Vampires and Redemption

A few years ago, I bought a copy of Bram Stoker’s “Dracula” at a garage sale. I was not prompted by the trendiness of vampires, the Goth culture or the popularity of the “Twilight” books and movies. I am not even a horror fan. The closest I ever get to watching a horror movie is maybe an Alfred Hitchcock flick or a suspense/thriller that turns out to be a bit more thrilling than I expected. I will admit that, as an English major, I enjoyed reading some Edgar Allan Poe, but that’s about the extent of it. But I do like classic 19th century literature, and here was an opportunity to read a classic for only $.25.

I was surprised at the respect for Christianity that was present in this novel about a blood-sucking vampire. It’s true that Dracula was repulsed by garlic, but it’s also true that he was repulsed by a crucifix and the host, the round wafer used in Catholic mass. As a Protestant, I have a different interpretation of the bread. To me, it is representative of Christ’s body. To the Catholic, in the doctrine of transubstantiation, the host is Christ. That shows to me two things, that in the writer’s philosophy, Christ is the opposite of evil and has the power to repel evil.

Other things in the story disturbed me. What I found most disturbing was Mina Harker’s transformation into a vampire. Mina is depicted as a loving wife and friend before her vampirization. Mina is bitten by Dracula, and at one point, compelled to drink his blood which transforms her into a vampire herself. What bothers me is that her path to becoming this despicable creature seems to be through no willful choice of her own.

In Dracula, Mina describes her experience in these words.

“With that he pulled open his shirt, and with his long sharp nails opened a vein in his breast. When the blood began to spurt out, he took my hands in one of his, holding them tight, and with the other seized my neck and pressed my mouth to the wound, so that I must either suffocate or swallow some to the … Oh, my God! My God! What have I done? What have I done to deserve such a fate, I who have tried to walk in meekness and righteousness all my days. God pity me! Look down on a poor soul in worse than mortal peril. And in mercy pity those to whom she is dear!”

The same incident is described in the narrating voice of Dr. Seward.

“The attitude of the two had the terrible resemblance to a child forcing a kitten’s nose into a saucer of milk to compel it to drink.”

Even more bothersome is a scene with Mina that follows soon afterwards. Van Helsing takes some precautions to protect Mina from Dracula. Mina’s husband, Jonathan Harker, is the narrator in this section.

“‘Now let me guard yourself. On your forehead, I touch this piece of Sacred Wafer in the name of the Father, the Son and…’ [in the words of Van Helsing] There was a terrible scream that almost froze our hearts to hear. As he had placed the Wafer on Mina’s forehead, it had seared it…had burned into the flesh as though it had been a piece of white-hot metal. My poor darling’s brain had told her the significance of the fact as quickly as her nerves received the pain of it, and the two so overwhelmed her that her overwrought nature had its voice in that dreadful scream. But the words to her thought came quickly. The echo of the scream had not ceased to ring on the air when there came the reaction, and she sank on her knees on the floor in an agony of abasement. Pulling her beautiful hair over her face, as the leper of old his mantle, she walked out. ‘Unclean! Unclean! Even the Almighty shuns my polluted flesh! I must bear this mark of shame upon my forehead until the Judgement Day.’”

To me, this is mixed-up Christian imagery. The whole message of the gospel is grace, and here is a woman who is unhappy in her condition and seems rejected by God and beyond redemption. There is some discussion among the characters afterwards that God will make things right for Mina at Judgement Day, but that is little consolation to me as a reader that she must suffer until then.

In one sense, I can see that we are all “infected” in our blood as humans, not because of personal actions, but because we are all descendants of Adam and Eve.

In Romans 5:12…
“Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man [Adam,] and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned—“

And later in verse 15…
“But the gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died by the trespass of the one man, how much more did God’s grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many!”

The condition that we’ve inherited through Adam does not place us beyond God’s grace. My God is a God of grace. There are no irredeemable people, certainly not someone like Mina who is unhappy in her condition and wants to change. Faith, however, is a requirement for redemption.

Blood is actually a theme throughout the entire Bible. If you do a search on the Amazon site for “blood,” you will find a lot of titles for vampire fiction and a lot of books on Christian theology.

