BOOKFACE.org

BOOKS and their authors writing about writers

POET AMBER ROSE TAMBLYN

at City Lights Bookstore, San Francisco

Photo by Uncle John

BOOK FACE

PHIL LESH

Searching For The Sound

I'm a reader who enjoys it like a song

PHIL LESH reading the kids stories before the show

WOLF MOON

Photo by John Lund

It is late January, 2021 and I´m awake at 2 am when I hear this loud whining sound that seems to come from inside the house, then another sound that is like a growling animal sound, loud, but I am still focused on the darkness inside, searching for the sound. Then I realize it is coming from outside, and I open the blinds to look out the front window of our San Rafael home, and I see a wolf standing at the edge of the sidewalk in front of the door, his long snout angled up, howling at the moon. Wolves use a variety of sounds to communicate. When the pack howls together they create a chorus, similar to humans. They overlay their voices, characterized by rapid pitch changes and wavering howls. Wolves are very rare in California, but I know this one resides locally. Sofia, on the other end of the house, is awakened and recognizes the call of the wolf. I listen to the howling like it´s music. Is this a sign? A few years ago there was a mountain lion in the same spot in front of my doorway. It reminds me of Aldo Leopold´s lesson about wolves in "Thinking Like A Mountain" that characterizes ecological thinking. "Only the mountain has lived long enough to listen objectively to the howl of a wolf." Having once believed that the eradication of predators, the wolf and mountain lion, would preserve the deer, but didn´t recognize the imbalance it caused, Aldo transformed his thinking to recognize the wolf with a sentiment of ecological integrity. He understood the nature and mystery of the howl. I listen for several minutes, amazed that the animal does not go away, and the howling is louder than any other animal I´ve heard outside. I look through the peephole of the door and he´s in the same position howling, and as soon as I open the door, the wolf runs away.

I didn´t realize it was January´s Full Wolf Moon until I read Bob Weir´s twitter feed when I get up:

"Welcoming in the first Wolf Moon of 2021! Occurring in Leo, it's said to be the luckiest and most prosperous day of the year. The sun shares its light with the generosity of Jupiter, marking new and bright beginnings..."

The wolf does more than howl to communicate. They whimper and whine, growl and bark, yelp and snarl, smell, about 100 times stronger than our ability, as is their hearing, superior to humans, with better night vision. They are strong with sharp teeth, and they fear humans and tigers, but humans are not their enemies and they will not attack unless provoked or threatened. The wolves can be our brothers, protectors, loyal workers, and lovers, as their mates and mothers feed their babies with milk.

The wolves come to play, prancing with their fingers, happily and causing others to dance merrily, rump in the air and bushy tail wagging.

Full Wolf Moon - Dead Ahead - Riviera Cancún, Mexico

January 13, 2024

WolfCompany.watch

e-mail: Books1st@Gmail.com

BOOKFACE REVIEWS

by Uncle John

WALKING WITH CAROLINE

She Walks In Beauty by Caroline Kennedy

The Eyes & The Impossible by Dave Eggers

We Run The Tides by Vendela Vida

JUSTICE (The Play) by Lauren Gunderson

Leap Of Faith by Queen Noor

Listening In The Dark:

Women Reclaiming The Power of Intuition by Amber Tamblyn

Hallway To Cleveland

(We Built This City - Video by The Starship)

Cheryl Strayed (WILD)

The Red Tent by Anita Diamant

Jonathan Kozol

Ordinary Resurrections:

Children In The Year of Hope

RUSS TAMBLYN

Dancing On The Edge

Amber Tamblyn

Dark Sparkler

amy tan

The Backyard Bird Chronicles

BOB DYLAN

The Philosophy of Modern Song

WILLIE NELSON

The Stories Behind My Songs

Energy Follows Thought

THE EYES & THE IMPOSSIBLE

Author: Dave Eggers

Illustrated by ShawnHarris

TRAILER

Johannes, a free dog living in a large urban park, narrates this story.

He howls like a coyote and runs at the speed of light.

He is The Eyes, who sees all in the park,

and reports to the elder bisons, who are The Keepers of the Equilibrium.

He cannot and will not lie.

