 2021 with a functioning brain.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Other examples of our good fortune, here in the USA people can still celebrate Halloween, Thanksgiving and even Christmas, which is a positive sign and perhaps indicative that we have yet to bend our collective knee to the corporations, the Deep State, the Chinese, the Russians, the Elite, the Canadians, the World Economic Forum and all those who would destroy us. Plus, depending on which state you live in you don't have to wear masks any more, or worry about your children being taught in public schools why it's important that they declare their sexual preferences before their fourth birthday. Likewise, depending again on the state that you live in, American women can have as many abortions as they want. Something to cheer about, don't you think?</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>That's all for now. Take care, give someone a hug today and chill when you need to chill.</span></p><p><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span></p><p><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span></p>John Hemingwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06835706404432796187noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8604290631102816106.post-80175647744374728252019-12-01T11:51:00.000-05:002019-12-01T12:20:08.585-05:00Bacchanalia: A Pamplona Story<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Five years have passed since my last post
on this blog. My apologies, but they were five years in which I dedicated
myself to fiction and journalism. I wrote for hunting and fishing magazines, worked
on a collection of short stories and just recently I published a new novel,
“Bacchanalia: A Pamplona Story.” It takes place during the Fiesta de San Fermin
and as probably anyone who has been to Pamplona knows this town and its fiesta
were in a very real sense put on the world map with the publication of my grandfather’s
book “The Sun Also Rises.” His novel was a huge success in the United States,
describing as it did a group of jaded and decadent American and English ex-pats
who spend most of their time at the fiesta drinking, talking, flirting, dancing
and watching bullfights. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">That was almost a hundred years ago and the
town and its destiny were changed forever, although its spirit in many ways has
remained the same. The large contingent of Anglo-American ex-pats still spends
most of its time at the fiesta drinking, talking, flirting, dancing, watching
and, of course, running with the bulls. They are not a part of a Lost Generation
as Ernest Hemingway was and certainly not as jaded as the characters he wrote
about in his novel. Instead they live like the rest of us in the modern world
with all its distractions, pleasures, conveniences and absurdities. They are
drowning in that sea of ridiculous choices that all of us are forced to make
every day and come to the fiesta in search of something that has healing powers,
something that has remained true to itself and that will not change and which
has ancient roots. What they find is the Roman Bacchanalia in a post-modern
guise. There is an excess of everything during the fiesta and for nine days and
nights they forget about the outside world and live their lives to the fullest.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">“Bacchanalia: A Pamplona Story” is, in
short, a modern take on this ancient festival. It is a portrait of what goes on
there as seen through the eyes of its Italian-American protagonist, Frank
Ardito. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">So prepare yourself and get a copy of the novel
on Amazon.com (ebook or paperback) at this link: <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B081LKJZPJ/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=Bacchanalia%3A+A+Pamplona+Story&qid=1573941392&s=books&sr=1-1">https://www.amazon.com/dp/B081LKJZPJ/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=Bacchanalia%3A+A+Pamplona+Story&qid=1573941392&s=books&sr=1-1</a></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">and then come to the fiesta in July of
2020. Because as they say in Pamplona, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Ya
falta menos </i>(every day is one day less until the next San Fermin).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Copyright 2019, John Hemingway</span></div>
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-->John Hemingwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06835706404432796187noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8604290631102816106.post-77074501760282758952014-09-16T12:44:00.000-05:002014-09-16T12:44:21.468-05:00The Pilar<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">The first time I heard about the Pilar or
actively spoke about it was in 1974 when I was living with my great-uncle
Leicester in Miami Beach. If my father mentioned it I was either too young to
understand what he was talking about or it was just another boat that he and
his dad happened to be fishing on when he was a boy in Bimini in the 1930s.
Leicester was much more descriptive and in his biography of his brother there
was a passage where he sees Ernest sitting in the fighting chair of the Pilar
at sunset in Key West taking swigs from a bottle of rum. My grandfather was a
tall man, as tall as my great-uncle, 6 ft., and strongly built, and back then
his hair was still black and he had a moustache. The white beard would come
later and the potbelly too. He was lean and young and Leicester writes that
that was the first time that he noticed all the shrapnel wounds in his legs
from the Austrian shell that had nearly killed him during the First World War. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">It was a powerful image and one that stuck
with me as I moved from one house to another from Florida to Connecticut to Los
Angeles and then finally to Europe as a man. I could easily see him sitting
there and smell the salt water in the bay and feel the slight rocking of a
heavily built wooden boat in the waves. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Eventually my father would also write about
the Pilar and the Nazi U-Boat hunting expeditions that Ernest would organize
with a few friends and his captain, Gregorio Fuentes. Packing everyone aboard
the Pilar with supplies and a homemade bomb that they intended to drop into the
conning tower of an unsuspecting German sub, they would set out from Cojimar in
search of trouble. A slightly suicidal mission if there ever was one. How they
ever thought that they might get close enough to the U-boat to pull it off
before they were machine-gunned into the Gulf Stream is beyond me, but that was
the plan. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Luckily they never found the Germans except
for my grandfather’s fatal encounter with them at the end of his posthumous
novel <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Islands in the Stream</i>. They
were never shot at, the boat survived and Ernest fished aboard her until he
left Cuba in 1960. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Today the Pilar is in dry dock on the
grounds of his house the Finca Vigía outside of Havana. It was painstakingly
restored in 2007 and is kept under a steel awning that protects it somewhat
from the elements. I say somewhat because when I saw it for the first time last
Thursday I noticed that the varnish on the wood in the cabin had already
started to chip and peel. What impressed me though was the size of the boat, something
that photographs can never really convey. I could finally see it with my own
eyes and imagine my grandfather standing on the flying bridge above the cabin
because it was obvious now that it was strong enough to support someone as big
as Ernest. Likewise I could see my Uncle Patrick as a young boy sitting in the
fighting chair as he wrestled with a huge marlin for hours, just like the
second son of the protagonist of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Islands
in the Stream</i> does. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">But the Pilar itself was an archive of
dreams and past lives, which I could not avoid now in her presence. I could
feel my father and my Uncle Leicester. I could sense their energy and their
pathos and I knew that while they were gone and I missed them dearly that they
would always be here in this place, with this boat.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
John Hemingwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06835706404432796187noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8604290631102816106.post-59640894684327222542014-09-15T14:53:00.000-05:002014-09-15T14:54:44.861-05:00Ending the blockade<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">There is in fact an American blockade of
Cuba, a somewhat surreal and Kafkaesque relic of the Cold War, but it isn’t
total. Close to half a million Cuban-Americans visit the island every year, usually
bringing gifts and/or money to their family and friends. I don’t know exactly
how much is being brought over but I would imagine that it is a lot. Yet, from
what I could see walking around the streets of Old Havana last week it is
nowhere near enough. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">In the capital city of this country the
slow demise of its beautiful architecture could almost be defined as systemic,
as it’s just about everywhere you look. Of course, Cuba isn’t the only place on
the planet in urgent need of urban renewal. The United States also has its rough
spots with cities in an advanced state of decay, Detroit for instance, but
Havana takes that decay to a whole new level. I remember seeing some buildings
and thinking that it was a miracle that they were still standing and that no
one had died from a crumbling roof or balcony. Cuban friends of mine would then
explain that it was much worse a decade ago before the government started to
rebuild a few of the more historic plazas. But frankly it’s hard for me, a
foreigner, to imagine how anything could be worse than this.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh76Dgabcl6AffcGxfiXuQkBs9aSFEvoDQ3D9hyphenhyphenEdYy0Ct_jb19lo4Qgz4Jb7Si5dZwL0WBV8REU2sM2EZZBI8X1GnGSZnBctKSfGMPnOMYhProjWm22eJ4VM8gR9TypqaoiFEWXszoFLU/s1600/crumbling.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh76Dgabcl6AffcGxfiXuQkBs9aSFEvoDQ3D9hyphenhyphenEdYy0Ct_jb19lo4Qgz4Jb7Si5dZwL0WBV8REU2sM2EZZBI8X1GnGSZnBctKSfGMPnOMYhProjWm22eJ4VM8gR9TypqaoiFEWXszoFLU/s1600/crumbling.jpg" height="213" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">While I was born and raised in Miami I am
not one of those who are in favor of maintaining the embargo for as long as
the Castro brothers remain in power. At the same time I do not believe that the
removal of the embargo will automatically solve all of Cuba’s cash flow problems.
Especially because I do not think that the United States can be blamed for
everything that needs fixing in Cuba.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">My hope is that someday the Cubans
themselves will rebuild Havana and for me, that includes the Cuban exiles in
Miami. If the two governments on either side of the Florida straits will politely
get out of the way and let the Cuban people do what needs to be done then
Havana could easily become again one of the most beautiful cities in the world.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
John Hemingwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06835706404432796187noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8604290631102816106.post-68150164728893577292014-06-03T14:46:00.000-05:002014-06-03T14:46:44.601-05:00Caporetto<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
Caporetto<o:p></o:p></div>
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Thanks to an invitation from Adriano Ossola and his annual
event, <a href="http://www.estoria.it/">éStoria</a>, I was finally able to visit Gorizia and Caporetto and many of
the other towns that are featured so prominently in my grandfather’s novel “A
Farewell To Arms”. This year marks the 100<sup>th</sup> anniversary of the
beginning of the First World War and Ernest Hemingway and his brilliant,
anti-militarist, portrait of the Italian defeat at Caporetto have not been
forgotten.<o:p></o:p></div>
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As anyone who has read his book knows the young protagonist
Frederic Henry gives a very detailed description of Gorizia and of the Austrian
front and most people assumed when it was first published that like “The Sun
Also Rises” here was yet another autobiographical novel from the young American
author. But Ernest never visited Gorizia or Caporetto, nor did he ever set foot
in the town of Plava where Frederic Henry is wounded in the knee from a bomb
blast. Nor did my grandfather stagger away from that blast with a bleeding
Italian soldier over his shoulder, at least not on that front. He was wounded
near Fossalta di Piave almost a year after the battle of Caporetto.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Still, even today there are many people who are convinced
that Hemingway was there. In Gorizia a volunteer at the event told me that he
had proof that Ernest had been in town and that there was a photograph of him
standing next to his ambulance with a group of friends. “Era qui! Proprio qui!”
He said excitedly, “right here”, forgetting as many admirers of my grandfather
often do that Ernest was as good a journalist as he was a writer. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He researched his books extensively and in
this case he interviewed people who had fought in the battle of Caporetto and he
read whatever accounts of it he could find. <o:p></o:p></div>
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The battle represented a turning point for the Italian army,
its nadir, which would then be followed by a renaissance in terms of tactics, leaders
and general good fortune. Over a hundred thousand soldiers would be killed or
wounded on both sides. The destruction was immense, with whole towns and
forests pounded to the ground by non-stop shelling, the dead bodies of men and
animals littering the roadsides and mountains and the river Isonzo. To go there
today it’s hard to imagine the kind of insanity that had gripped this part of
Europe for so many months. The trees have grown back, the towns have been
rebuilt, the Isonzo is as clean as it ever was with its emerald blue waters
that are the delight of fly-fishermen the world over, myself included. But
traces of the war remain. In the woods and by the riverside you can still find
pieces of shrapnel and bullets and occasionally, if you have to dig, the odd
unexploded shell.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVfNFE20HB7bk39e2ppgvDvZEE9DWQYZohd5fU02AwfK01z7bnbOqoBuHSKKsLJSoRCQrU9rj7-xn2nfSpk7rcetTb46mwCT3ndeJRsEhNEar0dhFD3T_g1KW8j2eNl3Op5jXjRUwfvLk/s1600/10409407_10203101511671992_1626614690367426148_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVfNFE20HB7bk39e2ppgvDvZEE9DWQYZohd5fU02AwfK01z7bnbOqoBuHSKKsLJSoRCQrU9rj7-xn2nfSpk7rcetTb46mwCT3ndeJRsEhNEar0dhFD3T_g1KW8j2eNl3Op5jXjRUwfvLk/s1600/10409407_10203101511671992_1626614690367426148_n.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></a></div>
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Fishing on the Isonzo</div>
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On the morning that I went fishing it was a beautiful day
with a few clouds that were covering the highest peaks in a white mist. The
water was ice cold with the snow-melt from the mountains and as I cast my line
out into the stream I thought of the scene from my grandfather’s novel where
the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Carabinieri </i>(the military police)
are interrogating and summarily executing all the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">ufficiali</i> or officers who had somehow lost their units, whether it
was through desertion or just the chaos of battle, it didn’t matter to them.
