A Long Time Sleeping

to dance

2007-10-11T05:28:00.000-07:00

writing yesterday, and my Queen demands to do as she wishes rather than as I had planned. Writing, always surprising.

Excerpt:

Your receiving line, fair maiden? He asks.

Yes, she cries, regaling the heavens with her peals of laughter, for is this not the best kind of receiving, the root of receiving, the meaning of receiving--- the Kabbalah? He raises his arm, and with it come the drums, and the drummers, encircling them, ensnaring them, picking up on their heartbeats from which they devise their next rhythm. It is a syncopated one, and meant for their ears only.

Her sternum rises and falls in anticipation of the dance to come. He pauses and waits. Gatekeepers are the most patient onlookers to the moment of transition. The putting on of coats, the taking off of habits.

When she settles, she sets to the dance with great fervor. And the faster she moves the faster her heartbeat the faster the drums and the slower he goes so that there are two timbres, the one deep and resonant, slow to build and the other frenetically crescendoing until it must needs retract or the dancer will shatter into a million pieces. And yet, there is purpose. The delirium of the dance, its prophetic frenzy, takes the Queen’s heart and cracks it open to its fullest capacity, sending shivers down her spine. In her fancy, and with the purple green eyes shut to her partner, she is imagining he will circle around her and watch her for her beauty with the timbrels.

She starts turning, signifying the turning of the spheres, thinking of how he must be looking at her, her tiny waist and corseted front, and she lets slip the shawl ever so slightly so that he can see the nape of her neck and her tendrils in the moonlight, as the sun has fully set. But when she takes a moment to glance at him, to calculate his response to her swirls and swooshes, she sees that he is not looking at all, rather is swaying his hips and closing his eyes and answering to a different call than her own, an inner call perhaps, a call of smell and taste and the sap rising within himself as he feels the music pulsing in the inside of his wrists, his breast, for doesn’t he know that a man too can have sensations of pleasure in the heaving of his chest from the inflow of warm night air, and thus it is that he does not notice, that the tables turn, that it is she looking at him, and not the other way around.

She stamps her feet louder, sighing once and then again after surprising herself, then takes Rachel’s waist and the two circle round each other, two timbrels raised high, curls bouncing as they circle faster and faster, and were they mortal they would have known the feeling of the breaking of sweat, the flush rising, the scent of perfume meeting with skin. Rachel’s hands are slender and her skin so soft, yet Maya senses so much sameness in Rachel’s known-ness, and so much mystery in Papa Legba that she wishes she were not herself but the air circulating around him.

She feels her energy waning, remembering the prophecy that once Sabbath Queen, the generating forces commence their withdrawal once the sweetness of the Sabbath lingers as but a memory, and she realizes that she must stake her claim now or forever wonder what it would have been like. So she releases her fingers from Rachel’s, traces her palm into the air, gathers the strength of her skirts into a swirling mass of cloud and rain so furiously spinning that the angels wonder what has become of her, and whether the expenditure of such energy will render her return nigh to impossible—have they not compensated for her inexperiences enough to last ten Sabbaths? But she like a top straying off course and then slowing down to a tipsy stop, she brings herself to Papa Legba’s domain, laying herself down at his feet. He picks her up as would a child pluck a flower, sets her aright and slides his hand into her waistband, palms a timbrel and places it upon his head like a crown. Then he draws her close, eyes closed, the tension of differences increasing the magnetism between them.

His loin against her belly, his chest against her cheek, his hands beneath her buttocks and without a hint of shame or embarrassment he enfolds her. And not just her body, but the part of herself that as Sabbath Queen opens itself up as does a flower to the sun, and as she has not yet learned to relay the awesome power of her sublime presence to her minions and not retain it within herself, the power of a million souls is but one within them. She and Papa Legba, unlikely candidates for communion, their joining an unintended blind spot in the spheroids of heaven. The friction of difference- of the novel and unknown- a more penetrating arousal than any of skin or bone, of force or spasm, threaded through the needle of innocent desire to meet the Other and knotted through imagining alone.

new year, new beginning

2007-09-22T06:26:00.000-07:00

Fall is here and I've gotten back to work. Here's the new beginning. Atoning for my sloth-dom.

