A Dog About Town

I’ve been having dog problems.  Gomer, the Leonberger, has been leading our girls astray. He’s turned our sweet Holly and Daphne into common street walkers. Yesterday, they were found on a busy road near our house and thankfully, were returned by a friend. The day before that, it was a state trooper who brought them home, dirty and panting, Daphne wriggling and grinning horribly in shame, Holly’s eyes bright with wonder at all the things she had seen out on the streets.  Gomer swaggered coolly away from the trooper’s car as if it was all a big joke.

Recycled 2010 Thanksgiving Photo

Happy Thanksgiving to all my beloved blog readers.  I just read some of your comments on the last post and was so moved by your kind words.  Maureen posted: “I recall posting here last Thanksgiving, directed at Gloria, and saying that I hoped that this year at Thanksgiving, we would all still be here, reading Ann’s blog, and would be able to say that we are all thankful that Gloria had successfully beaten the big C…Gloria, how are you doing?”

Last night,  Denis and I attended the opening night of Seminar, Broadway’s newest play, starring the amazing Alan Rickman. We both loved, I mean we really, really LOVED this play.

It’s a comedy about a fiction writing seminar taught by Alan Rickman, and if you have ever been in a writing workshop or seminar or have been in any situation where you must reveal something you have created for the scrutiny of others, you’ll be laughing one moment and squirming in agony the next, while watching this play. Rickman is fabulous as the ruthless/borderline sadistic writing teacher who, after glancing at the first sentence, trashes a story that a young woman (Lily Rabe) has worked on for years.  Other members of the workshop are played by Jerry O’Connell and Hamish Linklater.

Our emotions can run a little high when it comes to politics, and I believe many are still left bewildered and angry following the #OWS discussion that is still going on here.  There’s clearly a gap between the two sides of the issue, and I aim to close it, using the powerful language of dog.

The following is a dogumentary  dogudrama starring Gomer, as a greedy Wall Street corporation called Fatty McMerger:

Fatty McMerger

And Holly and Daphne, as middle-income wage earners called … well let’s call them Holly and Daphne:

Holly and Daphne

Magic Anti-Greed Drum Circle

I don’t like to talk about politics on this blog, but I’m interested in your perspectives on what has been going on in our cities, and primarily in New York the past two months.  Until yesterday, I was sort of rooting for the OWS movement, though I thought their message was unclear and wondered what their objective was. I was all for the finger-pointing at Wall Street greed, which is what the movement seemed to be about, but this hysterical Daily Show clip, sort of summed up what I thought was wrong with the movement. There was no leadership, and no clear message.

Last night, Denis and I attended the Ploughshares 40th anniversary celebration at Emerson College’s Paramount Theater.  What a GREAT night – Boston luminaries reading works that were originally published in this great Boston literary journal.

Alice Hoffman

Sue Miller

Denis was the host of the evening. Boston Bruins legend Cam Neely read a poem by Seamus Heany (and Cam was honestly one of my favorite readers of the night, really, really great). Alice Hoffman read Grace Paley, Sue Miller read Alice Munro, Wally Lamb read an excerpt from one of my very favorite short stories, Raymond Carver’s “A Small, Good Thing.”   Dennis Lehane (Mystic River, Shutter Island, etc) gave a very moving tribute to Robert Parker, famous for the Boston-based “Spenser For Hire” series and Andre Dubus III, author of the critically acclaimed bestseller Townie, read an excerpt from a piece written by his father.  All in all, a great evening.

Here is a post that I wrote Saturday morning BUT THEN NEVER HIT THE PUBLISH BUTTON. That’s just the way these past weeks have been going. It was just as well, because instead of being able to hang with Julie at the Hickory Stick Bookshop, I ended up relieving some exhausted volunteers at the Washington Town Hall, which had become a temporary shelter for people in town who still lacked power. I was only able to run across the street to the bookstore for a quick hello and to snatch up a few copies of Love at First Bark, before they were sold out. Anyway, here’s the phantom post that was meant to appear on Saturday morning: