Thursday, January 15, 2015
Wednesday, January 14, 2015
Sunday, January 4, 2015
100 Things I Want to Tell My Children and Grandchildren: #10
In 1987 I instigated the research and writing of the history of Austin women.
On January 15, 2015, I will lead a committee of women leaders to begin work to revive
and update that history.
Twenty-seven years ago, as a member of the Austin Commission for
Women, I instigated and chaired a project to research the history of Austin
women on the occasion of the 150th birthday of Austin. That history,
written by well-known historians Ruthe Winegarten and Janet Humphrey, and
funded by a variety of Austin businesses, included an extensive and beautiful display
featuring approximately 100 women who built Austin, along with brief captions
explaining their involvement and contributions. This history was officially presented
at a ceremony in the Texas Capitol rotunda. Shannon Sedwick of Esther’s Follies,
and a group of other Austin actors dressed in period costume, presented live vignettes
of the women featured in the history exhibit. Mayor Lee Cooke accepted the history
on behalf of Austin citizens. The ceremony was well attended with standing room
only.
Following the presentation, the history exhibit made the rounds at a number
of events and at several schools during Women’s History Month (March) and was
eventually housed at the Austin History Center where it is currently stored.
On January 15 the Austin History Center Staff, a group of interested Austin
women, and myself will meet to unearth that long-ago researched history, to
bring those women back to life, and to document the additional women who have continued to help make Austin a unique and vital community. We will also be working to identify the best
format for presenting this old and new information, such as a website and/or a
printed book.
As a life-long historian, my mother would be proud of my efforts on this
project, and I hope you are too.
To Austin Women: If you would like to be involved in the project to restore and update the history of Austin women, please email me at sueannwadecrouse@gmail.com.
This photo of the 1986-87 Austin Commission for Women was taken following the ceremony, and includes (top row r-l) Ann Kitchens, Barbara Forman, Peggy Vasquez, Margaret Glendinning, SueAnn Wade-Crouse, Beverly Larkam, Gloria Hill Black, (bottom row r-l) Jean Zurow, Kay Keesee, and Pat Gamboa.
Cluster Critiques
The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters
The Paying Guests author Sarah Waters (pictured) could make the squashing of a cockroach sound romantic, sexy, intriguing and tragic. Her softly explicit descriptions of sexual escapades went on for pages, making me uncomfortably warm.
And then she made me see oozing brains and smell blood, and had me nervously flipping through the pages practically desperate to know if the main characters would survive a horrific back-alley abortion, a murder investigation, a trial, one character’s fragile and pale as antique lace weakness, threatening daily to confess everything.
Good gaud, I’m reliving the
tension just writing about it. The Paying
Guest is chocked full of surprises you’d never guess!
Read it. You won’t be sorry.
Euphoria by Lilly King
If you do not read another book I recommend from 2014, read Euphoria. I heard about this book through Kirkus, and the moment I read that it was about a woman Anthropologist studying in New Guinea in the 1930’s, I knew the story must have some connection to Margaret Mead, and I was right.
I’ve never done this before, but because I loved the Washington Post Ron Charles’ review so much, and because it so closely mirrors my thoughts about Euphoria, rather than write my own review, I’m going to provide excerpts from his review below. I will say, however, that I suspect that Euphoria will be one of the top three fiction books of the year for me.
Blandly scrolling through salacious tweets from nubile pop stars, we
can hardly imagine the thrill of Margaret Mead’s revelations
in 1928. More than 80 years ago, at a time when ... movies could only show the “tragic” consequences of
premarital sex, Mead published Coming of Age in Samoa. Her study of the psychosexual development of adolescents
on the island of Ta’u confronted a self-satisfied United States, where it was
still possible to speak of one’s parochial mores as natural and, of course,
superior.
More Cluster Critiques
Delicious!: A Novel by Ruth Reichl
Ruth Reichl (pictured), one of the world’s foremost food critics (NY
Times, LA Times, etc.), editor of Gourmet magazine for 15 years, and co-owner of the famed The Swallow Restaurant, has written some of my
favorite books about food and cooking, i.e., Tender at the Bone, Comfort Me With Apples, Garlic and Sapphires. Now, apparently inspired by the surprise closing of Gourmet magazine by publisher Condé
Nast, Reichl made the bold move into the world of fiction with her first novel Delicious! Kirkus Reviews describes the
novel as “a bittersweet pudding with some lumps in the batter,” and The Washington Post says it is “a
surprisingly amateurish performance for a writer as skilled and versatile as
Reichl.” But I’m going to cut her some slack and say that I thought it was pretty
tasty.
