Karla Stover's Blog

I visited with a friend, made contact with a long-lost cousin and the sun came out. How happy am I?

Wednesday, October 23, 2019

Louisa Durrell & Spiro Romance? by Karla Stover

Murder, When One Isn't Enough; Paperback; Author - Karla Stover





    Here's how Gerry described Spiro:" short, barrel-bodied with hamlike fists and a great leathery       scowling face surmounted by a jaunty tilted peaked cap. He opened the door of his car ( an anc-      ient Dodge ) surged out onto the pavement and waddled across to us." He later mentions Spiro     "hitching his trousers over his belly." He probably looked more like the photo on the left than the one on the right.
     




     In the PBS series, The Durrells in Corfu, oldest son, Larry is the writer, and, in real life, he was a prolific author publishing novels, travel books, collections of poetry, and editing and translating. But it's youngest son, Gerry, who gave us the series. I'm only in page 144 but, so far, the series is doing a good job of following the book though with some changes as to when different things happened. The one exception I've found is about Spiro.

                                                   

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Monday, October 14, 2019

When Your Brother is a Famous Writer



Murder, When One Isn't Enough
Murder on Hood Canal
Wynters Way
Gothic and Historic

A Line To Murder (A Puget Sound Mystery Book 1)
Tacoma WA. Murder



Island in the Stream . . . Your Dream

“Ineffectual,” “inept,”  “a constant failure,” these are just a few ways Ernest Hemingway described his brother, Leicester.  So being the less-brilliant, younger brother of a world-renown author, what could Leicester do to become famous in his own right?  Well, he could work
hard and become president of a foreign country—a country that he created on a platform in the Caribbean Sea off the island of Jamaica, a wacky pursuit and therefore sure to inspire others.  
     On July 4, 1964, Leicester Hemingway introduced the world to New Atlantis
            It’s hard to know how serious Leicester was about his enterprise, but perhaps very serious.   He not only waited until three years after his famous brother’s death before launching the kingdom, he also used his own money to create it, money that came from the proceeds of his book, My Brother, Ernest Hemingway.
            Approximately six miles off Jamaica’s coast, in international waters, Leicester found a place where the ocean floor, normally about 1,000 feet below sea level, was only fifty feet down. “Anything we build there is legally called ‘an artificial island,’” Leicester said.
First he put down a foundation made of used steel, iron, and bamboo cables weighted down with a ship’s anchor, a railroad axle, and steel wheels, an old Ford motor block, and other scrap metal.  To this he attached an eight-by-thirty foot bamboo log platform.  He claimed half of the structure for New Atlantis and half for the United States government, based on the U. S. Guano Island Act of 1856.  In the 1850s, guano (bird poop) was a valuable fertilizer, and Western nations were busy claiming unoccupied areas having guano deposits.  The act authorized United States citizens to take possession on behalf of the government of   “any unoccupied island, rock or key on which deposits were found.”
            New Atlantis’s first citizens were Leicester Hemingway, his wife, Doris, and their daughters Anne, aged seven, and Hilary, aged three.  Eventually, the citizenship grew to seven with Leicester as president.  In an ironic but classy touch, a British subject named Lady Pamela Bird, who held dual citizenship, became vice president.  Thus, New Atlantis had its own Lady Bird.
As president, Leicester drew up a constitution based on that of the United States but with one line taken from the Swiss constitution which prohibited gambling.  A constitutional provision let honorary citizens be elected president with no oath of office required. Throwback Thursday—Contents of a country: Leicester Hemingway’s Republic of New Atlantis
Leicester created an official currency comprised of a fish hook, carob bean, shark’s tooth, and other items.  He called it the New Atlantis scruple.  “The scruple was chosen as a unit of currency,” he explained, “because the more scruples a man has, the less inclined he is to be antisocial.”