Frederic Henry hearing the gunshots understands that if he doesn’t move he’ll
die and he runs as fast as he can towards the river, diving in and staying under
water for as long as he can hold his breath to avoid the bullets above him.
This is not his war he tells himself and all the things they say to get you to
join up about honor and bravery, king and country are obscenities.<o:p></o:p></div>
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He had made his separate peace.<o:p></o:p></div>
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John Hemingway Copyright 2014<o:p></o:p></div>
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John Hemingwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06835706404432796187noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8604290631102816106.post-77606519503271958082014-01-16T13:50:00.000-05:002014-01-16T13:50:12.732-05:00Taking it to the streets<br />
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I recently returned from Spain and I have to say that one thing that I really like about the Spanish is that when they get fed up with something, usually having to do with their government (local or national), they protest. And when that doesn’t work, when their elected representatives either ignore them or tell them where they can go stuff it, they riot. Of course, for someone like myself, politically more an anarchist than anything else, this kind of “in your face” response to bureaucratic obtuseness is most refreshing. In fact, when I heard about the recent riots in Burgos (250 kilometers due north of Madrid) and the 40 people who were arrested and the 11 injured policemen and how it went on for three days I wondered why nothing like that ever happens in the USA? Burgos, a town with a population of 179,000, is currently a half a billion euros in debt, and because the town doesn’t have a lot of money to throw around many of the social programs that its citizens depend upon have been curtailed or eliminated. These are hard times in Spain and while most people can certainly understand the need for frugality, the decision by the city government to build a parking lot under the town’s main road to the tune of eight million euros is not being frugal and was probably seen by many of the protestors as the straw that broke the camel’s back.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHA22cdqu3H048bBoYdeTUwqOkq0NmZD_W28GQ9e_rLM4XM7KF0oxEzsJHqFtGkRpVkofvLyRAJqkkOzjZjE3AOUdwI88IoJXOqPGyam-Jm4_H1XkU9U37r-FA9ePmPVjxYguBOYstoP8/s1600/Burgos+protests.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHA22cdqu3H048bBoYdeTUwqOkq0NmZD_W28GQ9e_rLM4XM7KF0oxEzsJHqFtGkRpVkofvLyRAJqkkOzjZjE3AOUdwI88IoJXOqPGyam-Jm4_H1XkU9U37r-FA9ePmPVjxYguBOYstoP8/s1600/Burgos+protests.jpg" height="213" width="320" /></a></div>
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But as I was saying, if this can happen in Spain, in a small town with serious cash-flow problems, why aren’t people in the USA taking to the streets in the towns and cities that have filed for bankruptcy? Why aren’t the citizens of Detroit in Michigan and San Bernardino and Stockton in California as mad as hell and burning cars and trash cans like their cousins in Spain? Not only are their cities in debt (in Detroit’s case for over 18.5 billion dollars) but their government in Washington has been spending trillions since the crash of 2008 to bail out the infamous “too big to fail banks” and to fund the country’s never ending wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria. Some observers have called this orgy of “quantitative easing” (printing money like there was no tomorrow) the largest transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich in the history of mankind. But in the midst of this historic theft, with all this money going to the Nation’s defense contractors and bankers why haven’t Americans reached their point of no-return? Why haven’t they taken to the streets to demand a fair share of what their tax dollars have been subsidizing all these years? I hate to sound like a communist, but if the wealth of any nation is created by the people who actually live and work in that country then it seems to me that the average American is getting royally screwed.<br />
<br />
Indeed, for all the vaunted superiority of the American system and way of life we have forgotten that the government belongs to the people and that if it doesn’t respond to our needs and to our communities then it must be changed. In Spain they haven’t forgotten this and I am sure that as the economic crisis grows so will the protests.<br />
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John Hemingwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06835706404432796187noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8604290631102816106.post-73142381195005295962013-11-21T03:56:00.000-05:002013-11-21T03:56:49.116-05:00Interview on Public Television station WSRE with Jeff WeeksHere is a link to an interview I gave on public television while I was in Pensacola in October, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5oXODNQWEw">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5oXODNQWEw</a>John Hemingwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06835706404432796187noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8604290631102816106.post-34521618814676914972013-04-04T10:26:00.000-05:002013-04-04T10:26:30.768-05:00Bimini, Wahoo and the HemingwaysHere's an article of mine that just came out on <a href="http://www.sportfishingmag.com/hemingway-bimini-s-historic-fishing">Sport Fishing Magazine.</a>John Hemingwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06835706404432796187noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8604290631102816106.post-72669804247730617802013-02-04T18:54:00.000-05:002013-02-11T15:46:12.469-05:00Spain Again, Seventy Years AfterHere's my latest <a href="http://colliersmagazine.com/article/spain-again-seventy-years-after">article</a> on Collier's Magazine.<br />
<br />
<br />
<h1 class="title">
Spain Again, Seventy Years After</h1>
Before leaving Montreal for Madrid a friend gave me a heads-up. He
had traveled to both Russia and Spain this year and told me that the
Spanish police were much worse than their Russian counterparts. He said
that if I was within striking distance of a cop and his truncheon,
whether I was involved in a protest or not, I would be considered fair
game, and also that being with the press or wearing something that said
prensa would not protect me. With 25% of the country out of work and fed
up with the government and its austerity cuts or recortes, the police,
he said, were showing no mercy. Men, women, teenagers, it didn't matter;
if you were in the wrong place at the wrong time you could expect to be
hit. Someone had given them a green light to get the job done the old
fashioned way, and it showed. On the 25th and 26th of September, the
Spanish were shocked to see news reports of the Policia Nacional
savagely clubbing and shooting demonstrators with rubber bullets in
front of the Congreso de los Diputados. For a country that had endured
36 years of Fascist rule, it was a bit much. Police brutality was not
something to be taken lightly, and while the transition to democracy
after Francisco Franco's death had for the most part worked, it didn't
mean that the secret torture chambers and the unmarked graves of the
fascist era had been forgotten. The memories were still there and with
every clash between the police and the protestors, the Spanish could
judge for themselves whether or not anything had changed since the
1930s.<br />
But was history really repeating itself, I thought? Was Spain, as it
struggled to survive in a worldwide economic crisis, on the brink of
something catastrophic? And if so, who or what was to blame and was
there any solution to these problems? Certainly a case could be made
that the country in 2012 has more in common with 1936 then it does with
the period immediately preceding the Wall Street collapse. Before the
crash everyone was making money, and in the small town where I lived in
2006 just east of Malaga, it was obvious why the British had jokingly
renamed the Costa del Sol the “Costa del Crane.” Everyone was building.
There was a mad rush by anyone with any kind of land to sell it as fast
as they could to the developers of the Nuevas Urbanizaciones (the new
subdivisions). They were springing up in an almost Brazilian way
wherever you looked: European favellas complete with structural faults
and in some cases no running water. My own apartment building had been
built on a hill and had a large visible crack dividing the upper section
from the lower section. You could see it in the outside wall, and I
asked one of my neighbors if the structure was actually splitting in
two, but he assured me that it was just the ground that was settling and
that it would take a while.<br />
Like all property bubbles this one didn't last and when it collapsed
the economic engine of the country disappeared with it. Unemployment
skyrocketed, people started to default on their mortgages, and the mood
of the country went south. Since 2008, over 400,000 have been evicted
from their homes and my grandfather would have certainly recognized the
anger and frustration the average Spaniard faced with such bleak
economic prospects. He would have also recognized a government that is
essentially powerless to stop the international forces that are bearing
down on the country, but that at the same time are aiding and abetting
these forces as it soldiers on with the austerity budgets demanded by
the Germans, the IMF, the E. U. and the big banks.<br />
The Andalusian writer, Antonio Muñoz Molina, who was the head of the
Instituto Cervantes in NYC and now teaches at NYU, is not a friend of
the Rajoy government, nor does he approve of its austerity policies.
“There are 6 million unemployed in Spain and many of them have no
government support whatsoever. The government is simply following the
E.U. game-plan and pushing its own right wing agenda.” We were speaking
in a bar near the center of Madrid and I asked him how things had
changed in the last four years. He said that there is an immense sadness
in the people. “Whereas before the crisis there was energy and hope for
the future, now there is none.” At the same time he cautioned that this
generalized feeling of depression could easily change to populism. “For
example, look at the Catalan independence movement. It is their new
fantasy. As a country it would never be viable and in fact it has never
existed as a sovereign state. It has always been a part of Spain. Now
they are saying that their region gives more to Madrid in taxes than it
ever gets back in funding for its social programs. But when the economy
is bad everyone starts to complain about that. The real problem is that
there is too much bureaucracy in Spain. There are simply too many
governments when you add up all the local, provincial, and regional
entities. And all of these governments are redundant and cost money,
because we are looking at a lot of salaries that have to be paid for a
lot of useless bureaucrats. That is what we need to cut, not our health,
education or social programs.”<br />
Strangely enough, Rodrigo Rato, an ex-managing director of the IMF
and a former minister in the conservative Aznar government (PP), agrees
with much of what Molina has to say. They are about as different as you
can be politically but they both believe that the sheer size of
government in Spain has to be reduced if the country is ever to recover
financially. Rato also thinks that Catalan independence is unrealistic,
but not because you can't change the laws (presently it would be illegal
under the Spanish constitution) but for economic reasons. He gave the
example of the port of Barcelona. It is the largest and busiest, not
because it is in Catalonia, but because it is in Spain. Put that port in
an independent country and its business will suffer. He then mentioned
the problems that they would have using the Euro and repaying their
share of Spain's national debt. He did think, though, that the push for
independence was being exacerbated by the bad economy and that the
Catalans were right to a certain extent in expecting more from Madrid.<br />
Unlike Molina, Rato is in favor of the government's austerity policy
as a solution to Spain's economic problems. Still, he thinks that the
government working on its own is not enough. It needs the active support
of the European Central Bank (ECB) as a lender of last resort, similar
to what we have in the USA with the Federal Reserve. This, however,
would require a European banking union, with a unified system of
supervision, he said. I asked him if the Germans would agree to this and
he answered that he thinks so, that eventually they will have to. I
nodded and as he started to explain the need for “mutualizing (bank)
losses on a European level,” I thought that it was actually quite
surreal to hear Mr. Rato talk about the merits of a unified system of
supervision, considering that recently he and thirty others had been
indicted in Spain for banking fraud, falsifying documents, and
embezzlement. As president of Bankia (an enormous Spanish savings bank)
from its creation in 2010 to May of this year when it reported losses of
4.3 billion Euros, it would have been his responsibility, in theory at
least, to have an idea of what was going on where he worked. The
meltdown, after all, was quite a scandal. The bank had to be partially
nationalized by the Spanish government and here in front of me was a man
who had perhaps looked deep into the center of this financial black
hole. A man who supported, without hesitation, a program of austerity
and budget cuts that would never affect him (he is quite wealthy) and
who, as president of Bankia, stood accused of nearly destroying an
institution where tens of thousands of ordinary citizens entrusted their
savings. Every man is of course innocent until proven otherwise, but it
occurred to me that should eventually he be found guilty as charged and
convicted, Spain would have succeeded in doing something that the
United States with all its courts and lawyers seems incapable of doing:
actually bringing to justice one of the bankers responsible for this
huge mess.<br />
Later that day when I met Toni Cantó, an actor turned member of
parliament with the Union Progreso y Democracia (UpyD), he said that if I
had spoken with Rato, then I should know that the money used to bail
out the banks that he was connected with was public (which I knew). But
that this was totally normal in Spain because the two major political
parties are inside the banks (which was something I didn't know). “In
the Cajas de Ahorros (the savings banks) Rato and company were running
the banks, controlling them for their own uses. Making a lot of money
and using them for projects that they could utilize in upcoming
elections. Construction projects, like the city of lights in Valencia,
the Castellon airport, have you heard anything about that? It was built
but it isn't open, because it isn't being used, no one actually flies
there.”<br />
What I needed to understand, said Cantó, was that in Spain half the
banks are private and the other half are public and the political
parties thought of the public banks as a kind of gigantic ATM machine.<br />
“This is true,' agreed Pablo Gallego, one of the founders of Los
Indignados, the Spanish group that was the inspiration for the activists
of Occupy Wall Street, “But part of the reason for this stems from the
fact that after the dictatorship there was a political change, but there
wasn't an economic change. Franco himself said that he had essentially
left the regime intact. And now everyone is talking about this economic
immobility. The same oligarchy that controlled things under Franco is
still in control. The families that ran the banks and the building
industry in Spain when Franco was alive are still there.”<br />
But it gets worse. According to Gallego, many of the leaders of the
present political parties are sons of those who were members of the
Fascist party. “Rubalcaba, the head of the socialist party, is one such
person. For the Falange he was a black sheep, but no one on the left
ever held it against him that his father was a fascist. But this guy now
has a million euros in his bank account so what kind of socialist are
we talking about? People are talking about this. They don't trust these
politicians and they don't trust the system, which in turn favors the
fascist parties in Europe. Look at what is happening in Greece with