Main character Billie Breskin, having lived her life in the
shadow of her prettier, smarter sister, is a bit of a wallflower, but one
blessed with what NPR cleverly coined as “the culinary equivalent of perfect
pitch.” Billie can distinguish flavors like nobody’s business, which ultimately
lands her a day job for a food magazine called Delicious, which is housed in an old Greenwich Village mansion with
secret rooms and a juicy history. Billie also gets a weekend gig at an
eclectic cheese shop in Little Italy. Both settings provide a ton of ingredients
for characters and stories that will keep you salivating, including a series of very
old letters from a young food prodigy to James Beard that Billie discovers catalogued
in a manner requiring “Sherlock-ian” skills; and the roguishly handsome “grumpy
complainer” that frequents the cheese shop and ends up being an architectural
historian (and a good kisser).
I’m not sure why Reichl chose to write about a twenty-something
girl, and if I have any complaint, it’s that the story tends to feel a little angst-y
at times. But just about the time it gets annoying, Reichl springs a new story
flavor and you forgive her. Delicious!
isn’t really, but it is pretty yummy.
The Elephant Whisperer: My Life with the Herd in the African Wild by
Lawrence Anthony, Graham Spence
Around 1982-83, when I was managing
a small mountain retreat in New Mexico belonging to some eccentric horse
lovers, I hosted a couple that ran (what was at the time) the Harare Game
Reserve in Zimbabwe South Africa. Their
stories of life in Africa sounded exceptionally exotic and dangerous and
forever sparked my interest in that part of the world. So when I saw The Elephant Whisperer profiled on one
of the several websites I troll daily looking for good reads, I knew I had to
read it and I’m glad I did.
If not for books, I would probably never
know what it was like to live in the wilds of Africa, surrounded by animals
intent upon eating me or stomping me into the turf. Author Lawrence Anthony safely transported me to
those parts of the world and that lifestyle, beautifully conveying his love and respect
for the wildlife in Africa. The Elephant Whisperer tells a touching story of Anthony adopting a pack of rogue
elephants with a reputation for violence, and if not saved by Anthony, would
have been put down.
Although one might assume that
caring for elephants is as simple as building a strong fence, that is not the
case. Elephants are smarter than the average bear, and they don’t like being
fenced in. And so the struggle ensues with Anthony trying to balance the
enforcer and the animal lover in himself. After many adventures and a few
tragedies, man and elephant find a peaceful place for coexisting, and the
reader learns a lot about elephants, elephants and humans, and about living in
Africa. I so thoroughly enjoyed The Elephant Whisperer that I sought out another of Anthony’s books. Babylon’s Ark, a heart-wrenching tale of how he and a small and scraggly army of British and Iraq civilians, and a surly band of American soldiers, worked through horrifying circumstances over a period of weeks to rescue the abandoned, starving, ill and injured animals in the Bagdad Zoo just following the American invasion of Bagdad. I recommend both of these books, especially if you have an interest in animal conservation, or if you just like a good story.
Sunday, August 24, 2014
100 Things I Want to Tell My Children and Grandchildren: #9
You don’t know how strong you are until you have to be.
I’m pretty sure my children have
already discovered how strong they are. Life doesn’t wait long to throw curve
balls, and it doesn’t discriminate when it comes to divvying out heartbreak,
sorrow and stress. Young, old, rich, poor, we all face life challenges although,
admittedly, some seem to get more than their share.
What I want to assure my children
and grandchildren is this. You are much stronger than you know. There are
three reasons that I know this to be a fact.
First, our family comes from what was once referred to as “hardy stock,” the reference being strong, well-bred animals, but which, in more modern terms, might mean genetically advantaged. We are damned near bullet-proof, solid.
Second, no one in our family permanently “falls apart.” They may make mistakes, but they always cowboy/cowgirl up to handle whatever needs to be handled.
And finally, my mom taught me that if you believe you can, you can. So believe you can.
First, our family comes from what was once referred to as “hardy stock,” the reference being strong, well-bred animals, but which, in more modern terms, might mean genetically advantaged. We are damned near bullet-proof, solid.
