How to be A Good Creature by Sy Montgomery.

How to be A Good Creature by Sy Montgomery. 200 pages with illustrations. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. $20.00.



Review by Somerville Off the Shelf correspondent Ed Meek



Have we been looking at animals the wrong way? Sy Montgomery thinks so.



For much of our history, animals have been thought of as sources of food or game or as pests. In recent years, science has “discovered” that many animals are sentient and even intelligent. This has led to a rethinking of the value of animals based on how close they are to being human. Coco the gorilla, for example learned to use sign language and was able to teach other gorillas to sign. But as we learn more about the complex society of bees, or the ability of octopi, a shift in perception is taking place. Sy Montgomery, in How to be a Good Creature, expresses this new and evolving attitude toward animals.



From this perspective, animals are not valuable because they taste good or because they are almost as smart as humans, but because of their own unique characteristics. Montgomery delves into her experiences with thirteen animals including her four dogs, three emus, a pig, an octopus and a few exotic creatures from Guyana. She finds that she is able to communicate with all of them and that if she shows that she cares about them, they respond in kind. The emus show her where they secretly sleep and allow her to camp with them. An octopus grasps her hand with seeming affection. Her dogs bring her daily joy on walks and games of frisbee. Sy Montgomery suggests we try being a good creature when we interact with animals and our efforts will pay dividends.

A Tribute To Hugh McGowan: Somerville Music Legend

 

article by Somerville Times correspondent Jennifer Matthews.

I've been trying to make sense of a very dear soul and friend who suddenly passed away six days ago. Hugh McGowan was an amazing person and musical artist, who touched the hearts of countless people with his gorgeous voice, incredible songs and plethora of talent. He literally embodied music and it seemed his every breath was for it. He had a long caravan of musical artists he supported, cheered on and played with.

 
I met Hugh 23 years ago when I played at his Open Mic at the Burren and over the years he touched my heart so much with his enthusiasm and encouragement, and he was always a blast to play with. Some gigs he played drums with me, others he played guitar. He always had a smile on his face, which no words could express the sweetness of. He was pure love and light, and my heart is broken that I didn't get a chance to see him this past year.

 
Hugh, I have no doubt you are with the angels soaring on crescendos of the highest melodies. But please know that I too am in the boat of so many-- who are wishing they had more time with you, and will miss you so much. Your sweetheart spirit, your music, your dearness, your friendship and your gorgeous sea blue eyes will forever be with us. Until we meet again, may your journey onwards be as beautiful as the gift of you that we were all blessed to know and love.

 
Here is a link where you can listen to his music which is so rich with elegance, purity, sophistication and gorgeousness.
Love you Hugh McGowan
https://hughmcgowan.bandcamp.com/?fbclid=IwAR2FTikz4zhudsKL5YAi_34-JkQOjgnXEerUkN7upYYMW-_qYwfaHPagND0


Jennifer Matthews is a singer./songwriter who lived and played music in Somerville for many years...

Interview with Michael Seth Stewart: Yours Presently: The Selected Letters of Jo...

Under a White Sky by Elizabeth Kolbert

Under a White Sky by Elizabeth Kolbert, Crown, New York, 2021. $28.00.

REVIEW BY ED MEEK


Channel 10 Boston recently did a story on “managed retreat from the coast” based on the notion that a quarter million people living in eastern Massachusetts are at risk from rising water as a result of climate change. You might remember a “Massive Nor’easter” two years ago that flooded the streets of Boston. Maybe that’s why Elizabeth Kolbert lives in Williamstown. Kolbert is the author of The Sixth Extinction, a must read for our current era. In that book she informs us that there have been five previous mass extinctions on earth and that it appears as if we are at the beginning of the sixth extinction. The difference with this one is that we are in what scientists call the Anthropocene period in which we are in charge. Yes, we are number one on the planet. The problem is we have been too successful! We are threatening the extinction of many species, some of whom we depend on for our survival like say, bees. At the same time, due to developments in agriculture and healthcare, nearly 8 billion of us now cover the surface of the earth. Fossil fuels have enabled us to thrive. Meanwhile, we have altered our atmosphere, raising the average temperature by two degrees Fahrenheit which doesn’t seem like much until you consider all those wildfires in California and Australia, and the droughts and floods in the Mid-West and the flooding in New Orleans and Atlantic City and New York and Boston while glaciers retreat and ice melts at the poles and in the mountains.




Ants are what is called a superorganism. Each ant knows its role and they all work together in the colony. Humans, on the other hand, do not always work well together. We are tribal. That is just one of the many reasons dealing with climate change is difficult. Nonetheless, there is a growing awareness of the problems we have created and attempts to begin to deal with them. Elizabeth Kolbert explores some of those attempts in her new book Under a White Sky: The Nature of the Future. The white sky in the title refers to what happens when we use chemicals and particles to dim the sun in order to cool the earth. Nature and the natural world have already been permanently altered. There is no returning to nature. Instead, we now have to intervene in order to save ourselves and whatever remains of nature.




Kolbert starts out on the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal which was created in the early 1900s to prevent sewage from the Chicago River draining into Lake Michigan which provides drinking water for Chicago and is a fishing resource. The canal diverts the water to the Mississippi. The Chicago River is toxic and heavily traveled. But in this water, weeds and algae get in the way of the boats so in the 1970s, Asian Carp were introduced because they consume weeds and algae. The problem is that the carp have been so successful that not only have they taken over the river, they’ve invaded both Lake Michigan and the Mississippi. In response, the river has been electrified by the Army Corps of Engineers in order to kill the carp.




Kolbert then heads down to Plaquemines at the southern end of the Mississippi, one of the “fastest disappearing places on earth. In southeastern Louisiana there’s a “land-loss crisis.” The Army Corps of Engineers have created canals, a spillway, and levees in order to control the flooding. This area, Plaquemines, “was devastated by Katrina and then by Hurricane Rita. New Orleans of course was nearly destroyed by Hurricane Katrina which killed 1800 residents and turned the city into a lake. Although New Orleans was high ground when it was founded in 1718, it has been sinking like Venice since.




Kolbert goes from there to the Mojave Desert where a rare species of tine beautiful pupfish has so far been saved from extinction and then she’s on to Australia and the Great Barrier Reef where coral stretches for 135 miles and contains as much as 20% of the species on earth. “If there’s a more spectacular place on earth,” she says, “I’m unaware of it.” The outlook for the Great Barrier Reef as determined by the Park’s administrators has recently declined from “poor” to “very poor.” Nonetheless, scientists are working on a type of coral that is resistant to climate change. Meanwhile, Australia has made a deal with an Indian developer for a 16-billion-dollar coal mine project.