Golden Dawn.” I asked him if there was anything similar to Golden Dawn
in Spain and he said that there wasn’t, but that there are some members
of the Spanish delegation to the European parliament who now openly say
that Spain was better under Franco.<br />
But what do the Spanish really want; more or less democracy? In the
end would the Spanish favor a group like Los Indignados or the Greek
Golden dawn party? “That is the question. We asked for more democracy. I
know what happened to Occupy Wall Street. How the US government got rid
of them. Here in Spain we had some meetings with the police, the police
union. These cops told us that we had to be careful because the
government has spies in our organization. In the end what we really want
is a democracy that is protected from economic power.”<br />
But are people in Spain beginning to wonder if they even need a
government considering the lack of success Prime Minister Rajoy has had
in reducing either unemployment or the deficit? “Well, during the Civil
War there were over a million anarchists, a really a huge number. We
have a tradition of that here. We had Franco, but we also had
anarchists. If you ask me, though, it's better to have a state, and a
government.”<br />
As for Los Indignados, he thinks that they have to evolve from being
protestors to citizens. They have to ask themselves just what kind of
society they want. In his opinion, most people would say that they want
equality, justice and an end to corruption. Unfortunately, he admitted,
while a lot of people want change, they don't want to get involved
because they are afraid of another coup d'etat. “Spain has had a history
of this.”<br />
To get a better idea of how the crisis was affecting the average
Spaniard and indeed how it was moving up the economic ladder I spoke to
film director Alejandro Toledo. Toledo has had a very successful career
directing TV commercials for corporate clients and I asked him about the
advertisement he filmed for Caritas, the Catholic Church's main
charitable organization. It is a very powerful clip that shows a young
man in his thirties walking through the streets of Madrid with a little
girl who isn't more than five or six. The two of them are homeless and
the man is tired and worried, not so much about anything that might
happen to himself, but because of his daughter. He doesn't have any
money and she doesn't understand why they can't go home, and she wants
something to eat. The first thing you notice about him is how normal he
seems. He is not at all what you would think of when you think of a
homeless person. His trousers and his jacket are neat and clean and his
hair is cut, and even the suitcase that he's pulling along gives him
more the look of a tourist than a man who has just lost his job. This is
a story about the new poor in Spain, about the middle class that is
finding it harder and harder to get by in the big cities and that is
increasingly turning to organizations like Caritas for help.<br />
It is a very moving and realistic commercial and I asked Toledo how
he came up with the idea. What inspired him to do an advertisement for
Caritas? “It's based on a true story” he said. “One day I was walking
along a street in Madrid and I saw this guy who I hadn't seen in ten
years; a film producer like me, walking into a Caritas food dispensary
with two of his kids. I was so surprised to see him that I stood there
and the next thing you know the three of them were walking out again
carrying bags of food. Of course, I understood immediately that he was
taking that food because he needed it for himself and his kids and it
hit me that this man was a professional and that if it could happen to
him, if he could lose his job, then it could happen to anyone, myself
included. And it was then that I knew that I had to contribute in some
way. I couldn't just stand by saying nothing.”<br />
When I asked if the Spanish resented the immigrants who were still
there and receiving unemployment benefits he said that none of these
people are stealing from the system, that everyone is just getting what
they paid for. He was categorical in his support for them. “This is a
crisis that is affecting our own but also all these immigrants. We have
millions of them here who came to work in the construction industry
during the boom period. They have put down roots in Spain, with kids
too, and they are covered by the system. So, what I noticed when I was
making my movie was that the crisis was relative. Most of the people are
covered by social security and health care is free. Of the five million
that we have here who are unemployed, three million are covered by
social security. It is the other two million who we really need to think
about.”<br />
All of this is manageable, he said, so long as the government
continues to pay for benefits like unemployment and health care. The
money is there, it's just a question of how the Spanish decide to use
it. Caritas does a lot to help those who don't have any kind of
coverage, but even more important is the traditional role of the Latin
family in taking care of its own. “In a Latin country, you have to ask
yourself with 5 million people unemployed why aren't these people on the
streets, why isn't there already a revolution? It's because of the
communities that exist, with the family doing their part, this is what
Latin is, this is the Latin mentality. If you go to the USA you don't
see many Latin people who are homeless in the streets. In Miami for
example you don't see Latin homeless.” He did have a point about Spain.
Many people who I spoke to while in Madrid told me that if it wasn't for
their families it would be much more difficult to survive in the
crisis.<br />
So the safety net in Spain was not just the government. Individuals
and families still counted. Recently a couple in the Basque Country,
Jose and Isabel (their last names were not given) posted an insert in a
local newspaper offering their vacation home for up to a year to any
family in economic difficulty, free of charge. The turning point for
them was the suicide (one of many due to eviction) of a woman who was
about to be removed along with her family from a house not too far from
where Jose and Isabel live. In one interview, Jose said that at this
rate “Spain will become a country of houses without people and people
without homes”. He said that they were not millionaires. That life,
however, had been good to them but that they were no better than anyone
else. Something had to be done and this is what they decided to do.
Their example has inspired many. The city governments of both Madrid and
Barcelona, for instance, have now decided to allocate some of the
houses that they have to people who have been evicted from their homes.
Perhaps all of this could be seen as a new trend and evidence that
people are waking up to the fact that strong measures, and not just more
austerity, need to be taken with the crisis and the pain that it has
generated.<br />
Some, such as UGT union leader Cándido Méndez, whom I interviewed the
day of their general strike in November, understand that it is going to
take a long time, perhaps ten to twenty years, to rebuild Spain's
economy after the collapse of the housing industry. Culture, the Spanish
language, and agriculture are some of the strong points that he sees in
Spain's economic future, but this is going to require a lot of
investment, he told me.<br />
Others, such as the 70 year old Enrique de Castro, are not waiting
for the money and are taking matters into their own hands. De Castro was
certainly one of the more interesting people I met while in Spain. A
Catholic priest, although he doesn't like the word “priest.” “Jesus,' he
says, 'abolished the priesthood like he abolished the temple, like he
abolished the intermediaries between man and god. In the Bible this is
very clear, even if they try to hide it.”<br />
De Castro has been serving the parish of Vallecas, a suburb about 10
miles outside of Madrid, for 31 years. During the transition period to
democracy in Spain he denounced the torture that was still being carried
out by the police, even during the socialist González government. He
has always taken the side of the weakest in society and he and the other
priests in his parish came out in favor of the laws legalizing divorce
and gay marriage and this obviously created a lot of tension with his
superiors. “We were talking to journalists in the newspapers and on TV
and telling them, for instance, what we knew about the world of drug
dealing (his parish is in a section of greater Madrid which has always
been a problem area for drugs). Namely that there were economic
interests, even political interests, in putting to sleep, so to speak, a
whole generation of potentially rebellious youth.”<br />
“What we supported and what we were against contrasted stridently
with the image of other priests and especially with the church
hierarchy, but our job was to take care of those who couldn't take care
of themselves. Finally I remember that an auxiliary bishop from Madrid
came to see me and asked me to sign a document that was written by
Ratzinger himself. He was already Pope, even if this particular document
was from his days as a Cardinal in the Santo Ufficio. The bishop asked
me to read and to sign that document if I wanted to be in communion with
him and with the cardinal. But I realized that if I signed it I
wouldn't be in communion with my people, because basically it was saying
that homosexuality was against nature, that they were depraved, etc.”
And so he didn't sign it.<br />
I asked him what he thought about the austerity program of the Rajoy
government and he said it was affecting in a negative way everyone. He
has personally worked with many Moroccan teenagers, even taking some
into his own home. The cutbacks meant that all of these boys could no
longer receive medical treatment because they didn't have proper visas.
He knew of a few who had been receiving treatment for cancer or AIDS and
they had had to give up their treatment.<br />
I asked him what he thought would happen to Spain and he said that in
his opinion things would get worse. The government would continue with
its austerity measures and the labor unions would hold their one day
strikes that affected no one. “I am convinced that the only solution to
our problems is living in small groups and doing the best we can within
these groups. In our parish we have created this kind of community, one
of mutual aid and respect for others. The only revolution that we need
to start is the one based on caring, on feelings, and generosity. It is
the only revolution possible, because if you seize power you become that
power and there is no difference between you and it. This was the
tragedy of the countries of Eastern Europe, they made a revolution with
the people and they then governed without them.”<br />
Spain, I knew, would be different. It would survive the crisis
because of its people. “True faith,” De Castro told me as I said
good-bye, “is believing in others.” The strength of the Spanish had
always come from the small communities, from people taking care of each
other and believing in their essential dignity as human beings, and it
would be no different in 2012. In a time of crisis, everyone is given
the chance to discover what is essential in life.<br />
<br />John Hemingwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06835706404432796187noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8604290631102816106.post-42247434001738369522012-12-24T17:29:00.001-05:002012-12-24T17:29:38.034-05:00DesireHere is a short story that was published in <a href="http://www.chumliterarymagazine.com/">Chum Literary Magazine</a> last August.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Desire<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">As she moved his hand to her throat her
blue eyes expanded in ritual fright and desire. The less she could breathe<a href="" name="_GoBack"></a> the more she knew she would feel him and if his penetration
was true then abortions would follow. It had happened this way three times in
the space of six months and while the abortions weren't exactly Celtic cannon
she had told him nothing. In her own way she may have even loved him,
expressing herself in a comfortably confused pot-pourri of ideas that she'd
acquired from her father, grandfather and the internet. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">The bedroom where he would take her faced
the beach and the Gulf Stream and was on the twentieth floor of a high-rise
next to the shipping channel. She would have preferred an imitation Bauhaus
with sweeping white lines and protective stonewall, but the waterfront was
public property and even with all her wealth there apparently were limits to
what you could buy in America. Looking at her building from the beach he often
thought that like his lover, its unblemished, blinding white façade was far too
distant and severe and whispered of future disasters. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">She was not from Miami, but appreciated its
lack of traditions and the way that men looked at her when she drove her Aston
Martin down Ocean Drive or parked next to one of her </span><span lang="EN-US">favorite</span><span lang="EN-GB"> boutiques in
Coconut Grove. They loved her eyes and her diamond watch, her legs and her
small but well shaped breasts. But most of all they could never get enough of
the way that she would look at a man. As if he were the only person in the room
or on the street and as if nothing else mattered. Her focused but ephemeral
attention giving each of them their 15 seconds of fame. It was a drug and she
needed it as much as they did. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">The monthly events were altogether
different from the chance encounters. Only old friends were ever invited and
always in groups of three. Three being the minimum number for a Celtic quorum,
even if you couldn't really call it a quorum in a deliberative sense. It was
more a celebration of humiliation and dominance, although in that particular
sect they liked to refer to it as a “trust building” experience. With just
three friends for dinner they'd use the ropes. But with six or nine or twelve
they could take turns holding her down. There was always an objective and the objective
depended on the month and the ancient saying for that month, the father is
fear, trust derives from pain, what to do when </span><span lang="EN-US">Leos</span><span lang="EN-GB"> collide, etc. It
was difficult to remember everything but from the age of six she'd been raised
for this, following the old ways, the ceremony and their language (a mix of
pre-destination and romantic brutality). Her friends after all were depending
on her for guidance and she had never let them down.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">She believed in her cult and its future and
initially had chosen him as a kind of designated pinch hitter. This
Italian-Cuban native of the Keys would bring new blood to her decadent line of
Uber-menschen businessmen. He was relatively young, younger than her, and poor,
certainly compared to what she had, and this she figured was a good match. He
was a barman on a cruise ship and that was where she'd seen him serving mojitos
and daiquiris. She drank a lot and paid in cash when she was alone, which
wasn't too often. She had a foreign accent, German or Swedish, and she liked the
company of men. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">The cruise was to the far reaches of the
Lesser Antilles and Suriname, and on the fifth day out of Miami she arrived
later than usual, ignored the others who were hovering about her and waited for
him to finish his shift. “Take me back to my room” she whispered as he brought
her her last drink. They stopped briefly on the deck to look at the sea and the
full moon and he felt her waist and her hands, which were small and fine. They
didn't have much to say. It was time and they knew it and at the door to her
cabin he pushed her into the room and onto to her bed where he took her from
behind, making her feel his pain. She, of course, appreciated the gesture and
remembered, as he drilled into her, that there had never been a moment in her
life without fear and that the fear had tempered and protected her from the
things that would bring her down. Hadn't her father himself told her that he
would always love her and that if another man even so much as looked at her
that he would take the matter into his own hands. Wasn't this fear on his part?
