(VIDEO) WHY JOHN CULLUM LOVES HISTORY

Emily Frankel tells her husband that the ancient classic literature that he reads on his kindle almost every night is "mostly boring, not my cup of tea."
 

John tells wife Emily that Plato, Sophocles, (& others like them) help him run his life, and understand the world of today.

MEET AN ASTOUNDING WOMAN!!!

This is Arundhati Roy.

I saw the photo, the headline "Captures India's chaotic beauty," above a review of her new book in Newsweek Magazine. Her face ... this photo ... got me reading the article.

Apparently in her book "THE MINISTRY OF UTMOST HAPPINESS," author Roy wanders at night near her home in Delhi, observing the poor people who survive there among palaces, mosques, and cemeteries, trying, as an writer, to make what's not seen, clear and visible.

In this book, her second book that was written twenty years after her award-winning first novel "GOD OF SMALL THINGS," Roy moves from a family in an old graveyard, to what's happening in distant Kashmir where a love triangle unfolds -- a college pal and a journalist -- two people whose mixed background, (parents from different classes) resembles Roy's own background.

Roy says to write about India, without addressing its caste problem, would be like ignoring the legacy of aparthied in South Africa. The 55-year-old Roy has spent the last twenty years writing about injustices -- local and global -- from the negative ecological impact of hydroelectric projects in India to her support for National Security Agency whistleblower, Edward Snowden.

"It was about ten years ago," Roy said, "that I started feeling all my urgent interventions weren't making any difference. In Kasmir, I couldn't express what I learned about terror and repression with footnotes and facts. Fiction seemed to be, for me, the right thing to do. All the journeys I've made, all the things I have done, form the underpinnings of "The Ministry of Utmost Happiness."

So, did a buy a copy? Am I reading this new book?

Not yet. My desk is piled high with work I must do on my novels that John Cullum's publishing as audio videos. Am I recommending it? Yes.

Those words she wrote, and her face -- the look of her sticks in my mind -- woman, girl, amused, thoughtful, hugely observant. She inspires me to do the same things in my work. Maybe she'll inspire you too.

CELEBRATING MOM'S BIRTHDAY

Today is the day I celebrate my mother's birthday. There's a green light glowing in her brass candle holder. It's electrified, and sits on a shelf above my desk. The nurse, who tended Mom, during the last weeks of her life, sent it to me. I keep it lit night and day.

Throughout my life, Mom was always there for me -- it didn't take much conversation -- just "Mom, I've got a problem," or "Mom, I'm not sure what to do," or just "Hi Mom."  (I've blogged about her in "Night Light" -- 4/13, and in " Marching" --  4/17.)

After a head-on collision on the highway near Indianapolis, I was rushed to a hospital -- cut out of my clothes, temporarily repaired -- my small intestine had been severed by the seat belt, my facial injuries were extensive. Because I had a fever, surgeons postponed the major surgery that was needed on my back.

For the next three weeks, I was strapped to a Stryker table. The nurses turned it and me like a flap-jack, every 45 minutes. I couldn't sit up, or raise my head, or move any part of my torso, though I could move  my arms and hands. I lay on my bandaged stomach wounds, facing the floor, then lay face up with my injured back (at the waist), positioned over the padded hole in the center of the table.

My husband, John Cullum, and Mom arrived while I was still unconscious. He was in "1776" on Broadway singing "Molasses to Rum," playing the Senator from South Carolina. While I was being treated with antibiotics for the fever, the show's producer let him miss performances and fly to Indianapolis twice a week. The shows he missed weren't deducted from his salary. The cast members had a "kitty" -- money they collected to help cover the cost of the airfare.

Mom, who was recovering from a mastectomy she had a few months earlier, was with me every day. She got me large-size knitting needles, white yarn, and cast on thirty stitches, so that upside-down or right-side up, I could knit. With her encouraging me, I managed to make the first four inches of a scarf that my husband even now, occasionally wears.

The Doctors came in routinely, and tested my legs, arms, face as well as my private parts with a feather, asking, "Do you feel that?" Though I didn't feel anything, I always said, "I can march."

It seemed to cheer everyone when I said that. An orderly had told me I was temporarily paralyzed. Someone had murmured "partial paraplegia." I didn't have a dictionary, but if I had one, I wouldn't have looked up paraplegia or fracture. No one said "your back is broken" -- they just said that the lumbar vertebrae at my waist were "fractured."

It took all my energy to concentrate on minutes passing between pills and the hospital routines that had to do with food, toilet, bathing, combing my hair. I didn't ask for a mirror -- I didn't want to see what I looked like. Watching the clock ... what a torture it was, staring at the second hand, watching the minute hand, waiting for the hour hand to move. Only after three-and-a-half hours had past, could I start asking for the pills that let me disappear for a while.

It was a orderly who noticed a reddish, swollen area on my arm. A sliver of glass, probably from the shattered windshield of the car, was removed and treated. By the next day, the fever was gone.

JC was onstage in New York when the two surgeons examined me head-to-toe with a needle, instead of feather. Frowning, one of them said, "Well, we can operate in the morning. The other surgeon smiled, and joked -- "I'm the best bone fixer around town -- this is the hospital where we fix the racers from the Indy 500.  My friend here is a neurological specialist -- best in the country, figuring out nerve endings."

I tried to say something about marching. The way they were talking -- one frowning, the other smiling -- frightened me. They said ... maybe a year ... two years ... maybe five ... hope for best ... "Wheelchair" was mentioned twice.

After they left, Mom pulled her chair in. Squeezing my hand, she said, "Recovering from surgery is easier than waiting like you've been waiting. What you need to do is get a good night's sleep, and wake up strong, looking forward to the operation."

"Is that what you did, Mom?" She'd hadn't mentioned her mastectomy. I was thinking ... five years ... wheelchair ...  hope for the best ...  I wanted to say I don't want to live if I'm going to be in a wheelchair.

Mom spoke softly. "Don't think about what you fear. Try to give yourself to the doctors, dear, like you'd give yourself to a lover." She kissed me, and said it again, louder and very clearly. "The doctors need you to trust them, dear.  It will help them, if you give yourself to them like you'd give yourself to a lover."

I had never talked about lovers or my love life with my mother. How did my mother, married to my father -- for so many years the hard-working, faithful, adoring, good wife -- find the knowledge, the words, the wisdom to say what she did? And help me -- give me the command, and then, the power to look forward to tomorrow.

Happy birthday, Mom -- you gave me health, a body, resilience, a healing capacity, a powerful life force that's in my bones, my muscles, my blood, my skin, my pores, and you were always, always, always there when I needed you.''

(VIDEO) WHY WE DO 'LITTLE" DANCES

Spur of the moment, no matter what we're discussing, we just waltz, Charleston, or do a classical "Minuet."

Instant choreography's a fun way of communicating.