by C.J. Verburg

Edward Gorey visited San Francisco only once, on a R&R break from his tour of duty in the U.S. Army during World War II. Since his death in 2000, the City of Love’s embrace of this brilliant Chicago ->Boston ->New York ->Cape Cod artist and author only seems to grow warmer.

It was in 2000 that the Edwardian Ball was launched. This increasingly legendary Steampunk celebration has mushroomed in 14 years from a fringe event into a multi-floor two-day festival, a bizarre Beaux-Arts bazaar of vendors, music, vendors, performances, vendors, acrobatics, dancing, and above all, costumes displaying every imaginable variation on Edwardian and Victorian, Goreyesque and Goth.

2000 also marked the first birthday party for Edward Gorey at the Cartoon Art Museum. I had hosted parties for Edward, who generally loathed and avoided them, on Cape Cod during the late 1990s when we were collaborating on theater projects. He strongly urged me not to fly back East for his 75th birthday, so instead, I got together with CAM to stage a sampler performance of some of his theater pieces, plus a giant cake. I sent him photos, not suspecting that less than two months later he would die from a heart attack.

This year Edward Gorey’s birthday–February 22–falls on a Saturday. CAM’s celebration, two days earlier, will be part of Yerba Buena Third Thursdays, a monthly evening of open museums and galleries in the area around Yerba Buena Park. If you’re in downtown San Francisco on Thursday night 2/20, drop by 655 Mission Street anytime between 5 and 8 PM to peruse the current exhibitions, watch a slide show, have your Fantods read, or buy a book written, illustrated, and/or inspired by Edward Gorey.

If you’re on Cape Cod in March, you can catch any of three preview screenings of clips from Christopher Seufert’s affectionate documentary film of Edward Gorey’s life and work in the late 1990s.  Edward and Chris met when our town of Yarmouth opened a local-access TV station, C3TV. Eternally curious and experimental, Edward (and I) signed up to learn how to use this new medium; Chris was the resident expert. TV animation wound up not being a medium Edward chose to pursue, but Chris was fascinated by the media he did pursue, and pursued him. Over Edward’s theatrical groans of protest, Chris and company followed him everywhere with cameras rolling. For the price of some inconvenience (along with plenty of admiration), the legacy to which Edward paid no particular attention during his life is now bolstered by footage.

Wherever you are on February 22, take a moment to look closely at one of Edward Gorey’s extraordinarily intricate and beautiful drawings; read one of his startlingly simple but unsettling books. And don’t forget George Washington. This day has given us plenty to celebrate.

by CJ Verburg

Almost every time someone famous dies unexpectedly, someone else labels that death a tragedy.  Philip Seymour Hoffman’s death last Saturday night was a tragedy, in the Greek sense: not just unexpected, but perversely made inevitable by his own choices.  Among other things, it has unleashed a good deal of muttering about “that deep dark lonely place” which is said–usually by non-artists–to be the wellspring of creativity.

The deep dark lonely place popped up again at a recent online publishing hangout.  The speaker was talking of the “community” of writers from which 21st-century books emerge.  In contrast to what I used to call the John School, i.e., the postwar literary circle comprising successful writers from Barth and Cheever to O’Hara and Updike, the present school is school-less.  The Johns gave us shelves full of novels about sex, love, competition, and alienation in academia, because academia was where they lived–a prime source of their income, prestige, and visibility.

Just as the internet has shaken publishing companies out of their old niche, it has shaken out the academic community of writers.

Of course, “community” is used nowadays to mean any diverse group which the speaker wishes to treat as if it were monolithic: the gay community, the black community, the  community of nations.  Somewhere a pundit is probably commentating even now about the Facebook community, the Twitter community, the Pinterest or Reddit or Wattpad community.

Just as the real-estate community redefined the word “home” to mean what used to be called a house, the word “community” is wielded as a kind of demographic comfort food.  In our hearts, we all want a home.  We all want to belong to a community.  Our need for achievement seesaws with our need for affiliation.

Think of any online group you’re active in.  How community-like does it feel to you?  Would these folks invite you over for a cup of coffee?  Drive you to the hospital in an emergency?  If the NSA (which sees all and knows all) accused one of them of a crime–say, murder or terrorism–would you leap to his/her defense?