And wasn't he instilling it in her, wondering as she always would as a girl if
any boy who ever looked at her would live to see another day? And didn't he
also teach her how to come from the age of four, fingering but never
penetrating, preparing her for the eventual public deflowing? Indeed he had,
and she was as grateful as a Celtic daughter could be, given the </span><span lang="EN-US">circumstances. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">In the
world outside their tribe they called it incest and rape, child abuse and a
host of other distasteful terms, but from her vantage point as a five year old
it was just love, pure and unadulterated. If a man wanted to take a woman and
be truly married to her then it had to be this way, in the circle of trust, from
behind, with an initial thrust that would demonstrate once and for all who
belonged to whom. That she belonged to her father was clear, or at least that
was the plan. They would marry when she was twelve in a conservative rite with
vetted friends, good food and wine. As a girl she had dreamed of this, of being
united with her father as only lovers are. Deliriously happy as he would attend
to her for hours in their wedding bed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">While those
dreams never materialized all that had happened was hers to live with and
cherish or despise, depending on the day and how she felt or who she was
talking to. Of course, she told the pinch-hitter, Giacomo, about her upbringing
and her father. At first affecting a kind of shame to see how he would react,
blaming her parents and playing the victim. But as the weeks passed and their
love-making blended with the drinking and the drinking with the pain, she told
him more and he discovered that it was easy to get her to talk. She might not
be telling him the truth but what she was saying had a certain coherence to it.
He discovered that when she was drunk he could ask her anything and she would
answer him so long as he was “matter of fact.” The most intimate details of her
father's weekly sessions were his for the taking if his voice was neutral and
clear. She liked easy to answer questions and on those rare occasions when he
couldn't keep it simple he wouldn't get a response.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">“When was
the last time you were with your father?” he'd asked her as the two of them
were sitting on the couch of her living-room. The apartment was quiet and the
glass windows to the balcony were open and you could hear people shouting from
the beach. She had half a bottle of Porto in her hand and was leaning against
him naked and tanned as she took small steps into the twilight of her past. She
had reached that blurred state she so often sought out in the evening, when her
mind needed to wind down from the day and recover the stability she'd never
had.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">“We were
with the lawyers and I was 11. It was in their office and they were wearing
their robes and so you couldn't see much.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">“They
worked for your father?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">“They did.
And my grandfather, too.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">“He was
also there?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">“No.” she
said.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">“And what
were you wearing?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">“Nothing,
of course,” and she told him that there was perhaps a film of the encounter
because it was an official meeting and they had an interest in documenting
these things for future generations. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Pedophiles
with a need to set the record straight, he thought, with an expression that
bordered on mild interest. There was a breeze blowing in from the ocean and he
looked out the window and then back at her. He'd never asked her age, but
assumed that she was at least ten years older than he was, just from the look
that her eyes sometimes had. A tired gaze from too much experience, a mental
fatigue she couldn't shake off.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">“And what
did your father do?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">“What he
always did. I was on the desk, so that the lawyers could see and he was licking
me. Slowly at first, concentrating on my clit and then expanding his scope to
include the rest.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">“With the
lawyers as passive observers?” he asked.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">“No, not
exactly,” she told him, “they participated, doing what they'd been told to do.”
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">“Which
was?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">“Curious
today, aren't we?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">“Sort of,”
he said, feigning disinterest.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">“Well, I'll
tell you,” she told him taking another drink from the bottle, “but only because
I love you, and because it really was beautiful, ceremonially speaking. They
were the children of the goddess, Danu, and I became the Lady of the Lake under
warm rushes of steam and liquids over my chest, neck and cheeks.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">“They were
jacking off?” he asked.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">“Of
course.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">“You never
told me that before.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">“You never
asked” and he knew as soon as he'd said it that it was stupid but he couldn't
help himself as he looked at his girlfriend and imagined her in a room with
these men. It stopped him cold and as she went on describing the scene and its
particulars he thought for a second that this was what insanity was like. Not
being able to come clean or dislodge from your mind what could never be wiped
away.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">“Now I want
you to fuck me like those old ugly lawyers never would,” she told him as she
stood up and moved to the dining room, nearly tripping over a chair and
dropping the Porto on the carpet. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">“Get me
another one,” she said motioning to him with her hands to come closer. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">“Should I
open it?” he asked, and she nodded a couple of times as she positioned herself
against an antique wooden table. It was long and very heavy and he thought that
it was the kind of table that you could jump or dance on and it wouldn't break,
it was that strong.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">“This is
how it happened,” she said.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">“What?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">“With my
first husband, not here but many years ago.” And she was bracing herself with
her arms stretched out of in front of her, her legs spread wide, ready for his
pleasure, submitting to him the way she's been taught to.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">“Anyone
ever tell you that your skin looks good against live oak with termite holes?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">“No,” she
said, “now take me, take me here.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">He uncorked
the Porto and took a swig. She was re-enacting her wedding night, the one where
she'd been raped by her spouse in a hotel dining room that had been rented for
the occasion. At least sixty people had watched, and, if he was to believe her,
it was something that she had really looked forward to. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Later on,
because of the pain and the blood she wouldn't sleep with another man for 20
years, until the pinch-hitter. The excuse for breaking her vow of chastity was
that she needed to conceive but she didn't like the way a fetus felt inside of
her and got rid of them with abortion pills. The RU 486 treatments weren't
cheap at $500 a shot but that was about what she paid for a bottle of pink Moet
et Chandon and comparing them to one of her favorite drinks helped her to keep
things in perspective. Life was expensive, but even terminating it had its
costs. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">She loved
her man and if she wanted to continue making love to him then she would have to
use the pill every time he succeeded in doing what she wanted him to do. Birth
control just wasn't contemplated in her cult and she didn't waste any time
worry about it. She was still fertile at 41 and she loved the way he could make
her come for hours on end, never letting up, never letting her stop. In bed or
against the oak table she would scream at him, act deliriously, swear at her
father and her mother and all the Teutonic knights and witches that had come
before her. They hovered above her in those moments, laughing at her and her
education, her foolish pride and the childlike belief in a love that would some
day free her from this carousel of shame.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">He took her
where she wanted it. Holding her hips and hitting her another home-run as he
pinned her against the table and realized that in delicate moments like these
he was thoroughly expendable. She didn't need him, she never did and five
minutes after he'd finished she announced that it was time to go out. They
dressed and she was surprisingly steady considering that it was nine and she'd
been drinking since two. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Down on the
street it was a short walk to the bar just off Ocean Drive. that had couches or
quasi-beds for those who wanted to get comfortable. It was a place that was set
up with canopies, which together with the palm trees and the sand gave it an
almost Arabian feel. An oasis of booze and attentive waiters that always put
her in a good mood. She ordered two mojitos and as the waiter came back and
Giacomo paid for the drinks two young men sitting on another couch had already
taken notice of her. They were both Cubans and tanned with black, gel covered
hair that seemed to reflect light into the darkness beyond the bar. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">After her
second drink he asked her if she wanted to leave but she pretended that she
hadn't heard him and one of the Cubans immediately ordered another round of
mojitos. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">“I want to
live life to the fullest!” she said standing up with her glass in a toast to
her new friends as the waiter marched back to the bar.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">“A la vida
sin compromisos!” said the Cuban closest to her.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">“What does
that mean?” she asked.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">“Means damn
the torpedoes.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">“Oh, but I
want torpedoes,” and Giacomo looked on saying nothing, raising his glass
whenever a new toast was proposed. He was drunk but it didn't matter. They were
putting the move on her but he didn't care. She was damaged goods but they
didn't know that and anyone could watch. She would want him to watch.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">What
happened next happened for no particular reason. She announced that she wanted
to see the waves and the Cubans offered to take her there. It wasn't too far
and he walked behind them as they staggered along in the sand with their
mojitos in hand. The tide was coming in and you could hear the surf in the
darkness. He followed maybe three feet behind them, the Cubans sometimes
holding her, sometimes dragging her to the beach. She was kissing them as she
moved along and when they were there at the water's edge she knelt down in
front of the quiet one and unzipped his pants. The talkative one pulled her
shorts off and came in her from the rear.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">At that
point Giacomo would have left but a floodlight appeared above them illuminating
the scene along with a voice over the sound of helicopter blades and wind
telling them to put their hands in the air and to stop what they were doing.
The Cubans looked stunned and confused but his girlfriend turned her head for a
second to see a camera on the nose of the chopper. The police were filming
everything for posterity and she smiled, remembering the old ways and what a
daughter had been told to do.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">John
Hemingway Copyright 2012, John Hemingway<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
John Hemingwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06835706404432796187noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8604290631102816106.post-13596354792188724482012-12-13T17:20:00.000-05:002012-12-13T17:20:06.045-05:00Destinations<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 19px;">Here's a new poem from John Lyons</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Destinations<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 35.4pt; text-indent: 35.4pt;">
<i><span lang="ES-AR" style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: ES-AR; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.0pt;">Hoy no ha venido nadie a
preguntar;<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 35.4pt; text-indent: 35.4pt;">
<i><span lang="ES-AR" style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: ES-AR; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.0pt;">ni me han pedido en esta
tarde nada.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 141.6pt; text-indent: 35.4pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.0pt;">César Vallejo<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">We are destinations:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">not <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Rome</st1:place></st1:city>
or <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Athens</st1:place></st1:city>, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">or <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">São
Paulo</st1:place></st1:city>, or the zoo;<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">as friends or lovers, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">sisters or brothers<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">fathers or mothers,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">we are the destination,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">and neither travel nor tourism is<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">an out-of-body experience;<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">we may take places to our heart<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">just as we take people to our heart<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">but we are always the destination<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">just as we are always the recipient<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">of the gift we give, of the giving,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">of the love we make, of the loving;<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">we are the place where others<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">meet us, the point of arrival<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">and the point of departure,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">our bodies and our senses<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">the theatre of our soul<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">in which our deepest dramas and <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">and most unworldly loves<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">are daily enacted; <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Barcelona</st1:place></st1:city><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">came to me one torrid summer,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">many many years ago, the air, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">dry as a whip, lashed my cheeks,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">entered the deepest recesses<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">of my lungs, fed me with dust, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">threw me into myself<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">like a discarded rag. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">I was the destination<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">and nobody called.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Not a hair out of place,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">not a stone unturned,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">and nobody called.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">São
Carlos</span></st1:place></st1:city><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">, <st1:date day="12" month="12" w:st="on" year="2012">12 December 2012</st1:date><o:p></o:p></span></div>
John Hemingwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06835706404432796187noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8604290631102816106.post-25734607949823881402012-06-18T12:44:00.000-05:002012-06-18T12:44:37.350-05:00Interview with Urban Daddy on running with the bulls<br />
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Published <span style="color: #cc66ff; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">June 17, 2012</span></div>
