The Italian cover of IMMORTAL
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The Italian cover of IMMORTAL

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The Italian cover of IMMORTAL

Italian cover of IMMORTAL

It’s that time of year for me: warm weather and sunshine, an urge to wear silky dresses that breeze around my thighs, fantasies about travel and escape and the Pinacoteca Vaticano and a lover who keeps me occupied for the whole hot lunch hour, when everyone in Rome goes inside. Nowhere on Earth is the sky bluer or the cypress trees more fragrant or the skin more delectably open to touch than in Italy.
Such naughty thoughts can only come from Caravaggio, that mad but brilliant painter of the late Renaissance. Murderous sociopathy aside, he knew better than any artist in history how to portray the rotting of the spirit. Sometimes I hate him for that. Other times, I am compelled to stare. Makes me think of that moment when fruit is just a little too ripe and soft, a little too sweet for the tongue and perfumed for the palate, a little bruised and burnished from the sun, but it hasn’t yet dropped off the vine.
So imagine my delight at this cover for Marco Tropea Editore’s Italian version of IMMORTAL: Caravaggio’s Narcissus! A wonderful painting. A pleasure to behold, and a feast for the senses.
Time for a plane ticket!
NIGHTLINE visits Sabin Howard’s studio
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NIGHTLINE visits Sabin Howard’s studio

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NIGHTLINE visits Sabin Howard's studio
NIGHTLINE visits Sabin Howard’s studio
The thing about being married to an artist is, you never know who will show up for dinner. Successful artists like Sabin enjoy a kind of classlessness. They move freely among all circles. This is one the great qualities of art: it is an equal-opportunity-uplifter. It speaks to the essence of humanity, not only to wealth or status or education or privilege.
So we have broken bread with billionaires and underwear models, celebrities and professors, critics and pundits and astrologers and engineers and retauranteurs and musicians and struggling actors and dancers, along with a host of “regular” people, each of whom has a story that enriches my writing. It’s a gift to be exposed to this fascinating variety of folks.
Sabin’s model for the head of the APOLLO is a young man named Marc, a good-looking Greek/Italian mix with a killer body, a gifted poet and passionate liver-of-life. Marc had a run through some difficult times. He emerged thanks to his Christian faith, and he joined a Christian dating service, hoping to find a lady love who shared his values. NIGHTLINE examined these niche dating services and profiled Marc on a date. Marc took the young lady to Sabin’s studio. Sabin is simply called “a sculptor”–as if he wasn’t THE sculptor right now. But the studio looks pretty good, and there are some nice shots of the head of APOLLO.
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Churchill, British Petroleum, and Primary Life Experience

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In one of the multitude of homes which my family inhabited as a peripatetic Navy family, we lived next door to a man who’d been in the army during WW2 and liberated one of the camps. I was 9 going on 10 and always sidling up to him to ask him what it was like. Sometimes he would talk. Mostly he would cry.