When an actor performs in a play, he places himself in the hands of the other actors onstage.  Like a trapeze artist, he trusts that when he jumps, he won’t fall to his death; someone will catch him.  That is the place where art comes from.  Call it community; call it home.  It is not deep, dark, and lonely.  Art happens in the safe place where you are free to do your best work.

When I write, the fictional characters I create become a community.  I know I’m inventing it, the same way I used to invent a family for my dolls.  Still, whether I’m writing a play or a novel, I’m in a place that gives me immense emotional satisfaction (punctuated with hair-tearing frustration) as long as I’m fully immersed.  Coming out is a jolt:  What’s all this, then?

Years ago I taped up a twisted Beatles line over my typewriter:  When I write, everything seems to be home.

Why does writing, or performing or directing, or painting, or designing a book cover, feel like home?  I don’t know for sure.  I know that, like my dollhouse, this mini-world is more manageable than the big one outside.  The people in it may be charming, irritating, or frightening; they’re rarely boring.  And although they are full of surprises and demands, they never seriously threaten me.  Here, I’m the NSA: I see all and know all.

Art is escape.  Oasis.  Sanctuary.  It’s reality that’s a deep dark lonely place.

by Charisse Howard (first posted on charissehoward.com)

If you saw my previous post “The Regency Abroad,” you’ll recall my rereading Jane Austen and wondering: Who are these “officers” who keep popping up, turning young ladies’ heads, and then marching off again?

When His Royal Highness Prince George took the sove-reins from his ailing father and launched the Regency, his country was at war. (Britain was often at war. It’s an island. Like Manhattan, it depends heavily on imports.) Ever since the French Revolution had paved the way for Napoleon to become Emperor, things were prickly across the Channel.

Nor had Britain forgiven Spain for the Armada, as well as continuing to meddle in the New World. The Americans had booted the Brits out of their former colonies. When Napoleon sold France’s vast Louisiana Territory to the newly United States in 1803, that left only Spain on the south end of the East Coast, hanging onto Florida. On the north end, Canada remained British.

Thus the War of 1812. The U.S. had a vision of stretching from sea to sea, but at this point, that meant from the Gulf of Mexico (we want Spain out of Florida!) to Hudson Bay (we want Britain out of Canada!).

The British thought it would be nicer if they kept Canada and also got back into Florida. They made friends with the Spanish. They tried to make friends with the Louisiana Bayou buccaneers. That’s the back story for my “Regency Rakes & Rebels” romance Lady Barbara & the Buccaneer.

But America was a minor distraction. Why had Napoleon sold Louisiana? To fund his invasion of Britain. (See “The Regency Abroad.”)

Napoleon was a steamroller on land, but in the English Channel (La Manche, from his side) and on the Mediterranean Sea, he was no match for the Royal Navy. Still, it took years to prove that.

It also took some help from the Barbary Corsairs.

The Afghan-American writer Tamim Ansary has written a terrific book, Destiny Disrupted, which describes in detail how the mainly Christian world and the mainly Muslim world cohabited. Switching for a moment to the Muslims’ point of view: Europe was a little peninsula, Britain a tiny faraway island. The center of the world–culture, commerce, civilization–was the Maghreb and the Levant. That’s roughly the area which today’s Westerners call North Africa and the Middle East.

Dotted along the northern rim of the Maghreb were major ports such as Tunis, Algiers, and Tripoli. Collectively, this was the Barbary Coast, so called for the Berbers who lived there. The ruler of each port collected fees from other local shippers, from Europeans, and also from the corsairs–the Mediterranean version of buccaneers.

The corsairs’ heyday ended two centuries before the Regency era. Its central figure, Hayreddin Barbarossa, started as a pirate and wound up a pasha, thanks to his naval victories for the Ottoman Empire.

During the Napoleonic Wars, France’s blockade of Britain opened up a new market for corsairs. Naval battles were the gentlemanly way for the Brits to win control of the northern Mediterranean. But why overlook the usefulness of freelancers? The need to capture enemy ships and their cargo created a new generation of corsairs.