In the Old Testament, the Israelites were told not to eat blood.

Leviticus 17: 13-14 NKJV
“Whatever man of the children of Israel, or of the strangers who dwell among you, who hunts and catches any animal or bird that may be eaten, he shall pour out its blood and cover it with dust; For it is the life of all flesh. Its blood sustains its life. Therefore I said to the children of Israel, You shall not eat the blood of any flesh, for the life of all flesh is its blood. Whoever eats it shall be cut off.”

The idea of the life being in the blood is in Dracula also. This is most seen in the psychiatric patient Renfield, the zoophagous “life-eating” patient, who keeps pets that progress along the food chain, and seems obsessed with consuming life. In fact, Renfield even makes a reference to the Old Testament Scripture.

"I tried to kill him for the purpose of strengthening my vital powers by the assimilation with my own body of his life through the medium of his blood – relying, of course, upon the Scriptural phrase, 'For the blood is the life.'"

Also, in Old Testament times, a system of animal sacrifices was set up to atone for sins.

Dracula drinks blood to take life to himself and give himself life and power. Christ shed His blood to give life to others.

Ephesians 1:7 “In Him, we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace.”

Strangely enough, Jesus commands his disciples to drink His blood at the Last Supper. That sounds very close to vampirism. It must have seemed strange to these men that followed the law of avoiding animal blood in their diets.

John 6:54-56 “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is real food, and my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him.”

It’s explained this way in “Hard Sayings of the Bible” by Walter C. Kaiser, Jr., Peter H. Davids, F.F. Bruce, and Manfred T. Brauch.

“What could He mean? Plainly His language was not to be taken literally: He was not advocating cannibalism. But how was it to be taken? It was not only obscure, they thought: it was offensive. For Jews the drinking of any blood, even the eating of flesh from which the blood had not been completely drained, was taboo. But drinking the blood of a human being was an idea which ought not even to be mentioned. This was a hard saying in more senses than one.

Jesus answered their protest by pointing out that His words were to be understood spiritually. ‘It is the spirit that gives life, the flesh is of no avail’ (John 6:63 RSV) The physical or literal meaning of the words was plainly ruled out. But what was the spiritual meaning?

Again the reader of this Gospel, viewing these words in the context of the whole work, has an advantage over the first hearers, who had no such explanatory context. What we have in Jesus’ strange language is a powerful metaphor stating that a share in the life of God, eternal life, is granted to those who in faith come to Jesus, appropriate Him, enter into union with Him.”

Again, Jesus gives His life through His blood rather than taking life, ala Dracula, through our blood. Because Dracula’s action is kind of a sinister twist on the Christian communion, perhaps that is why the Sacred Wafer acts as a repellent.

Christ also acted as our final sacrifice for sins.

Hebrews 10:11-12 NKJV
“And every priest stands ministering daily and offering repeatedly the same sacrifices which can never take away sins. But this Man, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God.”

Hebrews 9:13-14 NKJV
“For if the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling the unclean, sanctifies for the purifying of the flesh. How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?”

Christ appears to John in Revelation as the Lamb, symbolizing the ultimate sacrifice. In Revelation 5:9 the twenty-four elders worship Him saying, “You are worthy to take the scroll, and to open its seals, For you were slain, and have redeemed us to God by Your blood out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation.”

Real Love on Valentine's Day

This Valentine's Day, I thought I would share some quotes on love from one of my favorite writers, C. S. Lewis.

"Love is not affectionate feeling, but a steady wish for the loved person's
ultimate good as far as it can be obtained."

C.S. Lewis in "God in the Dock"

"There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket -- safe, dark, motionless, airless -- it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable."

C.S. Lewis in "The Four Loves"

"There are two kinds of love: we love wise and kind and beautiful people because we need them, but we love (or try to love) stupid and disagreeable people because they need us. The second kind is the more divine because that is how God loves us: not because we are lovable but because He is love, not because He needs to receive but He delights to give."

