A dream comes true “That's it? It's done?”
One answer , a resounding “Yes!” worked for both questions.
My book, No Gold Stars, properly formatted, had been uploaded to CreateSpace.com, an affiliate of Amazon Books. If no corrections are deemed necessary, No Gold Stars will be available in paperback and Kindle in less than two weeks.
Admittedly, the process has been humbling and trying. From start to finish, the project has taken more years than I ever imagined, more revisions than I can count, and more technology than I will ever master.
“Let's create a spine!” said Dagmar, resident genius at Piedmont Printing. It was a digital spine, of course, with appropriate information lined up sideways on its half inch thick column. Zipping back and forth from keys to her clicking mouse, Dagmar gave my book its backbone in thirty seconds.
“Now to the back cover!” she sang out, triumphantly. Despite her sinus headache and her sniffles, she didn't complain, didn't take her eyes off the screen as she imprinted my ISBN numbers. “Now you see why I don't like to read when I go home,” she told me.
I knew what she meant. I'd been working in her office for more than five hours straight, making final line corrections and edits at much less than Dagmar's blinding speed. Still, my eyes felt so leaden that my head hurt from having to hold them in place.
But the finish line was near. There would be a book, a real book as a result of our combined efforts! And since there was a book, I could send excerpts of it to the Emory Magazine, a publication for Emory University's 100,000 alums. They'd already asked me to send them.
But I wanted to finish the book first. What if readers of the Emory Magazine wanted a copy? How would I have told them where to get one? Thanks to Dagmar, that won't be a problem.
Thanks, too, go to my editor, the most patient and considerate Francine, and to my many friends who never let me forget that my book was worthwhile, that it had meaning woven into a good story that needed to be told. Without their encouragement, I might not have persisted.
Now that it's so close to being published, I may revive a dream I've had for decades. That dream, seemingly so distant for so long, involves Oprah. Countless times, I've wanted her to arrange a reunion with my former students and me. Until now, that would have been impossible.
And I knew it. Finally, I can march to her office, hand her a copy, and tell her that she's in for a treat. She'll be impressed with the testimonials near the front from Rev. Jesse Jackson and from my friend, Aruba Tommy. Indeed, new dreams may come.
That's what I was thinking as I glided out of Dagmar's office. Although no one was there to cheer, I felt that parts of my brain that weren't numb were celebrating. My book had had a mostly quiet birth.
From there, as I headed for the door, it was back to work. “I just wanted you to know,” Dagmar's voice stopped me. She spoke to me almost in a whisper like the wind does when it announces a new season is on the way. “ I don't read books when I work on them. I'm not supposed to because it takes up time. But I couldn't help but read yours. I want to read the rest of it.”
I think I thanked her for that, just as I think I opened the door to leave a few steps later. But I'm still not sure, still can't believe what's happened, can't fully grasp that it's done.
And to think that someone really wants to read No Gold Stars---truly priceless!
B. Koplen 8/12/11
author, No Gold Stars
Friday, August 12, 2011
Thursday, August 11, 2011
Painting Pain
Painting pain By design, some things are meant to be oversized, often to make their message unmistakable. An artist may magnify dimensions to convey strongly felt meaning or strongly felt passion. The Statue of Liberty and Michaelangelo's David exemplify both. Known world round, those remarkable examples have attracted millions who have wanted to see them up close. As one who has seen both, I can vouch for the fact that seeing them made my trips worthwhile.
How often have I said that? Fortunately, for me, many times. All over the world, I've been places I will never forget. Going somewhere else to see something spectacular is what I've been doing most of my adult life. Often I've written stories about those visits, stories that have made even me, the writer, want to return.
Now I want to write about a place I won't have to go back to. The reason? I'm already there. Right here, in Danville, VA. What's there to see here, other than my Dad's spectacular hand made stained glass windows that grace the front of our 130 year old Temple Beth Sholom? Surprisingly, the answer has to do with something I discovered in a building just up the street.