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<span style="color: #cc6633; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Bull Session</span><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" />Bull-Running Advice from a Hemingway</h1>
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<img align="right" alt="Bull Session" class="articleRight" hspace="0" src="http://static.urbandaddy.com/cdn/4fdb74aa/uploads/assets/image/articles/standard//96ddab11c18c2cdf05ce7c7b067b18d1.jpg" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 5px; text-align: right;" vspace="0" /><em style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">When you want advice on being famous for no reason, you ask a Kardashian. When you want advice on surviving the running of the bulls, you ask a Hemingway. So we talked to John (Ernest’s grandson, author of the family memoir</em> Strange Tribe<em style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">, two-time runner of the bulls) for a few pointers in advance of next month’s run.</em><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" />The whole week’s a nonstop party.</strong> “You meet friends, you make friends, if they don’t show up, you meet someone else,” he says. “People always ask, ‘How many hours of sleep did you get last night?’ ‘Oh, three. That’s not bad.’”<br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Well, except the running itself.</strong> “If you partied all night, you better be able to wake up and be in some sort of condition to run.”<br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">There are a few simple rules:</strong> “You have to be 18. Don’t touch the bull. You can’t be drunk. And if you get knocked down, stay down.”<br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Leave the running shoes at home.</strong> “I just wear Converse.”<br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">It’s over before you know it.</strong> “It’s two and a half, three minutes at the max.”<br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">“Whether you’re a good runner or a bad runner, you could have bad luck.</strong> But that’s like crossing the street in NYC—you [could] get hit by a car.”<br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">The people are more dangerous than the bulls.</strong> “You’ll get knocked down. You’re gonna get scraped, you may break a bone. It gets kind of crazy, with everyone pushing and everything.”<br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Beware of a bull separated from the herd.</strong> “If a bull becomes separated from the herd, it immediately stakes out a territory—anything within striking distance of its horns, he goes for. If he’s got you there, he will keep coming until he kills you.”<br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">His grandfather ran. Or maybe he didn’t.</strong> “I see no proof that he did run, but there’s no proof that he didn’t. People have said forever that he used to run—that he ran like mad.”</div>
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VITALS</h4>
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<strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">John Hemingway</strong>on the Running of the Bulls<br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" />Pamplona, Spain<br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><a href="http://www.bullrunpamplona.com/" style="color: #cc6633; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">official website</a> </div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" />Read more: <a href="http://www.urbandaddy.com/jt/events/18353/Bull_Session_Bull_Running_Advice_from_a_Hemingway_Jetset_JT_Event#ixzz1yAT2PPel" style="color: #003399; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">http://www.urbandaddy.com/jt/events/18353/Bull_Session_Bull_Running_Advice_from_a_Hemingway_Jetset_JT_Event#ixzz1yAT2PPel</a></span>John Hemingwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06835706404432796187noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8604290631102816106.post-85735719831285915512012-06-16T05:20:00.000-05:002012-06-16T05:20:20.208-05:00New Review of Strange Tribe in El PaisThis review of "Los Hemingway, una familia singular" came out in the Madrid daily, El Pais, today. <a href="http://elpais.com/elpais/2012/06/15/gente/1339772315_144173.html">http://elpais.com/elpais/2012/06/15/gente/1339772315_144173.html</a><br />
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<br />John Hemingwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06835706404432796187noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8604290631102816106.post-58628200067811461552012-04-20T09:32:00.001-05:002012-04-20T09:32:57.209-05:00New review of Strange Tribe from BrazilHere is a new review of Strange Tribe from Brazil, in Portuguese.<br />
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<a href="http://www.clinicaliteraria.com.br/2010/uma-tribo-mais-que-estranha">http://www.clinicaliteraria.com.br/2010/uma-tribo-mais-que-estranha</a><br />
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Uma tribo mais que estranha</h1>
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Luis Peazê - Publicado em 20/04/2012 07:04</div>
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Categoria: Literatura<br style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /><span class="contexto" style="font-size: 9px; font-style: italic; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Contexto: Hemigway</span></div>
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<li style="display: inline; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 5px; padding-top: 0px;"><img alt="dominuir a fonte do texto" id="menos" src="http://luispeaze.com/2010/site/imagens/icone-menosfonte.png" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></li>
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<img alt="" height="278" src="http://luispeaze.com/2010/uploads/strange-tribe-johnh-hemingway-flash.jpg" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-left: 5px; margin-right: 5px; margin-top: 5px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" width="465" /></div>
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<span style="font-size: xx-small; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Foto acima: esquerda capa de Strange Tribe (Ernest Hemingway e seu filho Gregory. A direita o autor, John Hemingway, filho de Gregory.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><strong style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Ernest Hemingway, Prêmio Nobel de Literatura de 1954 e um dos símbolos americanos em mais de um sentido, com cuja obra e vida vence as barreiras do tempo como nenhum outro protagonista da literatura universal, sempre atual e instigante, certa vez foi surpreendido pelo filho mais novo, Gregory Hemingway, experimentando as meias de nylon da mãe e soltou a frase: <em style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Oh, meu Deus!</em> Intimamente devastado e pensando “<em style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">você também?</em>”. Uma semana depois teria dito para o filho: - <em style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Gigi, nós viemos de uma tribo estranha, eu e você</em>.</strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: xx-small; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Por Luis Peazê - tradutor de Por Quem os Sinos Dobram de Ernest Hemingway</span>.</div>
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<br style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" />Gigi, ou Greg, foi o pai de John Hemingway, autor de <strong style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Strange Tribe</strong> (Tribo Estranha), um livro de memórias que poderia ser um romance de ficção, daqueles que aprisionam o leitor no sofá, um filme, daqueles de se ver e rever várias vezes, ou ainda, um livro de auto-ajuda baseado em histórias reais da vida, de sofrimento, superação e do exercício do perdão, e até de uma aventura existencial. Na verdade, lê-lo pensando em qualquer uma dessas classificações, não fará diferença. Sem mencionar que, ao se tratar de Hemingway, é um livro da história da literatura, sem lê-lo, um naco importante ficaria faltando para qualquer estudioso.</div>
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Ocorre que o próprio autor, John, é um dos protagonistas centrais da história que começa em nossos dias, posto que o livro foi lançado recentemente (2007), e nos remete aos mais secretos labirintos hemingwayanescos, isto é, uma ramificação de fontes verídicas de clássicos da literatura de uma verve única, de segredos de família que moldaram a personalidade, obra e imagem de um autor que marcou várias gerações, de escritores, leitores, acadêmicos e cultura popular, neste caso dos Estados Unidos.</div>
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Enfim, pode-se dizer que existiu um Hemingway antes e um depois de<strong style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Strange Tribe</strong>. Ainda que não tenha sido este o propósito do autor, demarcar a história hemingwaiana.</div>
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Para os versados na vida e obra de Hemingway, não era desconhecido o seu filho Greg que gostava de travestir-se, desde criança, que ao fim da adolescência implantou um seio (apenas um) para ver como ficaria, que mais tarde fizera uma cirurgia para trocar de sexo, e passou a chamar-se Glória, e que, apesar disso tudo, não era gay, era reconhecidamente maníaco depressivo e alcoólatra, foi casado quatro vezes, escritor e médico durante uma década e meia até perder a licença e morrer prisioneiro em uma cadeia feminina de Miami, por andar nu e embriagado em público, e por tudo isso, até então, considerado a ovelha negra daquela família.</div>
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Da mesma forma não era desconhecido de muitos as subjacências andrógenas na vida e obra do próprio grande Ernest Hemingway, que sacara de experiências pessoais, por exemplo, inversões de papéis, uma de suas mulheres teria vivenciado a fantasia de tornar-se lésbica ou homem e ele, no caso, a mulher de sua mulher, não só no secreto espaço de quatro paredes e uma cama, mas também em público através do corte de cabelo e tintura da mesma cor (cobre), ele e ela, em brincadeiras do gênero... Sem ter perdido, até então, a imagem de símbolo do macho americano, número um, vencedor, que gostava de praticar box, desafiar os perigos dos safáris africanos na caça de tigres, leões e elefantes, ou nos mares do Caribe a procura de bater recordes de pescaria dos maiores marlins já fisgados no mundo, enquanto liderava um grupo de informantes do FBI (formado por ele mesmo) para espionar atividades anti-americanas a partir de Cuba. Experiências tais, inesgotáveis, como o feito de ter escrito uma peça de teatro, a Quinta Coluna, inspirada na Segunda Guerra Mundial, enquanto refugiava-se entre um pelotão da resistência num hotel em Madri, em meio a um bombardeio de verdade, sem contar ter sobrevivido a duas quedas de avião.</div>
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Tudo isso é “remasterizado” (na linguagem de cinema) em <strong style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Strange Tribe</strong>pelos recortes corretos e honestamente revelados pela obstinação de John Hemingway que angustiava descobrir, responder para si, acertar as contas com seu pai, sua mãe, com o avô, com a avó, tios, irmãos e com tudo o que havia lido a respeito de sua família cujo quebra-cabeças não lhe fazia sentido.</div>
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John não só revisitou cartas trocadas entre Gregory, seu pai, e Ernest, seu avô, mas introjetou-se nas crises de suas avós paternas e mãe esquizofrênica e alcoólatra, revirou as contrações uterinas das gestações conturbadas de sua hereditariedade, reviveu os seus sofrimentos de infância, em que trocava de endereço mais de uma vez por ano, seguidamente, perdendo a chance de criar vínculos, dos carinhos maternos, ao contrário, crescer vivenciando as crises da mãe, o alcoolismo, e a androgenia do pai maníaco depressivo e o seu comportamento desequilibrado.</div>
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Perguntando a parentes, primos, tios, lendo relatos de biógrafos, os próprios romances do avô famoso, e as repetidas manchetes de jornais do mundo todo informando que "mais um Hemingway" cometera suicídio, finalmente John nos brinda com um final feliz, na medida do possível, posto que nos ensina de maneira delicada e sem espetacularismo como é possível simplesmente dizer “eu não gosto disso” ao invés de julgar “isso é errado”, como é possível amar e perdoar os pais, mesmo tendo aguardado até o fim de suas vidas um carinho que nunca obteve, sem ter sucumbido aos mesmos erros e fraquezas de seus progenitores.</div>
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<br style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" />Com respeito a forma e estilo, John escreve de maneira fácil e convidativa, por revelar uma personalidade despojada de vaidades fúteis. Desde que a matéria prima da narrativa é rica e surpreendente, John escolhe uma estratégia temporal elíptica e semovente, indo ao passado e pulando para um futuro indeterminado, para trás e para frente, e vai assim até o final onde é, na verdade, os nossos dias e por isso o vocabulário é bem atual e rico de influências latinas (pensa e escreve em inglês), do espanhol e italiano, culturas que conheceu por ter vivido muitos anos na Itália e Espanha.</div>
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Não era nem preciso ser engraçado, mas há momentos de <strong style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Strange Tribe</strong> que a gente e pego de surpresa e ri. Ernest Hemingway dissera uma vez que “<em style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">você saberá se escreveu alguma coisa boa se conseguir fazer alguém chorar</em>”. Eu diria modestamente que entreter, arejar a história da literatura universal e inspirar um leitor já seria o suficiente. Em <strong style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Strange Tribe</strong> John Hemingway consegue um pouco mais do que isso.</div>
<br class="Apple-interchange-newline" />John Hemingwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06835706404432796187noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8604290631102816106.post-75114672151848045502011-11-02T09:35:00.000-05:002011-11-02T09:35:49.062-05:00New interview from the Globe and MailHere's an<a href="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/arts/theatre/in-the-shadow-of-granpapa-hemingway/article2221363/"> interview/article on me and the play "Dans l'ombre d'Hemingway"</a> that came out today in the Toronto daily The Globe and Mail.John Hemingwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06835706404432796187noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8604290631102816106.post-26452638926820441722011-10-31T07:50:00.000-05:002011-10-31T07:50:18.382-05:00Last Waltz<div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Here's another new poem from John Lyons</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Last Waltz<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">What will be the first of the last things<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">The first word of the last words<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">The first day of the last days<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">The first kiss of the last kisses;<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">What will be the first breath<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Of the last breaths, the first sigh<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">And the first of the long goodbyes?<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Here in Buenos Aires the streets<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Are haunted by those who have<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Gone before, by those who have walked<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">These noble streets that fell in recent years<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Upon such hard times, a sad dreary elegance <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Now clinging to so many crumbling façades. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">This clear blue sky and crisp ocean air<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Known to Borges, known to Cortázar, <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Which weathers the skin in the daily bounty<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Of those who survive. This may be the first<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Of the last memories, the first taste <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Of the last tastes to tantalize my palate<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">The first of the last loves to be made<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">In the first of the last beds. And as I wake<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">And dress in the first of the last clothes<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Put on the shoes that may be blessed<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">To take the first of the last steps,<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">I recall Emily’s supercilious valley-licking train,<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">A vector of sound in the long speechless distance<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">A vector of thought, a rugged nugget of words <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Condensed around an ecstasy of emotion: <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">From distance, the sensation of intimacy, <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">From a silence broken, the tactile meaning of words <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Of love, the first of the last words of love, <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">The first of the last brushes of skin against skin, <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Of lip against lip. This is, and always was a merry<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">macabre dance, whether upon a lush city stage, <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">A retarded Calvary or in the empty heart of the pampas: <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Our steps are numbered, even as the band is poised <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">To strike up the very first chords of our very last waltz. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">John Lyons<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Buenos Aires 31 October 2011<o:p></o:p></span></div>John Hemingwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06835706404432796187noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8604290631102816106.post-30407683909733145502011-10-22T07:25:00.000-05:002011-10-22T07:27:09.741-05:00GloriaHere's a short story of mine that came out in <a href="http://provincetownarts.org/beta/">Provincetown Arts</a> last July.<br />