"The Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis," Volume III

Some Random Songs I Have on MP3

“Baroque and Blue” by Claude Bolling

This song played not so long ago for the first time on one of my Pandora stations, a song featuring classical flute and jazz piano. It immediately caught my attention. The station had been playing songs I liked reasonably well, but when this song came on, I had to rush to the computer to see the title and artist and give it a thumbs up. I remembered then that as a preteen, my sister-in-law had introduced me to Claude Bolling. I liked it so well that I recorded off her vinyl LP record – I’m showing my age -- onto cassette tape.

I am not a musicologist or even a student of music theory, so I’m not sure I can adequately describe it except for the mood it evokes. Maybe, what I like about it is the element of surprise. First, you hear the “Baroque” elements and then the “blue” elements, and it strikes you as unexpected in a very pleasant way. Shortly afterwards, I bought three Claude Bolling CDs and this particular track on MP3.

Here is a different quartet playing “Baroque and Blue.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1F53kNIIHXA

”Shenandoah” by Hayley Westenra

I first discovered Hayley Westenra while shopping in Borders. I heard her voice, and it made such an impression on me that I had to go to the customer service counter and see what demo CDs they were playing that day. It was her first album, “Pure.” That’s exactly what her voice sounds like to me, pure. It has a clear, beautiful tone. I like a number of other female vocalists and a number of other sopranos, but I think, judging on the quality of voice alone, Hayley would be my number one favorite. She’s been classically trained. Sometimes, when I’m listening to a more mature opera soprano – Hayley’s first album came out in 2003 when she was 17 – I am very aware that the soprano is employing special vocal techniques. When Hayley sings, I am not overly aware of techniques. She makes it sound easy and natural. Her voice sounds lovely with this simple but pretty melody.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_No4g5ZULI8

”Pachelbel Meets U2” by Jon Schmidt

This is another discovery from Pandora radio, a pretty instrumental weaving together of Pachelbel’s “Canon in D” and U2’s “With or Without You.” The two melodies intertwine. As the song progresses, it seems to shift from a little Pachelbel to more U2, building in volume, drama and power but remaining easy listening.

”You’ve Got a Friend in Me, in the Style of Bernstein”

Somehow, poking around on Amazon music, I came across two unusual Disney music albums, “Bibbidi Bobbidi Bach” and “Heigh Ho Mozart.” Yes, it would seem the theme of this post is classical style music with some fusion with another genre or some other surprising twist. The music on these albums are Disney songs arranged in the style of various classical composers. I picked a few of my favorite Disney songs combined with some of my favorite composers. This one is, of course, from the first “Toy Story” movie. The arrangement does sound reminiscent of Bernstein, but not like one of Bernstein’s more lively compositions, so the tempo seems slower than the original Disney tune. But there are parts where the chords sound exactly copied out of “West Side Story.” My favorite actually from these albums is “I Wanna Be Like You” from “Jungle Book” played Spanish guitar style after the manner of Villa-Lobos. That one is performed by Los Angeles Guitar Quartet.

I thought I would throw in a few extras, ones I don’t actually own on MP3. Since we are on the subject of Los Angeles Guitar Quartet and, earlier, on Pachelbel’s “Canon in D,” I thought I would include this “’Loose’ Canon” by LAGQ. They insert a little of every guitar style in there from Spanish to jazz and even a little hard rock.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yflWG-e38OU

Here is another fun extra. I had fun playing “Name That Tune” with this electric string quartet’s medley of songs through music history. I think I named nearly all of them except for three or four at the end. From what I heard, they are: “Greensleeves,” “Hallelujah Chorus” (Handel,) “Eine Kleine Nachtmusik”(Mozart,) “Ode to Joy” (Beethoven,) “William Tell Overture” (Rossini,) “Nessun Dorma” (Puccini,) “Ave Maria,” “Fifth Symphony” (Beethoven,) “Thus Spoke Zoroastra,” the can can song, “The Toreador Song” (Bizet,) “Hungarian Dance No. 5” (Brahms,) “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy” (Tchaikovsky,) “In the Hall of the Mountain King” (Grieg,) then “James Bond theme” and back to Grieg, “The Entertainer” (Joplin,) “Singin’ in the Rain,” “Do a Deer,” “There’s No Business Like Show Business,” “Summertime” (Gershwin,) “In the Mood,” “New York, New York,” “You Ain’t Nothin’ But a Hound Dog” (Elvis Presley,) “Pretty Woman” (Roy Orbison,) “Yesterday” (Beatles,) “Stayin’ Alive” (Bee Gees,) “Money, Money, Money” (ABBA,) “Another One Bites the Dust” (Queen,) “Billie Jean” (Michael Jackson,) ?, “Jaws” theme, “Psycho” theme and then ?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SG6Ef-NQCi4

