Literatura De Cordel

If you come to visit us in Brazil, you’ll occasionally see a stand where the offerings look like this:

Literatura de Cordel (lit. “cord literature”) derives its name from the way the wares are often displayed, i.e. hung by a cord, usually with the aid of clothespins.

Such stands are less common in the southern part of the country, but are a feature in many of the fairs and markets of the northeast, principally in the States of Pernambuco, Paraiba and Ceará.

These little booklets are the last survivors of a form of popular literature with which an inhabitant of eighteenth-century Madrid, or nineteenth-century England, would have been quite familiar, but that you’d be hard-put to find elsewhere in the modern world. They contain stories and ballads and are generally produced in black-and-white, illustrated with woodcuts.

Down through the years, the content has taken-on a distinctly Brazilian flavor.

Many of the books deal with the folklore, legends and history of the northeast, subjects like Lampião and his band.

I've previously posted about him under the title The Bandit King. And, if you like, you can read that post by clicking on this link:

http://murderiseverywhere.blogspot.com/2010/01/bandit-king.html

One of the classics of cord literature, The Arrival of Lampião in Hell, by José Pacheco, is much-prized by collectors.

And a satire on the Brazil’s most recent president, The Arrival of Lula in Hell has been enjoying a good deal of success in recent months.

As to the art, two of the more talented woodcutters are Adir Botelho and José Francisco Borges.

This is Botelho:

And this is a work from Borges, who has had expositions at both the Louvre and the Smithsonian:

Leighton - Monday

In the Beginning

One of the nicest things about having a website is that people write me letters.  My personal website, although it's got the usual self-serving promotional nonsense on it, is largely taken up by a section called FINISH YOUR NOVEL, in which I try to tell people some of the things I've learned through years of failing and trying again.

So a lot of my mail comes from aspiring writers.  A few days back I got a long letter from a 16-year-old high school girl, who pretty much made my jaw drop. Among other things, she said:


" . . . I recently started developing my latest idea for a novel. With my previous ideas, I had never fully explored the idea and ended up letting it sit until I found myself saying "When am I going to start that novel again?" Of course, when that would occur I ended up spitting out a few more random bursts of ideas and that was that. The cycle repeated itself.

"So now I'm to the point where I feel idle in my life - I'm going nowhere and have no general direction I want to go in. It's quite annoying, actually. A high school junior striving for success to take her into unknown territory - her future. But despite the stresses of getting into a good college and everything that may entail, I find myself coming back to the yearning to write a book. Often I ask myself,  "So when are you going to actually sit down and write?"

She says that in her other artistic endeavors, "What takes me the longest is starting the piece. Staring at a blank canvas is a lot like staring at a blank sheet of paper, in my opinion. I'm at peace while working, but starting is insanely difficult, especially when I don't have direction."

So, okay, she's extraordinary, and I should probably be asking her for advice rather than giving it to her.  But she asked.  And here's part of what I wrote back:

The first thing I'd suggest is that you decide what kind of book you like best, and choose that form.  If you've read a lot of thrillers or YA or steampunk or dystopian books or historical novels or whatever, you have an intrinsic sense of how they work, how they're structured.  That's a big head start.

I'm going to give you two pieces of similar advice from somewhat disparate sources and then one more piece of advice that says the same thing, but from the perspective of a novelist -- actually, my favorite living novelist.  

First, from the German writer Goethe: "Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it; Beginnings have genius, power, and magic in them."

Second, from Jacques Copeau, one of the leading figures of 20th-century classical theater (this quotation actually inspired Laurence Olivier to stop worrying about getting more training and just start acting):  "There is only one way to begin to do a thing, and that is to do it."

You can see where these are leading.  Third is an excerpt I read two weeks ago in my favorite novel of the year, Haruki Murakami's "1Q84."

The character is a young writer who's been given an opportunity to ghost-edit a manuscript by a 17-year-old girl that has a peculiar power but is abysmally written.  And he needs desperately to get started.

"He had no well-defined plan for the rewrite, no consistent methods or guidelines he had prepared, just a few detailed ideas for certain sections. . . . But events had already started moving, and he had a limited amount of time.  He couldn't just sit there, thinking, arms folded.  All he could do was deal with one small, concrete problem after another.  Perhaps, as he worked on each detail by hand, an overall image would take shape spontaneously."

