How I Spent My Winter Vacation

Well, in the realm of the blindingly obvious, when I took note of the fact that much of The Knight Agency was going to be out west last week, it didn't even occur to me to mention that our own Julie Ramsey was attending the Sundance festival. You can read all about it on the agency blog.

As for how I spent my winter vacation, let's just say that the Snake River Lodge is truly the bomb. No wonder a Conde Nast poll showed it among the top ten resorts in America--yet there's nothing snooty about the place, which is very laid-back and, well, lodge-like.

Here's a picture I took out front of the hotel, with Rendezvous Mountain (I think that's the one) in the background:



When I went to Wyoming with Deidre last year, my very first time out there, I saw far more snow than I had in my entire life. Of course that's not really saying much, when you consider that, aside from a few very short stints in Chicago (the first and longest of which was the first year of my life, 1964-65), I've lived mainly in very warm climates: the Philippines as a child, Georgia growing up and as an adult, and the Carolinas for two years in the army. That said, I think somebody from much farther north could visit Wyoming and come away saying "I've never seen so much snow in my life." And on this second trip, there was far more snow than the last time; in fact, for much of our stay, it was actively snowing. Here's a shot I took through the opened window of our hotel room--opened not merely to get the picture, but because the room was overly hot, as were most of the shops in Jackson Hole. I guess when it's this cold outside, it's understandable that people would go overboard on heating.



But if you really want to experience cold, try snowmobiling through Yellowstone at forty-five miles per hour--which, by the way, feels about the way it would to be going 120 in a car. Wind whipping onto your face, inevitably finding that one little spot that you've failed to cover with balaklavas, caps, scarves, and visors. No wonder I came back with a sore throat. Then again, as I was driving through that otherwordly landscape (the setting, I should note, for much of the action in my wife's Parallel series books), it gave me some idea of what it's like to really be cold. Yellowstone, after all, sustains abundant plant life; so just imagine how cold it must be in Antarctica.

I'll sign off with this last picture, taken from an overlook near Old Faithful. (We timed our lunch so we could see it go off, though the kids started getting impatient. Finally I said out loud, "Ready when you are, O.F.," and whaddayou know, the thing finally blew.) But anyway, there's a waterfall in behind those trees, and you view it from a wooden deck layered in razor-thin sheets of ice. The picture doesn't really convey what it's like to be there, of course, and yet there's a hint of that "terrible beauty," to use Yeats's phrase--the splendor of virtually unadulterated nature, which does not exist to provide us with a warm fuzzy, but which rather reminds us of how small and frail we really are. Apparently I must have conveyed something of this to my three-year-old daughter (who stayed behind with her grandparents, precisely because Wyoming in January is no place for a rambunctious little rascal who's never learned not to trust), because she told her preschool teacher today, "Wymoming [note pronunciation] is beautiful but dangerous."

[As it turned out, for some reason I couldn't get that other picture uploaded, and it hardly matters anyway, because as I said, no photograph could really convey what I saw there. Also, a shout-out to Dana, who asked us to drop off some snow on the way over Oklahoma: in your original post, you actually requested "a planeload of now," a great example of how typos and verbal slips--to which I am as prone as anyone--can contain hidden truths. In fact, NOW is the word for The Knight Agency in 2006, a topic I'll discuss more when I post the song list for our "official" CD.]

Knight Agency Center of Gravity Shifts Westward--Temporarily

For a few days, more than half of The Knight Agency is going to be located west of the Mississippi River, but except for Nepehele, who lives in L.A., that condition is only temporary. Deidre, Pamela, their spouses, and their kids will be traveling to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, which happens to be the setting for much of Deidre's Parallel series--and a darn good vacation spot as well.