Makoto Fujimura

I'm not sure I'm always a fan of abstract art, but I've been reading lately about Makoto Fujimura. He is a Christian abstract artist. Philadelphia Biblical University, where my brother and his wife graduated, was the first Christian institution to commission one of his paintings.

I liked this painting for its shades of blue and green. Blue can be soothing and can have a celestial ethereal effect.

According to what I read in "Saving Leonardo" by Nancy Pearcey, Fujimura uses an ancient Japanese technique called nihonga, and uses ground up precious stones such as gold leaf, lapis and malachite as pigments. Fujimura said, "Shall we be suspicious of fireworks spreading their abstraction over a summer sky? Or wave patterns created on the sand? What about classical music or jazz? Life is full of abstraction."

He is working on an illuminated version of the four gospels which I think is really neat. For more information, check out this link. http://www.crossway.org/blog/2010/11/makoto-fujimuras-illuminated-gospel-book-project%E2%80%94the-four-holy-gospels/

First Chapter of Contemporary Fiction

Here is the first chapter of a work in progress, a yet un-named novel. The working title for the novel is "Desert Flowers," although it takes place far from a desert setting. The title was taken from a line of poetry composed by the main character who compares herself to a desert flower. I am rethinking that title, since it seems misleading, indicating either a romance or a prairie story, and it is neither. I'd be interested to know if Linda Bradshaw seems like a character worth reading about...

Chapter One

Mystery

Linda Bradshaw stood in front of the microphone and swallowed hard. Initially, there was always a little stage fright but that dissipated. As she sang, she always felt as if she took on a different persona like an actress in a movie, and somehow this helped with the nerves.

First, the Celtic drum started from the drum machine, building in volume. Linda rocked on her feet from heel to toe. Then the synthesizer with a spacey chime setting started in and next the electric violin and driving electric guitars, building layer upon layer of sound.

Linda began to sing, her voice powerful and clear in tone, “You’re everywhere, and you’re nowhere, the invisible guest…” She flung her arms out to the sides, twisting from the waist like a washing machine, resting her voice as the guitars broke in. As she turned from side to side, she was aware of the triangle she formed with the Jones brothers, Mike and Jake, each one swaying both body and guitar. She continued to sing, and with computer accompaniment, her own voice harmonized, singing a descant over the more alto range melody she sang. It was the magic of technology and the result of her cooperation with Mike, using some sound software in an elective class at the high school.

“An unwanted intruder, impossible conundrum, your spirit won’t rest …” The computer played her voice layering over her live one, overlapping as in a round with some special echoey effects. She rested from singing and just the instruments played. The synthesizer switched to a voice setting, sounding like an alien choir from outer space. Linda could envision Kevin Van Dyne behind her, playing as she’d seen him do hundreds of times, his eyes closed, his fingers still finding the right keys.

Linda stretched her arms out to the side. With her eyes, she traced the outline of her right arm to the fingertips just as Nicole Howard lifted her electric violin, its hourglass shape just a framework in a stunning metallic blue. She placed the instrument to her chin and played hauntingly and with building passion and volume. Linda moved in motion to the music, rolling her shoulders and moving her arms in almost swim-like strokes. Her sleeves dangled and swished. They were tight at the elbow and flared in rows of ruffles to the wrist.

She rotated to the right just as Mike, who had set down his guitar, started with the theramin, manipulating radio waves with the motion of his hand. It was the instrument that made the spooky noise in the Beach Boys’ “Good Vibrations.” As she spun completely around, she caught a brief glimpse of the Power Point projections on the wall, Kat Anderson’s contribution, artsy digital photos manipulated in Photoshop. An image of a strange long hallway flickered by, then a flash of an empty room and then Kat herself, standing in a room, partially transparent, a wall painting and a sofa showing behind and through her.