“Why are they so big?” I'd been wanting to ask about the 11' X 6' paintings since I'd first seen them, almost a month before. Each was similar to the others in what appeared to be a series of abstract designs; they were huge and passionate. Were the pieces impressionistic? I wanted to ask that too because I sensed they meant something I was missing.
“I painted them about ten years ago,” said Wayne, the artist from Brooklyn who has, in little more than a year, transformed Danville's ancient Army-Navy store into an art gallery that highbrows in Soho would envy. Along most of one wall that spans at least 80' are the huge canvases I'd puzzled over ever since I'd first seen them. Little did I realize that Wayne was giving me a clue as to what they represented when he mentioned the time they were painted.
I studied them closely, again, as I had dozens of times before. Colors of each piece varied; the orientation of each canvas was vertical. Streams of paint seemed to rain down each image as if washing away blurred but rectangular shapes in the middle of each piece. At the bottoms were collections of colors in a heap almost, a pile of what an artist might have represented as emotion.
I had to know. “Why so many? Why so big?” I asked Wayne. Indeed, I was perplexed in a good way on that bright summer afternoon. I was on my way to the driving range to hit golf balls.
Usually jovial, my neighbor's voice registered a serious note. “Right after 9/11, I painted these.” He may have added, “I had to,” but I'm not sure. Shocked from his terse explanation, I stood in awe as the images jumped out at me with the vibrancy of a suddenly added dimension.
I didn't want to leave, couldn't resist going back to sense and feel the collection as if for the first time. I gasped when I said, “There they are, the towers!” They'd been there all along, trembling and shaking, their flecks of painted energy cascading in brutal rainbows. “I didn't know,” I whispered.
Parts of me felt like kneeling or praying or screaming or crying. Memories of my urge ten years ago to go to the site, to be there to deposit my grief and ground it in the reality of that gruesome tragedy returned. I went to Manhattan; for hours, I circled what has come to be known as Ground Zero just to see it more clearly, to get close enough to connect with a loss whose enormity had swallowed every emotion I had involuntarily expressed.
In front of me was the language of that emotion, its painted version that my words were wont to convey. Could they? Did the poems I had written about 9/11 convey the jolt and the hurt and the agony of Wayne's monumental paintings? When he asked me to recite my poetry at his grand opening, I felt his request pull me from the pieces that had held me. “Will you?” he asked again. “It's the Friday before 9/11.”
“Yes,” I wanted to say, still feeling shaky, although I felt my poems were too small to compliment his massive statement. Eventually I told Wayne I'd be honored to do that.
But I didn't tell him I wanted to somehow walk into one of his paintings, wanted to catch that tiny line on the side of one of the vertical shapes, a line that I now recognized as a falling body I wanted to save
from the soot and blood covered sidewalk where Wayne's picture stopped.
“How much are they?” I asked, almost hoping the price would be too high for any of them to be sold, for any of them to leave what had suddenly become a memorial I did not want to walk away from.
Was there reluctance in his voice when he answered? Had he too questioned whether he could part with any of them? Were they no less sacred than anything Michaelangelo had painted? Any less moving?
“$2500.” His answer sounded more like a question, as if I'd asked him to set a value on the purchase of a beat of someone's heart. Or three thousand beats.
I can't believe they're here, on display, in Danville, where so few things are ever so oversized.
B. Koplen 8/10/11
How often have I said that? Fortunately, for me, many times. All over the world, I've been places I will never forget. Going somewhere else to see something spectacular is what I've been doing most of my adult life. Often I've written stories about those visits, stories that have made even me, the writer, want to return.
Now I want to write about a place I won't have to go back to. The reason? I'm already there. Right here, in Danville, VA. What's there to see here, other than my Dad's spectacular hand made stained glass windows that grace the front of our 130 year old Temple Beth Sholom? Surprisingly, the answer has to do with something I discovered in a building just up the street.
“Why are they so big?” I'd been wanting to ask about the 11' X 6' paintings since I'd first seen them, almost a month before. Each was similar to the others in what appeared to be a series of abstract designs; they were huge and passionate. Were the pieces impressionistic? I wanted to ask that too because I sensed they meant something I was missing.