There are two major responses to our climate problem that Kolbert delves into: bioengineering and geoengineering. The former includes CRISPR and addresses “the nature of the future,” the latter refers to “the white sky” that comes from giant projects that remove carbon or dim the sun. What could go wrong? CRISPR as you’ve no doubt heard, gives scientists the ability to manipulate genes. This could be put to good use eliminating diseases. Perhaps we could use it to develop bodies that are better at processing heat. On the other hand, bullet-resistant soldiers could be created by the Chinese. Geoengineering involves either removing carbon from the atmosphere or blocking the sun by doing things like spraying aerosol from a plane or launching reflective particles into the sky.




Under a White Sky starts with the premise that we have already altered the world we live in—there is no going back. Now we are trying to correct some of the mistakes we’ve made and to come up with new ways to engineer our way out of this crisis of our own making. The consensus among her subjects is that we will have to completely change our lifestyle to achieve zero net energy and we will have to employ science to ensure the planet remains user friendly.

As Bob Dylan says, “The hour is growing late.” Fortunately, there’s plenty of time to read Elizabeth Kolbert’s great new book.

Consummately Plenty and More in SOULJOURNER, the new ‘Karmic crime’ novel

 





Consummately Plenty and More in SOULJOURNER, the new ‘Karmic crime’ novel

by Paul Steven Stone


article by Michael T. Steffen, Correspondent for Off the Shelf




Tucked in with a good deal of intimations of immortality, in a suggestively boundless discourse on Eastern philosophy, underscored by a belief in reincarnation, with many references to the teachings of Bapucharya, the actual narrative of Paul Steven Stone’s new novel, SOULJOURNER (ISBN: 978-1-912526-4-9, Fahrenheit Press) by contrast beds the loftiness of the protagonist David Rockwood Worthington’s consciousness in the halting mundanity of his current life circumstances, serving a life sentence in a federal prison, haunted by the memories of three failed marriages—the last by murder, hence the prison.




The scope of the novel, in these terms, between the summits of cosmic wisdom and the abysses of human betrayal and depravity, brings up comparison with literary greats like Dante. Not that Stone would lay claims to such an aspiration, nor would the lack of a clearly intentional design in the novel. Importantly, nevertheless, SOULJOURNER does propose and relate a powerful belief in the stakes and eternity of our spiritual lives, with the twist, heralded by the book’s epigraph from Pierre Teilhard de Chardin—




We are not human beings on a spiritual journey. We are spiritual beings

on a human journey.




In a sense, it’s not the discerning fortitude of the protagonist that sugars David Worthington to the reader’s taste, but his vulnerability, which we in our times uphold as definitively human, in the long vein of the modern and post-modern antihero. It has the psychological leverage of turning the same criminal-heads-side coin to its tails-side of victim, with the incidents of Worthington’s unstable mental state due to blackouts ensuing the death of his daughter, Maggie, from his first marriage, to the dazed recollection of being himself strangled in bed by Anna, his third wife, and so acting in self-defense strangling her.




Along with the labyrinthine narrative threads are woven psychic pressures from the “other world” by David’s rather sensible if bothersome alter-ego, Sam the Muse, and from the diabolical Karma of his deceased second wife Roza Rostova. Add in numerous bizarre occurrences, including an out-of-body experience in an elevator, an in-prison IRS audit, visits with an endeared prison physical therapist, an inimical prison psychologist (who inserts session notes into and is ultimately responsible for curating Worthington’s narrative after having the prisoner’s pc taken away), and we have everything and more, including stashed fortunes and dustings of political and geopolitical furniture, to keep the highly versatile Internet-age reader busy. That, “busy,” with “wide-ranging” and “unpredictable” characterize the novel and set it on those edges likely to lose or keep readers, between credence and curiosity.




The great virtues of SOULJOURNER lay in how Stone manages the complexity of his enterprise sentence by sentence simply with deft and vivid writing, as in the description of Roza’s ridicule: “the cackle would always shrink and wither behind her fingers into a shrill hyena’s laugh that would quickly vaporize.” (p.28)




The author is able, moreover, as already pointed out, to reveal the higher inner spheres of the sensitive reader’s consideration. Stone sets forth didactic intentions, a classical primary function of writing which has been largely eschewed and difficult to approach plausibly in “creative” fiction since perhaps Dickens. The author’s self-proclaimed nonce one-sentence first chapter hints at this didactic intention, conferring the enlightening labor to the reader, as a reader of one’s own life in the semiotics of a former existence:




CHAPTER ONE



This is a warning from the previous incarnation of your soul.




It must be said there is an equal effort on behalf of the author to entertain us as we go along, from glimpses of the ordinary, sharing a bucket of chicken wings, to awakening sensible insights: “the power of intention has surprising potential to shape reality.” (p.77) This is no small pronouncement in our age of vast communications—intentions—with their scarce, tip-of-the-iceberg “reality” which we lack and so dread and crave. That is, we are prone to the credulity of our easily expressed intentions.




Far from standing us on firm psychological ground, SOULJOURNER invites us to the difficulty of acceptance in realms high and low at the brink of our considerations, to both expel and manifest our deepest fears, those beyond our control, residing in higher powers and our own strained and reactive subconscious. At the same time, toeing down to earth, in the disappointing carnality of lovers and lawyers and mobsters, the novel stiff-arms any pretention at riding one’s ideals beyond the time’s determinations and data. It has aptly been described as “light-hearted, weird and charming” in its complexity, and proves consummately to fulfill a good book’s task of keeping the pages turning in its reader’s hands.

****** author Paul Steven Stone is a member of the Somerville Bagel Bards

Why I Never Worked at Hustler By B. Lynne Zika

 

Photo by Ben Dufeck

Why I Never Worked at Hustler

By B. Lynne Zika




How I came to interview with Hustler is a circuitous tale involving the requisite heartache of extramarital affairs, replacement lovers, overdue rent, a history with Playgirl, and a stint in public relations. The replacement lover (she replaced me) was an Art Dept. bigwig at the magazine and set up an interview for me. It was my consolation prize.