This is as good a description of the writing process as I've ever read.  Writing is like laying stepping-stones over a void: each scene, each idea, makes the pathway a little longer, and eventually something begins to sort of shimmer at you in the distance, and that'll be the real nature of your novel.  We learn what we're writing about by writing about it, and then we go back and either tidy up the beginning or rewrite it entirely.  But whether that beginning is ever seen by a reader or not, it was an absolutely essential part of writing the book.

So what I'd suggest is setting a totally arbitrary schedule.  Give yourself a month or so to figure out what kind of book you want to write, and then think of a character, or two, or three, and a situation that might lend itself to that kind of book.  In a wonderful recent documentary on Woody Allen, the interviewer asked where Allen's ideas came from, and Allen said he has ideas all the time and he writes them on any old piece of paper and puts them in a suitcase so he can rifle through them whenever he needs a subject.  Then he pulled out a few and read them aloud.  One of them was, "A man inherits the equipment of a great magician."

That was it. No and then he, no and his friends say, not even, but.  Just that sentence.  Remember, in the section of my site that you read, my most basic definition of a novel: "A novel is the story of someone who . . ."

So get your sentence and create a folder on your hard drive and start to write.  You can throw ideas into if for a while if you like, but pretty quickly, if I were you, I'd dive in with an opening sentence that engages your imagination: "She always remembered which night it happened because of the lunar eclipse . . ." and keep going.  

And keep going and keep going.

When you get into trouble, remember that we all get into trouble, every single time we do this. And remember also that your book isn't going to be perfect, so don't stop for imperfections.  Make them stronger later.  The French poet Paul Valery said, "A poem is never finished, only abandoned."  This is equally true of novels.  Get through the story the best you can.

Then you can write your second novel.

Tim -- Sunday

Guest Author: Anne Zouroudi

It is my distinct honor to present as our guest blogger my colleague in Greek arms, the distinguished novelist Anne Zouroudi.  Anne brings a gifted lyrical voice to the mystery genre, and to say that her detective, Hermes Diaktoros aka The Fat Man, is a magical protagonist tells only part of the tale.

Anne was born in the north of England, and after a business career that included a stint on Wall Street, she moved to the Greek islands, where she married and lived for some years. Anne now lives in the Derbyshire Peak District but her attachment to Greece remains strong, and the country is the inspiration for much of her writing.  She is the author of the Mysteries of the Greek Detective, each based on one of the Seven Deadly Sins: “The Messenger of Athens” (shortlisted for the ITV3 Crime Thriller Award 2008 for Breakthrough Authors and longlisted for the Desmond Elliot Prize), “The Taint of Midas,” “The Doctor of Thessaly” and “The Lady of Sorrows,” shortlisted for the East Midlands Book Awards in 2010. Her most recent published novel is the sixth in the series, “The Whispers of Nemesis.” Book seven, “The Bull of Mithros,” will be published by Bloomsbury in June 2012.  Anne’s website and blog are at www.annezouroudi.com

Welcome, my friend.

It’s not everyone who’d relish an enforced stint in the Greek army. Certainly I wouldn’t—the very idea of bunk beds and reveille, parade grounds and bossy, unsmiling men barking orders (orders? I don’t take orders) makes me shudder, and the indignities of communal showers and latrines would have me AWOL within hours. 

But my son, it seems, is quite looking forward to it. Which is just as well, since at the end of this month, he’ll have his head shaved, be kitted out with khakis and heavy boots, and enter the Basic Training programme for National Service recruits at the barracks in Nafplio, a couple of hours drive from Athens on the Argolic Gulf.

He’s proud to be joining a fighting force with over 4000 years of history—a once-legendary army commanded by Alexander the Great and Achilles. Sadly, at this low-point in Greece’s fortunes, the army is feeling its share of the pain. With the military budget slashed, basic training has been cut from two months to two weeks; there are rumours there’s no ammunition for recruits’ firearms training, and few weapons for them to fire if the ammo were there.  

A few months ago, I was invited to Athens by my Greek publisher. It was a memorable trip, not least of all because I was interviewed live, in Greek, on national television (Yes, it was terrifying. My Greek’s not bad, but it’s not up to that standard, not even close. But the gods were feeling kind, and somehow I got away with it). A book-signing was scheduled in one of the city’s huge bookstores, a splendid five-storey palace of reading overlooking Syntagma Square. The event went well, questions were asked and answered. We said our goodbyes, and my publisher led me out onto the square.

