SEEING INSPIRATION

REFLECTIONS

   Mark Twain, Jack London, Robert Louis Stevenson and Ernest Hemingway all found refuge and inspiration in the Hawaiian Islands. 
    The abounding beauty is but one of the captivating influences that engage the mind and put the muse to dance. The melding of Polynesian culture with indigenous history and native personality is rich. Add to that, color,   aroma, food, and a special relationship of people with nature all playing out in the unique light of a Pacific Island and you have a blend for reflection, appealing to writers and countless artists.
      William Faulkner said a writer needs experience, observation and imagination. Twain, London and Stevenson found it here.  
       On a previous visit, working on a documentary, a helicopter pilot with whom we worked told me the land and the Hawaiian people are connected in a special way and he said the land is alive. There is an energy and power to life that abides on land that has emerged from the sea by power of the ring of fire. Observing and experience life here stokes the imagination with volcanic power.

SEEING IT

     These frames are works of reflection in degrees of intricacy. If you have a moment, decipher how reality is bent by reflection.

  The following are a trio in tribute to the dancing palms.

   The following frames may take a moment to determine how up is on the bottom.

   Wishing you moments of reflection and inspiration.

REMEMBERING THE DREAMER

    

     See you down the trail.

THE SPECIAL NIGHT-SEASONAL SCENES-THE CANDLE FROZE-A CUBAN THROWBACK

THE GLOW ON THE HILL

      We look forward to the chosen December night when fortunate Cambrians walk the hill out of east village up to the historic Santa Rosa Chapel for an evening of strings, music, Christmas reflection and magic.

      Frequent readers may recall previous posts, this time of year when it as though we step into a slip stream of timelessness. 

2011 Post

2012 Post
2013 Post

      Cheer and anticipation fill the 140 plus year old Chapel bathed in candle light and greens. This evening has become our single favorite of the Advent season on the Central California Coast. 
       The acoustics, artistry of the musicians and the lighting create a dreamy mood. Ra Duncan's soulful a cappella Ava Maria set the mood and another memorable evening flowed into Cambria history.
       Judith Larmore's meditation on the love in nostalgic moments were heart warming. Recalling her father's devotion to providing hand made Christmas toys invoked a kind of universal remembrance and in that she reminded us was a connection. In Christmas memory, loved ones are with us still. As Lana said as we departed, Judith should collect and publish her reflections.
      Jude Johnstone put together the music program. She asked her daughter Emma, an accomplished actor/director and home from New York to write a poem. Her reading was yet another and unexpected gift of this wonderful annual event. Jude and daughter Ra performed and then lead the audience in a uniquely cheerful and entertaining round of carols.

     Santa has already delivered our favorite gift. 

THE CANDLE FLAME FROZE

      My family occupied an old farm house during one of Indiana's coldest winters and I slept upstairs in an unheated room. We had just moved to the state capitol of Indianapolis and rented a large, drafty house while our new home was being built in one of the new suburban divisions.
      The place was massive. Two bedrooms, dining room, living room, parlor, long kitchen, sun porch and bath down stairs. Upstairs had only recently been "finished," meaning there were floors and walls. Heat "entered" the frigid domain by virtue of a hole that had been cut in the floor of the bedroom and the ceiling in the largely unused "parlor." In fact we kept the sliding door to the parlor closed as it was so difficult to heat and made the living room too drafty.
      Since I worked and had late hours and was the eldest of three boys, I got the private room, while my brothers shared a downstairs bed room. When I took a glass of water upstairs, it froze or if temperatures were more moderate it created an icy crust. I didn't mind.  As a high school sophomore I enjoyed the privacy. I'd wear a stocking cap, socks and pile under the blankets and slept very soundly.  Any nightly trip to the bathroom was a bear-icy cold floor and stairs, and then leaving the warmth of downstairs to climb back into ice land made those rare ventures, teen bladders being good equipment and all.
      Years later I told our daughters I slept in a room so cold the candle froze.  A stretch, but the water did.
      Our eldest is visiting from Naples Florida.  The central California coast winter can sometimes chill into over night 40's and warm "only" into the 60's.  As she is digging out the wool socks, sweaters, gloves, caps and all, I'll probably remind her of what real cold is. If that doesn't work I'll drag her along to a tennis match where one of my foursome, Jim, hails from War Road Minnesota, where to hear him tell it, you risked freezing to death all but 7 days a year!
      I still like to sleep in a cool room with fresh air, but for the next couple of weeks we may well heat the overnight.