PAPA LEGBA AND THE SABBATH QUEEN

One.
In the realm of ecstasy, word has it there is no such thing as time. And yet once upon a time there lived a young Hebrew Godwoman by the name of Maya Moonstone. For once upon a time the Heavens formed their search committee, and placed their bets upon this Moonstone. Less a racehorse than a filly, she nonetheless turned the heads of the Hebrew Sephirot as she flounced by in a gown of fate’s threads, running after her good friend Rachel. And thus was the future Malka Sephira was appointed the chosen one from the myriads and summoned to the Tree of Life in all due haste. A new Sabbath Queen to delight the masses.
An awesome burden it is to choose the holiest of Shekhinah, for it is the Queen who bears the souls of the teeming minions on Earth. It is she who rests in pregnant bloom throughout the week, a virgin bride. Sabbath upon Sabbath unto eternity, she awaits her crowning. And then she crowns the minions beneath her skirts. Such is her labor at Sabbath’s eve. Is the Queen’s marriage consummated? There are not answers to all questions, dear Reader. Ah, paradox, the underlying ground upon which the mystical land of kabbalah rests. The reason why one Queen is eternal, and then not.
Because once upon a time, this Sabbath Queen grew desirous of more. She dipped her toe in the waters of mortality, dallied in the realm of the gallant Papa Legba, legendary gatekeeper and vodou priest par excellence, one moonstruck Sabbath eve. And God saw that it Was—and it Was not Good. Or had he already? Only he knows the Beginning.
As to ours, dear Reader, the Beginning is clear. Once upon a time there lived a young Hebrew Godwoman by the name of Maya Moonstone, chosen as new Sabbath Queen. And God saw that it was Good. How the heavens whirled and tizzied as the young girl readied for the throne. And how the Ineffable One, The-Holiest-of-Holies-The-Lord-Who-Knew-Knows-And-Will-Know-No-End, awaited her betrothal with fervor—young blood the stuff of wonder in that liminal city of dreams, Heaven, wherein we meet our lovely bride. A Sabbath Queen flirting in Heaven’s mists.

new lease on SWM

2007-07-20T06:32:00.000-07:00

I tucked Sleeping in bed because I couldn't get the right take on it. It didn't want to go to bed, kept on waking me up. So, here's my new take on the log line.

When CC Levin happens to line her room in cork, Marcel Proust bunks in and won’t leave. He has regrets about his life- big ones. But she’s not the person to solve them- she’s got problems of her own. Perdue Girl meets the Master.

fifty

2007-06-10T10:05:00.000-07:00

I just realized that it's no surprise whatsoever I've spent the entire year working and reworking the first 50 of Sleeping. Because I'm re-visioning my real first 50 in preparation for the next. Hitting the big five oh in August. HA, joke's on me.

must be doin' something right

2007-06-06T20:32:00.000-07:00

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I'm sitting in a cafe working assiduously on a passage about the birth of a child in the WIP, and meanwhile the guy three tables down is talking about the very thing I'm writing about-- a baby born with a cleft palate. Even giving me the details I can use, that the baby is having trouble breathing because of his tongue getting in the way. WEIRD and REALLY WEIRD. talk about synchronicity. This is a good sign. In touch with the vibes.

ya(h)

2007-06-02T15:41:00.000-07:00

My daughter Sophie said this the other day:
"Mom, when I was younger, I always used to think that the letters YA on the books on the shelf were the name of the author, and that there were an awful lot of books by that author. I just realized it means 'young author'"

That author YA.

And I don't want to sound like some kind of God freak, but it just so happens that it sounded like she was saying "that author Yah," because Yah means God in Hebrew. Incredible, no? God the prolific author. Enough to turn you into a believer. Not that I don't believe in God at all. I just have questions.

I've been snarked

2006-12-19T08:33:00.000-08:00

Following the snark COM, I went at it again.
SLEEPING WITH MARCEL

CC Levin could win the Monty Python “Summarize Proust in Fifteen Seconds in a Swimsuit Contest” if she wanted to. Not for the swimsuit part—she’s too damn skinny. But she’s figured out a major clue to Marcel Proust’s 3000 page novel and what’s a girl to do with that? She sure has enough problems in her own life to figure out—a mother who collects pictures of dead children, a Bordeaux-freak of a husband more attracted to the legs on a wine glass than her own, and a fertile imagination which conjures up Marcel Proust in her bed, lamenting his fate as a has-been. Solution? CC flees to Paris for the retrospective exhibit of Proust’s work, where she meets a Frenchwoman who possesses some kiss and tell journals written by Proust’s lover, Reynaldo Hahn. Suddenly it’s all too much to summarize in fifteen eons. Seduction and betrayal, Sodom and Gomorrah, secrets and signs—all In Remembrance of Things Past. Forget je ne sais quoi’s and voulez-vous coucher’s. All CC wants to do is find her way back home to her roots… maybe Faulkner and a bottle of Johnny Walker Red.