And that is the back story for my new “Regency Rakes & Rebels” romance, working title Lady Caroline & the Corsair, due out the first of February!

Still wondering how to fill those gaps in your Christmas gift list? Now that books come in so many different forms and genres, a book is more than ever the ideal stocking-stuffer. For your loved ones who favor digital bookshelves, how about an e-book?

Is there a way to give an e-book as a gift?

Of course there is!  Would Amazon leave a potentially lucrative shopping gap unfilled?  In “How to Give an E-Book as a Gift,” Sharon Vaknin of CNET outlines the procedure now commonly called “gifting” for your loved ones who read on Nook, Kindle, iPad, or Android devices.  It’s a story reminiscent of “Goldilocks and the Three Bears”:

• Amazon, the experts at making everything easy for everybody, has a “Give as a Gift” button which lets you either send your chosen book directly to your chosen recipient, or print out a voucher to wrap and/or send.
• Barnes & Noble will let you buy a Nook book as a gift if you open an account.
• iTunes and Google+ have no procedure for gift books; however, you can buy a gift card and enclose a book suggestion with it.

Smashwords and Kobo aren’t covered by Vaknin’s article, but trust the ever-flexible Smashwords to enable easy gift-giving.  On Smashwords you can give an e-book in almost any e-format, however old, new, or obscure.  Just find the book you want, click on the title, and click the “Give as a Gift” button.  Your recipient will need to open a free Smashwords account to pick up the book; that done, s/he can open or download it on any device from a phone to a computer.  Full details here.

Kobo doesn’t have a specific gift-book procedure but will let you give a gift card which the recipient can redeem online.

And if your taste is retro, remember that the US Postal Service this year charges $5.80 for delivery within 1-3 days of a Priority Mail envelope or small (5.25″ x 8.5″) box of any weight.  When they ask you if your package contains anything hazardous, say Yes!  It’s a book!

ARe Cafe Give-Away!
TODAY ONLY, Friday 12/6

One lucky winner will launch a sizzling weekend with Lady Annabelle’s Abduction, Book One in Charisse Howard’s hot new Regency Rakes & Rebels series.

Enter at https://www.arecafe.com/ to win an e-copy in the format of your choice — and don’t touch this fast-paced, suspenseful, passionate adventure without a potholder!

You can also buy Lady Annabelle’s Abduction, and Lady Barbara & the Buccaneer, for $1.99 here and elsewhere.

I’m Dreaming of a Noir Christmas . . .
Feeling blitzkrieged by the holidays?  Fight back with seasonal crime fiction!  Carol Verburg’s Silent Night Violent Night: A Cory Goodwin Mystery confirms what you secretly suspected about those lavish parties where over-bonused CEOs flex their ego-muscles.  The power-broker in ex-bohemian sculptor Lilah Darnell’s posh pond-front home is her publisher husband, Bruce Easton.  His guests include eminent scientists and their backers.  And their only hope of keeping this snowy holiday weekend from exploding is Lilah’s long-lost college comrade, Boston journalist Cory Goodwin.

$3.99 e-book or $11 paperback (holiday discount) at Amazon, B&N, iBooks, or Kobo

Enjoy a Blithering Christmas with Secret Thespian Edward Gorey
In his last decade, after leaving New York City for Cape Cod, the Tony-winning artist and author Edward Gorey wrote and staged twenty-odd theatrical pieces.  Two of these were full-length holiday plays for his troupe of actors and hand puppets.  Blithering Christmas features Otto the Automaton, Odile the Crocodile, and the three Blithering children; Stumbling Christmas is his Dada-esque take on Agatha Christie, as members of the eccentric Stumbling family reunite over fruitcake and try to figure out if there is indeed a body in the ha-ha.

Along with The Haunted Tea-Cosy, Gorey’s distinctive version of Dickens’s A Christmas Carol, these are among the many verbal, visual, and musical highlights in Carol Verburg’s affectionate reminiscence Edward Gorey On Stage: Playwright, Director, Designer, Performer: A Multimedia Memoir.
$4.99 e-book, $11+ paperback (holiday discount) at Amazon, B&N, iBooks, or Kobo