One Tuesday in March I drove myself to a glitzy office in Century City, California. Larry had been shot by then, and Althea was running the show. A twenty-something, good-looking fellow fetched me from the reception area and led me to the throne room. An areca palm waved from the eastern corner directly opposite the usual walnut credenza crowned with an amber liquid in cut crystal. Althea looked up from whatever papers she was absorbed in and indicated I should sit. That command was delivered with an imperious thrust of an almost-dimpled chin. The good-looking minion took his place behind her right shoulder. Rah.

My interview consisted of the usual questions and answers. Nothing remarkable. Except...

Althea used every opportunity to demean and castrate her assistant. Men in power have been diminishing women for centuries. Althea was turning the tide. Each time she grabbed the fellow’s figurative <ahem>, he tensed, then oh-so-slightly ducked his head. She commanded; he complied.

Althea asked me about my position at Playgirl. I had been Photo Editor. Yes, I had enjoyed it. Magazines, like newspapers, have a put-to-bed moment soon followed by an actual product, something you can pick up, read, keep in your professional hope chest (portfolio). They're tactilely gratifying.

The queen scanned, queried, whacked her assistant, queried more, and the interview was over. They'd be in touch. The minion, a kindly fellow when safely out of her range, escorted me out.

It can be a long fret between interview and result. Hustler was surprisingly gentle on me. The minion called me the next day.

Althea wanted to know if I would come on board as their Director of Public Relations. I'd been in PR before, but I knew the real reason she offered me the job.

During my interview, Art Dept. had brought in a layout for her approval. An enormously busted blonde stretched, squatted, hunched, pooched, and splayed. Althea looked it over, said, "No, we need more pink," glanced up at me to gauge my reaction, and handed the layout back.

I hadn't flinched. My mother's training in Act as if Everything Is Fine held me in good stead in the world of public anything. Althea liked my staunchness. Apparently she believed I could be unflappable for Hustler.

I remembered the matter-of-fact bludgeoning of her male assistant. I remembered something else. Althea sat at her executive desk in short sleeves. Midway between her wrist and inner elbow was a tidy, geometrically designed track mark. There was a center line with straight tree limbs branching off in regular formation. At the end of each branch was a dot, the pop mark. Althea was a junky, with enough money at her disposal to satisfy a long-term habit.

Did I want to work for a rich, castrating junky who ran a porno magazine? I turned down the offer.

At the other end of the phone the minion sputtered. "But she said you could name your salary." I thanked him, declined, and got off the phone.

The next day he called again. Althea wanted to make certain I understood that money was no object. A private office and executive privileges went without saying. I thanked him and declined again.

It was clear by his silence that I'd astonished him. He didn't know what to say. Maybe he was anticipating his exchange with Althea when he had to go back and tell her he'd been unsuccessful with me. He finally voiced a baffled "Okay" and said good-bye.

Another art director friend—Baily—told me when he heard the tale that I'd made a huge mistake. His counsel: "Never say no to opportunity."

Time weighed in on the issue. Baily didn't say no to drugs and alcohol and died. Althea had enough money to say yes to all the smack she wanted. She died.

Forty-plus years later I can look back on it. Some opportunities are opportunities for disaster. I don't regret that I never worked at Hustler magazine.

Interview with Ibbetson Street/Endicott College Young Writers Author Ria...

How To Wash A Heart By Bhanu Kapil

 

How To Wash A Heart

By Bhanu Kapil

Liverpool University Press

www.liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-789-62168-6

52 Pages

Review by Dennis Daly

Hospitality confers a plethora of emotions upon both host and guest. Some of these sensations, like empathy and gratitude, seem obvious. Others, like intrusiveness and resentment, seem less so. Cultural hospitality evolved historically as a survival trait, inhabiting the very center of tribal society. In her new collection of poems, How to Wash a Heart, Bhanu Kapil examines this interesting phenomenon with intimacy and tough-mindedness.

Nothing, if not original, Kapil sets her collection up in five sections of eight untitled poems apiece. The compositions are twenty lines long in the first section and twenty-two lines in the remaining four. She telescopes in and out, engaging in stories, images, scenes, and speculations of an Indian immigrant. Most of the lines are short and they work well lending emphasis and exposing drama.

Kapil is not the protagonist, yet the poems are so deeply personal, so confessional that you wonder at her precise knowledge and the sensitivities conveyed by the narrator. The poet herself was born in Britain and both of her parents were Indian immigrants. She currently resides in both the United States and Great Britain.

Feeling a little like a hoax, Kapil’s protagonist, identified as K, a valued refugee, gets her gratefulness out in the very first poem of the collection. This begins a counterpoint of dueling emotions, which frames the forward motion of the host/guest plot as it unfurls,

Its inky-early outside and I’m wearing my knitted scarf, like

John Betjeman, poet of the British past.

I like to go outside straight away and stand in the brisk air.

Yesterday, you vanished into those snowflakes like the ragged beast

You are.

Perhaps I can write here again.

A “fleeting sense of possibility.” –K.

Keywords: Hospitality, stars, jasmine,

Privacy.

You made a space for me in your home, for my books and clothes,

And I’ll

Never forget that.

Uneasiness pervades K’s guest status. Sexual innuendos appear and disappear. She reaches out to determine her limits and the rules of her new foreign home. Her writing begets a sense of comfort and belonging, but that does not solve the problem. She explains,

As I write these words, stretching out

These early spring or late winter

Mornings with coffee

And TV.

I don’t remember the underneath,

Everything I will miss when I die.

It’s exhausting to be a guest

In somebody else’s house

Forever.

Even though the host invites

The guest to say

Whatever it is they want to say,

The guest knows the host logic

Is variable.

Prick me.

Before arriving, trauma clutched this refugee. The truth in detail cannot be forgotten, and only temporarily sidestepped. Kapil weaves in the details of K’s past life before, and as she fled the violence endemic to her country. Consider these telltale lines,

When our neighbors

Said go, we fled.

Our hearts beating

Like fish.

Hello, sang Lionel Richie, on the taxi’s orange

Radio.

My grandfather burned his notebooks

Then scraped the ash

Into a hole

He could button up.

Don’t ask me to remember

The word for zip.

My secret is this:

Though we lost all our possessions

I felt

A strange relief

To see my home explode in the rearview mirror.