“I painted them about ten years ago,” said Wayne, the artist from Brooklyn who has, in little more than a year, transformed Danville's ancient Army-Navy store into an art gallery that highbrows in Soho would envy. Along most of one wall that spans at least 80' are the huge canvases I'd puzzled over ever since I'd first seen them. Little did I realize that Wayne was giving me a clue as to what they represented when he mentioned the time they were painted.
I studied them closely, again, as I had dozens of times before. Colors of each piece varied; the orientation of each canvas was vertical. Streams of paint seemed to rain down each image as if washing away blurred but rectangular shapes in the middle of each piece. At the bottoms were collections of colors in a heap almost, a pile of what an artist might have represented as emotion.
I had to know. “Why so many? Why so big?” I asked Wayne. Indeed, I was perplexed in a good way on that bright summer afternoon. I was on my way to the driving range to hit golf balls.
Usually jovial, my neighbor's voice registered a serious note. “Right after 9/11, I painted these.” He may have added, “I had to,” but I'm not sure. Shocked from his terse explanation, I stood in awe as the images jumped out at me with the vibrancy of a suddenly added dimension.
I didn't want to leave, couldn't resist going back to sense and feel the collection as if for the first time. I gasped when I said, “There they are, the towers!” They'd been there all along, trembling and shaking, their flecks of painted energy cascading in brutal rainbows. “I didn't know,” I whispered.
Parts of me felt like kneeling or praying or screaming or crying. Memories of my urge ten years ago to go to the site, to be there to deposit my grief and ground it in the reality of that gruesome tragedy returned. I went to Manhattan; for hours, I circled what has come to be known as Ground Zero just to see it more clearly, to get close enough to connect with a loss whose enormity had swallowed every emotion I had involuntarily expressed.
In front of me was the language of that emotion, its painted version that my words were wont to convey. Could they? Did the poems I had written about 9/11 convey the jolt and the hurt and the agony of Wayne's monumental paintings? When he asked me to recite my poetry at his grand opening, I felt his request pull me from the pieces that had held me. “Will you?” he asked again. “It's the Friday before 9/11.”
“Yes,” I wanted to say, still feeling shaky, although I felt my poems were too small to compliment his massive statement. Eventually I told Wayne I'd be honored to do that.
But I didn't tell him I wanted to somehow walk into one of his paintings, wanted to catch that tiny line on the side of one of the vertical shapes, a line that I now recognized as a falling body I wanted to save
from the soot and blood covered sidewalk where Wayne's picture stopped.
“How much are they?” I asked, almost hoping the price would be too high for any of them to be sold, for any of them to leave what had suddenly become a memorial I did not want to walk away from.
Was there reluctance in his voice when he answered? Had he too questioned whether he could part with any of them? Were they no less sacred than anything Michaelangelo had painted? Any less moving?
“$2500.” His answer sounded more like a question, as if I'd asked him to set a value on the purchase of a beat of someone's heart. Or three thousand beats.
I can't believe they're here, on display, in Danville, where so few things are ever so oversized.
B. Koplen 8/10/11
history uncovered, discovered
Special numbers “We're sorry about your Dad. He was such a special man.” Although I've heard those words countless times recently, they're still comforting reminders that my Dad and his good works will be long remembered. However, coming from the third generation owners of the bicycle shop that had served three generations of Koplens, the kind message had a special ring.
We'd talked about our family histories before, mostly in passing. But this time was a little different. I'd started the conversation by mentioning one historical find at the old Franklin's building I was renovating.
Hidden behind a few pieces of plywood was part of a tin fire door that had been jambed into the opening that had once been used for shipping. At least that's what I thought before I began to remove the tin covered door. It was built of four layers of criss-crossed one by sixes with dozens of eight penny nails on each board, held in place with 16 penny nails angled into the old frame. When I pulled out the last one, the top of the door moved toward me, away from the opening. I stepped aside, slipped a crow bar behind the exposed corner, and pulled. A moment later the door crashed onto the wooden floor.
What was revealed surprised me. There were two thin bead board doors that had once been locked together. All that was left of the lock were screw holes and the faded paintless rectangle where it had been. But what really amazed me was the poster that had been scotch taped onto the door, perhaps 80-100 years ago. Careful not to touch it, I read this message:
Your RED CROSS must carry on! then, below a solid red cross in the center of the black and white picture of a Red Cross worker in her uniform standing behind a soldier in a wheelchair, both gazing into the horizon, the one word GIVE.
Because they were as intrigued as I had been, an instant later they offered to show me their latest find. “Here's a copy of a 1928 phone book and pictures from the bike store back then, before it was on Wilson Street [where it had been when I was a little boy].”
What a treat it was to see those images, reminiscent of what an old part of our store had looked like four decades earlier. I thanked them for letting me see their treasures. It was past time for me to return to the store; I was late for an appointment.
“Look at this!” I turned back to see that they'd found the 'K' page in the old phone book. “Here's your great-grandfather's store. The number was 314, obviously a very old phone number since the one for your grandfather Abe was 2262.”
I stared at the two listings. Just reading the address of my grandfather's house brought to mind stories my Dad had told about the time spent on that corner of West Main. For a while, after WW II, at least three Koplen families lived together there. I remembered Dad telling me that, except for one room with a stove, there was seldom enough heat in the winter. But I'd never asked him whether they'd had a phone. Or whether he'd ever heard Grandpa Abe call his father, Max.
Until yesterday with my old friends at the bicycle shop, I'd never thought of that question. Perhaps, later today, I'll ask my Mom.
B. Koplen 4/6/11
We'd talked about our family histories before, mostly in passing. But this time was a little different. I'd started the conversation by mentioning one historical find at the old Franklin's building I was renovating.
Hidden behind a few pieces of plywood was part of a tin fire door that had been jambed into the opening that had once been used for shipping. At least that's what I thought before I began to remove the tin covered door. It was built of four layers of criss-crossed one by sixes with dozens of eight penny nails on each board, held in place with 16 penny nails angled into the old frame. When I pulled out the last one, the top of the door moved toward me, away from the opening. I stepped aside, slipped a crow bar behind the exposed corner, and pulled. A moment later the door crashed onto the wooden floor.
What was revealed surprised me. There were two thin bead board doors that had once been locked together. All that was left of the lock were screw holes and the faded paintless rectangle where it had been. But what really amazed me was the poster that had been scotch taped onto the door, perhaps 80-100 years ago. Careful not to touch it, I read this message:
Your RED CROSS must carry on! then, below a solid red cross in the center of the black and white picture of a Red Cross worker in her uniform standing behind a soldier in a wheelchair, both gazing into the horizon, the one word GIVE.
Because they were as intrigued as I had been, an instant later they offered to show me their latest find. “Here's a copy of a 1928 phone book and pictures from the bike store back then, before it was on Wilson Street [where it had been when I was a little boy].”
What a treat it was to see those images, reminiscent of what an old part of our store had looked like four decades earlier. I thanked them for letting me see their treasures. It was past time for me to return to the store; I was late for an appointment.
“Look at this!” I turned back to see that they'd found the 'K' page in the old phone book. “Here's your great-grandfather's store. The number was 314, obviously a very old phone number since the one for your grandfather Abe was 2262.”
I stared at the two listings. Just reading the address of my grandfather's house brought to mind stories my Dad had told about the time spent on that corner of West Main. For a while, after WW II, at least three Koplen families lived together there. I remembered Dad telling me that, except for one room with a stove, there was seldom enough heat in the winter. But I'd never asked him whether they'd had a phone. Or whether he'd ever heard Grandpa Abe call his father, Max.
Until yesterday with my old friends at the bicycle shop, I'd never thought of that question. Perhaps, later today, I'll ask my Mom.
B. Koplen 4/6/11
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
a three year old reflection: have things changed?
Religious tolerance: a true test Here's what they (including acquaintances and close relatives of mine) do: they assume there is goodness in the hearts of all mankind, a goodness similar to theirs. In decades past, they would have been labeled hippies. And now what are they? Idealists? Wishful thinkers? Naive? Humbly, I suggest the answer is 'yes' to all three.