Deidre and I first visited there last year, when she was doing research for the series--books that, at that time, had not yet even been sold. Now, a year later, with the first volume slated for April publication and Deidre hard at work on her second book, it's nice to go back to Wyoming and glimpse the world in which most of the series' events take place. When I went there last year, I had never seen so much snow in my life--not by a long shot--nor had I ever walked on a frozen lake or glimpsed buffalo, elk, and other majestic creatures at close range. Visiting a place like America's least populous state, a land of beauty so dramatic it almost makes you ache, is an experience that greatly expands one's perspective on nature and the role of the human being within it.

I have jokingly called this a retreat for The Knight Agency board of directors--Deidre, me, and Pamela--and in a sense, it is. There's nothing like "touching the dream," in this case experiencing not only the wonder outdoors, but the pleasures of the Snake River Lodge & Spa, one of the finest (and least pretentious) resorts in the world. (That's it in the picture above.) We'll be going snowmobiling, skiing, and sleigh-riding, but most important is the fact that we'll be doing all this in the company of the people we love most. (All except for three-year-old "Pink Bear," who, if she went with us, would likely think she'd been set down in a giant snowy playground--without any idea of just how dangerous that beautiful land can be. In any case, she's thrilled about staying with her grandparents, and thinks she's getting a better deal than her older sister.)

Because of our trip, which starts very early Thursday, I'll have to wait to post the thing I promised last time around, the "official Knight Agency CD" song list with annotations. Also, I changed my mind: rather than post that item on the Agency blog, where it would use up far too much space, I'll ask Julie to mention it on the blog and link to the actual post, which I'll put up on my own blog. I'm sure that no one who reads this will even be able to fathom how they'll while away the desperate hours waiting for me to return and post, but as the protagonist in Camus's The Stranger said regarding hell, "one can get used to anything after a long enough time."

Oh, and one other piece of news. One of these days soon, I'm going to change out my picture, which Deidre hates. She says it makes me look like a mean old man, with my scowl and my wash of gray hair--someone who would pride himself on being nobody's fool, and on extinguishing the slightest trace of sentimentality on the part of his listeners. Not me, as anyone who's read this blog knows, so I'm going to follow my wife's advice (almost always a good move for a husband!) and post a new pic.

Brilliant Management, Brother Rabbitte--Will They Be Wearing Black?

Some time back, I came up with the idea of The Commitments as the "official" Knight Agency movie. An old favorite of Deidre's and mine--we saw it brand-new in the theatre in 1991, and many times thereafter--it's the story of a group of young people who, as one ad put it, "had absolutely nothing, but they were willing to risk it all." Except for Colm Meaney, who plays the father of protagonist Jimmy Rabbitte, few of the performers ever went on to become substantial screen actors, and a number of them had no professional acting experience before director Alan Parker chose them for the film. What they did have was musical talent and the ability to realistically portray characters very much like themselves: working-class kids from the depressed north side of Dublin. ("We'd be working class if there was any work," one of them says.) Led by Jimmy, a manager and promoter with a strongly entrepreneurial sensibility--a dreamer, moreover, who continually conducts pretend interviews with a big-time reporter asking about the secrets behind his success--they form a ten-piece soul band and begin booking local gigs.

Because of its setting, the dialogue in The Commitments is more than a little salty. (Skip this part if you're easily offended, though it's not likely anyone who fits that description would read my blog.) Every third word, it seems, is "foke," "shoit," or some more local form of obscenity: bollocks, bleedin', tosser, and so forth. Yet the effect is not like that of a Martin Scorcese gangster movie, in which the poverty in the characters' vocabularies reflects the emptiness of their spiritual landscape. These kids are all heart, all fire and excitement: thus Jimmy Rabbitt, for instance, when explaining to the others the true significance of soul music, says that "It grabs you by the balls and lifts you above the shite."