SEASONAL AFFECTATIONS

VILLAGE STYLE

    Lana's centerpiece for an Instigators Art Salon luncheon 

    Cambria Historical Society 

   Victorian ranch house at Halter Ranch winery 

   West Village, Cambria 

A CUBAN THROWBACK

  As a tribute to improved relations with Cuba, a couple of On Assignment Cuba photos from the file.

     I'm excited about easier travel. Cuba is a marvelous island. The above scene is from Matanzas.

 Pictured here with Jon Christopher Hughes, photographer and journalism professor at the front door of Ernest Hemingway's Finca Vigia east of Havana. Jon is an old hand on Cuba. This was taken while at work on a documentary in 1996.

a "selfie" in the mirror of Hemingway's

bathroom

     Cubans are warm and wonderful people with an extraordinary culture and charm. Despite the decades long blockade and official sanctions, the people tend to understand Washington policy is one thing and the American

public is something else.

Previous Cuban Posts:

The Daiquiri and Hemingway-where it began

Rare look inside Hemingway's home

Cuba's St. Lazaro healing shrine

Cuban Street Scenes

A "model" for Old Man and The Sea

     See you down the trail.  

THE WEEKENDER :) HANGIN' OUT WITH PAPA

THE CUBA FILE
THE AUTHOR'S PAD

     Finca Vigia, Ernest Hemingway's home in Cuba.  Our latest
post in the Cuba File series takes us inside what few have seen.

        The author lived here with his third wife Martha Gellhorn.
He left here to cover WWII and returned to live and write until he left in 1960 after the Cuban Revolution.
     The previous posts in The Cuba File are linked here:
     A visit with Hemingway's boat Captain and the Pilar
         Cuban Street Scenes
          The healing shrine of St. Lazaro

     Inside tours of the home are rarely permitted.  Most often tourists and groups are kept outside the home.  Below is
a collection of Hemingway artifacts on one of his desks.

    Hemingway often wrote standing up, because of a back injury sustained in an African plane crash.  He wrote in both longhand and on this Royal typewriter.

     I was told he often stood at this book shelf to create his
prized literature.  

     His bedroom was a light and airy place.

PROBABLY HAVE NEVER SEEN THIS BEFORE

This is a weigh in log he kept on his bathroom wall.  

     The scale, bidet and partial log of Hemingway.  

This blogger's self portrait in Hemingway's mirror.

   One of the beautiful views near San Francisco De Paula,
the small village near his home.

     One of my concerns, and that of other Hemingway fans and
the serious scholars is the condition of his own book collection.  Many of the bound volumes are beginning to 
deteriorate. 

     Hemingway's private china and silver.

      One of his famous trophies. 

   Photographer and friend Jon Christopher Hughes, on the left, was my ticket for the exclusive look inside.  Jon is an 
old Cuba hand.  He's been shooting there since the '70s.
He presides over the journalism school at the University of Cincinnati and remains one of the most talented active 
photographers in the US.

MORE HEMINGWAY FUN AND LINKS
RARE FILM OF HEMINGWAY

A SHORT SPANISH LANGUAGE CLIP WITH GOOD IMAGES

HEMINGWAY AND OTHER CORRESPONDENTS,
INCLUDING EDWARD G. ROBINSON AT
MT. SAINT MICHEL

By the way-this location figures
prominently in my first novel
THE SANIBEL ARCANUM.

A HEMINGWAY SPOOF, FROM MIDNIGHT IN PARIS

MY OWN HEMINGWAY COLLECTION

The first photograph is by Jon of Gregirio Fuentes
the captain of Hemingway's Pilar.  He was 101 the
day Jon and I visited with him.  The second
photo, intentionally over exposed in this clip,
is of Hemingway and Fidel Castro, the day Hemingway left
the island.  The signed and numbered copy was 
taken by the late Oswaldo Salas. Salas was a
remarkable photographer and the father of one of the famous Roberto Salas.
Someday I'll post about how we got the 
picture out of Cuba.




HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND. MAYBE READ A LITTLE
HEMINGWAY.
See you down the trail.