ENCHANTÉ – YESTERDAY’S BLOG ON MEMORIAL DAY
This is to notify you of a correction needed in my blog of yesterday: A typo slipped in at the very end: Semper Fi is the correct spelling. The typo occurred at the moment I had to move quickly into the house from my deck because of a sudden downpour. While closing my laptop, the blog published itself, uncorrected. I hope you will forgive me.
Regards to all of you,
John Schwartz
ENCHANTÉ – REPEAT: THE LADY AND THE TRUMP
Hi Everyone: This was written in July 2015!
Remember?
and the
Tramp
Is it not wonderful that everyone wants the Lady and the Trump now? Six years back every one fell for the hope and change-sweet smiling unknown pied piper. An untested senator who had mostly voted not present and sat in a pew listening to–but not hearing–a race baiter. The Senator even pushed that contagious congenital (William Safire of the NY Times in 1996), compulsory lying lady aside. Whatever happened to the Obamagirls? They must have gone hiding under the table. And now, they put that woman back on the table with her fornicating hubby in the background! With 17 opposing politicians-contenders crying “us and them.”
Remember when two dogs fight over a bone, the third runs away with it?
It happened before with that insufferable parrot (pronunciation ‘Perot’) and his crayon boards. We would never have heard of Hillary or even Monica had he just stayed quiet running his business. And now they want to claim that she, still lying off the cliff, is IT? What IQ do they rate us for? Can we endure still more lying than we had for the last six years? How stupid do they think we are?
Well, yes, to be fair, we are quite stupid. In 2012, we re-elected the current politician who should never have been re-elected. Only because the so-called smart electorate stayed home, mad that their candidate was a Mormon. And what did they get for their nonchalance? Four more years of tyranny and stalemate, stagnation and lies. Would we finally not want some good tyranny to throw all these bummers out? Get The Lady and the Trump to clean ship?
PLEASE LET US HAVE REAL HOPE AND HAPPY DAYS AGAIN!
Pundits and politicians, radio and TV commentators, whether socialists or conservatives, feed on each other. The Lady and the Trump are not in their camp. They slip through their fingers. They don’t quack, the pundits do. For pundits and politicians, getting something done is unproductive, because when it’s done you can’t quack about it anymore. And that’s the end of the TV or radio show. They can’t make money that way. They lose their platform. Don’t you see them poor slimy squatters squirm that the Trump is only a ten billion dollar windbag and the Lady a fired CEO? They say would you please let us talk politics instead of having non-politicians taking action? Executive power, you say? Sure, but only the left is allowed to do that. If the right does it, it’s racist, extremist or right-wing conspiracy. Good! Let’s have it the other way around for a change.
Black and White always fighting. All over the world. Even dogs do it. During the last six years it has only gotten worse in the US. And what does ‘H’ stand for other than for Hyena? Do you want a howling Hyena in the White House rather than a bulldog getting things done for America and us for a change?
What about us poor voters and hard workers, that is, those who still have a job? Is it not about time we get some relief from those slimy politicians, especially those who lead us to greater misery with their misguided philosophies that have been proven wrong time after time?
Us Poor Voters!
Well, 20 months later, us poor voters finally came out of the woodworks and SPOKE!
DON’T FORGET YOUR FALL READING!
SOME WOMEN I HAVE KNOWN – Piano John confuses playing sheet music with playing between the sheets
AMAZON.COM AND PAPERBACK
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ENCHANTING THE SWAN : Grad students and musicians Paul and Fiona fall in love when they perform The Swan and agree to marry but paternal evil blocks their love.
ENCHANTÉ – Back after Dolce Far Niente
End of la belle vie, the beautiful life, het mooie leven (Dutch), das schöne leben (German), la vida hermosa!
Au revoir, another twelve harsh months ahead.
Back to Work.
Back to School.
Back to Sports
Back to writing.
Oh yeah, back to the traffic jams at rush hour that get longer every year.
How good it was to be away from it all. You must take the time to reset your buttons; to reorganize your brain; to shake off those negative thoughts that grew on your persona from last September thru June/July. Dolce far niente (translated: time-out) to face or settle kids troubles, spouse troubles, money troubles, you name it. And then travel to an island, relax on a soft yellow sand beach, have your butler bring you a refreshing cocktail, and sip from it while watching the sun go down in bright to crimson splendor. Then wake up after a pleasant night with your romantic companion, hear the waves rolling in, get a coffee, drink it while viewing the deep blue sea, and catch the first glimpse of the rising sun. And don’t touch that stupid TV with that awful CNN. Shut out that dreadful world in which we live. Do you still remember?
After a day of swimming, rolling on the beach, sailing in the wind, have champagne on your terrace. Enjoy the fresh salt water scent. Listen to the crickets. And recycle that brain. Why can’t we do that all the time? Well, Dolce far niente is not for everyone.
Then the rude awakening!
We are back to what has become the US Normal: terrorist attacks (about which another time), riots, burnings, destruction, disgruntled people screaming, all on extended TV, especially the yellow-orange flames in close-up, to grab the ratings for higher advertising rates. As a foreign national enjoying your hospitality, I’m just perplexed at what you are doing to yourself. More so even after eight years of a “black” president rule.
From the moment I touched the American soil in 1972, I have been perplexed with this riot phenomenon. OK, we had a few in Holland, and in Paris, where they burned cars, all religious-inspired.