Second, no one in our family permanently “falls apart.” They may make mistakes, but they always cowboy/cowgirl up to handle whatever needs to be handled.
And finally, my mom taught me that if you believe you can, you can. So believe you can.
I have several good examples of my
rising to the occasion to handle extremely stressful situations, but the most
recent is my husband’s illness. This winter Crouse was in the hospital for
six weeks. At one point the doctors told us to start making end-of-life plans.
Above the East China Sea by Sarah Bird
Upon finishing Sarah Bird’s ninth book, Above the East China Sea, I was simultaneously gobsmacked and acutely humbled. This is an outstanding
book.
Although Bird has been a highly recognized author for some
time, I agree with Dallas Morning News
reviewer, Joy Tipping, who said Above the
East China Sea could be the book that lands Sarah among the literary
elite. Some might think that my friendship with Sarah disables me to render an unbiased opinion of this book, but there are plenty of opinion merchants who
agree with me, including Tipping and the Houston
Chronicle, Washington Times, San Francisco Times and the growing list of readers and reviewers. (Seventy-nine percent
of Amazon readers gave Above the East
China Sea five stars and ninety-two percent gave it four or five stars.)
I recommend that you read Above the East China Sea, and I want to offer guidance to help you get
into it smoothly. Don’t try to figure out what is going on in the first
twenty-five pages. Just let Sarah’s beautifully constructed words wash over you.
It will all come together in due time. And don’t let your over-analytical tendencies
inhibit your enjoyment of this author’s sensual, lyrical writing. For example:
A breeze from the East China Sea lifts sweat-dampened hair from the
back of my neck. It carries with it the stench that is a constant reminder that
not a single leaf of green hope has survived.
I also want to share some history that I wish I’d known going
into this book. First, do you know exactly where Okinawa is? I’m big enough to
admit that I knew it was somewhere around Japan, but that’s about it. Okinawa is
the largest of five islands know as The Ryukyu Islands strung between
Japan and Taiwan. In 1945, the date setting for much of this book, Okinawa was ruled by
Japan despite the fact that Okinawan culture and language have always been distinctly
different from that of Japan.
Here are a couple of maps to give you a little better
perspective. There’s a map in the book, but for some reason I didn’t pay
attention to it until I was sucked into the story and realized how despairingly
ignorant I was on everything related to Okinawa.
Half of Above the East
China Sea is set in 1945 when the Americans invaded Okinawa with the intent
to use it as a base for air operations to eventually invade Japan. That
battle resulted in the highest number of casualties in the Pacific Theater
during World War II, including 77,166 Japanese soldiers, 14,009 American Allies deaths
and 65,000 casualties, and a third of the native Okinawan population, which is more deaths than in Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined. The Okinawans weren’t fighting, they just
happened to live where the American military wanted to be and the Japanese
government didn’t want them to be?
The main character of this half of the book is Tamiko Kokuba, one of 222
Okinawan teen girls hand picked by the
Japanese Imperial Army to serve as "Princess Lilly"student nurses in military
hospitals housed in caves and under horrific conditions. While bombs rained
down above them, the girls dealt with the blood and gore injuries of soldiers
who didn’t even have the advantage of pain medication or anesthesia. The
conditions were so crowded that the girls couldn’t sit down for days, and there
was nowhere for them to relieve themselves. Eventually, Tamiko escapes the “rape and torture by the Americans" as promised by the Japanese military occupation, only to
arrive at the cliffs above the East China Sea and the choice of suicide by
choice or death by dishonor.
See Jane Write
Women
of a certain age have accumulated a wealth of history and stories and a propensity
to share, which is lucky for us. Such is the case of five of my friends, Heidimarie
Seig-Smith, Kelly Jackson, Charlena Chandler, Aralyn Hughes, and Sarah Bird,
all of whom have recently published highly-regarded books. It is my joy and
pleasure to have read their charming, funny, tender and insightful writing, and
to now share a little about each with you.
After the
Bombs – My Berlin by Heidimarie Seig-Smith
I met Heidimarie Seig-Smith
in Italy, and, because I found her to be a thoughtful and interesting person,
have stayed in touch. Reading her recently published book After the Bomb – My Berlin is a soundly-penned and
unique story about what it was like, as a family, to be on the other side of
WWII. Sure you can read shelves full of books about the hardships, attitudes
and families of the English, French and Jewish victims of WWII, and plenty has
been written about the major players on the other side like Hitler and Göring,
but I’ve not seen many accounts of what life was like for the average
German during and after that horrific time in human history.