Linda began to sing again, “The air is thick with you, and yet you are not there. A hallucination, a pervading atmosphere…” A crack of thunder sounded from the computer. And then her words and song returned to the beginning, “You’re everywhere, and you’re nowhere, an invisible guest…” She spun as she sang, moving her arms from side to side, strokes in the air that passed her face. “And I do not know if I want you to come or go…” The theramin sounded again its peculiar and wavery tones.

“But this much I do know, you have the un-Midas touch, and in your wake, everything disintegrates to rust….” There was a sound clip of shattered glass and a moment later, all the instruments came to a dissonant finale.

There was quiet and silence for a moment or two followed by applause. “Thank you,” said Linda. “We hope to come back to the Quite a Latte coffee shop in future dates. We’re working on putting a CD together so you can look out for that. Check out our website at www.barbaricyawps.com.”

After another burst of applause, the audience turned their attention to their coffees and each other, and in some cases, their laptops. Linda unplugged her microphone, wrapping the cord around it, and began to help the band tear down the equipment.

When she first went out to mingle, it was Kat she noticed first. She was straddling her chair backwards, her legs sprawling out. She had her head tilted to one side, sending her dark, streaked and color-treated hair flowing over one shoulder. Her left ear was exposed showing off a row of silver loops that trailed from her ear lobe to the crown of her ear. “Great show, Lin. I don’t know how you do it. I can’t carry a tune in a bucket. I try to sing along with the radio, and people tell me I’m just singing the same note over and over again,” she said. Kat’s voice came out in a husky laugh.

Linda was temporarily reminded of her sister. Kat was feminine in her own way but had a bit of the tomboy about her.

“Your photos are great though, Kat. Thank you for that. They’re really great. I bet you could sell them. You should talk to the manager here. I bet he’d let you display some in frames, and you could see if you get any bites.”

Kat swiped her hand through her hair. “Really? I don’t know, but thanks.” Kat sipped a coffee drink through a straw, something topped with whipped cream and syrup. “These things are great. I don’t remember what it is, a caramel mocha latte something-or-other. Whoever invented making a drink from a coffee bean was some kind of genius.” She motioned to a chair across the table. “Sit down.”

Lin sat, and Kat turned herself around on her chair.

“I love your skirt,” Kat said. “Where’d you find that?”

Linda looked down over her lap, a short denim skirt painted all over with colorful concentric circles. Her two stick figure legs in black pin-striped tights poked out from the skirt, and the whole ensemble was topped off with an incongruous pair of tweed knee-high Converse boots. They looked very much like the Converse sneaker that just happened to lace all the way up to the knee. “I made it.”

“Get out! No, you didn’t. The girl who can do everything…”

“Yeah. I took a pair of jeans, my sister’s actually, cut them, and just sewed them into a skirt. Then I painted it.”

“You are so talented. Could you make one for me?”

“If you have a pair of jeans, you can give me, sure. But I wouldn’t do the same design. I never make the same design twice.”

“I have jeans I can give you, and you can surprise me with the design. I trust you. How much would you charge?”

“Twenty?” This wasn’t the first time Linda had come across this situation, but she never knew how much to charge.

“Only twenty? How about forty?”

“If you insist.” Linda smiled briefly. A second of awkward silence followed, and Linda looked at her lap then at the table, studying the intricacies of the infinitely repeating fractal design on the table top.

“You write the songs, don’t you?” Kat asked.

“Yes. Sometimes, Mike helps. He’ll add things and expand on it.”

“But you write the words?”

“Yeah.” Linda’s voice came out in a mere breath. She stared out across the coffee shop at the customers leaving and walking out to their cars parked on the street, at the traffic going by.

“Where do you get your ideas?”

“I’m not sure. They just come to me.”

“I liked the last one.”

“Thanks.” Linda folded her hands below the table, flexing her fingers against one another, making the knuckles turn white.

“I keep thinking about it ever since you put me to work on the photos. ‘You’re everywhere, and you’re nowhere…’ It’s so mysterious and spooky. I keep trying to guess your meaning.” Kat’s hazel eyes seemed to look off into the distance then at the light fixture above them.

Linda swiped her fingers through her bangs, angled bangs that hung over her eyes. Her landlady called it her sheepdog look.