Revolution was brewing there. Tens of thousands of people were gathering to protest the latest Draconian measures the government was proposing (Draco was himself an Athenian, in around 600BC; his punishment for debtors was slavery). Athenian Greeks are highly political, and will readily strike, demonstrate or protest to make their point. But this was different. The atmosphere was calm, but touched with danger; these were people right at the end of their ropes, and had little to lose.

The Athenians I met on that occasion were close to despair. Knowing they were Europe’s whipping boys, each felt the disgrace personally; humiliated by the screw-ups of their leaders, they felt shame in their failure to thrive in what had seemed the Brave New World of the Euro. Like an army defeated, they were on their knees, and it was tragic to see them brought so low.

But Greece has been down before, and she’ll pick herself up. She’ll pick herself up, because at the heart of every Greek is a Zorba-like outlook on life which makes them flourish.

I recall a journey by taxi, on the island of Kefalonia—a beautiful island with glorious beaches. The taxi-driver was a genial soul called Manos; he offered his congratulations that we had mastered some of his language, and took our understanding as his cue to talk at length about his life.

“Look,” he said. “If the taxi business goes well, or if it goes badly, what do I care? I have a piece of land with a few olive trees, and every year I make my oil. I have my garden and my vegetables, I have a few chickens and I grow a few grapes to make a glass of wine. I have my beautiful wife, and my beautiful children, and we’re all healthy. What more does a man need?”

A wise man, indeed, and fairly typical, in my experience, of an attitude bred in that land of milk and honey. Greeks out in the islands will, I feel, weather Greece’s current economic storm much better than city dwellers, because they have the resources for subsistence close at hand. In the islands, you can still gather snails after the rain, and make a stew; you can pick wild greens, catch a fish, keep a few chickens or rabbits in the backyard, and many people do so. In many ways, the remoter islands especially have changed very little since Homer was a boy, and since the gods were bestowing gifts and wreaking havoc.

But what of those gods now, in Greece’s hour of need? Have they deserted the mountains and meadows, abandoned the rivers and the seas?

Let me end with a quote from the Messenger of Athens, where old Nikos is trying to persuade his niece out of an affair.

“There are no gods,” said Irini.

“Why so certain? Look.” Nikos gestured towards the hillsides, and at the open sea. “This is their terrain. They’re not far away. Some say when the people stopped believing in them, they ceased to exist. But this view’s still what it was when Jason built the Argo and the Minotaur was eating virgins in the labyrinth. Two thousand years, and nothing’s changed; and don’t think they’ve gone! Orthodoxy is just a facade, a veneer. If you look around, really look” – he pointed to the centre of his forehead – “using this eye, then you start to see. They’re here, and they’re watching.”

And taking a great interest in Greece’s fortunes, have no doubt... 

Efharisto para poli, Anne.

Jeff—Saturday

Born or Taught?

What do you think of creative writing? Or at least the teaching of it? Can people be taught the craft of creating convincing character, constructing plot, writing vividly and passionately? Many think so. After all, despite the troubles the publishing industry faces, creative writing courses, in the UK at least, are oversubscribed. Or perhaps it's because of those troubles; after all, it has never been easier to make a book available to the public. Yesterday I downloaded the new IBooks Author app. It came with a free damaged liver. I was crestfallen to learn you still had to supply the text. What are Apple playing at?

There has been a bit of a brouhaha about creative writing courses over here in the UK recently. A very important and prestigious writer and critic - or at least that's what he sees when he looks in the mirror - called Philip Hensher attacked the plethora of courses and said that academic institutions "will always prefer the second-rate and self-limited writer to the dangerous maverick." You don't need to be Freud to realise that Hensher sees himself as having a foot, clad in a brightly coloured sock to prove how really crazy he is, firmly placed in the maverick camp.

Giles Foden, another very important and prestigious etc, who is professor of Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia, where the first UK graduate creative writing course was founded 40 years ago, hit back in suitably bitchy style. Hensher, he claimed, wanted his job and lost out to him after interview and is therefore bitter. UEA has just produced a collection of work written by its alumni, edited by Foden, and features stories from the likes of Ian McEwan and Kazuo Ishiguro. The point of it being, 'Look how many great authors we've produced.'

But that's the UEA course, and even then only around 20 of the 300 or so who have taken the course could be counted as household names, according to Hensher. Many more have been published. But that still leaves the majority who never have been. There are hundreds of other creative writing courses now. Most of those who attend will never be published. Does that mean they have failed? Are they eaten up by anguish and regret? Or are they thankful for the experience? Do these courses still offer the talented writer a route to the book shops (or the route to the Amazon online store)?