Children´s Middle Grade Action & Adventure Book

For Children of All Ages

Review by Uncle John

- Part 1 -

What a great story! What a skillful storyteller Dave Eggers is! What an interesting narrator Johannes the dog is who speaks to us. What magnificent pictures capture our interest as Shawn Harris paints Johannes into the park scenes. The story holds our attention as we view nature in new ways as the critters that surround our life speak their story to us through the eyes of Johannes appointed to be The Eyes by the park bison, the oldest animals here, Freya, Meredith and Samuel, who are the keepers of the Equilibrium. Johannes sees all, and reports to the bison all he sees. They are the arbiters here for all the critters that live in this park.

This urban park by the sea is home to many critters, including dogs, bison, squirrels, birds, gulls and pelicans, starlings, raccoons, foxes, ducks, rats, mice, frogs, turtles, fish, goats, horses, owls, loons, rabbits & deer, and the coyote!

“Ha Ha Hoooo! Ha Ha Hoooo!”

“I am a different breed” Johannes says-

“Ha Ha Hoooo! Ha Ha Hoooo!”

He laughs and makes us laugh.

“When my days changed, not long ago, estimated to be about 200 years ago, it came after a night of a billion stars, siblings to our sun, and I live in the hollow of a million year old tree that died a thousand years ago, but still stands in the middle of the park wrapped in Ivy."

He´s not a time scientist.

“Ha Ha Hoooo! Ha Ha Hoooo!”

"The park is enormous. I´m not a math expert, but I believe it is ten thousand miles along its length and about three thousand along its width.”

Johannes loves to run, moves like a crack of thunder, runs like a rocket, the fastest laser, pulling at the earth and making it turn, like the speed of light, free, fast and bright.

Johannes is aptly named

For the composer gypsy musician Johannes Brahms,

"I am a comet"

And the artist painter Johannes Vermeer

Shawn Harris paints Johannes into different classical landscape paintings;

The astronomer Johannes Kepler

"God is the sun, clouds are her messengers"

& The discoverer inventor Johannes Guttenburg

Inventive narrative, exhuberant, dazzling ingenuity, quick-witted, thrilling adventure, this book is a delightful discovery.

The book is fast-pace, humorous, entertaining, fun, full of excellent observations of a poetic strange and beautiful world that brings us a full spectrum of enjoyment.

Part 2

I first heard the book listening to Dave Eggers at a book reading at the Book Fair in Berkeley, May 6, 2023. I purchase the book, read it, so I could introduce it to my grandchildren to read. While Dave read, the artist Shawn Harris painted Johannes into a classical landscape painting. His work in this book are awe-inspiring illustrations.

I sit with my grandchildren, Leopold, age 11 and Naomi, age 8 and introduce them to this book by reading from the early chapters and showing them some of the artist´s paintings. They listen attentively, quietly. Leopold gets up to do another project. Naomi asks me if I would read her another book. She picks out “Dr. Wonderful and Her Dog Blast Off To The Moon!”by Lauren Gunderson.

I read it to her cover to cover and I am surprised how much Naomi knew about the moon. A short while later her Auntie Kaela comes over to visit and Naomi picks up “The Eyes & The Impossible” book and she asks Kaela if she wants to see some pictures of a dog Johannes, with her. They have been doing some art projects together, and Kaela has a website DOGWOOD.dog

Naomi holds the book, and turns to every illustration of Johannes the dog that Shawn Harris had painted into these classical landscapes, with the two of them commenting on each picture.

I´ve listened to the audio tape of the book four times. Dave Eggers is clever, and his work sublime. Ethan Hawke is outstanding as the narrator Johannes. If you seen the trailer for this book you can see the true entertaining value this would have if it were a full animated movie.

The author also has set it up for a possible sequel. What a truly enjoyable story to capture our imagination and interest in reading books!

Shawn Harris, Illustrator

Photo by Uncle John

Writers Dave Eggers & his wife Vendela Vida & Journalist Phil Bronstein

We Run The Tides by Vendela Vida

Review by Uncle John

Part 1

WE RUN THE TIDES by Vendela Vida

Published by Harper Collins

The book begins with an epigraph, this quote by author Edith Wharton, and sets up the theme of the book:

dishonesty and deception, truth, transition and clarity.

“Why must a girl pay so dearly for her least escape from routine?

Why could one never do a natural thing without having to screen it behind a structure of artifice?”

Why do teenagers lie? Why? In one teenager´s mind “asking for forgiveness is easier than asking for permission.” We grow up out of childhood recognizing some of the lies in our lives, understanding truth from a lie, but children live in a world of great imagination, about things that might be but really aren´t. Most parents lie to their children, often in a protective constructive way. Most parents, I think, are clueless about what goes on in their teenager´s lives. Eulabee, the thirteen year old, shares her story and gives us a look at the inner workings of her mind, and a realistic glimpse of the attention in her family life.