Liberal altruism most often needs recognition of good deeds and applause, all of which result from actions closely fitting expectations. Real world venality must suppress itself and conform. The performance should match this insipid world outlook and follow the stage directions as the plot unfolds. Kapil’s protagonist cannily does this at first. Here she dissects her own situation,

Like a thing of beauty

In the pudding basin

Of tap water by the door.

Was I your art?

My involvement with your family

Was an act of volition

And consensus.

The political face you showed

To your neighbors,

For example, was contra-

Regime.

My links to the community

Of writers I had been part of

Had broken overnight.

And so, I smiled

And laughed when you did.

K details her experience from “treasured pet” to exotic disappointment. She explores “the link/ Between creativity/ And survival.” K gets to the point in the penultimate section of the collection. She says,

So many of my experiences

Were about waiting,

Noting the reserve,

Anxiety and palpable fear

In those guarded

Rooms.

Perhaps you know

What comes next.

Perhaps you don’t.

Perhaps you have lived your life

Without error, fortitude,

Or end.

The more especial the relationship is between guest and host the steeper the denouement and the fall. Western liberality extends only to the border of its precious narrative. Guests who do not live up to presumptive notions break a sacred trust. It’s almost a religious test. Far from the survival origin of neighborly sanctuary (found in throwback cultures of say Afghanistan and Pakistan), the sponsor strikes out in sneering colonial fashion,

The host’s gleaming hair

Responds beautifully to the shampoo

She has set out for us

To share.

What’s mine is yours,

She says with a sweet

Smile.

I don’t want you taking her out

Without asking me

First, she continues,

Holding her daughter tight

Against her side.

I can smell your body

Odor.

Kapil’s poetic sequence concludes in prosaic melodrama. The ending gives a topical and political edge to the collection. It does fit the loose plot and even some of the surreal images. However, the remarkable uniqueness of the book becomes really clear through the reading-trek itself, its ambivalent protagonist, and her definitive, if uncomfortable, relationships.

Airborne in Uncertain Sound: How I Became a Poet : Essay by B. Lynne Zika

 

Airborne in Uncertain Sound:

How I Became a Poet

Essay by B. Lynne Zika

It’s not that I was intimidated by famous people. Or eccentrics. By the time I was nine, I’d had dinner with Werner Von Braun. I’d ridden a hundred-year-old tortoise with a white-haired woman at the Washington Zoo. I’d made friends with the daughter of a fellow named Al who broke into our house one midnight to play a crashing rendition of The Brandenburg Concerto on the downstairs baby grand. So the fact that Felix Molzer had directed the Vienna Boys Choir, the fact that his hands floated above the keyboard with the grace of a saw-whet owl—neither of these was the reason I sat down on the piano bench beside him and began to cry.

Felix taught my sister and me piano. In exchange, our mother cooked him rich Southern dinners and basked (albeit shyly) in his benign adoration. Our mother wore a chignon and deep purple lipstick. She was not difficult to adore. Probably he was handsome: broad shoulders, steel-grey hair. I’d have called him imposing, had I known the word at the time.

I was certainly bent on pleasing him. I practiced every day. B, B, B, thwang. B, B, B—

B, B, B, G, thwang. By 3:00 on Tuesdays I managed an accurate, if halting, recital of that week’s Bach or Haydn minuet. But this particular Tuesday, Felix dispensed with the assignment and asked me to place my thumbs on middle C and play the scales backwards.

I stared at the keyboard. I placed my right pinky on the high C and gave him a descending scale.

“No, no, no,” he said. “Begin with both thumbs on middle C.”

I settled the thumbs and tried to stretch a diminutive right pinky an octave higher.

“No,” he said. “Not descending. Backwards.”

I stood up, took a deep breath, sat down again, and cried.

Years later I would attempt to master the backwards reflexes of driving a car in reverse. If you want to back up toward your right, you must turn the wheel so that the front end of the car moves left. I tried to conceptualize this phenomenon. The more I thought about it, the less sense it made and the more paralyzed I became. My body learned to parallel park only when it disengaged my brain.

Felix Molzer was a bit surprised to find his charge weeping. He took a white handkerchief from his pocket and wiped my eyes. He took me onto his lap. The long, white hands glided together and rested on middle C. Then, like an owl opening its wings, they feathered across the keyboard, one hand flying up the scale; the other, down. They landed, in simple precision, on the low and high C.

During the following week, my hands learned their flight. I also carefully prepared my next failure, the one that would end my career with the piano and begin my career with—well, a different sort of keyboard.

As our homework, Felix had asked us for an original composition. I wanted to create an accompaniment to a poem I had written. The music was to complement the words—to underscore them—not as a melody for a lyric but as a subtext to the spoken word. It was impossible. I couldn’t even manage a bar.

The next Tuesday, as I was creeping down the stairs toward certain humiliation, I over-heard my father in the living room.

“And she told me,” he said, “that it wouldn’t work because she could not make the piano sound like a rabbit!” Felix and my father laughed (and laughed).

Then my father recited the poem:

The rabbit has a habit

of sitting on his heels,

and when I see him doing it,

I wonder how it feels.

I knew they were pleased. I could not tame the piano, but I had tried. I knew also that the words were clear, that the sound of them ruffled the air, as if a hand were passing over a silent keyboard, as if a bird stopped for a moment in mid-flight.




B. Lynne Zika’s poetry has appeared in numerous literary publications, including globalpoemic, Poetry East, and The Anthology of American Poets. In addition to editing poetry and nonfiction, she worked as a closed-captioning editor for the deaf and hard-of-hearing. She received a Pacificus Foundation Literary Award in short fiction. Her photography has received several awards, including the 2020 Top Creator Award from Viewbug. Her images may be viewed at



https://artsawry.com/.

Somerville's Robson Lemos: A Brazilian Chef with a taste for the theatre

I was glad to catch up with Robson Lemos-- a chef and now a theatre producer.  He is one of the many artists in " The Paris of New England" who have an interesting and eclectic background. 

How did you discover Somerville, and how has it been for you?

I arrived in the USA in 2004 -- for an immigrant it is difficult to build the feeling of belonging. In 2007, I came to visit a friend at Union Square in Somerville and there was a summer festival going on. The artist on stage was Brazilian and invited me to sing a song, and from there I fell in love with the city.

The following year I moved to the city and started participating in various artistic events in the city. Somerville is a city that not only offers spaces for artists but also for immigrant artists, and that is why I have always felt welcome.