His raft island national flag, sewn by Doris, National flag of the Republic of New Atlantis. New Atlantis collection. was a blue square with a gold triangle in the middle and a blue circle in the middle of that.  She made at least four flags because storms and thieves frequently left the flagpole empty.  And finally, Leicester issued five different denominations of postage stamps.  They honored the provisional government of the Dominican Republic, the United States 4th Infantry, Winston Churchill, Herbert Humphrey, and Lyndon B. Johnson.  President Johnson sent Leicester a letter addressed to Leicester Hemingway, Acting President, and Republic of New Atlantis thanking his fellow president for some New Atlantis first-issue stamps.  Since it came from the president and went through the United States postal system, it inadvertently gave the fledgling republic approbation.
Had it not been for storms which repeatedly took out the platform, Leicester would have enlarged it to 100 yards wide and half-a mile long.  His future plans included a lighthouse, a shortwave radio station, a customs house, and, of course, a post office.  In the end, he quit rebuilding and turned all the country’s documentation over to the University of Texas at Austin.
            The purpose of New Atlantis was never clear.  Leicester explained, once, that it was to house the headquarters of the International Marine Research Society, an organization he founded.  The society’s mission was to raise funds for marine research, and to build a scientifically-valuable aquarium in Jamaica.  A possible side benefit of the raft island was that it could possibly help protect the Jamaican fishing industry.  But then Leicester also said he founded New Atlantis mostly to have fun and “make dough”—presumably from the stamps.
            After the demise of New Atlantis, Leicester tried to found another island nation—Tierra del Mar.  This time, four State Department officials explained to him, in no uncertain terms, that “attempts at creating this (new) island would be viewed by the United States government as a highly undesirable development, adverse to our national interest, particularly as it might encourage an archipelagic claim,” i.e. serve as a springboard for annexation of one of the nearby Bahaman Islands.
            Private islands and platform island nations have a long history.  When George H. W. Bush was president, his friend, Dean Kamen, inventor of the Segway, bought North Dumpling Island.  Kamen referred to it as the Kingdom of North Dumpling and to himself as Lord Dumpling.  North Dumpling is a two-acre “pirate island” in Fisher’s Island Sound off the coasts of both New York and Connecticut.    It had a lighthouse and a replica of Stonehenge.  Kamen created his own constitution, flag, national anthem, and navy (a single amphibious vehicle).  Its currency was in increments of Pi.  Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield of Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream served as joint Ministers of Ice Cream.  When Kamen was refused permission to build a wind turbine, he joked that though he had signed a non-aggression pact with President Bush, he would secede from the Union.  At some point, however, he installed a Bergey 10KW turbine on an 80-foot, self-supporting tower that he stacked in place using a gin-pole and winch system.
            While North Dumpling is a real island, it has nothing on Spiral Island, a “floating artificial island first built in a lagoon near Puerto Aventuras in southern Mexico.”
            In 1998, British expatriate Reishe Sowa moved to the area along the Caribbean coast and began picking up empty, discarded plastic bottles, left-over pieces of wood from construction sites, and bags of leaves.  The 250,000 bottles he gathered and filled with sand became the flotation for a bamboo and plywood base on which he built a two-story house, complete with a solar oven and self-composting toilet.  Mangrove trees and other tropical vegetation he planted on it gave the platform a real island feel and appearance.  Sowa’s pets—eight cats and one dog as of January 2006—gave it a homey feel.
            Of course what Sowa built technically isn’t an island.  “Not even the president is allowed his own island in Mexico,” he said.  “I have an eco space creating ship.  I can move it, after all.”
            Nature could also move it.  After a 2005 hurricane took Spiral Island out, Sowa rebuilt what is now a tourist attraction near Cancun.
            It’s not hard to have a quasi-island either on land or water.  The International Marine Floating Structures company has been building floating homes for twenty-five years.  They have contractors throughout Canada, the United States, Europe, and Central America.  Or for actual terra firma, consider someplace rural, such as Nevada’s The Republic of Molossia.  It’s been around for over thirty years old.

SOURCES: 
This started from a pre-Google article in Smithsonian magazine.  Google micro nations and it’s all there.

Wednesday, May 11, 2016

TOILETRIES FIRST HOLY TRINITY by Karla Stover


Evening in Paris perfume, Cashmere Bouquet soap, and Tangee lipstick
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I hadn’t received a Vermont Country Store catalogue for a while so when one showed up this week I took a delightful walk down memory lane because---there it was: Evening in Paris perfume. Between the 1920s and 1960s, women bathed with Cashmere Bouquet soap, wore Tangee lipstick, and dabbed Evening in Paris on their pulse points.

Evening in Paris, aka Soir de Paris, was developed around 1926 by Ernest Beaux, a Russian émigré and perfumer who left Russia after the revolution and moved to Paris. There he was able to use his Romanoff contacts to recreate a business. The Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich of Russia, one of Coco Chanel's companions, arranged a meeting between the two in Cannes late in the summer of 1920. There, Beaux presented his current and former works to Chanel who chose what became Chanel No. 5 as Christmas gifts for her best clients. Chanel, the company, was owned by the Wertheimer family who also owned a cosmetics company called Bourjois. And Bourjois was looking for a perfume that would appeal to the American bourgeoisie—nothing too expensive, however, just something middle-income women could afford. And so Ernest Beaux created a scent that smelled of violets, roses, and carnations, and which dried to a hint of cloves. The perfume was sold in signature, cobalt blue bottles.

In December 1938, the Dallas Morning News ran an ad for “A smart new bottle of Evening in Paris Perfume, with its own, efficient, lasting atomizer” . . . $1.73. The Vermont catalogue price is $79.95. Prices on ebay vary.

Image result for cashmere bouquet bar soapOf these three common toiletries, Cashmere Bouquet Soap is the old-timer. In 1806, an English immigrant named William Colgate started a starch, candle, and soap factory which he called William Colgate and Company. When William died, his son, Samuel, took over and, in 1872, introduced Cashmere Bouquet soap, the company’s first “milled, perfumed toilet soap.” The company even went so far as to register the name as a Colgate trademark.
George Luft, the son of a German émigré, was responsible for Tangee products. George grew up in Warsaw, Illinois and attended the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy. After graduation in 1894, he worked in small drug stores throughout the west. In 1902, George was married and living in New York. It would be 18 years before he established the George W. Luft Company, Inc. and begin to manufacture pharmaceuticals and “perfume materials.” The name, Tangee, came from the lipstick's tangerine shade, but the product was advertised as “a technical marvel” because “after application the color changed to conform to the complexion of the wearer.”
Image result for tangeeLily Langtry touted soap, Elizabeth Taylor advertised perfume, and pictures of Joan Crawford wearing Tangee are on the internet. However, perhaps Yves Saint-Laurent said it all:
"The most beautiful makeup of a woman is passion. But cosmetics are easier to buy."
 

                                                                                  
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
                                        
 

Thursday, August 27, 2015

Interview With Author Roseanne Dowell


1: Thank you so much for being here, Roseanne.

First up is the obligatory question. When did you first begin writing?

Wow, it was so long ago, it’s hard to remember. I guess you can say when I was a child. I always loved to write. I started with poems. But I never submitted anything until around 2002.

 

2: What or Who inspired you to write?

I honestly don’t know what – it’s just something I loved doing. As far as who – that would have to be my book club members during a discussion of things we regretted. I said I regretted not pursuing writing as a career. That’s all it took, they convinced me it wasn’t too late.

 

3: What do you like the most and least about writing?

Many things and it depends on the time of year, right now (summer) I enjoy camping. Fall and Winter I enjoy crocheting, embroidery, quilting and my latest hobby is wood carving.

 

4: Which authors do you like to read?

Oh, there are so many. My all time favorite is Nora Roberts, but there are several Books We Love authors also, Ginger Simpson and Gail Roughton are among them.

 

5: What’s the one thing you’d most like people to know about you?

Hmm, that’s a tough one. I guess that God and family are most important to me.

 

6: Tell me about your current novel, where I can find it and your website/blog.