Here's why. They assume that Islam is misunderstood, that the horror stories we read about pertain to 'other Muslims', not their friends, that Islam is a religion of peace. What they cannot do is point to a worldwide movement by 'good' Muslims to denounce Islamic evil-doers as well as the parts of the Koran those bad Muslims rely on with absolute conviction. Although there is no such movement among Muslims, that does not keep my wishful thinking and idealistic friends and relatives from doing it for them.
"Give Islam a chance", they say. "Eventually, they'll do the right thing". And this, the one notion that destroys their objectivity: "They love life as much as we do!"
No they don't. At least not the most dastardly ones that steal headlines with their butchery and their decapitations. Nor their leaders who declare suicide bombers to be martyrs and heroes. Those leaders believe that the door to paradise is opened best with hands soaked in Jewish blood.
A gory exaggeration? An unfair appraisal? Often my arguments with relatives and friends last for hours. Always, I am left wondering whether they really believe what they're saying. What would it take, I ask myself, to convince them that they are making dangerous assumptions? After years of posing my questions, I think I have finally found shocking and sober proof that being so accepting can lead to ensuring that imprisoned and unrepentant cold-blooded murderers are set free. Or worse.
In this case, a miscreant, Samir Kuntar, bashed in the head of a four year old Israeli girl after making her watch him shoot then drown her Dad. That sick killer, Samir Kuntar, is about to be set free. An adequate comparison would be to consider what the world for biblical Jews would have been like had Haman been released. No one argued for his pardon. Samir Kuntar is worse than Haman. At least Haman was caught in the planning stage.
In the dead of night, Kuntar brutally murdered an innocent little girl and her father.
What is most troubling about the planned release of Kuntar in exchange for the remains of two fallen Israeli soldiers (Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev) and a report about long-missing Israeli navigator Ron Arad is this: what kind of group would cheer the return of someone like Samir Kuntar? Who would want to be affiliated with such a heinous individual?
Tragically, the answers are easy to find. Lebanese Hizbullah have acclaimed Kuntar as a hero. Hizbullah ringleader, Hassan Nasrallah, in Little choice for a defiant Israel, by Andrew Markus, The Age, July 15, 2006, is quoted as saying, "There is no solution to the conflict in this region except with the disappearance of Israel." Obsessed with that objective, Nasrallah made it his mission to free Kuntar. To do that, Nasrallah ordered his henchmen to cross into Israel and kidnap the Israeli soldiers. Just today, in exchange for the remains of Goldwasser and Regev, the Israeli Cabinet agreed to free Samir Kuntar, the psycho who was sentenced to spend more than 450 years in Israeli prisons.
In conjunction with the praise of Nazrallah, Palestinian leaders have made Kuntar an honorary Palestinian citizen. According to a CBC news broadcast, Kuntar is revered as a "role model". (On the Net, please see: Samir Kuntar... The REAL Samir Kuntar ) To me, he is nothing more than an evil child killer and murderer.
The problem I have with those who do not condemn Kuntar is the same I would have with any who do not find him despicable. Their values, are, at best, skewed as they are deranged. Some who cheer for Kuntar are scholars of Islam; they have no trouble defining him as a true follower of both Allah and Mohammed.
Islam can be seen that way. Indeed, I beseech my friends and family who seek to dismiss Islam's darker sides to look again. Samir Kuntar is willing and able to do things much more frightening to honor Allah than anything they can imagine. Those radicals who applaud Kuntar may find what he is doing to be compatible with equally foul acts they dream of committing.
That chilling possibility concerns me. I must ask my idealistic friends and family whether they will bother to find whether their Islamic friends are repulsed by the freeing of Kuntar. If so, where are their banners proclaiming their revulsion? Most likely, they're nowhere to be found.
Could there ever be a better time for them to prove where they stand? For the sake of all humanity, I wish they had both the courage and the desire to tell Israel not to free Samir Kuntar. If only they would, I would gladly admit to my mistaken impression.
How sad that that won't be necessary.