In 2015 I was invited to participate in a culinary course in the city. So I started to participate in several events in the city as a chef. I am part of the culinary group "Nibble Kitchens" in Somerville, Ma.



You are from Brazil--but you often say you are from the Brazilian state, Bahia. Is there different cultural feel to Bahia?

I always say I am from Bahia but when I participate in international interviews it is difficult to explain deeply about Brazilian culture so I talk more about Brazil in general. But Bahia, in particular, is the Brazilian state with the largest black concentration outside Africa. Although I am not black, here in the USA I am considered a person of color. I grew up within an Afro-Brazilian culture.




You are an actor?

Yes, I am an actor and that is my great passion. My first contact with theater I was 13 years old and it was through a method called: theater of the oppressed. I discovered that we are all oppressed in some way and the basis of creation is in the breakdown of oppression. So being an actor for me is to express, create, speak and use art as a form of education.

In 2020, in the middle of the pandemic, we had the Black Lives Matter Movement and the mayor of Somerville declared that racism is a matter of public health.

I identified with this statement because in addition to being an artist and a chef, I also work in an organization called the Massachusetts Alliance of Portuguese Speakers and became a community health worker. In various training courses I realized how the racial issues interfere with public health issues.
Using art and education as an instrument of empowerment would initially be a good way to combat racism.




Tell us about the play you are working on?

In "Omolu" I bring African mythology to tell a story of discrimination.

Omolu was an African God who was abandoned by his mother and lived wandering around Africa. He had a skin disease and covered his whole body with straw.

Omolu traveled around many lands and met several other Gods and nobody accepted him until he was found by YEMANJA, queen of the sea. She adopted Omolu as her son and healed her wounds with seawater. Oxala, the father of all, recognized Omolu as the God of healing.


Omolu is a history of inclusion using elements of African mythology with a Brazilian touch. Initially, I thought it would be a concert but because of the pandemic I decided to make the recordings separately-- as a form of documentary. This project involves theater, music, dance, capoeira, visual arts, culinary , and political speeches with history teachers...

We started doing outreach in December, rehearsals in January, recording thematic in February and editing in March.

My intention is to offer this project as a gift to the city of Somerville, so that future generations know that Somerville welcomes and includes all the stories, my story and the story of Omolu.




Brazil has the largest black population on the American continent and obviously reflects a lot on cultural expression. As in the USA, Brazil faces problems with racism. The Black Lives Matter movement will also influence racial movements in Brazil in the future.

Somerville's Marlena Merrin: A Foxtrot Between High Tech And The Arts

 

I first met Marlena Merrin at a Zoom meeting for the literary group "The Bagel Bards"--that was once happily housed in Davis Square. The Bards remain, and the Au Bon Pain closed--lost in the Pandemic sea. When you first meet someone in a group you really don't know them until you talk one on one. I was glad to catch up with this accomplished woman, who has many dimensions and diverse interests.

How has it been for you as a creative, living in Somerville and thereabouts for all these years?




When I first moved here, which was right after college, I wasn't a creative person. I spent nearly ten years working in high technology, admiring creativity and creative people—and thinking I simply didn't have it in me.




I was in my thirties when I first attempted writing fiction. I found it intimidating to live here because of all the accomplished authors inhabiting every corner and cafe. I wondered what I had to offer. Fortunately, a very helpful and insightful life coach (Allan G. Hunter) managed to instill in me that it was important to write, and write creatively. It's because of him that I continued on with my writing, and then ventured into other creative activities (acting, improv, singing, standup comedy, and songwriting). I've had a large number of wonderful experiences—and met many wonderful people— because I didn't give up in discouragement when I was first starting out.




I also want to mention how much I've benefited from all of the arts education available in the area. This really mattered in the years before video conferencing. I've had excellent teachers! And I'm still learning.




**




You are an accomplished computer scientist--occupying high level positions in the industry, when this was uncommon for women. One would not immediately associate "secure network software design" with the musical theatre--but you do.






Yes, they seem to be not very related! However, both require attention to overall concepts and flow, as well as extreme care with very fine details. Also, both involve "different angles" on what may seem to be a commonplace situation. Here's one huge difference: In software, I work at having my designs be conceptually clean and elegantly spare; in theater (and in any fiction I write), I'm seeking rich entanglements of ideas, feelings, and characters.




**

You use two different last names "Erdos" and Merrin. "Erdos" is your computer industry name and Merrin is for the theatre. Poet Wallace Stevens said that he would never reveal his identity as a poet to his colleagues in the insurance industry because he would lose his credibility. What is your take on this?




I understand Stevens' point of view. While some of my computing colleagues think it's fun and interesting (in a good way) that I do arts, others have been terribly disconcerted by the simple fact that I have a love other than secure distributed systems (whose study and application could entirely fill one's life).




Obviously, I've chosen differently than Wallace Stevens. And yet, if I were doing things over again, I'd chose an entirely different arts name. And I'd be more careful about which computing colleagues I reveal my arts life to. That said, I'd likely have some mis-steps anyway. One boss laughed at some songs I sang for him—I knew he would!—and still found my arts life distressing, even though I did very good work for him. Oh well....

**




Can you talk a bit about your nascent exposure to the theatre--and what plays sparked your passion for the art form?




My mother took me to see shows in New York City starting from when I was about eleven years old. After taking the train and then subway in from New Jersey, we'd wait for our turn at the half-priced ticket booth in Times Square. I got to see all sorts of plays, including musicals.




One of the musicals I saw early on was "A Little Night Music." This show has a wonderful set of interacting storylines and great songs which are superbly matched to the characters—and the predicaments they're in. It's also funny while having a soul. In my own musicals, I strive for the humor and depth that's in "A Little Night Music."




**




You wrote two full length musicals "College Bound", "Pipette Dreams." You are working on a third one " Risky Dishes." Is there a strong thread among these plays?




That's a great question! I'm surprised to find that the answer is "yes." Each show has a motif about "expectations": expectations from parents, from oneself, and one's community. The way expectations fit into each show though varies greatly.




**




Why should people view your work?

Get to know interesting characters, laugh a lot, and have things to think about and talk about with family and friends afterwards.




Here are some of the questions each show raises:




From College/Bound: What were your parents' expectations for you? Did anything—or anyone—upend those expectations? And what were the consequences?




From Pipette Dreams: What is your own measure of "success"? What is it for your loved ones, friends, and colleagues? Has your notion of "success" changed over time? And how does success relate to happiness?