And Introducing: a new baby

2006-11-24T11:13:00.000-08:00

Here's my newest latest Nano thing. I am loving the writing of it. Totally loving it. Well, that's not entirely truthful. Sometimes I hate it, but... then I love it again. (I do have those days.)

PAPA LEGBA AND THE SABBATH QUEEN

PAPA LEGBA AND THE SABBATH QUEEN recasts the Sabbath Queen as a young insolent teen who rebels against the status quo. Only difference being that Daddy is The Ineffable One, the He/She who has no End, a.k.a God. Daddy isn't keen on Maya’s mystical persuasions and kaballah interests. She runs off and meets Papa Legba, voodoo gatekeeper from the dark and fertile land of Haiti, and they flirt like hell, take in libations and a sacrifice the way you’d take in dinner and a movie.

When Daddy catches her messing around with this Papa guy he banishes her down to earth to live with a nice boring Jewish family in the suburbs of Philadelphia, strips her of her powers. But you can be sure she's going to go get mystical and somehow find Papa Legba no matter the odds. And Papa’s going to banish himself in sympathy, drag himself to a land he knows nothing about, America, and work his way up in the bowels of the kitchen and against all number of odds—Aids, prejudice, poverty—to reclaim her.

It’s a poker game, the stakes higher than the clouds in heaven and more turbulent than the storms at sea, with all the relatives putting in their two cents-- Moses, Abraham and Rachel, Iwa, Erzulie and Papa Ghe. And the angels working overtime You can’t keep star-crossed deities from the most mystical experience of all-- love.

Reborn-- MADELEINE

2006-11-24T11:11:00.000-08:00

I have been spending a long time not sleeping but thinking about the essence of the WIP, so here's my latest attempt, which I think is a pretty accurate assessment of what I'm trying to do. To tell you the truth, I'm surprised at how essential it seems. There's a part of me that feels like I've written a commercial for a car or something.

MADELEINE
Journals sealed in an estate until the year 2017, notebooks of primary materials thrown into the fire, secret codes concealed within a novel, and two women trying to make sense of it all. One from New Jersey and one from the Pyrenees, both reading and interpreting words on a page, and taking them to heart. MADELEINE, the story of memories lost and found.

And in the center of it all, Marcel Proust himself, a French Rip van Winkle come back to celebrate the centennial of his rise to fame, the publication of Swann in Love. He takes up residence in kooky grad-school dropout CC’s bed, and at her French bakery, and refuses to leave until she subjects herself to the systematic deconstruction of her own crumbled life. Which she can only complete after fleeing to France behind her husband’s back and meeting up with down-to earth Magalie, a descendant of Proust’s old lover, over tea. And over the pages of a precious journal recounting life’s creative travails, and love’s unaccountable jealousies.

We dip into the cup of tea and the memories rise unbidden. We dip into a novel and the thoughts stir up deeds and desires. MADELEINE, the story of what happens then.

MADELEINE- NEW QUERY

2006-11-24T11:08:00.000-08:00

MADELEINE
Journals sealed in an estate until the year 2017, notebooks of primary materials thrown into the fire, secret codes concealed within a novel, and two women trying to make sense of it all. One from New Jersey and one from the Pyrenees, both reading and interpreting words on a page, and taking them to heart. MADELEINE, the story of memories lost and found.

And in the center of it all, Marcel Proust himself, a French Rip van Winkle come back to celebrate the centennial of his rise to fame, the publication of Swann in Love. He takes up residence in kooky grad-school dropout CC’s bed, and at her French bakery, and refuses to leave until she subjects herself to the systematic deconstruction of her own crumbled life. Which she can only complete after fleeing to France behind her husband’s back and meeting up with down-to earth Magalie, a descendant of Proust’s old lover, over tea. And over the pages of a precious journal recounting life’s creative travails, and love’s unaccountable jealousies.

We dip into the cup of tea and the memories rise unbidden. We dip into a novel and the thoughts stir up deeds and desires. MADELEINE, the story of what happens then.

PAPA LEGBA AND THE SABBATH QUEEN

PAPA LEGBA AND THE SABBATH QUEEN recasts the Sabbath Queen as a young insolent teen who rebels against the status quo. Only difference being that Daddy is The Ineffable One, the He/She who has no End, a.k.a God. Daddy isn't keen on Maya’s mystical persuasions and kaballah interests. She runs off and meets Papa Legba, voodoo gatekeeper from the dark and fertile land of Haiti, and they flirt like hell, take in libations and a sacrifice the way you’d take in dinner and a movie.