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 150%;">Gloria</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 150%;">Gerry lay awake in his cot looking at the Plexiglas windows and the heavy steal door in front of him. The windows were at least an inch thick and made him think of decompression and of drowning. It was three in the morning on September 30<sup>th</sup> and even if someone had been awake to call him from the other side he wouldn’t have heard them. There was no sound in his cell except for the beating of his heart.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 35.45pt;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 150%;">He wanted to call his son, right then, the one who lived in Italy, and ask him if Venice was on the Adriatic or facing France, and he wanted to do this after a few beers. He was still on a manic high and his mind was racing through memories, a slipstream of images and words, and only beer could stem the flow for a minute or two. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 35.45pt;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 150%;">“If I could just hear Peter speak, I’d let him know . . . .” And then Gerry remembered that later on that morning the judge was going to see him and that after five days he’d be free. They’d march him into the chamber in his orange jumpsuit with the other prisoners from the women’s correctional facility, and this was good, because he had a dinner date with the cop who’d arrested him for indecent exposure on the beach after a party in the evening where he’d seriously impressed in a black Trussardi gown and stilettos. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 35.45pt;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 150%;">That was perhaps his true talent, straddling the gender divide. He could hunt like a Bushman or dress like a fashion model and he had two Florida driver licenses to prove it. One for the African and the other for the debutante, Gerry and Gloria. Born a man he’d endured his inherited ambiguity for sixty-two years, cross-dressing as a teen and then letting his hair grow long and white when he’d retired from medicine. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 35.45pt;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 150%;">The sex change was actually a complicated procedure, a series of five operations spread out over six months. A kind of root canal done on his groin, creating a cavity where none had existed before. Which isn’t to say that he didn’t have second thoughts about losing the family jewels. While there were many days when being a woman, dressing like one and knowing that he had actually gone through with it, made him euphoric; there were others when he’d look at himself in a mirror and despair, blaming in equal parts his mother and his father for the clinical depression and his thoughts of suicide. It was then that he would think that he was nothing but a freak and that freaks deserved to endure whatever misfortune or psychotic moods assailed them, simply because they were freaks. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 35.45pt;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 150%;">As a boy it had been easier. Things were relatively clear-cut and unobstructed. His father, Jake Morelli, had taught him how to use a rifle and a bow and they’d hunted quail, ducks, and grouse together and had tracked bighorn sheep in Montana and caribou in Alaska. Gerry was a good shot for his age and his father believed that he had inherited everything that was right and positive from the Morelli side of the family and none of what he often referred to as “the family degeneration.” The boy was lucky. Extremely bright, humorous and athletic, nothing would prevent him from becoming what the family wanted him to be. Of this his father was sure.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 35.45pt;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 150%;">The peak of this enthusiasm, however, came early on. At the age of thirteen Gerry entered a national skeet-shooting contest in Cuba against adults, and won. His father was ecstatic and bragged to anyone who would listen of his son’s prowess as a hunter, saying that he was a chip off the old block, “a natural born killer.” It was the happiest that he had ever seen his old man. As if by winning the contest he’d finally put to rest any lingering, subliminal doubts that his father might have had. If he could shoot like that then obviously the confusion that Jake Morelli had fought his entire life was nothing but a fluke. The curse had been broken and to celebrate he organized a “fiesta” for Gerry at the local gun club. There were over a hundred people at the party, members of the club, Havana socialites, rich American expats and the Morellis, father and son. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 35.45pt;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 150%;">It was the proverbial day when the boy becomes a man, or in his case when the boy became a trans. In retrospect, many things in his life might have been different had he not stolen that pair of nylons a week before. They belonged to his father’s girlfriend and he really couldn’t say why he’d taken them from her room, he just did, and from that time onward he was different. They filled a need and whenever he put them on he felt less alone. A psychologist would later write something about a fetish that “enabled him to negotiate moments of extreme stress,” but as a boy all he knew was that they felt good and that he’d worn them the day he’d won the contest.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 35.45pt;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 150%;">“It’s simple,” said his father as they drove over the dirt road to Havana, “you were the best there, the best on this island, and probably the best in the Caribbean and in all of South America. You blew ’em away, Gerry, you blew ’em away.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 35.45pt;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 150%;">“I just did exactly what you told me to do, the way you taught me to do it, always giving the target enough of a lead.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 35.45pt;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 150%;">“Lead time is important, Gerry, but Jesus I’ve never seen anyone shoot as good as you did today.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 35.45pt;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 150%;">“Never?”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 35.45pt;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 150%;">“Never,” he repeated, “and let me tell you why. It wasn’t just your aim or concentration. No, it’s much more than that. Do you know what I’m getting at?”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 35.45pt;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 150%;">“No,” he admitted, he didn’t. And Jake Morelli said that watching him during the contest had made him think of his father and that something had been passed down and that he had been the conduit of this talent. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 35.45pt;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 150%;">“You inherited it from your grandfather,” he almost whispered, “which is exactly how it should be, from one generation to the next.” <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 35.45pt;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 150%;">But then his father was always saying things like that, comparing him to an uncle or his grandfather or to some other relative who he’d never heard of and who was probably long since dead, and then taking it all back because he was confused or drunk and wanted to get the story right even if he knew there had never been a story. The truth was that there was no family resemblance, no inheritance to speak of. There were just the two of them, the dark side of the clan, the Morelli misfits. It had begun with his father and would end with him. Of this he was sure. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 35.45pt;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 150%;">At the party his father announced to everyone there that because of his proven shooting ability, his son was now a man and could order whatever he wanted from the bar. Most of the guests were drinking martinis or mojitos but Gerry wanted a Bloody Mary because he knew that the bartender used Tabasco sauce, black pepper, celery, and carrots. His father claimed that the vegetables made it healthy while the vodka would blur his senses and incipient panic. A band was playing popular songs from the period and many of the young socialites asked him to dance. Most of them were bigger than he was and during the slow dances when they held him close his face would brush their necks or rest with the exceptionally tall ones between their breasts. Each of these women was unique, the texture of their skin, the perfume they wore, the color of their eyes, and he found himself both wanting and identifying with his partners. After the first dance he had a hard-on and while he did his best to keep it pointing straight up and inconspicuous his penis had an agenda of its own and would fall to the left or the right and inflate the loose trousers of his suit like the center pole of a circus tent. The socialites pulled him closer when this happened and his father and the men who surrounded him would laugh and order more drinks from the bar. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 35.45pt;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 150%;">As soon as he could, Gerry excused himself from the ladies and wandered away from the party in search of a men’s room. He had the pair of nylons that he’d stolen in the flask pocket of his tux and thought that if he could just find a place where he could put them on he’d solve the problem of his undisciplined dick. A white door with the word “Caballeros” seemed a good place to start and opening it he saw that there was no one inside, which was even better. There were two urinals filled with ice at the far end of the room and a sink and a mirror near the entrance with soap and towels. He quickly slipped off his black leather shoes and dropped his pants and his boxer shorts. After that he took the nylons out, carefully stretching them over his thin legs and centering as best he could his unruly member. He took a few steps towards the center of the restroom so that he could see himself in the mirror. It was then, though, that his father decided to walk in and the surprise for both of them couldn’t have been greater. They looked at each other and his father’s expression was a mixture of shock and disgust, but also of recognition. Gerry expected the worst and stood there in his black jacket and nylons waiting for whatever his father thought he deserved, but his dad just back out of the bathroom without saying anything, as if none of this had ever happened.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 35.45pt;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 150%;">A few days after he’d been outted his father approached him in the late afternoon when Gerry was sitting by the pool. They were alone and it was probably as good a time as any to say what he had to say. Since the incident at the club Gerry had convinced himself that he was living on borrowed time and that sooner rather than later the hammer would fall. Whenever he tried to picture his father, even there in his cell, a man who was at the same time strong, handsome, humorous, forgiving, and potentially explosive came to mind and none of this had anything to do with Gerry’s need for nylons or the calm that he felt when he wore them. His father was the ideal that any good man could reach if he wasn’t a freak and if he lived his life courageously.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 35.45pt;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 150%;">“Gerry,” said the elder Morelli, who was holding a gin and tonic and wearing nothing but a pair of stained khaki trousers and flip-flops.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 35.45pt;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 150%;">“Yes?”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 35.45pt;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 150%;">“I’ve been meaning to have a word with you.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 35.45pt;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 150%;">“OK,” said Gerry and he waited for his father to take another sip from his drink. He was usually fairly plastered towards sunset, but although he had had at least five gin and tonics and a couple of beers his words were clear.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 35.45pt;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 150%;">“I just wanted to say one thing,” he announced, standing there with the liquid that had slid from his glass glistening in droplets over his white beard.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 35.45pt;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 150%;">“Shoot.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 35.45pt;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 150%;">“That you and I come from a very strange tribe,” he said, and Gerry was patient, fully expecting something else, something more from this man, his hero, but nothing else came. Just that one line and the knowledge that they shared a truth that no one would ever understand.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 35.45pt;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 150%;">Yet, just because Jake Morelli understood his son didn’t mean that he approved of his behavior. Gerry’s cross-dressing was fine so long as he kept it under wraps. His father knew that they were similar but he didn’t want to be reminded of the fact any more than was absolutely necessary, and, for the most part, no one apart from his father and mother knew what he was up to. Gerry was discreet, using the nylons when he needed them. If he was lonely he put on a pair, and if he was nervous or feeling the beginning of a panic that might trigger a manic mood he wore them and sometimes it worked. He could take a step back from the volcano of his emotions and feel secure. But it never lasted long and what he didn’t understand was that his condition couldn’t be controlled. The only thing, in fact, that saved him from his manic depression was his youth and his ability to quickly bounce back after a crash. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 35.45pt;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 150%;">His cross-dressing went public in 1951 when he was just twenty years old and taking premed courses at a community college in Van Nuys. It was a Friday evening and he’d told his wife that he had to drive downtown to meet one of his professors. It was a good excuse and he needed one because she was pregnant and close to term. He promised that he would be home by eleven and he put the bag that he’d packed with his outfit in the trunk. When he was far enough away from their house he started to look for a place where he could change. There was a Texaco station up ahead and he stopped there.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 35.45pt;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 150%;">“Fill ’er up?” said the attendant. Gerry nodded and asked him where the toilet was. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 35.45pt;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 150%;">“To your left. You can’t miss it.” <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 35.45pt;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 150%;">Once inside he took off his clothes and put on the dress, the nylons and the red wig that he’d packed. He’d chosen the dress, which was white with pink roses, to go with the wig and the effect as he stood in front of the mirror was pleasing. The ruby-red stiletto shoes were perhaps too fancy for the roses, but he was sure that he’d pass.