B. Koplen 6/29/08
Here's why. They assume that Islam is misunderstood, that the horror stories we read about pertain to 'other Muslims', not their friends, that Islam is a religion of peace. What they cannot do is point to a worldwide movement by 'good' Muslims to denounce Islamic evil-doers as well as the parts of the Koran those bad Muslims rely on with absolute conviction. Although there is no such movement among Muslims, that does not keep my wishful thinking and idealistic friends and relatives from doing it for them.
"Give Islam a chance", they say. "Eventually, they'll do the right thing". And this, the one notion that destroys their objectivity: "They love life as much as we do!"
No they don't. At least not the most dastardly ones that steal headlines with their butchery and their decapitations. Nor their leaders who declare suicide bombers to be martyrs and heroes. Those leaders believe that the door to paradise is opened best with hands soaked in Jewish blood.
A gory exaggeration? An unfair appraisal? Often my arguments with relatives and friends last for hours. Always, I am left wondering whether they really believe what they're saying. What would it take, I ask myself, to convince them that they are making dangerous assumptions? After years of posing my questions, I think I have finally found shocking and sober proof that being so accepting can lead to ensuring that imprisoned and unrepentant cold-blooded murderers are set free. Or worse.
In this case, a miscreant, Samir Kuntar, bashed in the head of a four year old Israeli girl after making her watch him shoot then drown her Dad. That sick killer, Samir Kuntar, is about to be set free. An adequate comparison would be to consider what the world for biblical Jews would have been like had Haman been released. No one argued for his pardon. Samir Kuntar is worse than Haman. At least Haman was caught in the planning stage.
In the dead of night, Kuntar brutally murdered an innocent little girl and her father.
What is most troubling about the planned release of Kuntar in exchange for the remains of two fallen Israeli soldiers (Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev) and a report about long-missing Israeli navigator Ron Arad is this: what kind of group would cheer the return of someone like Samir Kuntar? Who would want to be affiliated with such a heinous individual?
Tragically, the answers are easy to find. Lebanese Hizbullah have acclaimed Kuntar as a hero. Hizbullah ringleader, Hassan Nasrallah, in Little choice for a defiant Israel, by Andrew Markus, The Age, July 15, 2006, is quoted as saying, "There is no solution to the conflict in this region except with the disappearance of Israel." Obsessed with that objective, Nasrallah made it his mission to free Kuntar. To do that, Nasrallah ordered his henchmen to cross into Israel and kidnap the Israeli soldiers. Just today, in exchange for the remains of Goldwasser and Regev, the Israeli Cabinet agreed to free Samir Kuntar, the psycho who was sentenced to spend more than 450 years in Israeli prisons.
In conjunction with the praise of Nazrallah, Palestinian leaders have made Kuntar an honorary Palestinian citizen. According to a CBC news broadcast, Kuntar is revered as a "role model". (On the Net, please see: Samir Kuntar... The REAL Samir Kuntar ) To me, he is nothing more than an evil child killer and murderer.
The problem I have with those who do not condemn Kuntar is the same I would have with any who do not find him despicable. Their values, are, at best, skewed as they are deranged. Some who cheer for Kuntar are scholars of Islam; they have no trouble defining him as a true follower of both Allah and Mohammed.
Islam can be seen that way. Indeed, I beseech my friends and family who seek to dismiss Islam's darker sides to look again. Samir Kuntar is willing and able to do things much more frightening to honor Allah than anything they can imagine. Those radicals who applaud Kuntar may find what he is doing to be compatible with equally foul acts they dream of committing.
That chilling possibility concerns me. I must ask my idealistic friends and family whether they will bother to find whether their Islamic friends are repulsed by the freeing of Kuntar. If so, where are their banners proclaiming their revulsion? Most likely, they're nowhere to be found.
Could there ever be a better time for them to prove where they stand? For the sake of all humanity, I wish they had both the courage and the desire to tell Israel not to free Samir Kuntar. If only they would, I would gladly admit to my mistaken impression.
How sad that that won't be necessary.
B. Koplen 6/29/08
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