Ampersand #63
Welcome to the Ampersand Gazette, a metaphysical take on some of the news of the day. If you know others like us, who want to create a world that includes and works for everyone, please feel free to share this newsletter. The sign-up is here. And now, on with the latest …
&&&&
The Truth Hurts—Especially When Bill Maher
Dishes It Out
Maher has fun comparing the heavily made-up Trump to a drag queen. After Trump’s team asked for a mistrial in the New York hush-money case, Maher japed that the former president’s drag name was “Miss Trial.”
His range may be explained by something Maher, a Cornell history major, writes in his book: “I watch the History Channel like most guys watch Pornhub.”
The Trump-dictator-we’re-doomed narrative bores him. “When people come up to me and say, ‘What are we going to do?’ I’m like, ‘It doesn’t look to me like the world is just falling apart. Maybe it will tomorrow,’” he told me. “Look, I lost my nervous system under Trump once. I’m not doing it again. When he blows up the world, wake me. I can’t put my nervous system on the line every day for every stupid tweet and every bonehead thing he does.”
In ancient courts, the jester could speak the truth to the king with impunity, like Shakespeare’s fools. But, given safe spaces and trigger warnings, being a jester isn’t what it used to be.
from an Opinion Essay by Maureen Dowd in The New York Times
The Truth Hurts—Especially When Bill Maher Dishes It Out”
May 18, 2024
Oh my God, Miss Trial had me laughing through an entire morning this week. I admire Bill Maher. He’s whip-smart. His observations are pointed, and clever, and he can be mean.
On the other hand, the four favorite words of a Libra, he fulfills the vital function of Court Jester in his role as a political commentator and comedian.
Not only that but I know what he means about losing his nervous system over you-know-who last time. I am so over that rollercoaster. So over. In fact, so over it that I find lately I’m not reading a whole lot of news. I’m not interested in the Woe-Is-I-ing that’s all around me.
Here’s the truth: we’ve had bad presidents before and we will have bad presidents again, and we will survive this. Maybe not easily, maybe not willingly, maybe not prettily, but we will live through it.
Yes, even though we’re afraid we won’t.
Court jesters were meant to be the members of a royal household who got a pass in the face of consequences for telling the truth. They were entertainers: storytellers, jugglers, impressionists, jokers, singers, and magicians. They also had a job in the truth-telling division, and that was … to tell the truth.
Whose job is it today? Why not the comedians? Randy Rainbow, anyone? If you don’t know who he is, go to YouTube and enter his name—one of the most clever political parodists ever, and over-the-top talented, and yes, that’s his real name.
One of the great truths Mr. Maher purveys is to lighten up a little. It’s great advice. Let’s ask a few pointed questions, shall we? What stories are you telling yourself about the world? What stories are you telling yourself about your place in it? What stories are you telling about capitalism, the economy, the latest protests, the wars in the world, the political climate, hell, what kind of jeans Cher is wearing these days?
If you don’t want to receive the gift of lightening up Mr. Maher is offering, fine. Give it to yourself, but Chicken Little was a girl who cried Wolf, if you’ll forgive the mixed metaphor. Let go, dear one, say a prayer. Read a book. Paint a picture. Clean the fridge, and start to be a better jester in your own life. You’ll be so relieved you did, and your nervous system, I promise, will thank you every single day.
&
The Northern Lights I Did Not See
To long for a glimpse of the Northern Lights in Middle Tennessee is not a helpful exercise for the muscle that performs hope in the human heart. Maria Browning, a writer who knows a thing or two about darkness, was mesmerized. “Can you see the Northern Lights at your house?” she texted me on Friday night. “Spectacular.”
I was already in my bathrobe, but I ran outside to look anyway. Still nothing. But when I pointed my phone into the sky, the camera could see what I could not: a starry field of streaky purple right above my neighbor’s house.
[The next night,] standing beneath the open sky, there is something heartening about simply standing in the cricket-singing dark with an untold number of other people—in the model-aircraft field at Edwin Warner Park and in the world over—who are standing quietly together, their hushed faces turned as one toward the dark sky, faithfully waiting for some shard of color to break through the darkness.
from an Opinion Essay by Margaret Renkl in The New York Times
“The Northern Lights I Did Not See”
May 20, 2024
To the Editor:
The solar eclipse on Monday served to unite humanity in the witnessing of a celestial spectacle in which racial, economic and partisan differences were set aside, however briefly, in a peaceful, awe-inspiring and communal experience of sublime wonderment.
As the sun was slowly yet inexorably obscured by the moon, all of our earthly human rancor seemed petty and ephemeral by contrast.