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 35.45pt;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 150%;">Outside the attendant saw him coming and stared. They were about the same age and when Gerry asked him what he owed him he looked confused.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 35.45pt;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 150%;">“How much?” Gerry repeated as he settled himself behind the wheel and checked his lipstick in the rearview mirror.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 35.45pt;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 150%;">“That’ll be two dollars.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 35.45pt;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 150%;">Gerry took five dollars out of his purse and told him to keep the change. The attendant half-smiled and waved as Gerry drove away. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 35.45pt;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 150%;">A friend had recommended <i>The African Queen</i> with Humphrey Bogart and Katherine Hepburn and that was what he was going to see. He was curious because he’d never been to Africa and thought that now he’d finally understand what the big attraction had been for his father.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 35.45pt;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 150%;">He bought a ticket and took a seat in a back row of the theater. In the dark no one looked at him but during the intermission he used the ladies bathroom and it was there that a woman screamed and then the police arrived and he was arrested for indecent exposure. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 35.45pt;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 150%;">Technically at twenty Gerry was still a minor, so they called his mother who had to travel down from Santa Cruz to bail him out of jail. Jennifer Smith had been visiting her sister, and while taking the train to Los Angeles and dealing with the LAPD was far from enjoyable it was a cakewalk compared to the call she had to make to Gerry’s father in Havana.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 35.45pt;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 150%;">Jake Morelli immediately accused her of ruining the boy. It was entirely her fault that he’d been arrested, he said. It was three in the afternoon in Cuba and he was drunk as he usually was at that time of the day but clear enough to tell her that if something had gone wrong, fundamentally, with their son then she was to blame. He was absolutely livid and secretly embarrassed, too, because of the shared genetic degeneration, and they argued for over an hour. A long-distance shouting match, which ended with Gerry’s mother in tears. Her ex-husband’s explosive anger and insults had shaken her badly and later that night she felt ill and had to be taken to a hospital. She was hemorrhaging massively and died in the early morning at two o’clock on September 30 as surgeons frantically tried to stop the bleeding.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 35.45pt;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 150%;">At the funeral Gerry couldn’t stop himself from crying, missing his mother and blaming himself for the fact that she was gone. His father blamed him, too, reminding Gerry once at a bar in Cuba that his stunt in Los Angeles had killed her. But eventually he’d found out the truth. Gerry had written to the doctors at the hospital in LA years later as a medical student in Miami and discovered that his mother had had a rare form of pituitary cancer, one that in moments of extreme stress caused her blood pressure to rise to lethal levels. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 35.45pt;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 150%;">Of course, someone else with this information might have let it slide. After all there was nothing he could have done. She was dead, and finding out about her cancer wasn’t going to bring her back. But in the years that followed Gerry’s manic periods often coincided with the anniversary of his mother’s death. His feelings of guilt were like a trigger, and for him September was a dangerous month, a period when he’d do whatever he could to make up for what had happened. He joined the paratroopers in 1955 on September 30 hoping that it would convince his father that he’d finally become a man and was cured. But on his first jump he panicked and wouldn’t go near the open door. The army gave him a psychiatric discharge, and two years after that, again on September 30, he wrote to Jake threatening to kill himself while on safari in Africa.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 35.45pt;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 150%;">What surprised him was how his father was always there to pick up the pieces. He’d drop whatever he was doing and come running, because there was never any question as to what his priorities were. He had to take care of his son, which meant setting him up in a good clinic, paying for the shock treatments, and then bringing him home when the doctors said he could go. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 35.45pt;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 150%;">Thinking about it as he stared up at the Plexiglas, Gerry wondered how he could ever have written to his father “Vecchio bastardo, it wasn’t me who killed her but you and your fucking phone call.” In a few paragraphs he’d let his father know about the cancer and had essentially hastened Jake’s demise. According to those who were with him, when his old man first read the letter he was furious, but then he became quiet and kept to himself for the rest of the day. Obviously, there was some truth in what his son was saying and a few months later the clinical depression that would lead to his suicide set in. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 35.45pt;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 150%;">Actions had consequences and when he looked at the clock on the wall he saw that it was five in the morning. In a few hours they’d take him to the judge and the judge would set him free. Rationally he realized that he couldn’t be blamed for what had happened to his family. But emotionally was another matter. Emotionally he’d locked it all away, never telling anyone, not even his son. It was a secret that had taken a heavy toll and when his heart started to beat faster at first he thought it was just nervousness, but then he couldn’t move. His legs and his arms went limp and all sensation disappeared from his hands and from his feet. His heart had gone into fibrillation, chaotically pumping blood that had better things to do or was tired of the fight. He wanted to shout out for help, wanted to say something to his son, but couldn’t speak and at exactly fifty years to the day, almost to the hour, of his mother’s death, he died. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 150%;">Copyright JOHN HEMINGWAY, 2011 </span><span lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span></div>John Hemingwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06835706404432796187noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8604290631102816106.post-10600218672974203992011-06-03T08:37:00.000-05:002011-06-05T09:54:39.747-05:00Beauty comes at usHere's a new poem from John Lyons. In John's words "it's <span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 12pt;">a meditation based on photos of Patti Smith taken by Robert Mapplethorpe and used in the Legacy Edition of her CD “Horses”. It was written to celebrate the 40th birthday of Alessandra Siedschlag".</span><br />
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<div class="MsoNormal"><b><span lang="EN-US">Beauty comes at us<o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Beauty comes at us<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">At a tangent<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Is slow in its revelation<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">An unfolding flower of light<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">In the eye of the beholder<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">There is no ugliness<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Only shades of beauty<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">A well-appointed face<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">A rose aglow in the sunlight<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Or a moon silhouette<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Even a gesture or a word<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Whispered within the soul<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Beauty is a promise rather<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Than an abnegation<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">The motive for peace<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Rather than war<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">For rejoicing rather<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Than the shedding of tears<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">The permanence of beauty<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Is fleeting except in the memory<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">It is a singular victory<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">An emulsion of love<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Coming from nowhere<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">And heading nowhere<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">At a tangent<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">In the shadow of the pyramids<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Geometry schooled to perfection<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">It is what breaks the silence<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">To rescue us from the pointlessness<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Of death. Caught in its infancy<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Beauty will mature into the fine lines<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Of experience etched <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Upon ancient parchment<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">A tale to tell that uplifts the heart<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">And a shrine to our deepest dreams.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">John Lyons<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">3 June 2011<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div>John Hemingwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06835706404432796187noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8604290631102816106.post-13875206334384719172010-11-23T17:59:00.000-05:002010-11-23T21:45:50.730-05:00ALL MAN!<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><div style="text-align: center;"> <a href="http://www.facebook.com/album.php?profile=1&id=277637962414"><img alt="All Man!, by David M. Earle" class="logo img" id="profile_pic" src="http://profile.ak.fbcdn.net/hprofile-ak-snc4/hs463.snc4/50265_277637962414_6180755_n.jpg" /></a></div><br />
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Many people still think of Ernest Hemingway in exaggerated terms. Fifty years after his death, he is the Lord Byron of the 20<sup>th</sup> century, a hyper-macho, rum-drinking, war-mongering, pistol-packing literary giant who married four times, had countless lovers and defined what it was and in many cases still is to be an American male. It is a comfortable and well-worn portrait and, in part, how I imagined him myself growing up as boy in Miami during the 60s and 70s. The larger-than-life image and exploits of the man were certainly more exciting than what you had with many other writers. He was outrageously real, (“too macho to be true” as my dad used to say) in an over-the-top, Quentin Tarantino kind of way. Of course, years later when I wrote <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Strange-Tribe-Family-John-Hemingway/dp/1599211122/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1213822027&sr=1-1"><i>Strange Tribe</i></a> I discovered that Ernest was not at all the person who I thought he was and that perhaps he had more in common with my father, his transsexual youngest son, than with the fishermen, soldiers and bullfighters he was friends with. But even with this knowledge and the publication of my book old ideas die hard. Myths are immortal, I'm inclined to believe, and the exaggerated role that Ernest played in post World War II American culture had a great deal to do with how “Papa” was packaged by the nation's pulp magazines. </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">This is the fascinating thesis of Professor</span> David M. Earle's recent book, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/All-Man-Hemingway-Magazines-Masculine/dp/1606350048/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1290566484&sr=1-1"><i>All Man, Hemingway, 1950's Men's Magazine's, and the Masculine Persona</i></a> (The Kent State University Press, 2009). Reading it, I have to say, answered many of the questions that I've always had about my grandfather and his fame. I knew that Ernest from the 1920's onward was very proactive in molding his image as a sportsman, hunter and connoisseur of wine, women and bulls. He was an ambitious writer, someone who actively sought fame and success. But what Earle does is to show us that not only was Ernest a competent manipulator of the nascent media industry in the US but that he was far from being adverse to publicity, especially from pulp magazines. Ernest started out as a pulp writer, wanted to earn a living writing for them, and while it is true, as most Hemingway aficionados know, that Hemingway submitted many of his short stories to the <i>Saturday Evening Post</i> (all of which were rejected), he was at the same time submitting these pieces to the pulps. Aiming high, but always having a back-up publication for your work, Earle explains, was a common characteristic of pulp writers in the post WWI period.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">In <span lang="en-US">Europe</span>, Ernest's writing tackled themes that were decidedly more ambiguous than the stories he'd submitted to the pulp magazines. His portraits of male dysfunctionality and homosexuality such as <i>A Sea Change</i> and <i>A Simple Inquiry</i> are considered some of the best ever written in the English language. Yet, in spite of these works and the view that they provide of my grandfather's complex personality his image as a clear-cut man's man has continued to grow. To a large extent it was his own fault. As Earle shows in <i>All Man</i>, my grandfather “both fought and nurtured his image as a larger-than-life character. In 1930 he made Grosset and Dunlap destroy dust jackets that claimed he had joined the Arditi in the First World War; later he had his editor, Maxwell Perkins, send a letter to correct this information in Paramount studios' press about him for the upcoming <i>A Farewell to Arms.</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> Yet thirty years later these myths were still appearing in interviews and profiles of the author...the image that he put forward in interviews with his quips about meeting international whores and making love until age eighty-five were just as extreme – not so much masculine as a character of hyper-masculine proportions.” In </span><i>All Man </i><span style="font-style: normal;">Ernest is just about everywhere in the in the 1950s. Gracing the covers of literally hundreds of magazines, from </span><i>Focus, </i><span style="font-style: normal;">which voted him one of the sexiest men in America, to </span><i>Show,</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> which featured the Hungarian starlet Zsa Zsa Gabor and her list of the ten most “sexciting men” of 1957, Hemingway was hard to ignore. As Zsa Zsa put it “Hemingway's such an outdoor man! So different in every way from women...”.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</div><div style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">What was ironic, for me at least, reading the book was to see how Ernest went from being a representative of the Lost Generation and its anti-militarist, anti-conformist themes to someone whose image was used by corporate America to help returning WWII war veterans conform to their roles as suburban husbands and fathers in a conservative, aggressively capitalist nation. Indeed, the alpha-male portrayals of Hemingway filled a cultural need, says Earle, to reaffirm the country's masculinity in an era of “deep-rooted crisis of gender”. Woman had changed during the war, taking on the jobs that their men used to do, and would never again be as submissive as they'd once been. Ernest's past as a wounded veteran and his glamorous lifestyle in Cuba fishing and womanizing could thus be used as a role model and a means of social control. His short stories of WWI soldiers dealing with shell-shock were enormously appealing to a whole new generation of veterans still struggling with their own nightmares, while the sexually ambiguity and relative strength of women in many of his earlier works was conveniently ignored. Ernest certainly hadn't given up writing about male dysfunctionality or his personal search for a more African sexuality “beyond all tribal law” (the <i>Garden of Eden</i>, was written during the 1950s), but he does seem to have understood that he could no longer find a market for the gender bending games of <i>Garden</i>. </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Earle's </span><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">All Man</span></i><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> shows us the enormous shadow that Ernest cast over post-war America and at the same time gives us an idea of the intense pressure that he must have experienced living life in the fish bowl of celebrity culture and how this could have only compounded the depression and paranoia that he suffered from in his final years. </span></span><span style="font-weight: normal;">It is an extremely well-written, and </span><span style="font-weight: normal;">beautifully</span><span style="font-weight: normal;"> illustrated book and an important addition to Hemingway scholarship.</span></div>John Hemingwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06835706404432796187noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8604290631102816106.post-50258690160914783502010-10-02T07:03:00.000-05:002010-10-02T07:07:13.328-05:00Revista CarasFor any readers who can speak Spanish, an interview of me done by Mauricio Hernandez just came out in Revista Caras (Mexico).<br />