A lie begins with a fib she shares with a neighbor and friend. Eulabee and her friend, Maria Fabiola, go door to door to share the lie with the other neighbors. That evening she is hiding in a closet from her angry and stunned parents and must come to immediate resolve to the situation, sort of a public confession. The book centers on friendships and family told by Eulabee. Her closest friend is Maria Fabiola, and her school friends Faith and Julia. Maria Fabiola garners all of the attention amongst others, partly for her physical attributes and because of her extraverted behavior. She has a unique and contagious laugh. We see Maria Fabiola tell a lie, have her friend Julia parrot her, while Eulabee says No, that did not happen, and Maria Fabiola and Julia share their version of the story with Faith who joins in the falsehood. The next day they are questioned by the school headmaster and the police, but Eulabee sticks to the truth, and the others the false tale. It brings division and separation for Eulabee, and there are other lies, that ultimately bring consequences, and the clarity of truth, resolve.

This book reminds me of Edith Wharton and the way she wrote books. This book ´s author writes about San Francisco, like Edith Wharton presented New York Society, both authors describing their literary time frame, with cultural attention to details about the setting and the neighborhoods we visit in our mind through a book, as we journey with our eyes or ears into this wonderful unfolding story about a San Francisco girl, Eulabee, a story about teenagers and the fragile friendships that form their lives, a wonderful story about families and neighborhoods. The girls know the streets they walk and run, they know the houses and who lives in them. The girls know where the boys live. They know the long swing where China Kantner lives. She´s the same age as these girls, and make this story seem real and true.

Eulabee goes to an all girls school and lives in a prestigious Presidio neighborhood. We get a very accurate picture of San Francisco in the early eighties, and the contrast thirty five years later. Vendela is deliberate, like Edith Wharton, in her descriptions and settings, her visual memories retold in the way she makes this book witty and amusing. There are difficult & uncomfortable moments too, true to the changes in all teenagers lives.

Vendela Vida started to write a nonfiction book but quickly turned it into a work of fiction that gives the author broader liberty, a chance to reminisce this nostalgic look at San Francisco, around teenagers, and lying. Eulabee is very honest about her lies, and how others lie, how it has changed her life, and ultimately, what she´s learned from it. This book is important and timely because we live in an age where lies affect us when someone of influence can call LIES TRUTH to deceive and confuse others who believe it.

Vendela Vida has a literary license and her love for literature comes through in this story. Her real talent as a writer is the way she ends each chapter as a challenge, motivation, inspiration to continue reading. I remember finding books in the library like that, where the way each chapter ends compels you to never want to put it down. This book reads like a movie and hopefully might become one.

We built this city

We walk the streets

We climb the hills

We look for stars

We run the tides

Part 2

The Message

"The clarity of truth is invigorating."

Eulabe shares: "two lessons that reigned over my childhood:

1. Hard work conquers all obstacles.

2. Good triumphs over evil (which is always lurking)."

Nostalgic

The author knows what it´s like to be that age, growing up in San Francisco, and being around kids that age that she writes about. This book is a true nostalgic look at life that many people can identify with. It brings back pleasant memories to me of becoming a teenager, and the recollections of living in San Francisco during the 1984-85 timeline of this story, and I can relate to all of what the author describes in stupendous detail.

The book brings reflections in my mind, and I recall the day I spent with my thirteen year old niece visiting from New York. I bring her to a bookstore in San Franciso, and on that day, Patti Smith, poet, musician, songwriter, author and artist, is is in the store promoting her poetry book “Babel”. It is a special moment when we meet her because Bob Dylan´s “Simple Twist Of Fate” is playing on the bookstore´s loudspeakers. Lisa, my niece, captures her attention and she asks how old she is. Patti tells her “You´re the same age my daughter is. I had to give her up at birth. Now I´m searching for her. I´d like to see her again,” she says, resigned. "It´s not that I didn´t love her, because I do. It´s something I had to do then. It´s good to see what a girl your age looks like, Lisa. I´m going to give you a copy of my book “Babel”. There´s a poem in there about my daughter Jenny that I´d like you to read", she says, and makes the sign of the cross for her.

"sometimes quite unexpectedly i gaze on the child i have brought on the world. i have never seen her nor do i expect to see by any more than the power of making my work known for her to find."