Compared with the magnitude and magnificence of our planet and its sun and moon and their heavenly dance, humankind’s quotidian travails and grievances are cosmically inconsequential, even if we foolishly and hubristically imbue them with incommensurate vehemence and import during our relatively fleeting lives on terra firma.
Mark Godes
Chelsea, Mass.
from a Letter to the Editor in The New York Times
April 9. 2024, the day after the Full Moon Solar Eclipse
“Quotidian travails and grievances are cosmically inconsequential.” What a great observation. The Northern Lights. A solar eclipse. And, finally, a quote from The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe by Jane Wagner, wherein Trudy, the sanely demented bag lady originally played by Lily Tomlin in this solo tour de force, is determined to give her visiting space chums a Goosebump Experience.
She decides to take them to the theatre.
Trudy asks: “Did I tell you what happened at the play? We were at the back of the theatre, standing there in the dark, all of a sudden I feel one of ’em tug my sleeve, whispers, ‘Trudy, look.’ I said, ‘Yeah, goose bumps. You definitely got goose bumps. You really like the play that much?’ They said it wasn’t the play gave ’em goose bumps, it was the audience. I forgot to tell ’em to watch the play; they’d been watching the audience!
What do these three have in common? Collectivity. Collectivity almost always comes about because of Connectivity.
The next time you feel alienated by your own quotidian travails and grievances, go find a crowd of people and begin to watch them. Yes, it works even for us introverts. You don’t have to interact, just watch, and soon enough, the natural connectivity that simply is because we’re all human, and we’re all in this together, like it or not, will rise.
Once you’re aware of the connective, then you can become aware of the collective, the place where we all belong, simply because we exist. Then, as Trudy says, we can all do awe-robics together.
&
Here’s a universal affirmation. It works every time, for everyone, always and forever … and here’s a little fun fact … this one is allegedly the first ever written affirmation.
This is what Wikipedia has to say about the author: Émile Coué de la Châtaigneraie, 1857-1926, was a French psychologist, pharmacist, and hypnotist who introduced a popular method of psychotherapy and self-improvement based on optimistic autosuggestion.
Émile Coué
&
And in publishing news …
The local beta reader delivered on Thursday so I spent a bit of this weekend, aside from writing The Gazette, and a scene for the secret series, and a few thousand words in Jacqueline Retrograde, on those few scenes to which she added her comments.
Interestingly, I learned something quite important about beta readers, something I hadn’t known. The only time I’ve ever used one before was on a subject that was deeply spiritual, hence universal, versus factual. I simply hadn’t wanted to offend its genuine practitioners. In this situation though, I wasn’t explicit enough in my instructions to her. I was writing about a particular time in history and rowing. She, used to how rowing is today, tried to bring my prose “up-to-date,” which wasn’t what I needed at all! Lesson learned.
I’m hoping to publish Gemma Eclipsing this week! And when I do, it’ll be 99¢ for a month.
Here’s what one Amazon reader had to say about Jezebel Rising, the first book of The Subversive Lovelies—
Enchanting
Reviewed in the United States on December 5, 2023
I did not know what to expect with this series. I purchased it on a whim and had no prior experience with this author. Wow, what an enchanting stroke of luck I landed. It took me a minute to figure out who the characters all were, but once I settled in, this series has been a much-needed break from the stress of the day. (Truth be told, even my bouts of insomnia are better knowing I can check up on my favorite sisters and see what they are up to.) Although I may have been naive to this author before, I am surely a follower now!
You may or may not know, but reviews are the lifeblood to an indie author’s book success. If you’ve read any of my work and enjoyed it, would you please take a minute and write a review on your preferred book platform? I’d so appreciate it.
Once again, if you haven’t seen it, here is the blurb for Gemma Eclipsing—Book Three of The Subversive Lovelies!
A rescue. An artistic vision. And her new vicety demands its immediate birth.
Gemma Bailey is the third of the Bailey siblings, yes, those Baileys. Known for being exceptionally talented on the stage, whether theatrical or domestic in nature, Gemma is given muchly to dramatics in the best sense of the word. She can make an occasion out of anything. She loves ritual. She loves pomp. She loves circumstance. She’s good at all of it, and she’s perfectly content with her legion of myriad friendships, no romance necessary.
Now it’s time for Gemma’s vicety—the third of four the sibs had planned upon the death of their beloved father seven years earlier. Since then, Jezebel’s pair of viceties—The Obstreperous Trumpet, a saloon, and The Salacious Sundae, an ice cream parlor—are going great guns. Jasmine’s vicety, The Board Room, the first of its kind in the City, is racking up the profits, all of which go to charitable causes. Gemma has been naming and claiming a music hall as her chosen vicety for years until the time arrives to make it happen.