From Risky Dishes: How did you stack up personally with ideals of each community you belonged to as a young adult? Did any of these communities know about ways you didn't stack up? What communities do you belong to now, and in what ways do you conform and not conform to expectations?







(You can find out more about College/Bound and Pipette Dreams at collegeboundthemusical.com .)

Doug Holder interviews poet David Daniel

Beyond The Curtain Lies Magic and Enchantment. A review of "The Beloved Children" by Tina Jackson

 



Beyond The Curtain Lies Magic and Enchantment. A review of "The Beloved Children" by Tina Jackson

Review by Paul Steven Stone

It only takes a few paragraphs for the reader to grasp they have entered a uniquely strange and magical world inside the covers of Tina Jackson’s “The Beloved Children.” Ms. Jackson wastes no time in upsetting the reader’s sense of reality, so much so that a warning should be issued urging readers to wear weighted boots if they hold any hope of staying grounded in reality.

Ostensibly a wonderful tale of theater life in wartime Britain, “The Beloved Children” follows the exploits of three young women entering the theater world at a time when war has shaken all sense of normalcy upside down. A time when one might easily question, "Is there a better time for magic than when War roams the land?"

The three young women come from different backgrounds, all vying for openings in Fankes Theater’s in-house terpsichorien act known as The Three Graces. It quickly becomes clear that the fates of the three novice dancers are tightly entwined with those of two fantastic mainstays of Fankes' house staff, a timeworn, bearded seamstress whose powers of creation and enchantment extend far beyond the limits of needles, thread and costume scraps, and a Russian émigré whose fantastic history includes dancing before the Czar with a bear who later accompanied her across the European continent in her travels west.

Sound fantastic? It most certainly is!

Ms. Jackson exhibits tremendous depths of storytelling magic in weaving her spell and tossing all the elements of her fantastic story into the air like so much magic dust that eventually falls to earth much like the final dance steps of The Three Graces, with charm, grace and the enduring hopes of youth. “The Beloved Children” is magic realism at its most daring and accomplished. And Tina Jackson a literary prestidigitator of the highest order.

Somerville's Callie Chapman: A chat with a multi-faceted dancer, media artist and choreographer.

 




I was pleased to catch up with the versatile Callie Chapman. She is a woman of many hats--as you will discover. She is an artist with a strong mission statement and one who can't be labeled into any particular genre.




You have lived in Somerville for the past 15 years--how has this been for you as a creative?


Somerville has been a 'safe haven' if you will for my creative practice. Although I have worked on my practice mostly in Cambridge, purely due to space availability, Somerville is where I can dream and where there is an acceptance that whatever is dreamed can be possible. I've received project grants and was a recipient of multiple fellowship grants from the Somerville Arts Council (including this past year). During the pandemic, the SAC provided encouragement (and funding) for creating in our homes, and that, for me, was a glimmer of light during some very isolating times.




Because of the Pandemic--many art organizations have been forced to close. How are you and the Zoe Dance Company surviving? I heard Zoe's Studio 550-- was forced out from their Cambridge home--and now you are looking for a new space in Somerville.



As a professional artist I wear many hats. One of which is directing Zoe Dance Company. Another is the director of Studio at 550. ZDC was housed in Studio at 550, which had a space at 550 Mass Ave., Cambridge. And yes, we were displaced. Not particularly due to the pandemic (although that expedited our departure), but due to the landlord intending on creating micro-unit apartments in a mostly residential area. Truthfully, we knew it was coming at one time or another, the pandemic just made it happen quicker, with less time to plan our relocation strategy (and less money in the bank to do so). Somerville has always needed more spaces for dance and performing arts. We would love to find our home in Somerville, and I think both artists who live here and want to create, perform, and present here would love it too. Somerville would also benefit from the performing artists who do live here, yet have to go elsewhere for their work. If we identify a suitable location in Somerville, we would love to fill that void and help provide that stability and outlet to showcase our working performing artists in Somerville (particularly the dance community).




Can you tell us a bit about the genesis of the Zoe Dance company? What would be its mission statement? What genre of dance does it fit under?


Zoe Dance Company was founded in 2002 with a mission statement that read, "Zoé Dance nurtures the art of dance, dance theatre and performance through accessible performance venues, educates the public and creates social awareness through themes explored in repertory." The company has performed locally, regionally, and internationally in self-produced concerts, festivals, and commissioned works. Since its inception, we have integrated digital media in many forms into the performances, and also creation. Utilizing cameras, projectors, generative art, and media servers ZDC's integrations brings the 'dream world' to its audiences through various theatrical techniques to create worlds which stretch beyond the tangible and embodied. As far as a genre of dance goes we could get into the inefficiencies of genre labeling and the strange evolution of terms that comes with it. It's as vanilla as "contemporary dance" or as niche as "multi-media dance". I like to just settle on the word "performance" as I've always been compelled to not define before I do as to open the options up a bit. Perhaps my next piece has spoken word and theatre. Perhaps it contains original music, or an art installation. Trying to contain that in a genre or even discipline is just too limiting. For the audience as well as for myself as the creator.




You are also a marketer and graphic designer, and have worked with many arts organizations. How do you meet the challenge to get the word out.? What is your process for developing a 'brand'?"


Getting the word out requires a fine tuning and a consistency of the message (whatever that may be). I worked for Boston Dance Alliance for 11 years and the building of that 'brand' when I came into the organization required many strategies and constant engagement with our base. We grew the membership form 180 individuals and dance arts organizations to nearly 400 by the time I left in 2015. It took constant programming, communication strategies, and one to one engagement. And over time I helped take a grassroots organization with no logo or branding consistency and helped craft an organization where I created the logo, colors, fonts, and consistency it needed to be clear in its message. We also had a lot of fun doing that. In shorter time frames, for shows let's say, you are working with the established "brand" of the presenting artist/organization, so again, consistency is key. Tapping into multiple networks through various methods is fundamental to being successful in the project. Having a strong and energetic team is also helpful as expanding networks and getting the word out always starts with the people who you already know.


You studied at the Boston Conservatory. Were there any folks who mentored you there that you can mention?. What did they bring to the plate?


As a 18 year old from Lynn, MA I went into the Boston Conservatory with very wide eyes, basically eating anything up I could get my hands on. I also worked afternoons and evenings for my spending money and somehow on top of the already rigorous program I carried the momentum and felt appreciative of my time there (even getting into a studio by myself to choreograph, or improvise until 11pm some nights, having to go home (to Lynn) and get back at 8am the next morning for Dance History class)). All my teachers were so wonderful there. They taught me things I now pass on to the students I teach (with credit of course).