My current novels can be found at Amazon. My website is www.roseannedowell.com and my blog is http://roseannedowellauthor.blogspot.com

 

7: Do you have any tips for aspiring authors?

Learn the difference between Show, Don’t Tell, which is actually my latest book and available from Amazon titled Show, Don’t Tell and Other Writing Tips.

8: Do you base your characters on real-life people?

I think a little from people I know slip into my characters, but my characters aren’t based on anyone in particular. I pick up habits from my family and friends and sometimes actual events.

 

9: Where do you get your ideas?
Ideas are all around us, from newspapers, people watching, and overheard conversations. One of my books, Deadbeat Dads came to me when my husband repeated a conversation he overheard in a
What I like most is easy- actually writing, making up my characters, settings, and story ideas. What I like the least is when the characters stop talking to me. I’m not real crazy about promoting my work either. I’d much rather be writing.

 

10: What do you for fun and relaxation when not writing?
Many things and it depends on the time of year, right now (summer) I enjoy camping. Fall and Winter I enjoy crocheting, embroidery, quilting and my latest hobby is wood carving.
Earlier, you mentioned loving Forever Amber and reading Victoria Holt and Phyllis Whitney back in the day. Me too, which is one of the fun things about talking to fellow authors--similar reading interests. Thanks, Roseanne, for taking time to answer all the questions.  Karla

 

Tuesday, August 25, 2015

The sun is shinning, one of my cats is sitting on my desk watching the bird feeders, and I'm working on an historical fiction book for my Canadian publisher, Books We Love. My two previous books with them are murder mysteries.  Puget Sound aficionados can check them out: Murder on the Line and Murder, When One isn't Enough. They take place in locations other than Seattle.

The book I'm currently working on is a bit of a ghost story and takes place in York--a place I love and where I have relatives. The research to try and capture both the time and location is a lot of work but I don't like historical fiction that feels too modern. That being said, at the end of Anne Bronte's The Tenant of Wildfeld Hall, the heroine does the proposing. How funny is that? It's a long book but  quite readable and one thing it made very clear, people's social circles back then were very small, mostly limited to neighbors, something I have to keep in mind with my book.

Anyway, watch for Wynters Way, coming out at the end of the year. It has a great cover.

Wednesday, July 16, 2014

COMTEMPLATING

 
                           A week and a half ago, this is what part of my garden looked like. 
Some pruning needed but otherwise rather nice. Then the temperature changed, going up--up--up and now all the blue is gone and red has taken over---and the pruning situation is worse. But--this lovely lily--my husband's favorite-- is in bloom.


          Now I sit looking at the gardening waiting for Chapter 17 of my latest book to speak to me.

Wednesday, June 11, 2014

my cup runneth over

Today is our anniversary. My husband woke me up early whispering, "Come here quick." He was standing in the doorway of the family room looking at the suction cup bird feeder we put up last winter. Two grosbeaks were trying, unsuccessfully, to get at the seeds. Sadly, the birds were too big. The last time we had grosbeaks in the yard was the year Mt. St. Helen blew, and that spring we had a yard full. Grosbeaks might visit a yard if black oil sunflower seeds are available but, then again, they might not. The sunflower seeds sell in 20 pound bags here and if the birds don't come, what are you going to do with all those seeds? We are debating the pros and cons. My husband and I enjoy many little things such as what birds are in the feeder, and have learned many things from each other. He has taught me war history and how to appreciate country and bluegrass music and how to spot game tracks. I have taught him about Russian history and different kinds of flowers, and moss--a specialty of mine. Together we try to identify birds or find out where the ships in the harbor are from. We talk to people in restaurants or in line at the grocery store or even the homeless.We have learned the words for hello in Korean, Russian, Spanish and Laotian and the emigrants we encounter are so pleased that we care enough to have learned. Everyday is made up of many little things that fill us to overflowing. When people ask me, what's new, it's hard to explain how exciting it is to see animal tracks in the snow or bird tracks in the sand on Commencement Bay or about the elusive peacock who plays hide-and-seek in the neighborhood. These are the sorts of things I try to include in my writing.