Then, the extremis of a young painter causes a vision for a fine arts academy strictly for women artists to be birthed full-blown from Gemma’s eternally capacious imagination. And despite her abundant performance giftedness, Gemma discovers a fulfilling talent she never dreamed she had.
Will her vision engender the support it needs from all corners of the exclusively masculine art world? Will she struggle pointlessly to put forth her case? Or will an encounter with an unlikely colorful glass artisan change the whole game completely for Gemma and her vision for a vibrantly creative future for Chelsea Towers?
So, if you want the paperbacks, look carefully. There are two volumes for each title. If you want the Kindle, there’s one file for each title.
The first two of the tetralogy, Jezebel Rising and Jasmine Increscent can be found at these live links for ebooks and paperbacks.
And, in much-more-exciting-to-me news … I’ve started writing Jacqueline Retrograde, the first half of the eldest Bailey sibling’s story. Writing Jaq’s backstory, and the Bailey sisters as children is a lot of fun. I think his story will come out in two volumes—#3.5 Jacqueline Retrograde, and #4 Jaq Direct. When I finish the first one, I’m sure it will be made clear.
&
Now I’ve moved on to reading about shame for my secret series. I’ve also been sent on assignment!
When I finished writing daily scenes for one month, I received instructions to review them all, and do a scene breakdown chart sort of thingie.
I read each scene; they’re between 500 and 1500 words apiece. Then I annotate the title I’ve given it. The number and names of any characters. The place/s. The dates or years.
This is an eight- or nine-book series so a lot of time will likely elapse.
Just this morning I wrote a really long scene in which one of the characters was giving a keynote speech to the American Psychological Association about how to work with patients/clients who have been diagnosed with HIV or AIDS.
The breakdown is harder to do than it originally sounded, and I’m finding that I’m free associating between, amongst, and around the nameless characters I’ve written. Each of them, for sure, represents an archetype, so, say, The Shy One, The Snark, The Twink, The Class Clown. I still don’t know why I haven’t given them names, but I haven’t.
I figure if I just keep showing up, the character names will, too.
&
Writing a book is such a distant goal for so many people. Understandably. The gatekeepers of the publishing world—agents, editors, and publishers have made sure the message goes out that it’s hard, and few succeed, and more, even fewer make money.
The thing is, take it from someone who’s written a lot of them, it’s always worth it—the time, the energy, the work. If you’ve been given a book to write, Beloved, I know a guy.
Tony Amato was my editor and my friend long before I got smart enough to marry him. He’s a singularly outstanding book coach and editor. May I encourage you to reach out if you need book-husbanding, which includes coaching along the way? Like I said, if you need anything in your writing life, Tony Amato is the person. Find him here.
&
As I said, I began to look into the emotional phenomenon of shame this week for my secret series. I thought it might be a break from the HIV/AIDS reading I’ve been doing which is pretty bleak sometimes, and teeming with hope, others.
Anyway, so typical of me, I started with a book called Shameless by Nadia Bolz-Weber, the Lutheran pastrix who founded House for All Sinners and Saints in Denver. Oy. The book is brilliant.
It’s not a systematic theology by any means nor does she intend it to be, but it is one Christian’s deliberate unpacking of the utter mess The Church and religion have made of sex, sexual mores, and sexual practices. This might be my favorite quote from it: “And I’m not suggesting we make a few simple amendments; new wine in old skins ain’t gonna cut it. I’m saying let’s burn it the fuck down and start over. Because it’s time.”
I am lucky in that I didn’t choose that particular trauma for this lifetime, but I’ve sure helped plenty of folks take apart their own version of same. The pastrix is a deep thinker, a very skilled theologian, and kickass to boot. She’ll wow you with her insights.
Still reading Susan Brownmiller’s deconstruction of Femininity, written in 1984, which is so intense that I’ve had to put it down for a bit. Fascinating. Some of the ideas are wild lo, these forty years later. And, much to my utter chagrin, still true.
&
This is a photo I took of the profusion of wild ferns
that you see when you look straight down from what I call
The Folly,
a tiny whimsical little porch-lette for two, tacked
onto the back of our kitchen, and overlooking a
veritable riot of green sumptuosity—
Is that a word? It is now—
as summer dawns upon the East Coast.
If you’re worried about not enough on any front,
consider the wealth of healing green
blooming near you.
I am, without doubt, certain that And is the secret to all we desire.
Let’s commit to practicing And ever more diligently, shall we?
Until next time,
Be Ampersand.
S.