But here whole inner cities go up in flames. And this has been going on as long as I have been here, for almost 45 years. Be it in Los Angeles with Rodney King (“Why can’t we all get along?”), Seatle (anarchists against the WTO conference–interesting when comparing this to the current Trump opposition to the TPP), or the latest round of Ferguson (“Black lives matter”), New York (“Can’t breathe”), and Baltimore (“more of the same”). I’m sure that if TV did not show it, these protests would be over right away. After the mess they created, they go home, look at TV the whole day to see themselves, and if not, return at night for an another try.
I get so tired of having to watch this all the time that my TV viewing is limited to Turner Classic Movies (great inspiration for writers). I canceled my newspaper subscriptions a long time ago. Either they tell me what I already know, or they irritate the hell out of me. I don’t need all this repetitive analysis. Why pay money for that?
But I will look at the “debates.”
For starters, I am perplexed that Hillary is even allowed to run for president after all the crimes she committed. My mouth stayed open for many minutes when the FBI said she had no “intent.” And that after all the info to the contrary that had been shown left and right. Well, the US is not the only country with double standards. In Russia, if you dare confront the establishment, you are poisoned in secrecy while Putin kills everyone he wants and still walks free. In France, all presidents in my lifetime committed some illegality for which they were pursued by the high court and fined (not sure if they paid up). In Italy, wealthy TV owner, Silvio Berlusconi,
was convicted of sexual misconduct with an underage girl and then for tax fraud, but because he was over 70, he was exempted from prison and only did a bit of “community service.” Well, Berlusconi is my age, so I wonder what that sexual misconduct was all about. But putting your national security in danger? Because that’s what the US Secretary of State did. I can’t figure that. And then she has the audacity to wonder why she isn’t 50 points ahead in the polls.
Anyway, I digress. I have no vote, so I’ll be curious who “the American People” elect as their next president. I still remember the US planes dropping food bags when they liberated us from the Nazis in 1945, and restoring law and order in The Netherlands and the rest of Europe, including France, Germany, Italy and Spain. When I look at the American spirit of today, a lot has changed. I pray that it will be restored. So be wise.
And that’s my view.
For some relaxed reading, check out:
Some Women I Have Known, in which John van Dorn confuses playing from sheet music with playing between the sheets.
and Enchanting The Swan, in which pianist Paul narrates his story how he fell in love with Fiona while performing The Swan by Camille St. Saëns, but met a wall of resistance when her parents of old Belgian nobility blocked their marriage. Will they ever play The Swan again?
Till next time!
ENCHANTÉ : The Champion Slugger
PJ SCHWARTZ
8 years old? And a champion slugger?
His (Dutch) Great-Great Grand Father, Hector W.M. van Coehoorn van Sminia, was a speed skater, finished 9 in a field of 33 skaters in the first Dutch 11-city ice skating tour in 1909, and became a well-known speed skating coach, trainer and ice hockey player (his team won an international championship in Davos, Switzerland). He was a well-known horseback rider and horse breeder/trainer in Holland (the famous Dutch warmbloods and thoroughbreds!). His wife, my grandmother, was champion of the first Dutch lady field hockey teams (playing in long skirts!), a good tennis player, and an excellent horseback rider, too.
Their grandson, me? Not much of a sportsman. I played tennis and the piano, but wasn’t great at soccer, hockey or skating. I loved to ride horses and go skiing, until a back problem arose and I had to abandon all that. Major disappointment. Our son, David? He mostly grew up overseas during his first 8 1/2 years while we were on a four-year World Bank assignment in Bangladesh and missed out on all the early little league stuff in the US. But when he landed in Los Angeles on the way back and saw the 49ers for the first time on TV, somehow the latent family sports-spirit hit him front and center: from then on, it was football (Redskins!), baseball and basket (Magic!). Me trucking him to all the little league schools in the neighborhood for practice and battle. At high-school, he excelled in football and basketball and scored 22 baskets on a regular basis. I tried to teach him tennis – my favorite – but while he was good at it he always turned to team sports.
No wonder the family genes fulminated in his son Preston John, alias PJ. Last weekend two championships, one of which a baseball game in which he scored with his WhiteCaps team the one and only home run! And how: see it below (courtesy PJ’s mother, April, who, like her mother Doris, is an eager and competent photographer).
Below are the other sluggers and their coaches! PJ in blue far left, coach and Dad David far right. What an enthusiastic bunch!
PJ smiling with his trophy and proud Dad texting it around.
Go WHITECAPS! Happy Fathers’ Day!
And this one day later: champion “Flag” football! Thanks to PJ’s fabulous pass – as the quarterback – to a teammate who went straight for the goal line! PJ can surely throw balls!
What does his sister, Sadie Rose do? Playing soccer!
Well, the old family genes have been passed on! Finally!
ENCHANTING THE SWAN IS THERE
Hello Everyone:
The Swan is there, finally. A heartthrob, a heartwarming, a heartbreaking love story taking you from the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, to Brussels, Geneva and New York, as Paul, the hero, struggles to win back his darling Fiona, his cellist companion at the piano, who strays away from him after they fall in love on the Crim Dell Bridge at William & Mary. After leaving Paul, lovely Fiona meets disaster and physical harm in an abusive relationship. And Paul is beleaguered from many sides, not the least by a manipulating Swiss sphinx, daughter of a criminal pharmaceutical CEO who almost destroys his career. But The Swan saves Fiona and Paul, both passionate musicians in their professional life.
You will enjoy this story as much I enjoyed writing it.
ENCHANTING THE SWAN
KIRKUS REVIEW: “A LIVELY SYMPHONY”
KINDLE AND NOOK, AND IN PAPERBACK
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