Smeared Type

By Jian Ping

Metropolis Building in Madrid

I’ve been to quite a few cities in Europe, including London, Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam, Prague, Florence, and Milan, but never anywhere in Spain. So during a recent weekend when my husband Francis and I sat in front of his computer to make travel plans, we selected Madrid. Compared to Barcelona, we believed Madrid had more cultural and historical heritage. 

We flew from Chicago to Madrid right before Thanksgiving. I read a travel guide on the seven-plus-hour flight and was ready to check out the city when we arrived early the following morning. As we always did when visiting London or Paris, we bought two ten-ride tickets for the Metro and took the train to the Regente, a local hotel on Gran Via in the center of town.

Velazquez before Prado Museum

Despite checking out the weather forecast, we didn’t bring enough warm clothing, and Madrid was much cooler than we expected. We put on multi-layers of clothes and set out to roam the streets around the Prado Museum, the Botanic Garden, and the Atocha Railway Station. I was very impressed by the broad streets, much grander and open than the tour book described, and the city buildings decorated with elaborate statues and carvings.  I also noticed a surprisingly pleasant phenomenon: Madrid’s bright blue sky—I had ever been to a city with a sky so brilliantly blue! I pointed my camera upwards and tried to capture the pure, fascinating color.  

Me in front of Egyptian Temple of Debod

We spent two days in Madrid, walking all over the city. The Egyptian Temple of Debod, the Plaza Mayor, the Royal Palace, the Almuden Cathedral, and of course, the Prado Museum where many paintings by Diego Valezquez, Gredo and Goya were exhibited, and the Plaza de Espana where a statue of Miguel de Cervantes, along with his two protagonists in Don Quixote de la Mancha, stood prominently. I also selected a “literary walk” from the tour guide and wanted to trace the footsteps of Hemingway, Federicao Garcia Lorca, and Cervantes. But the streets in Madrid were so irregular and the turns so confusing that we soon gave up the attempt. Instead, we marked the area we wanted to visit each day and guided our walk by checking the city map posted on a panel above each Metro station. “You’re here,” a red dot indicated. We used “squares” such as Puerta del Sol and Plaza de Espana or signature buildings such as the Metropolis Building as our compass. Getting lost for a few blocks served as a nice excursion of adventure that gave us a chance to see side streets and cafes, and we enjoyed the surprises.   

Jian Ping, author of Mulberry Child: A Memoir of China. Visit www.mulberrychild.com, www.moraquest.com.

My wife has always been a theatre buff, so any visits to London, always include the theatre. 

On this trip, we went to three shows.  The first was Ronald Harwood’s “Collaboration” at the Duchess Theatre, starring Michael Pennington.  Harwood is an excellent playwright and screenwriter, best known for “The Dresser”, “Quartet” and the movies, “The Pianist,” and “The Diving Bell and The Butterfly.”  Ron Harwood’s awards included an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for the “The Pianist,” (2003) and an Academy Award nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay for “The Diving Bell…” (2007).

 “Collaboration” describes the close working relationship between Richard Strauss, (1864 – 1949) the famous German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras, and, Stefan Zweig, a famed Austrian novelist, playwright and journalist. Strauss and Zweig cooperated on the creation of an opera, and had a close friendship and enviable professional relationship for many years.

However, when Hitler came to power, Strauss was gradually pushed into severing his collaboration with Zweig, an Austrian Jew.  Initially, he objected and refused, but gradually he succumbed to the Nazi pressure under threat to his daughter-in-law and her family, who were Jewish.  Zweig, a brilliant but introverted artist, despaired for the future of mankind, as the Nazis spread their evil net across Europe and pursued their relentless persecution and subsequent annihilation of the Jews.

Zweig fled Vienna in 1934, first moving to England, maintaining communication through correspondence with Strauss, who tried every possible means to persuade him to participate in a further collaborative operatic venture, but then moved to Brazil as the Second World War progressed – eventually committing suicide in 1942.

This complex relationship examines the still unanswered question of how a cultured intelligent society could fall under the spell of a Nazi dictatorship.

My wife and I both enjoyed the play, but I felt it could have had a little more meat in showing the years leading to Zweig’s unexplained suicide.

The second show to which we also invited our three grandchildren was the musical comedy, “Sister Act,” based upon the successful 1987 movie.  This was an explosive, fun, all-singing and dancing show, headed by the stunning lead actress, Patina Miller, who comes from South Carolina and was raised by her musical family on rhythm, blues, and gospel.  She is definitely destined to be a star, and I’m sure this well-received outstanding musical event will soon be seen on Broadway.