In 1999 one of my modern dance teachers, Diane Arvanites asked me to perform with her company Prometheus Dance over the summer as part of Somerville Arts Council's ArtBeat Festival. Of course I accepted and danced "the first one out" in the piece, "The Game", which was based off of the game of musical chairs. Previously, outside of Conservatory training I was taking open class with the company at the Dance Complex when I could (winter and spring break). It was Diane who "signed up" to be my mentor at the Conservatory as the faculty was asked to pair off with the incoming freshmen. And I guess those roles kind of stuck. I danced with Prometheus Dance until its folding in 2019 having toured with the company to many wonderful places and theatres. Many of very good lifelong friendships were built in that company, and still remain to this day.


How would you convince someone who has no experience with dance to attend a performance? Why should they view your work?


Again, circling back to the presentation of "dance" in the marketing of it to be more about the experience and the performance. This helps disassociate potential stereotypical associations with the word "dance" coming from that prospective audience member. Perhaps they have the notion it could be like their 5 year old niece's dance recital and there's no way they want to sit through 'professional dancers' doing the same thing! Tailoring the marketing and the 'brand' to match what the audience should expect from going to the performance with the way they talk about it, the visuals they use for publicity materials, and fine tuning any media that's out there can really help get people to not associate the dance recital to professional dance performance. Truth is, it CAN be all over the board, so just saying it's "dance" doesn't say much at all and walking into a theatre (or even thinking about walking into a theatre) with such little information is absolutely terrifying.
While I design and create experiences for as many people as I can. To touch them in some way through many senses and sensory preferences, I also understand many people may not enjoy it. And that is totally where I want to be. Instead of chasing down and force feeding people who have other preferences in taste, I create what is important to me and design to share that experience with others. Mostly I love the theme of transformation and I believe it's a thread that shows up throughout my work over the last 19 years. I mean, that's part of the experience which we all share and can get on common ground together with. Tapping into what makes us human and sharing different relatable experiences through various lenses is what makes me want to create. The cycle is nearly completed when I've fleshed it out enough times to share it with others. It's an open ended cycle as those who experience "it" go out and have that experience linger with them for a while into their own lived experience after the show is done.

Farmers, Queens, Trains and Clowns By g emil reutter Alien Buddha Press

 

Farmers, Queens, Trains and Clowns

By g emil reutter

Alien Buddha Press

ISBN: 9798557613071

72 Pages

Review by Dennis Daly

Urban infrastructure rules! g emil reutter masterfully escorts his readers through the gritty limbo of despondent souls and derelict sprawl in his new collection of rust-laden and poetically powerful dirges entitled Farmers, Queens, Trains, and Clowns. In reutter’s world “no one is safe.” Fame and celebrity are phantoms. Barrooms proliferate. Nature does intrude but usually does not comfort. Birdsongs of dawn and hope are met by a madman with a hatchet. Other birds become bullies. Only love, faultless observation, and an attachment to the past, both to place and to another time, seem to matter. These exceptions, however, are intrinsic to the poet’s persona and center that persona with dreams of commiseration and tenderness and feathery lyrics.

Under the Pilings, the first poem in this collection sets the atmospherics. The poet returns to his childhood stomping grounds seeking remembered exhilaration. He finds instead that times have changed. His once magical portal which had promised a brave new future has now been covered with cautionary warnings. reutter describes the glory and the singular importance of that long ago escape structure this way,

… In the middle of

the swarth was a tall piling as a ladder to the sky.

Underneath we created makeshift diamonds in

the summer and grids in the autumn. When the

day wore on and boredom hit we would climb

the ladder to the sky and while most only made

it up two stories, Jim and Tommy always made

it two the top, stood with arms raised between

insulators and wires as if they were kings of the

sun. So now, an old man, I return…

Also, early in the book, reutter sets two of his bar-culture pieces, Lonely Nights and Trina. They’re spot-on devastating, both with similar haunting cadences. reutter nails this underclass folk, who frequent such establishments, with precision. Experienced drinkers will recognize them immediately. Lonely Nights concludes with a one-way conversation,

…Tip the bartender who made

sure I didn’t send a drink to the wrong

gal. Chain smoke, chain drink, pint, shot

send another round out. Soon there were

fifteen markers on the bar by my beer.

Hit the head, slide on the floor, grateful

Avoided a fall. At closing the door man

would chant, Time to go, out I went lucky

to get home, sat on the couch, mumbled

into the darkness.

Trina, on the other hand, derives its power from confrontation and love’s cruelty. The heart (if that is what it is) of the poem rubs the reader raw with its messiness and therefore authenticity. Dressed to kill, the desperate skinny girl seeks finality at “his bar,”

…She took her place

at the bar and watched him hold

court at the corner. White Zinfandel

after White Zinfandel then gin after

gin, she fixed her gaze upon him.

He would point and laugh as would

his court until she stood, yelled at

him in slurred words. He grabbed

the girl next to him and walked to

the door, she followed yelling I love

you. The door slammed shut…

My favorite poem in this eye-opening collection reutter calls Anger Management and that is exactly what it is. A young man, believing in the exceptionalism of humankind, confronts cheery songbirds with a hatchet for disturbing the peace of his suburban domain. He is successful in intimidating a nightingale and a robin. But a downy woodpecker has his number. It’s bad to lose a confrontation with the champion of another species. It’s worse to be mocked in doing so. Here are the climactic lines,

…And so it goes, anger

hatchet, thump on the tree if caused by

a slight, or a songbird or anything that

pisses him off. On a warm July morn

sound asleep he is awakened by a

reverberating staccato, drum, drum, tap

tap. Downy woodpecker hunts on tree

plucks chubby worms from bark, taps

to find a nest. He drums on tree with

hatchet, bird rests on branch, he

turns to leave only to hear tap, tap,

tap. He returns not noticing his thumps

are an imitation of the reverberating sounds

of the Downy. There is a quiet about the

tree, he turns only to hear drum, drum, drum

of the Downy. Defeated, he throws the

hatchet on the ground…

Sometimes love poems are better delivered straight with sentiment attached. Even in the city (especially in the city!) such sentiment finds its own nature and weaves it into a lovely cadence. Reutter’s paean to his lover’s beauty does just that. Consider this stanza delineating nature’s efficaciousness,

In the midst of the urban garden we sit shaded

under umbrella’s canopy, enjoy the flags of the

iris, yellows, blues of tulips, hyacinths, reds and

pinks of azaleas. Watch the ballet of sparrows

cow birds, cat birds, cardinals, the hop of the

robins. You walk the garden, take in the fragrance

return, more beautiful than before.