“OMG!” Kat set her plastic cup down hard on the table. Her eyes grew wide for a moment and then softened in a sympathetic look. “You lost someone. Someone died?” Her eyebrows rose quizzically.

A cold sensation crept down the back of Linda’s neck, but she willed her face to remain expressionless. “No.” Kat wasn’t right, but she wasn’t so far off from the truth either. Linda picked up her purse, one made from recycled 45 rpm records. She pulled it onto her lap and began to fish through it. “How much for one of those latte things?”

“I’m sorry, Lin.”

“No need to be sorry. You said it yourself. It’s mysterious. It’s intended to be mysterious.” Items passed absent-mindedly through Linda’s hands: her folder of coupons, her house key, a couple of pens and a notebook. She didn’t have the money for a latte. She had the money technically, but though she craved one, it would be a three or four dollar luxury and a waste she’d regret later. She dropped the purse to the side, her face feeling hot and prickly.

“You want me to treat?” Kat asked. “I’ve got some cash. What do you want?”

Linda shook her head. “Nah, I changed my mind. What are you doing in photography class this week?”

“Old black and white photos that we’re scanning and colorizing in Photoshop. I have this photo of my great grandmother in this 1920’s style bathing suit, the kind with little knickers that go down to the knee. It’s hysterical. I’m going to do something with that.” Kat twirled a hank of hair around her finger. “Are you sure you don’t want a coffee?”

Mike walked over then, and Linda breathed a sigh of relief. “Kevin’s inviting us all to his house,” he said.

Linda picked up her bag and stood to her feet.

“Cool. Let’s go then,” said Kat.

“We just need to pack the gear in the van,” said Mike, gesturing with two thumbs towards the door.

Linda headed towards the stage corner of the coffee house and picked up two mic stands and microphones. Turning her head, she looked over to where she’d been sitting. In spite of his own instructions, Mike stood there talking with Kat where she had just a moment or two earlier. She was just glad to be free of the burden of conversation. She carried her load out to the sidewalk where Kevin’s old van awaited.

Outside in the chill fall night air, Kevin jingled the van keys in his hand, his red-blond hair blowing in the night breeze and streaming past his shoulder. “Well, my parents will be out all night at one of their functions…” He emphasized the last word with sarcasm. “And I’ve got booze. So, pile in and let’s go.”

Kat hugged her denim jacket closer around her. “I’m not in the band, but I’ll be your groupie. Can I come?”

Kevin gestured with his hands wide. “You did all that great photo work, and you operated Power Point. You practically are in the band. Come on.”

“Ooh, coffee and booze all in one night. Can you have coffee with booze?”

“Yes, yes, you can,” said Kevin. “Coffee with Kahlua, coffee with Irish cream, coffee with crème de menthe…”

Linda stood aside as Kat, Mike, Jake, Kevin and Nicole piled into the van. She shivered. She’d forgotten a jacket. She hadn’t exactly forgotten. Her jacket was sitting by her sewing machine at home waiting to be made decent again.

Mike poked his head out at Linda. “Come on, Lin. Get in.”

“I can’t….”

“Yes, you can.”

“No, I can’t. I have to study for my French test…”

“It’s Friday night. Who studies for a French test on Friday night?”

“And I have a paper on King Henry VIII.”

“Aw, come on, Lin. Can’t you do it tomorrow and procrastinate like any normal person?”

“I’m sorry. I’ll come to Kev’s house another time.” Linda stood on the sidewalk, hugging her arms for warmth.

“Well? What are you doing?” Mike asked.

“Going home. I’ll see you Monday, okay?”

“Can’t you at least let us drop you off at the house?”

“It’s okay. I was going to walk. I like walking.”

“You’re being weird, Lin,” said Mike as he unfastened his seat belt and climbed out of the van. Once his feet hit the sidewalk, he turned and poked his head in at Kevin. “I’ll see you a little later, Kev. Let me walk Lin home. All right. See ya.” And with that, he swung the van door closed.

“Why do you have to be weird? You have friends, and you push them away,” Mike told Linda.

“Sorry. It’s nothing personal really.” Lin shrugged her shoulders, but this time she couldn’t stop the shivers that ran down her body.