"jenny" excerpted, from babel by patti smith © G.P. Putnam´s Sons. Reprinted with permission

BOOKS

The author inspires us about books and authors, and provokes an interest in reading

The Unbearable Lightness Of Being by Milan Kundera

The House Of Mirth & The Age Of Innocence by Edith Wharton

Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson

I´m not going to list them here, but there are many references to writers and their books.

Humor and Laughter

This book has its funny moments, and it makes me smile and laugh each time I read it.

Friends

What´s important to these young teenage girls?

Outfits & shopping might change style over time but their interest never fades.

This book reads like a diary. Eulabee records her interactions with her three closest friends in eighth grade. When she is shunned by her friends, they are still her best friends in her mind, and she holds their friendship together over time. Maria Fabiola, the center of everyone´s attention, has long black perfect hair, ethereal (light green) eyes, full lips. She´s attractive, and noticed, with bracelets cascading up and down her arm like a "waterfall of notes", and she is humorous, and known for her laugh, high-pitched and delicate, and her laughter contagious.

Julia has shoulder length light brown hair, cobalt (not "blue") eyes and a stepsister, Gentle.

Faith has long red hair, sometimes makes her look like Pippi Longstocking, other days she looks like Anne of Green Gables. She is special and adopted, named after the child who passed away, and she really identifies with her.

Keith Is Eulabee´s first boyfriend.

Family

Vendela Vida understands the dynamic importance to show how family helps shape our lives. Eulabee has a great relationship with her parents, and sister, Svea. Her mom is from Sweden, a culture and language her sister is more interested in than Eulabee. Her mom belongs to a Swedish sewing group, The Stitch ´n Bitch, that becomes a club of complainers. It is a good outlet for them to express themselves in a social gathering. And there are many interesting stories within stories that happen here in her family life. Eulabee has great interactions with her Dad, who tells her humorous stories. The disappearing Golden Gate Bridge in the fog brings out his playful side. He has an art gallery, south of Market Street. Other families in this book are more broken than this one, but they all play an important role in the teenager´s life.

Languages

"Spanish is more beautiful if you hear it."

Eulabee moves to Lisbon, notices all the similarities there to San Francisco, like a twin sister city. She becomes a Portuguese translator. This Euroculture tale is also very interesting. It reminds me of my Portuguese friends in San Francisco, and I´m grateful she shares this extended story with us. Obrigado!

Searching

1984 – 1985

There are no cell phones, no social media, and no internet. The San Francisco Civic Library holds a vast amount of information, and reference books and sources for more information. We use the Library Card Catalogue, and one day I could not find what I was looking for, when I notice a locked cage, a room full of stacks of books with no access to them. I inquire and receive special permission to spend an afternoon in this Closed Stack section, with the understanding I could not remove any books from there. I browse the shelves and skim the books, and to my amazement I find what I am looking for.

This book, We Run The Tides, creates a mystery about a missing book on the school bookshelf. And the stories told in this book focus on missing people, and kidnappings, real and made up ones, and their search.

2019

Now we have The Internet and search engines working for us to find even more information. Ironically, there are still some things I cannot find on the Internet.

Thirty-five years later, Eulabee bridges the cusp of change from the transitional eighties to her grown up life as a translator, with a new family and old friends, except for Maria Fabiola, whom they search for but cannot locate her on social media. Eulabee has a chance encounter with her in 2019 in Capri, Italy, that brings the story to its climax, and for Eulabee, there is only the sound of Maria Fabiola ringing in her ears.

Promontory Riders

Eulabee shares "There are alerts, of course, and warnings, and in Sea Cliff these warnings come in the form of foghorns. The deep bellowing foghorns are the soundtrack to my childhood."

They are thirteen, almost fourteen years old. Eulabee, Maria Fabiola, Julia and Faith: They know the neighborhood. They own the streets. They run the tides. They know how to read the ocean and navigate the slippery rocks from Baker to China Beach, how to ride the promontory between them at low tide, as "the ocean inhales its waves."

Hardback Book Released February 9, 2021

Harper Collins, publisher

JUSTICE

adapted from the book by Lauren Gunderson

Music by Bree Lowdermilk

Lyrics by Kait Kerrigan

Directed by Ashley Rodbro

Closing Show 3-12-23 @ The Boyer Theatre, Mill Valley, California

Reviewed by Uncle John

excerpt

The setting for this play is simple and useful.