My mother would look at me with that jaundiced look which I have since co-opted for my own children: “Why are you bothering the neighbors?” I understand her now, having asked that very question of my mischievous brood, when they’ve followed their individual daimons into high naughtiness. At that time–and even now–I had to appease my hunger to hear people’s stories. History has always fascinated me, but not from an intellectual standpoint. There has to be a personal hook. I want to hear how an individual loved and suffered and laughed and threw tantrums during important passages of the human race’s travels through time. I want to feel what they felt as if I were feeling it.
So the other day at the Provincetown library, when I ruffled through a young adult biography of Winston Churchill, the hook which grabbed me was the link to my own experience: my travails with my 15 year old daughter, who is equal parts troublemaker, creative artist, incisive psychologist, entertainer, and sensitive soul. I love her deeply and worry about her all the time. Churchill’s misspent youth full of backchat, overspending, and bad grades, followed by an adulthood as one of the greatest statesmen of all time, gives me hope. Having dealt with any number of teachers and administrators with their supercilious moral rectitude and low opinion of my daughter, which she certainly earned, and their anger with me because I can’t ‘fix her’ to their immediate liking, I am gratified to see that troubled adolescents can turn out to be outstanding adults.
I know this anyway, from my own husband. He’s told me some hair-raising stories about feeling alienated, getting drunk, and climbing the columns on the front of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He was about the same age as my irascible middle child. He’s become the most devoted and finest figurative sculptor living today, and one of the cleanest living people I know. But his parents must have wrung their hands.
It’s even more solace to read about Churchill and to think about what he accomplished across the great span of time, from the Boer wars to WW1 to WW2. There’s a lot to be said for an independent-minded person, and those kind often struggle with authority. Churchill, and my wild child, are two such.
Being intrigued with Churchill, I’ve become intrigued with that tapestry of time. I’m just beginning research into the period and I have a lot of questions. Why was North Africa such an important area during WW2? After the despair and tragedies of WW1–France lost 1.25 million men, and they were a country of only about 40 million people–how did Europe fall into WW2 a mere 20 years later?
Was it because the reparations demanded of Germany after the first world war were too great? One friend of mine claims that we would have avoided WW2 if Germany had won WW1 and centralized Europe under its aegis. Or was Germany at that time just warlike enough, and prejudiced enough, that Hitler would have gained a foothold even under conditions of an alternate universe?
And what about Churchill sinking French ships to avoid the French Navy being turned over to the Germans? Didn’t the French self-scuttle a bunch of their own ships a year later, for the same purpose? Did Churchill need to infuriate De Gaulle and the French? Was he a brilliant man but also an a**hole, as another friend claims?
From this vantage, the beginning of my research, I see that Churchill had some serious flaws. He could not avoid the British Imperialism that has led to severe injustices across the world. It’s a kind of arrogance, an unquestioning assumption of superiority, and it is mirrored in the US imposition of Pax Americana.
Note to Obama: we should not be in Afghanistan. Why are you listening to your generals tell you we can win, when the crackerjack Russian army couldn’t? What will history say of you for that error in judgement? And why the hell has the response to British Petroleum’s dreadful spill, which will damage the world for centuries, been so slow and backward? What kind of arrogance is at work here?
I am voting 3rd party with next election. I can’t bring myself to vote Republican. I can’t stand the bigotry that’s become entrenched in the Far Right. Also, despite what the simple-minded think, people can be both pro-life and pro-choice at the same time. I am one of those people.
But Obama is a big disappointment. He talks good but he’s not accomplishing what we’d hoped.
History is happening now, repeating itself, waiting to be learned from. And my daughter is still evolving.
SONOS fills the home with music
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SONOS fills the home with music

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Over the course of what felt like a particularly dreary and inelegant winter, I fell in love: with Mozart.

The gifted and lovely psychic Mary T. Browne advised me to listen to Mozart. Classical music had been only a distant interest, sparked mostly by watching dance performances. But, trusting the ineluctable Ms. Browne, I played Mozart.
The more I listened, the more I was entranced. The music has a balancing, peaceful effect, a sweet joy that’s a welcome surcease from the heartache of watching a 15 year old go off the rails, and listening to the self-righteous rantings of an ungrateful 19 year old. “How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child,” wrote Shakespeare, in King Lear. And how right that master of human psychology was, whether the Bard really was Anne Hathaway’s husband, or he was Francis Bacon or Christopher Marlowe.
The point isn’t that everything important or meaningful about the human condition is found in Shakespeare, though that is true. The point is that the Andante in C major for Flute and Orchestra, K 315, makes my life better.
So I experimented with ways to imbue my home with music. The Apple wireless system with Airport worked well, and the app REMOTE on my iPhone controlled the system nicely. But I decided I wanted a more integrated look, feel, and sound, rather than having a Bose speaker in the dining room and a Sony speaker in the bedroom.
Ecco, SONOS. The Bridge plugs into my airport extreme and transmits to all the S5 players throughout the apartment. The speakers have good quality sound. The SONOS controller downloaded perfectly to my iMac, and the Sonos app to my iPhone, so I can DJ the music even from the bathroom. As for volume: it cranks!
We’ve discovered Pandora radio and Rhapsody. My husband Sabin, whose grandfather was a concert pianist and whose musical taste is more complex than mine, has his three favorite stations: Spanish Guitar radio, AC/DC, and Dvorak. My wild thing 15 year old daughter plays Glee Cast and Sexy Bitch radio. For my little one, there’s the Magic Kingdoms and Small Worlds station on Rhapsody. I have, okay, no scoffing, Rod Stewart radio, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart radio, and my Yoga playlist which includes Krishna Das, Cynthia Snodgrass, Deva Premal, a rockin’ Halleluya by Congregation B’nai Jeshurun, and some lush renditions of mantras like the great Om Tryambakam.
The Sonos system isn’t cheap, but it works well. There are a few glitches. Occasionally the music drops. Usually that’s a quick fix by switching channels in the control panel. I initially ordered four S5 units from the company; three arrived, and one showed up in Memphis as an empty box. Sonos was nice enough about it, but they wanted me to wait for the investigation to unfold. They weren’t altogether pleased when I articulated my belief that the empty box wasn’t my problem and I wanted another unit shipped to me pronto. To their credit, they did ship the replacement unit pronto, at great effort to themselves.
So “if music be the food of love, play on,” and fill my home with love!
AUTHENTIC HAPPINESS by Martin Seligman
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AUTHENTIC HAPPINESS by Martin Seligman