Heidi has done a commendable
job of collecting information about her ancestry and their day-to-day lives
during and after WWII, Heidi’s immigration to the US in 1963, and up through
the fall of the Berlin Wall, about which she says, “I attacked the Wall with great
satisfaction, equipped with a mason’s chisel and hammer. I pounded until
I got my chunk of the Wall to take home and remember.”
Read After the Bombs – My
Berlin.
A Texan Goes
To Nirvana by Kelly Jackson
I
don’t exactly recall how and when I met Kelly (KK) Jackson (Author/Yoga Guru/Horsegal)
and her sister Sally (Actress/Scouting Agent for Speilberg), but I want to be
them when I grow up. Why? Because they have incredible attitudes and senses of
humor, and that will get you further than anything I know.
KK
the younger sister (sorry SalGal) has written her first book, A Texan Goes To Nirvana about a recently,
divorced NYC woman, Wendy, who in a desperate attempt to
gather her wits and make a living decides to go to an ashram in Kentucky to get
certified to teach yoga. Just to give you a hint about what a fertile set up
for humor that scenario is, the title of Kelly’s next book is Yoga For
Smokers, Drinkers, Meat Eaters and Non-Believers.
But A Texan Goes To Nirvana
isn’t just
a divorce-recovery thing. We get our first clue when the receptionist at the
Ashram says to Wendy, “We very much look
forward to eating you.”
This is a well-written, hilarious book with a fun storyline
that you will truly enjoy! Read it.
Kid Me Not:
an anthology by child-free women of the ‘60s now in the 60s edited by Aralyn Hughes
Aralyn
Hughes sold us our home in 1990, and sold it for us in 2014, and has remained a
friend for more than 20 years. To you however, Aralyn is the creator of the
“Keep Austin Weird” campaign, co-author of In The West, one of the longest running
monologue shows in Austin, which also played the Kennedy Center and was later
adapted into the movie Deep In The Heart.
Aralyn performed her solo play, Aralyn’s
Home Economics in NYC at the International Solo Theater Festival in 2013. This weekend Aralyn will be at the Portland Film Festival presenting her
most recent film, Love In The Sixties.
When Aralyn found time to assemble and edit Kid Me Not, I’ll never know, but I suspect she doesn’t sleep. Kid Me Not is an anthology about
child-free women who came of age in the 1960s and who made the decision to not
have children. They were the first generation of women to truly have that choice, due to the advent of the birth control pill, which makes this book of
historic significance as well as an enjoyable read. Many of you will recognize
women featured in Aralyn’s book, and will relate very closely to their stories and
the time and the culture in which I, and some of you, grew up. I have many
friends who chose to live life without children, possibly just because they
could.
I kid you not, you really need to read Kid Me Not.
Dead
Javelinas Are Not Allowed on School Property by Charlena
Chandler
When
I was a young girl, Charlena Chandler and her younger sister JoBeth were two of
my older brother’s many girlfriends. Occasionally my brother had to take his
little sister along on dates either as a chaperon or an enforced
babysitting gig. Whatever the case, I got to go out to the Chandlers on many
occasions, which was extremely cool because not only did they live way, way out
in the country, but they lived on the beautiful spring-fed Pecos river under
massive Pecan trees and they had a swimming pool and a golf course, which in
dry West Texas is literally an oasis in the desert.
Charlena
and I relate closely also because we grew up in a culture of rough country folk
who worked very hard, minded their own business and kept life simple. With that
came a strong sense of irony, a dry but generous sense of humor and an insight
into life unencumbered by politics and baloney. And this is why I absolutely
adore everything Charlena writes. In spite of the fact that Charlena is an
educated world traveler, she hasn’t lost any of the valuable assets ingrained
by her heritage and we are the better for it.
Dead Javelinas Are Not
Allowed on School Property is a joy-filled account of what it was like being an
open-minded librarian in a very conservative country school – all blended with
the delicacy of a soufflé!
If
you want to know where I’m from, and where Charlena is from, or even if you don’t,
you should read this book.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