I'm not sure. I know several writers who teach on some of these courses. Most enjoy it. It gets them out from behind their desk and into a room full of people, whose enthusiasm for and appreciation of literature energises them. There is great satisfaction, I've been told, in helping a student formalise their thoughts, structure their story and produce a convincing piece of fiction. Many of them tell me that they encounter some fabulous writers, who start the course hesitant and self-conscious, but then grow more confident and assured as it progresses. It is for that reason, they say, the courses are worthwhile.

But that also means, and these friends confirm it, there are those who are probably wasting their time. But rarely are they told this. Their presence means funds. In this climate, it's a rare and bold academic institution that will turn down cash.

For what it's worth, I think there's some merit in these courses. But only for those with a bit of life experience. I'm talking about those who have always wanted to write but have worked in other jobs, or raised kids, but are teeming with ideas and just need some guidance to turn those ideas into a sellable work of literature. I'm less convinced in the merit of taking teenagers straight from school and breeding them for a life in literature. They would be much better off getting a 'proper' job, living a bit, better still living alot, writing for their own pleasure, and then producing some work when they or it is ready, and attending a course if they need to.  (But still keep the proper job. It's a bloody snakepit out there.)

And if I needed any proof to back up these thoughts, then I would need to look no further than two of my fellow blogmates, Stan and Michael, whose Edgar nomination for Death of a Mantis - richly deserved - proves the adage that age and experience beats youth and a terrible haircut any day of the week, and that a wine gets better as it matures (and that when it does, Stan and Mike are likely to drink it...)

Well done chaps!

cheers

Dan - Friday

Leonardo Pisano Bigollo

It's very unlikely that you’ve heard of Leonardo Pisano Bigollo; I hadn’t until I started looked for some background information for this blog.  He was born in 1170 and died some 80 years later, he was an intellectual friend of Emperor Fredrick II, and he is regarded as perhaps the greatest western mathematician of the middle ages.  He also made an enormous contribution to western culture by recognizing and popularizing a concept that changed the way we deal with numbers to an extent equivalent to what computers have meant in our era.

But he is remembered today because he gave his name (or at least one of his names) to one of the most intriguing mathematical phenomena in nature.  Part of the name problem is that he seemed to go under a variety of names – frowned upon nowadays! – but in the intellectual world he was often referred to as Leonardo Fibonacci or, most usually, just Fibonacci.

Statue of Fibonacci in Pisa

Fibonacci’s great contribution was that he recognized the value of the Hindu-Arabic number system, and popularized it in the west through a book Liber Abaci.  At that time the Roman number system was in use.  We still find it quaint to use it on clocks or at the end of movies to code the year, but imagine doing arithmetic in it. XII + XII = ?  Easy rules enable us to work out 12 + 12 but how would you go about doing the Roman calculation?  (No cheating by converting any of the Roman characters to Hindu-Arabic numerals.)  And after you’ve worked that out you might like to try XII x XII = ?  The only odd thing is that it took more than six hundred years from the invention of the Hindu-Arabic system for someone to get the point in the west.  Of course, communication was very different in the twelfth century, and no doubt there was a bit of prejudice about foreign ideas.  (Not everything’s changed in the last 800 years.)

Fibonacci did some really deep research of his own in number theory in an era where there were few established mathematical tools.  But he's remembered today for a particular sequence of numbers which is now called the Fibonacci sequence, although it too goes back to the Hindu mathematicians.  Fibonacci was interested in the numbers because of an idealized rabbit breeding problem.  (I’m not going to go into that here – idealized rabbit breeding sounds like an oxymoron to me.)  This is how the sequence works.

Fibonacci Chimney by Mario Merz

Each number in the sequence is obtained by adding the previous two numbers together.  The first two numbers are 1 and 1.  Thus the third number is 1+1=2. The fourth number is 1+2 = 3.  The fifth is 2+3 = 5, the next 3+5 = 8, then 13, 21, 34 and so on.  The first few terms of the sequence are displayed on the chimney of Turku Energia in Turku, Finland, in two meter high neon lights.

Fibonacci's Dream by MartinaSchettina

What is fascinating about the Fibonacci numbers is that they occur in all sorts of surprising places in nature.  They lead to particularly attractive spiral curves, they predict the way leaves and flower petals are arranged.  And those spirals are clearly visible in the seed heads of sunflowers and many others.  The arrangement of plant primordia in this way even has a name - phyllotaxis. 