There are only three characters in this play. Yet there are over fifty people in the creative team, design, and production crew, and more than half are women.

Lauren Gunderson is sometimes described as America´s best and most prolific playwright. She is incredibly talented as a writer, innovative, insightful and inspiring, and has an ingenious way with creating dialogue for real life characters that appear in her plays, like Madame Curie, Lord Byron, Isaac Newton, and here, Sandra Day O´Connor, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor, the first three female Supreme Court Justices. She knows how to invoke other writers like Shakespeare and Walt Whitman, and her work is always interesting and able to hold an audiences´ attention throughout the plays´presentation.

In this play, the three actresses, all with excellent and powerful voices are perfectly cast here, Karen Murphy as Sandra, Lynda DiVito as Ruth, and Stephanie Prentice as Sonia. The music by Bree Lowdermilk and lyrics by Kait Kerrigan, with her love for language, are an ideal team for this special production.

Justice has these meanings:

Justice is an honorable name. "It is the ethical, philosophical idea that people are to be treated impartially, fairly, properly (kindly), and reasonably by the law and by arbiters of the law.

Justice is a legal structure or system designed to judge in a general sense who should be accorded a benefit or burden when the law is applied to a person´s factual circumstances. Laws are to ensure that no harm befalls another, and that, where harm is alleged, a remedial action is taken - both the accuser and the accused receive a morally right consequence merited by their actions.

Justice is a title conferred upon a judge of the U.S. Supreme Court, the federal or state courts of appeal."

And who knows but that you have come to a royal position for such a time as this?

Esther 4: 14

Her Royal Highness, Queen Noor of Jordan, gives a speech at a luncheon in San Francisco. The press ignores her speech but covers her entrance. The queen arrives in the hallway at the table to the banquet room next door, where the mayor of San Francisco, Mayor Gavin Newsom, is speaking at a luncheon for the Jewish Vocational Service. The media quotes the mayor. He states the hotels' contractual dispute is making event hopping simpler, as events are more likely to take place side by side.

I am assigned a seat at Table 72. "That table doesn't exist," I am informed, so I'm seated at a table up front instead. I asked if I could record the queen's speech. "Definitely not" I'm told. She is an eloquent, interesting speaker. She is American-born, active politically in college, and graduated from Princeton University with a degree in architecture and urban planning. Her Dad worked in aviation, and for President Kennedy's administration. She spoke about women in Jordan, their training in science and technology, their modesty. She shares a romantic moment she had with her husband, the Arab monarch, in an aircraft hovering over the Middle East, under the stars, in a peaceful glance: "Look, here's Jordan, over there she describes seven other Middle Eastern countries presenting a hopeful portrait. "And there," she says, "the holy city, Jerusalem, the three major theocratic faiths share." She addresses her husband's role in history, his work for peace, and her many projects. She wakes our reality about our perceptions of the Muslim people, and our bond with our common ancestor of faith, Abraham. She speaks of one golden rule embraced by the three theocratic beliefs: "treat others as you want to be treated," quoting from the Torah, and Jesus, from his sermon on the Mount, and Muhammad.

She has a reception afterwards where I am able to have an audience with her. "No pictures, and she doesn't want to talk to the media," her people inform us at the door. She shares that when she would give a speech on some of the same interests she is covering now, and she is here today in support of the National Kidney Foundation, educating and informing people about kidney disease and what they can do to help; Her Majesty, Queen Noor, would give a public address that the media would cover, and all they would report about is her hair, what dress she is wearing, her accessories, the flower arrangements, the color of the curtain behind her, her evening gown, but nothing of the substance she is trying to communicate. Then they would write about her shopping, and meeting celebrities, and parties, and they have a fairy tale notion of what being a queen is, she shares. Her aspirations growing up were not for royalty, but rather serving in the Peace Corps, and she ended up with an unexpected life instead.

She is tall, slender, fit and youthful. She is sitting on a table, full of grace, her head poised and imperial, and she is wearing a beautiful spring dress, with flowers. She is humble and intelligent, with insightful wisdom. When I approach her, I ask her permission to ask a personal question about her husband, and she indulges me, and informs me the story I heard is not true; "but I will tell you this," she says, "the king had great instincts". I ask her another question. "I didn't record my speech today," she tells me. "No one did," and she turns to her aides for confirmation. She challenges me to read her book "LEAP OF FAITH", which contains her message. "You'll find the answer to your question there." One of her aides gives me special permission to take pictures.