FROM COPULATING DOGS TO TURKISH BUSES; RESEARCH, ITS UPS AND DOWNS
All fiction requires some research. Sometimes it is minimal. For my Appassionata story, I decided on a metaphor as a foreshadowing device, two street dogs copulating, a small dog mounting a big one. I know nothing about dogs. No problem, Google to the rescue! Within minutes I had a vivid scene involving a bat-eared bulldog and an Australian shepherd with a luxuriously shaggy coat.More often, research is complex and elaborate. For my story about a night bus from Istanbul to Fethiye I spent many days on the internet looking up maps of Turkish highways, towns along the route, and details[...]
FOLLOW UP; ALBEROBELLO, THE LECTURE SERIES AND MIM
I did finish Appassionata, my complex story about Alberobello in Puglia, Italy, set to various classical pieces for solo piano. Once I had my back stories for the three major characters, my story unraveled easily and went in some surprising directions I myself could not have predicted two weeks ago. In the meanwhile much of the music I used blended well either as accompaniment to the narrative or as crucial metaphor.I used a Chopin Nocturne, Rachmaninoff's Prelude in G minor and all three movements of Beethoven's Appassionata for the story. Two Schumann pieces from his Carnaval also have a brief[...]
ICEBERGS AND APPASSIONATA, THE CHALLENGES OF CHARACTER
As I devour my writing lectures, I struggle with a difficult story that has already failed twice. The teacher is giving general instructions about plot, character development, settings and action in a way that I would have found confusing if I were a novice college student. I am not. I know most of what he is saying because I have discovered it by myself through experience. There are little pearls here and there however, or concepts that succinctly summarize certain issues. One of them is, iceberg.I generally approach a story with a few little kernels of inspiration as a starting[...]
ACCENTS IN WINE; SAME AS LANGUAGE
Can wine speak? And if so, can it speak in accents?If you get to know certain wines well, you'll find that they indeed do speak a language, and with certain accents.A case in point: take the above 2011 Healdsburg Rancher from the Russian River we recently sampled in a blind tasting. It had a clean, fruity domestic pinot nose, a delicate structure as all pinot noir should have, but robust and fruit forward, enough to announce itself as being from the New World. It has a slightly sweet mid palate profile and a food friendly, acidic finish with no[...]
BUYUKADA; NOT ENOUGH DRAMA
Several years ago, I wrote about a visit to Buyukada in Turkey, an offshore island in a chain known as the Prices' Islands that Istanbul dwellers use as a summer resort. It is a scenic place with hillside villas, beaches, a lively boardwalk full of outdoor restaurants and an ornate, fin-de-siecle pier. There are no motorized vehicles in the island except for fire and police, all transportation via donkeys, horse driven carriages and nowadays by bicycle.The essay was to be a chapter in a book I conceived as a memoir-travelogue that I never finished. It described the traditional fayton tour[...]
DINNER AND WINE WITH A ROCK STAR, SAMMY HAGAR
When I accepted our friend Kelley's invitation to dinner at far away Mill Valley, Marin County, north of San Francisco, including a nearby hotel to stay overnight, I did so because the accompanying wine event peaked my curiosity. I did not count on having dinner with a rock star and his entourage.It was to be a BYOB (bring your own bottle) Collectors Night at El Passeo, a restaurant owned by Tyler Florence, whose Wayfare Tavern in San Francisco I was familiar with. The theme was pre-2005 Chateauneuf du Pape, one of my favorite wines. BYOB may be routine in certain[...]