When Daddy catches her messing around with this Papa guy he banishes her down to earth to live with a nice boring Jewish family in the suburbs of Philadelphia, strips her of her powers. But you can be sure she's going to go get mystical and somehow find Papa Legba no matter the odds. And Papa’s going to banish himself in sympathy, drag himself to a land he knows nothing about, America, and work his way up in the bowels of the kitchen and against all number of odds—Aids, prejudice, poverty—to reclaim her.

It’s a poker game, the stakes higher than the clouds in heaven and more turbulent than the storms at sea, with all the relatives putting in their two cents-- Moses, Abraham and Rachel, Iwa, Erzulie and Papa Ghe. And the angels working overtime You can’t keep star-crossed deities from the most mystical experience of all-- love.

tag I'm it

2006-11-01T10:09:00.000-08:00

Well it's a damn good thing I got tagged by Carolyn Burns Bass, my lovely new friend, because maybe just maybe I'll actually post a blog. I haven't used this blog at all. Let's see, five things about me that you definitely wouldn't know. I'm assuming this means people at Backspace?
1. I'm turning 50 in August
2. I can read Hebrew and can chant from the Torah. I have a pretty good voice. I got bat mitzvahed last December and then I read again from the Torah in September at Yom Kippur.
3. I am trained as an Alexander Teacher and can 'feel' energy. A favorite energy thing I like to do is called "authentic movement."
4. I'm a great swimmer
5 I wish I could move to Seattle some day.
5.

a photo!

2006-07-05T17:53:00.000-07:00

so-so photo, finally learned to upload

2006-05-15T20:18:00.000-07:00

happy accidents

2006-05-04T06:20:00.000-07:00

I was correcting little Leo's speech because I wanted him to have trouble saying R's. i.e. instead of ice cream he would say Ice Cweam.

When I got to the pivotal scene in the book, where CC discovers the meaning behind The Sign of the Room, she repeats the words Room of One's Own, Room of One's Own, and then Leo repeats them, running around the ... you guessed it, the woom.
Womb of one's own

Writing is a strange and uncanny business, i have to say.

Sleeping with Marcel: description

2006-04-06T08:17:00.000-07:00

SLEEPING WITH MARCEL tells the story of CC Levin, a New Jersey girl who dreams of being French, and has an obsession with famed author Marcel Proust. She sleeps with his biography resting on her pillow, and imitates his storytelling at friend Lily’s annual Tea Squall. Other people worry about their job, their lover, their future, but CC worries about the themes in Proust’s novel. She even appoints Marcel as her therapist, hoping to gain a special insight into her past by imitating his style and sensibility.

When she stumbles upon a theory about his novel which, impossible to imagine, no French person has ever thought of before, she wants to scream it out to the world. Problem is, they’ll never believe her. Heck, she’s not even sure she believes it herself. But it must be true, it must, even if it challenges every notion the French have of Proust’s fictional world of Combray, hometown of the famed Madeleine. And that’s what CC sets out to prove.

CC leaves New Jersey and travels to France, touring the countryside and living her dream, but all manner of trouble ensues, and she ends up wishing she’d never left home. The story concludes in an eye-opening retelling of the overarching story line of the Recherche. Young Marcel may long for his mother to come upstairs and tuck him into bed, but it is CC’s father who has tucked her in, with more than just a good night kiss. CC has brewed up a tempest in a teapot, but learns the vital lesson of following her heart and not her head, and is finally able to kick Marcel out of her bed and move on with her life.

SLEEPING WITH MARCEL, a novel in the style of The Hours or Possession, is complete at 100,000 words and should appeal to a European as well as an American readership. If you are interested, I'd love to send you the completed manuscript. Thank you for your time and consideration. I look forward to hearing from you.

Lori W is co-author of THE ULTIMATE BAR/BAT MITZVAH BOOK. She graduated from Yale University with a degree in French Literature

a long time learning

2006-04-04T14:18:00.000-07:00

Eventually I'll get the hang of it.

A Long Time Sleeping

2006-04-04T14:17:00.000-07:00

A Long Time Sleeping: "Previous "

A Long Time Sleeping

2006-04-04T14:16:00.000-07:00

A Long Time Sleeping

I've never blogged before. Since I said Marcel Proust was the ultimate blogger of all time, I figured I should have one myself. Penultimate?