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Recently a wonderful opportunity came my way: I was able to tell a well-respected, practicing psychologist my objections to psychotherapy as it is currently practiced, and he listened carefully, and he responded with both clarity and respect. I have a chance to rethink my position with new insight.
Fine critical analysis is not always a gift. For those who follow Vedic astrology, I have Mars in Virgo rising. Astrology is descriptive, not causative. In my case it rather beautifully describes my forward movement (Mars) with critical discernment (Virgo) and how it pisses off people (energetic, non-diplomatic Mars, in the first house).
And to those who scoff at astrology: “I use astrology for the same reason I use the multiplication table, because it works.” This is a quote from Grant Lewi (1902-1951), an English professor at Dartmouth.
Astrology is a multi-faceted art and my chart yields a further description. Jupiter the great benefic sits in the 7th house, facing my rising sign. In Vedic astrology, Jupiter is in Pisces, its own sign, which creates a Hamsa Yoga, the swan yoga, for good luck and evolutionary progress. Jupiter aspects that rasty Mars of mine. It is surprising how often something good comes out of my forward movement.
In this case, the gift was twofold: one, the psychologist received and validated my careful observations (ever notice how few therapists can listen to anyone, or hear criticism?) and two, this thoughtful man responded with ideas that hadn’t occurred to me. His willingness to engage me intellectually gave me a new insights, new awareness. I enjoy that. I am grateful.
My beautiful step-daughter at Johns Hopkins is aware of my on-going debate about psychotherapy, and told me about a class she took at Hopkins called “Positive Psychology.” She sent her professor’s book to her dad for his birthday. Naturally, I pounced on the book.
And the book is fascinating. Dr. Martin Seligman makes the point that most current psychology is negative psychology: the study of despair, depression, organic illness, failure, self-sabotage, e.g., “discovering deficits and repairing damage.” What about the study of positive mental and emotional traits, like peace, joy, hope, faith, and optimism? Don’t we all want more of those in our lives? But those don’t get funded by grants so they tend not to be studied.
In my opinion, ‘positive psychology’ has largely been left in the hands of New Age self-help gurus and “The Secret” purveyors, which is mixed. Some of those people are selling snake oil, some of them are on to something. (No, there is no irony in a follower of astrology stating this truth.)
Seligman points out, rightly, I think, that people stand to benefit from studying “positive institutions that promote strengths and virtues,” that lead to “lasting fulfillment: meaning and purpose.”
Seligman admits to being agnostic and I am always surprised at the lengths to which ethical humanists go to avoid acknowledging a divine presence. What is the big deal about accepting the infinite field of all-consciousness in which we live and have our beings? Still, his well-written book builds toward an explanation of how to achieve meaning and purpose, and true happiness, in life. I recommend the book. It’s good reading. It’s a rich feast for thought.
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Why Revision is Important

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I am sparring with my middle daughter’s high school principal and her history teacher. I want her to have the opportunity to revise an “F” research paper on the Industrial Revolution so she learns how to write a good history paper. They are refusing. I don’t even care about the grade. I certainly don’t care about the industrial revolution. I just want her to learn. Moreover, she wants to learn, and will do the revision, with guidance.