“You prefer to walk, but you’re freezing to death.” Mike removed his black leather jacket and placed it over her shoulders.

Lin slipped her arms through the sleeves and pulled the coat around her. “Thanks Mike.”

“You’re not supposed to let a girl walk home by herself at this time of night.”

Linda was surprised at his idea of chivalry, but then again, here was a guy who was absorbed with King Arthur and medieval fantasy games. “You don’t have to do that. I can take care of myself. I’m a big girl. I’m not afraid.”

“And there you go again.” Mike swung his arm towards her in gesture.

The overhead light above the Quite a Latte coffee house shone down on Mike’s hair, illuminating his short bleached and two-toned spikes. Linda was tempted to reach up and touch it to see if they felt like porcupine quills. She refrained. “Sorry. You can walk with me.” She turned to the right and started walking along the sidewalk, Mike walking beside her.

“Don’t you have any explanation?”

“Explanation?”

“Aside from your French test?”

“Yeah. I have an explanation. I don’t drink.”
“You don’t drink. Okay, you don’t drink. I can respect that. You wouldn’t have to get totally smashed just to be with us. You could be the designated…. Nah, I guess that wouldn’t work… Look what we’re doing. Then again, you could just carry us home in your arms.”
“That’s just pathetic.” Still, Linda smiled at that, catching the spirit of his joke and the ridiculousness of it all. The idea of walking across town, lugging his heavy limp body across her back was both pathetic and ridiculous.

Exotic and sometimes enticing smells piped out of the row of restaurants they passed: Caribbean jerk, Thai and now Greek. Linda looked through the restaurant window, staring at a group of Grecian urns arranged beneath a tasseled and white lacy curtain.

It was Mike who started to speak again. “Don’t you know alcohol inspired all the great ones? Ernest Hemingway, Tennessee Williams, Dorothy Parker, William Faulkner, Jack Kerouac, Miles Davis, Jon Bonham of Led Zeppelin, Bon Scott of AC/DC… Either that or opium, because then there was Edgar Allan Poe and Lewis Carroll. Okay, either alcohol, opium or LSD, because then there was the Beatles… the Beatles and half the other great bands of the ‘60’s. Okay, the list could go on. It’s part of being an artist.”

“Yeah, but maybe it doesn’t have to be.” Linda kicked a pebble along the path.

“Okay, so you’re a dry artist. As long as your imagination’s not dry.”

Linda looked over at Mike. He wore a black sleeveless shirt that exposed what seemed like a new tattoo, the head of a Labrador retriever. It was still pink around the edges and maybe a little goose bumped like the rest of his arm. “Is that new?” Linda pointed but was afraid to touch it. It looked sore.

“Yeah. Don’t laugh. It’s my dog, King. He died. I loved my dog.”

“I’m not laughing.” Linda had never had a dog, but she liked the idea of having one.

They passed a jazz club on the corner, lounge jazz and sliding saxophone notes pouring out onto the street.

“You know, I was talking to Kat,” Mike said. “She thought you were acting a bit weird too. She likes you, you know, Lin. She’d like to get to know you.”

“I like Kat. I don’t dislike her. We made a business deal. I’m making her a jean skirt.”

You know I’ve never even been to your house, Lin?”

His comment seemed unrelated but was related somehow. “You wouldn’t want to…” The wind blew just then, and a can skittered across the path, making a clatter as it scraped across the pavement. Linda wasn’t sure Mike heard. She wasn’t sure she wanted him to hear. She didn’t repeat it.

They walked on until they reached Dave’s Guitars, and it was only natural that they both stopped to admire. Peeking in the storefront window, she eyed a wide variety of guitars, both electric and acoustic, in a range of shapes and colors. Her eyes were drawn to one decorated with roses and another with a Union Jack. “You don’t need to come with me any further. We’re right at Dumont. If you take North Dumont Ave. a couple of blocks, you’ll come to Kev’s street, and you can still make the party.”

Mike stepped a few paces back and looked up above the storefront, staring at the windows and the fire escape, guessing, Linda thought, that she lived in the apartment above the shop. She was quite willing to let him believe that if that’s what he wished. No guitarist could have a problem with living above a guitar shop. “Oh, here.” She removed his jacket and handed it back to him.