Interestingly, Reutter pieces drift beyond nightmare and sentiment into aspiration. His Whitmanesque poem Philadelphia celebrates a new age and new neighborhood fabric. Here the lyricist metamorphosizes into a full-fledged oracle. The poet sings of hope,

I dream of my city, of Philadelphia, of a

time when peace will come to its streets.

I see the people of this city, a city I love

in white, black, yellow, tan, brown. I

celebrate the people of my city, the good

people who love their families, aspire to

the same goals of peace, comfort, love.

This is not an easy city, a city named for

love.

Reutter’s poetic dreams rise organically from their hard scrabble beginnings. He returns the urban back to its natural garden of conviction and ideals. First Philadelphia, then Boston, then New York. And on and on... a future faith of steely blue-collar purpose and unfettered birdsong.

­The Parma Chai Out of the Blue Art Gallery Has Moved to Somerville

 

­The Parma Chai Out of the Blue Art Gallery Has Moved to Somerville

By Off the Shelf Correspondent Parma Chai




****My friend Parma Chai notified me that the famed "Out of the Blue Gallery" has moved to Somerville-housed in the Arts Armory. The Out of the Blue has a long history, and I have had a long history there as well--like many local artists in our community. Although I haven't attended an event for a while--I have rich memories of the poetry readings, barbecues, and all the poets and writers I met over the years there. Probably 15 years ago the gallery put out an anthology "The Out of the Blue Writers Unite" edited by Timothy Gager and Deborah Priestly, which I was proud to be part of. I am so glad they have found a new home...

--Doug Holder




Out of the Blue Art Gallery & More has existed in Cambridge, Allston, Everett, Medford, and Somerville in various spaces for about 30 years. First founded in Chinatown in the form of house art parties curated by its founders, Sue Carlin, Tom Tipton, and Deborah Priestly, it then operated for many years solely in Cambridge, on Prospect Street and then on Mass Ave at Central Square. Tom Tipton spearheaded this beloved gallery for many years before I came on to help with its development and expansion throughout the Greater Boston Area.




About 6 years ago, the Out of the Blue Art Gallery moved from Prospect Street to Mass Ave. Our landlord at that time was kind enough to let us build up financial infrastructure on a month-to-month basis. Working alongside founder Tom Tipton as his volunteer business manager, I helped to make sure rental spaces were paid for, artists switched up their works, and generated a working rental agreement with the landlord. Long term, a small business like the Gallery had its difficulties keeping up with increasing rents right on Mass Ave, so it eventually was gentrified out of Central Square.




This is when I brought the Gallery into my own home in Medford, MA. We returned to the early days of the Gallery with home art parties in Chinatown, and continued to deliver smaller shows, art parties, and paint nights. I discarded many of my personal items, including personal furniture, and began accumulating large folding tables, speakers, mikes, turntables and other essentials to keep local art alive. My vision manifested and folks across Boston came to attend these creative gatherings and listen to art talks. Food, drink, and entertainment were provided for each of these gatherings.




Eventually, the fruit of Tom and my labor caught the attention of Allston Village Main Streets, the Middle East Restaurant in Cambridge, Everett Chicken & Rice Guys, and the Center for Arts at the Armory in Somerville. We began to work with various agencies to fulfill insurance policies for shows, expanded our name with the general public and began to flood the place with shows and arts and crafts for 2 years at a new, primary location at 14 Harvard Ave, the Firehouse in Allston. We also began curating art shows at the Middle East where we rotated artwork monthly. We received several awards for being an inclusive small business and were able to reach a point where rent was tenable with a little bit left to survive on. Still, I had to keep up with my other position as a full-time math and science teacher to ensure that I could maintain the costs of performers, technology, interns, and myself. But I was happy to do so, as local art and its expression have always been an essential aspect of my life.




Without shows and in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, Tom and I strained to keep the main Gallery location alive in Allston at the Firehouse. However, I was able to move much of the art into an Allston Village Main Streets exhibit. With the additional support of the Center for Arts at the Armory in Somerville, I was also able to curate 4 floors of art in a living work space. This allowed me to concentrate on promoting artists and maintain the works of the longest-term artists of the collective. The current Parma Chai Out of the Blue Art Gallery at the Somerville Center for Arts at the Armory houses 30 artists, hosts virtual performances by musicians, and supports the arts community in other ways. It also features artists and their works at Allston Village Main Streets and indoor murals at the Chicken & Rice Guys warehouse in Everett. You can view a beautiful 3D virtual exhibit of the Gallery on our website.




Though we had to close the doors to our Firehouse location in July, we feel fortunate to help local art stay alive. We are extremely thankful to the Center for Arts at the Armory for helping to keep our mission alive and are very grateful as well for the businesses that operate here that enjoy the art and want to help sustain it! Like the Out of the Blue Art Gallery, the Arts at the Armory has faced unique challenges during the pandemic, but the Board and Executive Director are working to preserve art, music, and theatre in the Greater Boston Community. I am humbled to be a part of this incredible space and the many other nonprofits it serves.




We continue to sell art, have masked art interviews with the artists, and explore other innovative ways to promote the arts and artists. I would like Boston residents and beyond to know the Gallery as a vibrant place for both artists and academics. As a destination for folks to create magic in a space of comfort, beauty, and collaboration.




Because of the pandemic and a desire to build financial infrastructure for long-term sustenance, I am no longer taking in new artists to promote but I am, instead, working on booking small rehearsal and recording events at the Armory. Please contact me if you are seeking to rent space here for any of your small performance needs. Part of those funds will go to the Gallery and the other part will go to the Armory. I am always available to provide 2-3 person masked tours of the 4 floors of art free of charge. Please contact me with any requests to see the art in person at parama@outoftheblueartgallery.com.




The Gallery is incredibly thankful it could continue its mission to preserve local art through the pandemic. It would never have been possible without the generosity of our art-loving community, the artists and their works, and the foundational passion of its founder, Tom Tipton.