The necessary disclosure: this 9th grade girl is feisty, brassy, exuberant, creative, beautiful, talented, intelligent, and original. She’s also naughty. She breaks boundaries and tests limits. She doesn’t take “no” for an answer and she won’t do most of her work. I look at her and think of that famous quote, “Well-behaved women seldom make history.”

And then my heart breaks. Because 80% of what she does ends up being self-sabotaging. Her scrambled-eggs teenage brain has an exquisite talent for bad choices. I am her mother, I ache for her, and I am sad for what she will put herself through before she understands.

But she likes her history teacher, who is dynamic and charismatic. She wants to do well for him. She works in his class. But she started to struggle and to look perplexed while doing her papers in the fall. I started making a request: “Please let her revise a paper until she understands what a good one is.”

She also admitted to me that she didn’t know what to do. I conveyed that, thinking that surely the teacher would want to help her learn what to do.

But the teacher consistently refused it. He didn’t want her to revise and he wouldn’t help her with a revision. It perplexes me. Isn’t the job of a 9th grade history teacher to teach the kids how to write a high school history paper? Isn’t his job more than to be snazzy in class? How are the kids going to learn critical thinking unless they learn how to write, and the ONLY way to learn how to write is to rewrite?

Did he expect her to write a good paper, or even a passable paper, when she hadn’t learned how to write one? Was she supposed to simply stumble across the way to write well? Does keeping-fingers-crossed-for-good-luck pass for careful pedagogy?

I know about learning to write both because it’s my lifelong pursuit, and because I taught writing at the college level. I taught Logic & Rhetoric, aka Freshman Composition, at Columbia University. With 100% certainty, I can say that the freshmen who learned how to write are the ones who revised, revised, revised.

Yes, there are some people who are born good writers. With a small amount of guidance, they become excellent writers. But mostly writing is a skill like piano playing. The more you practice, the better you get. And it’s closely related to learning how to think.

In these notions, I am not alone. George Orwell articulated the argument much better than I can. In his 1946 essay Politics and the English Language, he writes, “Modern English, especially written English, is full of bad habits which spread by imitation and which can be avoided if one is willing to take the necessary trouble. If one gets rid of these habits, one can think more clearly….”

So why wouldn’t the history teacher, and the principal, want to take the necessary trouble to help a student think more clearly? Isn’t that their reason for being? At least partly?

My daughter attends a private school, and the tuition is exorbitant. One would think that, at a school charging more than most people earn in a year, she would be required to learn how to think clearly, which means learning how to write clearly.

Orwell is talking partly about diction and construction in his essay. I guess that would be the purview of the English teacher, not the history teacher. But the message about the relationship between clear thinking and clear writing bridges all disciplines. The more clearly my daughter writes about history, the more clearly she is thinking about it. If the history teacher isn’t there to teach her how to write a history paper, shouldn’t he at least be teaching her how to think about history? Or does he just want her memorize that Robert Fulton received a patent for the steamboat in 1809?

Regarding revision, E.B. White stated it best in The Elements of Style: “Revising is part of writing. Few writers are so expert that they can produce what they are after on the first try….Remember, it is no sign of weakness or defeat that your manuscript ends up in need of major surgery. This is a common occurrence in all writing, and among the best writers.”

So why wouldn’t the teacher, and the principal, want to instill that work ethic in their students? Why wouldn’t 9th graders be taught as freshmen that revising is writing?

It’s more work for the teacher, for sure. And a teacher who knows he is lively and engaging in class might not be motivated to take the extra time and effort. He knows the kids love to be in his class. But is he really doing his job as a 9th grade history teacher, if he doesn’t require a motivated but struggling student to revise a failed paper until it is passable, so that she learns what to do? So that she learns how to think, both about history, and about an argument?

I don’t think so.