“You’re all right?”

“Yeah.” Linda nodded.

“Lin, you’re a mystery.” And putting the jacket on, he turned to head in the direction she’d pointed out.

Books in Review: Two Books I've Read on Kindle in 2011

So far, this year, I’ve read mostly all non-fiction. Some of the books I read with specific research goals in mind for various fictional projects. Others, I read for my own spiritual enrichment. In this category, reading on one topic often prompted me to read similar books on similar topics. Even among these books I read because they just captivated my interest, I think very likely they will have an indirect if not direct influence on my writing. “How Then Should We Live: The Rise and Decline of Western Thought and Culture” by Francis Schaeffer prompted me to begin reading “Saving Leonardo: A Call to Resist the Secular Assualt on Mind, Morals and Meaning” by Nancy Pearcey. Since both books deal with communicating better as a Christian to the modern culture, I think they should definitely have some influence on my own writing.

"The Book Thief" by Markus Zusak

This is a novel written for youth. I first noticed in on an end cap in Borders and, since, it showed up in my Amazon recommendations. The story takes place during World War II, and unlike a lot of other World War II stories, the protagonists here are German citizens. The narrator of the story, strangely enough is Death, but the story is really one of survival, of evading Death. The main character is a young preteen girl, Liesl Meminger, who is raised by foster parents.

Her foster mother is a strict disciplinarian in the habit of using rough language, sometimes disguising a tender heart. Her favorite addresses for people were “saumensch” and “saukerl” which translate into something like “filthy pig” in the feminine and masculine. She used such mixed-up expressions as “Good girl, Saumensch” while hugging Liesl.

Her foster father was a gentler character, who was often at Liesl’s bedside when she was wakened by nightmares, brought on by memories of her brother’s death and separation from her biological mother. He would entertain her with his accordion and help her learn to read at odd hours of the night, including, as the title suggests, her “stolen” book, “The Gravedigger’s Handbook.”

Although Liesl and her friends are forced to take part in Hitler Youth activities, the atmosphere at home is definitely anti-Hitler. In fact, her family hides a Jewish man in the basement, a man who develops a special friendship with Liesl and helps nurture her love for books.

"Mystics, Mavericks and Merrymakers: An Intimate Journey among Hasidic Girls" by Stephanie Wellen Levine

I chose to read this book in preparation for writing certain parts of the sequel to “And the Violin Cried.” My first book deals with some Hasidic characters, who will become more important in the second book, and, yes, one of these is a teen girl, which made this book appropriate.

While a graduate student in American studies at Harvard, the author spends some time as living among Lubavitcher Hasidim in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. Her study was among the teen girls, whom she observed in their homes, social and school activities. Whereas mainstream American teens have their own cliques and stereotypes like jocks and geeks, Levine discovered certain types among the Hasidic girls. Levine goes into depth of how girls live in a community that is really completely gender-segregated, and how life and expected roles are very different for Hasidic men and women.

She gave character profiles of several girls she met who fell into different categories. From her descriptions, you get the feeling of what their daily life was like, interacting at school, going out in the neighborhood to The Gap or a kosher restaurant, attending weddings, their religious customs and the tricky business of following the strict religious laws.

One type is the chassidische girls. Chassidische girls are highly interested in religious study and in the Lubavitcher ideal of reaching out to the outer Jewish community to draw people into a more orthodox religious lifestyle. These were a rarity. “Normal” girls were fashionable and popular. They may get themselves into slight mischief such as accepting a car ride from a man who is not related to them, something which, in their community, could hurt their reputation and their matchmaking chances. Their slight rebellion might include wearing long socks instead of stockings to school.

The author came across questioners and rebels. One questioner was highly respected by her community for her intelligence and yet this same community felt, “She was too smart for her own good.” Her intelligent mind caused her to question the religious system she was brought up in and which her family was part of for generations. Levine also came across a group of young rebels who left the community and who were rebellious by any teen standard, smoking marijuana, visiting strip clubs, exploring alternative lifestyles, etc.

It was an interesting glimpse into a culture I would not likely be able to see any other way.

More to Come...