A Fibonacci Spiral
Each square's side
is a Fibonacci number

They seem to have an almost mystical fascination.  That's how they arose originally in connection with Sanskrit prosody.  There is a formula which allows one to calculate the numbers, and it involves the Golden Ratio beloved of the ancient Greeks for the design of temples.  For some reason there is a feeling of perfect proportion about this ratio.  When we see it in art or architecture we immediately feel a satisfaction with the proportions.  Where does that come from?  Take a look at the Parthenon below. 

Modern artists use the numbers themselves, and they made a bit appearance in The Da Vinci Code.  There is a journal published quarterly devoted specifically to their properties and applications.  Half an hour with Google shows that they are used to argue everything from numerological conspiracies to the existence of God.

However, their ubiquitous occurrence in nature turns out to be a nod in Darwin’s direction.  The arrangement of leaves in this particular spiral allows the best average exposure to sunlight.  The Fibonacci spirals of the sunflower seed head can be shown to be the best way of packing seeds that are generated at the center and then move outwards.  Here’s a link to a YouTube simulation which shows how the process might work. Sunflower

So Fibonacci will be remembered forever, albeit maybe for the wrong reason.  Not bad for a mess of rabbits.

Michael – Thursday. 


PS Stanley and I just learned that our book DEATH OF THE MANTIS has been shortlisted for the Edgar Award for best paperback original.  We're absolutely thrilled and just want to thank all our friends and readers out there for all your enthusiasm, encouragement and support.


M&S

The Anta Of Miracema

“We’ve got a problem,” she said.

“I thought that’s what producers are for,” I said, “to solve problems.”

“Which is exactly what this particular producer happens to be doing, so stop looking through that viewfinder and pay attention.”

I did.

When she was sure she had my full attention, she went on:

“The mayor owns an anta, and he–”

“He owns a what?”

“An anta. And he wants us to take it back to São Paulo in the plane.”

The mayor in question presided over an out-of-the-way place called Miracema do Norte in the State of Tocantins. So out of the way, in fact, that we’d hired an aircraft to get us there. One like this:

As you can see, Embraer Xingus aren’t very big. We barely had enough room on board for the equipment and the crew.

And an anta, my friends, is this creature:

Most of you gringos would call it a Brazilian tapir. If, indeed, you’d call it anything at all, that is. Because, let’s be honest, how many times do you need to? It’s not like you find them on every street corner.

But I digress.

We were making a film for the state’s power company, and shooting footage all over town. Try that in any small town in Brazil without staying on the good side of the mayor. Fact is, you can’t. So the prefeito had to be placated.

“Why São Paulo?” I asked.

“To give it to a zoo.”

“Back up and explain.”

“He found it in the forest when it was a baby. Before it lost its stripes, he said.”

“They have stripes?”

“The babies do. He loves it.”

“So why does he want to give it to a zoo?”

“Because people around here eat them. She’s forever getting loose, and he’s afraid–”

“I get the picture. Aren’t there any zoos in this part of the world?”

“Not one.”

“So how are you going to–”

“I don’t know yet. I’ll see when we get there.”

“We?”

“You’re coming with me.”  

“Now?”

“Now.”

 “Why do I have to go?”

“Because he’s the mayor, and you head up this crew, and if you don’t go, it will be a snub. Just be sure to keep your mouth shut and let me do the talking.”

I hated being bossed around by producers.

But this one was my wife, so I went.

I think, at this point, a few words about antas might be in order.

They’re the largest mammal in Brazil, but we don’t see them often. And there are a number of reasons for that. Firstly, they love water and, like hippos, spend a good deal of time under it, walking along streambeds and remaining submerged for considerable periods.

Another reason is that the people who live in the regions in which they abound are very fond of the way they taste. Still another is that they’re spread very thin. Each anta requires an area of forest larger than 500 football pitches to sustain it, so they tend to lead solitary existences, except when they get together to mate. Still another is because they’re naturally shy. And, finally, their reproductive cycle doesn't favor continued existence. Their lives are relatively short (25 to 30 years) while their period of gestation is exceptionally long, It doesn’t help, either, that they bear but a single offspring each time.

They’re smart, though. Very smart. The brains of antas have a gigantic concentration of neurons ranking them among the most intelligent of nature’s creatures, which is probably the only reason there are any left at all.

And also, no doubt, one of the reasons why the mayor liked having Carlota in his backyard.