Finally, we went to the Lyttelton at the National Theatre to see the J.B. Priestley classic, “Time and the Conways.”  This study of time and life’s struggles covered a period from 1919 to 1938, during which we see how the optimism and hope which Mrs. Conway, wonderfully played by Francesca Annis, and her five children – three daughters and 2 sons – fail in all aspects to achieve their hopes and potential in a post World War I era of dramatic social changes and economic slump.

J.B. Priestley’s plays often depict the mysteries of time.  This play first performed in 1937 had an added impact for me, as I wondered whether our own economic times and challenges would come to reflect the 1930s.

Theatre in London is always a treat and if you have a chance to see any of the above, I believe you will not be disappointed.

Ellis M. Goodman, author of Bear Any Burden: www.bearanyburden.com

My wife and I are making our annual pilgrimage to London to see family and friends.  We’ve just arrived to the warmest weather that London has experienced for the past three years.  The last two summers have been very wet and cool.

According to Londoners, they are now sweltering in a heat wave, the temperature having soared to the mid-80s.  But when London is bathed in sunshine, it does bloom.  Not only the Royal Parks, but also residents’ gardens are ablaze with color and roses galore. 

This morning, I took a walk into Regents Park within which is an area called Queen Mary‘s Gardens, which has the most incredible collection of rose bushes – perhaps 500 different varieties.  They have intriguing names such as Savoy Hotel, Princess Alice, Majestic, and Ingrid Bergman. They are in full bloom and in the most glorious colors.  In the center of the Garden, there is a circle of posts between which are strung large ropes covered in climbing roses of every hue and color.  Below this circle of color, is a small lake with an Island connected by an arched bridge.  Throngs of tourists abound photographing the flowers, the elegant royal swans and ducks, and of course themselves.

Local residents as well as tourists are making the most of this glorious weather, picnicing in the park, gliding upon the Regents Park lakes in rented canoes, and quietly watching the world go by.

Over the past decade or so, London has become a café society and every other store appears to be a café, small restaurant, or traditional pub with outdoor seating, attracting workers in their lunch hours as well as tourists.  Dining Al Fresco is always a joy, and Londoners really appreciate the opportunity.  Despite the economic recession, the City appears to be bustling, and certainly this weather brings people out to savor the City’s attractions.  The summer season is in full swing, with some of the main events already completed – Royal Ascot Races, Henley Regatta, and currently Wimbledon.  These events always draw large crowds, having been established more than a hundred years ago and provide a beauty and elegance in an inimitable British way.

Of course, one thing that doesn’t change is traffic congestion, and in hot weather traffic jams belching out noxious fumes distracts from a lot of the beauty and interest of the City, but personally, I hope the heat wave continues, and I shall report later in the week on some of the other current attractions of the City bathed in sunshine.

Ellis M. Goodman, author of Bear Any Burden: www.bearanyburden.com

Because most fiction is based on fact, I believe most readers like the factual part to be accurate.  I know I do.  Nothing is more irritating than reading a description of a location or an historical fact that you know is wrong.  For my espionage thriller, “BEAR ANY BURDEN,” I tried to do the necessary research to make sure that my facts are right, however, always with the knowledge that I am writing a work of fiction.  With the advent of the internet and in particular Google, research has become a lot simpler than it used to be.

In my novel, I had immigrants arriving in Dundee, Scotland in 1892.  I was easily able to access information on Dundee in that period including maps of the street layout, active industries in the area, and even comments on traffic congestion from horse-drawn buses.  I also had one of my characters living in Sydney, Australia in the 1950s and was again able to access similar information.  It is amazing what one can find on Google.  Since another of my main characters was a world renowned nuclear physicist from Poland, and the action takes place in the 1980s during the height of the cold war, I did my research and found a wealth of information on nuclear physicists, their work, and the scientific body called the Polish Academy of Sciences.  Without getting too technical, I was able to include many of these facets into my fiction.

When it came to writing about London, England, I had no difficulty since I am from there and was living there during part of the time period covered by my novel.  However, writing about Krakow and Tarnow in Poland was another matter.  In addition to the research that I was able to access, I decided that I would feel more comfortable getting a feel of those cities if I went there.  So last summer my son and I made the trip.  Krakow is a beautiful city with great historical significance, magnificent colorful buildings, churches, and the largest market square in Europe.  Tarnow, some 45 km from Krakow, was a smaller version.  A former walled city unharmed during WWII, with a pretty market square colorful houses with Venetian style balconies in some cases, all of which were painted in lovely pastel colors.  The center of the town was very pedestrian friendly, and I had no difficulty in identifying street names which I was using in my book and making the necessary adjustments when I realized the distances were not quite what I had expected.

I believe blending fact with fiction always make a novel more interesting.  What do you think?