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Here are the pages:<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHzspHxrLVzPN1PaYk5ZenCr9qSzs7yNasEbjRgTfyw6fChSOqhd0k3OmBPX_Y0G7iDwYkXpWQd7oPHc2W01xOzaoOFSxzyI5yNiVOnqFnar6_sy9de4_ebiXRbyRbGIJ7ZGhR1SHqlzQ/s1600/CARAS+--+JOHN+HEMINGWAY+III.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHzspHxrLVzPN1PaYk5ZenCr9qSzs7yNasEbjRgTfyw6fChSOqhd0k3OmBPX_Y0G7iDwYkXpWQd7oPHc2W01xOzaoOFSxzyI5yNiVOnqFnar6_sy9de4_ebiXRbyRbGIJ7ZGhR1SHqlzQ/s320/CARAS+--+JOHN+HEMINGWAY+III.jpg" width="239" /></a></div>John Hemingwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06835706404432796187noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8604290631102816106.post-48306013168657039312010-08-19T10:22:00.000-05:002010-08-19T10:23:48.385-05:00Norman, Ernest and GregHere's an article that will soon appear in the 2010 edition of <a href="http://normanmailersociety.org/the-mailer-review/">the Norman Mailer Review.</a><br />
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<div style="text-align: center;"> <b>Norman, Ernest and Greg</b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div>While most scholars believe that the failure of George Plimpton’s plan to bring Norman Mailer and my grandfather together ended any possibility of a meeting, they may have been in close proximity to each other at least once. From what I’ve been told (and I admit that I can’t prove this), Norman did see my grandfather at a gathering in New York City, just after the publication of The Naked And The Dead, but it wasn’t much of a meeting. I don’t think they even said anything to each other. Or rather, Norman had the chance to approach Ernest but he didn’t. At the time, Mailer was the new sensation of American literature but Ernest was reigning champ in his category and he either pretended that Norman wasn’t there or was too busy dealing with all the other writers and journalists who invariably surrounded him at events of this sort. Without a doubt he knew who Norman Mailer was. Ernest knew who all the very good writers were. He was a voracious reader and liked to stay abreast of what was new and interesting in fiction.<br />
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Norman was young enough to be grandfather’s son. He was as old as my Uncle Jack, but in spite of the age difference between the two men he and Ernest had a lot in common. Both of them were war veterans and wrote hugely successful novels based upon their experiences. They were literary celebrities and were in the news as much for their excessive drinking, swearing and politics as they were for their stories. They loved women but never seemed to stay with any of them for too long, marrying many times (Norman 6 and Ernest 4), and they were both roundly criticized by feminists for their perceived “mysogynistic behavior”. They were passionate about boxing and wrote about it (or filmed it as Norman did with Mohammed Ali) and at times seemed to train as much as any pro boxer might, preparing for the ‘big fight’. They were also famous for hitting people who annoyed them (or butting heads). <br />
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Norman was more of a radical, politically speaking, than my grandfather was. The founder of the Village Voice was an acute observer of the 1960s, writing about the violence and the protests at the conventions in Miami and Chicago and the demonstrations in Washington against the Vietnam War. Ernest, of course, supported the Republican cause during the Spanish Civil War but he never let his leftist leanings get in the way of his visiting Spain in the 1950’s when the fascists were firmly in control of the country. Democracy was important to Ernest, but Corrida and the world of bullfighting and matadors were even more so.<br />
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Still, as a Hemingway, what comes to mind most when I think of Norman Mailer are not the many similarities with Ernest but his friendship with my father, Gregory Hemingway. When I was a boy I spent a year with my father and his wife Valerie in their two-bedroom apartment on East 87<sup>th</sup> street and what I remember most about that place, apart from the fact that it was very cramped with 5 kids and 2 adults, was this enormous mounted tuna head in the dining room. It was from a 750 lb tuna that my father had caught off the coast of Cape Cod. Being 9 years old I was, of course, full of questions about the fish and my father told me that it had taken him 7 hours to bring it in and he showed me a picture of the tuna that was almost as long as the boat itself. Needless to say, I was seriously impressed, but what he didn’t tell me, and what I found out from a good friend of my father’s years later, what that Norman had been with him that day out in the ocean. He was a witness to my father’s day-long battle with the monster tuna and I have to say that I envy him that. I wish that I could have been there myself to see my dad as happy as he looked standing next to the near record-breaking tuna on the dock in Provincetown. It was certainly one of the better days in my father’s often troubled life and Norman was there.<br />
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The other thing that I remember when I think of their friendship is the beautiful preface that Norman wrote for my father’s memoir “Papa”. The book was published in 1976 and whenever I come across a copy I ask myself just how well Norman knew Greg. “Papa”, in reality, says little about my father’s endless flirtation with cross-dressing or about what some scholars at the time were just beginning to discover about EMH’s not exactly 100% macho proclivities. Still, I have to believe that Norman as a great writer and artist was a perceptive man, too, and that something of my grandfather and father’s search for what Ernest defined as a “more African sensuality, beyond all tribal law” must have come to his attention. Would Norman have been intrigued by this dark side to the Hemingways, perhaps smiling and ultimately chalking it up as a clear case of ‘different strokes for different folks’? Or was it something that might have upset him, contrasting as it did with the usual image of Ernest? I’m sure that I’ll never know the answer to this question, but I can’t help but wonder.John Hemingwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06835706404432796187noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8604290631102816106.post-1514868625881473782010-08-10T07:42:00.000-05:002010-08-10T07:42:10.284-05:00New interview at the Hemingway ProjectFor any fans of my grandfather there is a new interview of me at The <a href="http://www.thehemingwayproject.com/">Hemingway Project</a> where I answer questions about Ernest, my book and my family.John Hemingwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06835706404432796187noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8604290631102816106.post-64317461442649731322010-08-04T06:09:00.000-05:002010-08-04T11:44:41.346-05:00BP Oil disaster stalls Gulf Loop CurrentRecently when I was in Bimini I asked a few people if there had been any signs of the infamous BP tar balls that have been washing up on beaches throughout the Gulf. I was worried that Bimini, sooner or later, was due to get its unfair share of the toxic gobs due to its proximity to the Loop Current and to the Gulf Stream. Fortunately, I didn't see any, but one of the reasons for this might be the report from the I<a href="http://www.lnf.infn.it/public/">stituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare</a> (National Institute of Nuclear Physics) of Fascati Italy. According to <a href="http://yowusa.com/earth/2010/earth-0810-01a/1.shtml">Gianluigi Zangari</a>, a theoretical physicist and complex and chaotic systems analyst at the Italian research center, the Gulf Loop Current, as of 28 July, has effectively stalled because of the BP oil disaster. According to Zangari this could have catastrophic ramifications on the planet's ecosystem as early as 2011, resulting in widespread droughts, floods and crop failures. The Loop Current is considered one of the major "motors" of the Gulf Stream, which in turn is responsible for keeping a good part of New England and Western Europe temperate during the winter. Zangari is now looking for evidence that the Loop Current is reestablishing itself.John Hemingwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06835706404432796187noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8604290631102816106.post-73606450882656359912010-08-01T12:57:00.000-05:002010-08-01T13:26:48.990-05:00A new start for BiminiWhat a difference five years can make. In 2005 I flew to Bimini from Ft. Lauderdale on a Grumman Albatross and spent one of my nights on the island at the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compleat_Angler_Hotel">Compleat Angler</a> hotel. Now, of course, the seaplanes are gone, as is the Compleat Angler. The fatal crash in December of 2005 put an end to the over 80 years of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chalk%27s_International_Airlines">Chalk’s </a>relatively accident free service, just as a fire, barely a month later, would destroy the historic inn. The NTSB investigation into the plane crash discovered that the airline had “failed to properly repair the fatigue cracks” in the Albatross’s fuselage while no one really knows how the blaze at the Compleat Angler started. Walking down King’s Highway (one of two roads on the island) you can still see the foundation and the concrete chimney of the hotel’s fireplace. Nothing has changed since then and as far as I know there are no plans to rebuild the inn, which had become a kind of unofficial museum for the island and a shrine to my grandfather with an autographed copy of one of his novels and many photographs of his fishing exploits.<br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJ16VuvccSZ4UaVcP4lYUCK-3Qof53pJUTMdYN4oaIgWaz912Y-AqtuWpy9qNTs8xpbGodB1akZsf2pGDAHZWV6XdxnTBsUw5OMtixKnvKFKcg6gZ8TqgIa8UoPzqc5eqIlPk04JTFeM0/s1600/Chalks3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="274" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJ16VuvccSZ4UaVcP4lYUCK-3Qof53pJUTMdYN4oaIgWaz912Y-AqtuWpy9qNTs8xpbGodB1akZsf2pGDAHZWV6XdxnTBsUw5OMtixKnvKFKcg6gZ8TqgIa8UoPzqc5eqIlPk04JTFeM0/s400/Chalks3.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"> <span style="font-size: xx-small;">Chalk's Grumman Albatross landing in Bimini</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">For my father there was never any question about staying at the Compleat Angler so long as Helen Duncombe owned the hotel. She and her husband Henry had built the inn in 1935 and while other places might have had swimming pools, or marinas or fancy restaurants, nothing could compete with my father’s childhood memories. Whenever possible he took me to the same room where he and his father had slept. It was up on the second floor and had a view of the Blue Water Marina across the street. It was small by today’s standards, with two single beds and an ancient, wood burning stove in the center. The stove was there for heating, as it could get cold in the winter. When I was eight I remember asking my dad about the stove and he said that I should never touch it during a storm. Years back, when he was a year or two younger than I was then he’d been sitting on my bed and my grandfather was on the other side of the room near the door. There was thunder outside and heavy rain and my father had made the mistake of walking to the stove and touching it to see how hot it could get when a lightening bolt connected with the hotel and threw him back against the wall. It knocked him unconscious and he said that Ernest had picked him up and carried him out in to the rain to find a doctor. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6Ps6Q_0tJ_8QKAu5Sv-t4F3MSXBtSePFtS88di81rkl6A4j2shnE2p2r4drZgDXKtjuETuMadMw0HztwOXYFgGobWcuwC4qZkUQS0qco44AF88Ei2HdHe4tVbgWf4ziz1RzOp823tNb8/s1600/compleatangler1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6Ps6Q_0tJ_8QKAu5Sv-t4F3MSXBtSePFtS88di81rkl6A4j2shnE2p2r4drZgDXKtjuETuMadMw0HztwOXYFgGobWcuwC4qZkUQS0qco44AF88Ei2HdHe4tVbgWf4ziz1RzOp823tNb8/s320/compleatangler1.jpg" /><span style="font-size: xx-small;"></span></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"> The Compleat Angler before the blaze</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">My father also told me about the boxing matches that Ernest organized on the island. He was passionate about fighting and in 2005 I asked <a href="http://cyberboxingzone.com/boxing/w52x-dc.htm">Yama Bahama</a> (William H. Butler, Jr.), a native of Bimini and one of the greatest welterweight fighters of the 1950s, if it was true what they said about my grandfather, that he’s set up a ring where the seaplanes used to land and that young men would come from all over the Bahamas to knock him out, but that none of them ever did. Yama told me that while he had never seen Ernest fight his older brother had and that in his opinion Ernest always won for the simple reason that none of his challengers had any professional training. Many of them were big, really big, and incredibly strong but Ernest had technique and that made all the difference.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsrs5J-wQSdTIeyG5WON0cwMbGOoieW5JkyEYEHzVZEnlGcUVPCjNI1xyeBPyrL69_qZ0Gm3FLzw-UpTP9iDKnP69b1Fa0B6bTedSR_1PcypSRr_6vbTQpbeQTnDYWSCssO4rs2WCUg9M/s1600/hemboxin.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsrs5J-wQSdTIeyG5WON0cwMbGOoieW5JkyEYEHzVZEnlGcUVPCjNI1xyeBPyrL69_qZ0Gm3FLzw-UpTP9iDKnP69b1Fa0B6bTedSR_1PcypSRr_6vbTQpbeQTnDYWSCssO4rs2WCUg9M/s320/hemboxin.jpg" /><span style="font-size: xx-small;"></span></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"> <span style="font-size: xx-small;">Ernest boxing in Bimini, 1936</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“He used his head,” said Yama, “and while he’d sometimes get beat up pretty bad he knew a thing or two about fighting, see? And those guys never had a chance.” </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://www.biggameclubbimini.com/">The Bimini Big Game Club</a> is right across the road from where I spoke with Yama. Like a lot of things on the island it had seen its better days. In 2008 it shut down due to the economic crisis and its effect on tourism. But the fact that it’s now reopened can definitely be seen as a turning point for Bimini. After an extended period of mala suerte, starting with the Chalk’s crash and continuing with the destruction of the Compleat Angler, its new owners are optimistic about the future. It’s now a “Guy Harvey Outpost”, the first in a series of resorts that will mix Caribbean pleasures with <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guy_Harvey">Mr. Harvey’s renowned passion for Blue Marlins, the sea, research and conservation</a>. I have to say that I was impressed by what I saw there last July. The hotel looks great, the food is excellent and the staff very friendly and helpful. With any luck at all the reopening of the Big Game and its marina will put Bimini back on the tourism and big game fishing map where it belongs and that other good things for the island will follow.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZcsw2-jLx7DkIQdbOPp6nEzQRyPM4cbDPfOQuFI4Ld1oDZe_GSvLxwIApDZ0bRjhPUIueCM9Ois9Rbjma3ZhyphenhyphenIV2UOuJ5ceEM_zXIhTQeQRjSn8pQmwwvPw7k1mXu3IevaLkGcoAjOdw/s1600/DSCN4120.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZcsw2-jLx7DkIQdbOPp6nEzQRyPM4cbDPfOQuFI4Ld1oDZe_GSvLxwIApDZ0bRjhPUIueCM9Ois9Rbjma3ZhyphenhyphenIV2UOuJ5ceEM_zXIhTQeQRjSn8pQmwwvPw7k1mXu3IevaLkGcoAjOdw/s320/DSCN4120.JPG" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"> <span style="font-size: xx-small;">The Bimini Big Game Club marina at dawn</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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</div>John Hemingwayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06835706404432796187noreply@blogger.com2