That was her name: Carlota. He’d had her, at that point, for about five years, and she weighed 500 pounds (225 kilograms) if she weighed an ounce.

She stood there nuzzling me with one of those flexible snouts tapirs have while my wife explained that small aircraft have their load limits, and we were close to exceeding ours, and if Carlota had been a mere 50 kilos or so, we would have been happy to oblige, but there was no way that the pilot, etc., etc.

By the time we finished, the mayor was disappointed.

But he understood.

And, as a sign of his continued good will, he offered us coffee.

Meanwhile, Carlota and I bonded.

I would have taken her along, really I would, if there’d been room on that plane.

But it wouldn’t have been to put her in a zoo.

You have no idea how charming an anta can be.

And I was quite sure none of my neighbors knew how good they’re reputed to taste.

Leighton - Monday

Gardenias

My mother was born into gentility, or at least the Los Angeles version of it.

She was fourth-generation (very rare here in the 1940s), social register, coming-out party, Hancock Park mansion -- the whole little-princess,many-maids,engraved-invitation, tennis-anyone world.  No one talked much about the fact that the guy who made all the money, four generations back, did it as the city's biggest plumber.  "Trade" was far behind and forgotten by the time my mother was a troublesome teenager, tiptoeing off to the movie studios to work as an extra and sneaking the first of what would eventually be hundreds of thousands of cigarettes.

My grandparents were worried about her, and they were right to be.  At the age of 21 or 22, spoiled, imperious, and ridiculously beautiful, she married a penniless Irish adventurer from Chicago who had already, in his middle twenties, run away to sea, lived in China, fled the Communists to the Philippines,  and had a vision -- on the deck of a ship in the middle of the China Sea -- that told him he should fly airplanes.  So he came home to risk his neck as a test pilot and stole my mother from her parents on his way to the airfield.

(There's a picture of my mom and dad, boarding a plane for their furtive honeymoon, over on my other blog, www.timothyhallinan.com/blog.)

By the time I was nine or ten, my father was a successful aerospace executive and we were living in Washington, D.C. where my mother adorned Republican circles and was frequently photographed with people like Pat Nixon.  (There's a picture of that on the other blog, too.) As a slumming aristocrat, which was how she always saw herself, she decreed that my brothers and I should learn proper social graces, and Miss Courtney entered our lives in a cloud of Parfum Guerlain.

Miss Courtney undoubtedly had A Story but I never got to hear it.  Born to a manor house somewhere well south of the Mason-Dixon line, she had been shipwrecked on the rocks of financial necessity and had, as my mother once put it when she didn't know I was listening, come down in the world.  Still,with a combination of exquisite manners and the iron hand of a Prussian general, she was perfectly qualified to run a Cotillion.

So: the Cotillion.  I believe it ate up most of Saturday afternoon and evening.  Twenty or thirty kids, simmering with resentment at being all dressed up and in the company of the opposite sex on a weekend day, ate a dainty meal with fearsome gentility -- much dabbing of lips with linen napkins -- and then, as if that weren't torment enough, adjourned to some big room with a wooden floor and a record player, where we boys paired up with girls to learn dances that no one had done for 20 years.

And therein lay the rub.  When I was nine, I was short.  Most of the girls were tall.  All of the girls wore vaguely menacing corsages made of fresh gardenias, pinned above the left breast.

Gardenias are not a lightly scented flower.  That blossom-bedecked spot above the left breast was just about level with my nose.  The music would start, we would do a simultaneous bow/curtsy, and I would take the girl of the moment into my arms and spin away with her on a bright swirl of music.  And into a queasy, heavy, reeking cloud of gardenia fumes.

The room in which we danced was tightly closed against drafts.  The heating system was terrifying.  Thirty sweating boys and girls supplied a level of humidity I wouldn't experience again until I went to Bangkok.  And then there were the gardenias.

Generally speaking, I made it to the Fox Trot, the fourth dance of the session.  At the opening bars of the Fox Trot, I wove my way drunkenly between the couples, found my way into the boys' room, and lost my elegant lunch.  Then I'd rinse out my mouth and go back for the next partner, the next dance, and the next nose-full of gardenias.  By the end of the Cotillion, I'd lost all of lunch and part of the dinner I hadn't even eaten yet.  For years afterward, I could smell a single gardenia all the way across a football stadium.

That which does not kill us, however, makes us stronger.  I survived.  I even, after several decades, got over my loathing for gardenias.

I just wish someone would ask me to Fox-Trot.

Tim -- Sundays