The film is full of memorable lines, primarily about the importance of striving to transcend one's past and become something greater: for example, "It feels a lot better being an unemployed musician than an unemployed pipe-fitter." Deidre and I quote it all the time. Some lines fit a varietey of purposes, an example being Jimmy's excuse for his inability to find a job after two years on the dole: "We're a Third-World country--what can you do?" And when one of us wants to praise the other for thinking creatively in a business situation, we'll say, "Brilliant management, Brother Rabbitte." That's what Joey "The Lips" Fagan says to Jimmy when he realizes that the latter, in a clever bid to attract young men to the group, has recruited three young female singers. But what's really interesting is the second part of that quote, when Joey says, "Will they be wearing black?" From the look in Jimmy's eyes--he has piercing light-blue ones that add greatly to his charm--you can tell that he hadn't even thought of this idea, which, when put into action, greatly heightens the group's presence on stage.

Along with Jerry Maguire, Jimmy Rabbitte is one of the film protagonists with whom we, as literary agents, most identify. He gets his queries, in the form of kids coming to his parents' house to audition for the band, and not surprisingly, he ends up rejecting most of these candidates. He has to negotiate the vicissitudes of handling talented but sometimes unpredictable individuals, smoothe over interpersonal conflict, and soothe tender egos while leaving his own ego completely out of consideration. Throughout, he maintains his good humor by continually touching on his dream of achieving musical greatness.

Deidre, by the way, doesn't think The Commitments should be THE official Knight Agency movie. Just last night, we happened to catch the second half of The Muse on TV, and she pointed out that it could just as easily hold the "official" title. And there's no question that it's a great story, one that almost made me weep the first time I saw it because it helped me to appreciate the fact that "you don't shortchange the muse." And there are other good candidates as well, but I have a soft spot for The Commitments. To see those kids come from nothing, and each in their own way make something of the opportunity set before them, is as compelling for me on the twelfth (at least!) viewing as it was on the first--more, in fact, because I could hardly understand a word they were saying the first two or three times.

[In a felicitous confluence of events, it so happens that I also recently put together an "official" Knight Agency soundtrack in honor of Nephele's visit earlier this week. Each person in the company got a copy of the CD, and today I sent out a note explaining the significance of each song choice. Look for a further discussion of that topic next week.]

"What Color Bear Are You?"

Okay, to Robin, Michele, Dineen, and Mel, many thanks for reminding me that I'm not, to quote Shelley (? I think?), "an abstract demon beating his wings in a void." Or to put it less opaquely, thanks for the shout-outs, ladies! And don't think I've failed to notice the fact that "Robin, Michele, Dineen, and Mel" sounds like a very marketable name for a singing group. Do any of you have any pressing engagements in the next six months? Kids, family, jobs, books, etc.? If not, and supposing I could induce my wife to make a lateral move into music management, I'll bet we could make a mint.

More about the Agency (and the reason for my title here) in a minute, but first, to Bad Alice--thanks for coming back and posting and responding so nicely to my comment. No, I don't think anybody today thinks that terrorism is just an illusion; unlike Communism, it's too in-your-face for that. And I do believe that the vast majority of Americans who oppose the current Administration's approach to the war on terror are doing so in good faith. As for the matter of Communism, I started to write some comments and these quickly morphed into many paragraphs, so I figured I'd better save it for another post. In the meantime, thanks for reading, everybody!

I've been wanting to get back here and post for a couple of days now, but we've had a guest: Nephele Tempest, who in addition to being our L.A. agent is also a friend. It's been great for her to have an opportunity to work at the "home office" and enjoy all the great support Deidre, Pamela, and I get from our fabulous staff--Samantha Jenkins, Julie Ramsey, and Elaine Spencer--but it's not been all work: on Monday, the six of them went for a spa day at the Ritz-Carlton as a reward for hitting our sales goal in '05.

And Nephele is also staying with Deidre and me and our two daughters. Upon seeing her for the first time in a year, our three-year-old--who refers to herself as "pink bear" when she's wearing a cute little bathrobe she got for Christmas, one that is indeed pink with a bear design--informed us that Ms. Nephele was "a purple bear." Pink Bear has this talent for deciding what color bear someone is, a gift I discovered one night when she informed me that Daddy was both a red bear and a brown bear. Mommy, as I recall, is a white bear, and Big Sister is a blue bear.

I'm thinking that maybe this ability to identify people's bear color may indicate a future for her as a killer literary agent. Often we dream with our kids of a day when they and their cousins will take over the company from Deidre and Pamela, and though she's the youngest of the group, Pink Bear has the kind of tenacious spirit that might bring her to the forefront. If she can one day identify future bestsellers with the same ease that she does bear colors, Deidre and I need not worry about our retirement plan.

Lost at Sea

No, I haven't actually been anywhere--not physically, anyway, but were it not for two extremely kind, gracious, and supportive readers, Michele and Robin, I probably wouldn't even be posting here right now. Not for any lack of things to say: I've come up with, and in some cases have written all or most of, half a dozen blog entries. It's just that nothing ever got completed, and time went by, and you know how reality is. Especially in the holiday season, and especially when you've got kids and Santa to think about.

One of the first things I had planned to write, and actually did write, was a response to all the interesting comments on my previous post. I wanted to make it clear to those who had served in the armed forces that I absolutely respect the sacrifices of those in uniform during that time--it just so happens that my own tour of military duty in the early 1980s was exceedingly uneventful.

And I also wanted to address Bad Alice's comments on the aforementioned post, comments that reflect an opinion all too prevalent among those of us born after World War II--the idea that Communism was never more than a phantasm, a boogeyman. In fact Communism was probably worse than Nazism, both in simple numbers--if you added up all the deaths of the Holocaust and the war Hitler started, it still wouldn't approach the death toll left behind by Stalin, Mao, and others--and in its insidious appeal. It's pretty hard to imagine a decent, sane, rational human being embracing race-hatred, whereas the precepts underlying Communism are still routinely described as "a beautiful idea." (For some concrete stats on death tolls, see my friend Rudy Rummel's site. Rummel is a retired professor whose work on the subject of democide--his term--has earned him a number of accolades, including a Nobel Peace Prize nomination.)

Oh, and I do have to mention another subject about which I wrote pages and pages and pages before realizing that I had far exceeded the purview of a blog entry. The impetus was the film Grey Gardens, a 1975 documentary depicting two down-and-out relatives of Jacqueline Bouvier living in gilded squalor among the mansions of East Hampton, Long Island. There is so much to say about that story--about madness and missed opportunities and codependence and the aristocratic mindset--that all I can do is heartily recommend the film to anyone who's interested in experiencing a certain type of beauty-in-ugliness.

Actually, I had started out the Grey Gardens post not so much to write about the film itself as about the last thing in the preceding paragraph: the beauty to be found in stained, marred things. It's an idea that underlies many a great piece of writing, music, and visual art. In that vein, I might have discussed the story of Big Star, one of my all-time favorite groups, whose first-ever book-length bio came out in late September. Or if you don't have the time or interest for that, listen to a couple of the sweetest songs on their strange and unforgettable third album: "For You," for instance, is impossible not to like, and remains one of my children's favorite good-night songs. Or "Blue Moon"--not the "Blue Moon," but a song every bit as memorable as the more famous one.

Well, I could certainly write more, but that's the thing about blogging: sometimes you have to stop writing and post the dang thing. So--many, many thanks to Michele and Robin, and I promise I won't let a year go by before I post again. That's a promise I'm sure I could keep, though I don't suppose I would have retained any readers at all by then--even those two exceptionally supportive ones I've mentioned. Okay, I won't let a whole season go by... or a month. Maybe, then again, I'll post next week. Who knows? That's one of the interesting things about life. As Indiana Jones says at one of the most desparate, adrenaline-pounding moments in Raiders of the Lost Ark--at least, it was very exciting the first dozen or so times I saw that movie--"I'm making this up as I go along."