The Singing Fountain

JANUARY READING LIST

2012-01-13T11:44:00.002-07:00

THE UNTOUCHABLE by John Banville
The witty and weighty journal of an Irish spy for the Russians during World War II.

THE GASTRONOMICAL ME by MFK Fisher
The puff pastry memoirs of an American foody in beleaguered Europe during the 30's and 40's.

GREAT EXPECTATIONS by Charles Dickens
What can I write that hasn't been better written by others about this novel by the great master of human understanding?

2012

2012-01-05T10:04:00.002-07:00

I thought this was the year the world was suppose to end according to the Mayan calendar. Not so sure I would mind right now. Foolishly, I thought life would be slower and easier when I reached my sixties. Only gotten faster, more complicated and more difficult. But as my Uncle Buddy used to say, "Eat your mush and shush.". So, here's to 2012 and whatever's coming. Let 'er wind!

2011 NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTION

2011-01-03T20:28:00.001-07:00

The simple one is to take better care of my health both mental and physical.
The harder one is to accept and love people as they are without expectations.

Happy New Year!

GRATITUDE

2010-11-27T09:09:00.002-07:00

Thank you, V. Your appreciation of my work means a great deal to me. As my friend, producer and mentor, Bones Howe once told me, 'It takes courage to be happy in this world.'

Be courageous.

Cheryl

PAINTING NATURE

2010-11-08T07:05:00.002-07:00

Examples of my botanical paintings going back to the 1990's.

THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE

2010-07-26T18:43:00.001-06:00

I saw the second film in the Millennium Trilogy. It followed the book almost flawlessly.

A SIMPLE FORMULA

2010-07-20T09:29:00.002-06:00

I've found that the quickest way to make people dislike you is to assume an attitude of superiority. The easiest way to make them like you is to show interest in them; who they are, what they think and do. This is only relevant if you care whether or not people like you.

READING, WRITING AND THE ARITHMETICS OF PUBLISHING

2010-07-09T08:24:00.003-06:00

I'm overwhelmed every time I walk into a bookstore at the number of books published every year. It's a daunting task getting a book published. Even Jane Austen couldn't get Pride and Prejudice in print until her father paid for the first publication.

My brother, Duane Ernst was a great writer of letters. He had studied English literature at the University of Chicago and later at UC Berkeley. He was the best read person I'd ever known and was capable of turning a bon mot. I asked him once why he didn't write prose and his response baffled me. He said that there was no point since anything he wrote would never be published. He died at fifty and all I have are a few letters from him which I treasure.

I know how he felt now. I hope one day when I've 'thinned out' as Woody Allen put it, my son and nieces will be happy to have what I put down on paper as something other than memories to remember me by.

THE STIEG LARRSON TRILOGY

2010-07-07T06:27:00.003-06:00

I've finished reading all three books. I went through a day of withdrawals when I put them on the book shelf. While I don't think Larsson was a great, sometimes not even a good writer, I will miss Lisbeth Salander. Like Steinbeck's Tom Joad or Ludlum's Jason Bourne, Larsson's Lisbeth Salander gives the reader a sense of righteousness by association.

The Swedish film of the second book comes to Colorado Springs on the 29th. I hope that it's as good as the first film.

WARRIOR NATION

2010-07-04T11:10:00.002-06:00

With the exception of a few years respite, my country has been involved in one war or another since I was one year old.
1950-1953 Korean War
1957-1973 U. S. in Cambodia, Laos and war in Vietnam
1983 Invasion of Grenada
1983-1988 Iran Contra Affair
1989 Invasion of Panama
1989-1991 First Gulf War
1993 Soldiers killed during relief mission in Somalia
1994-1995 Haiti
1999 Kosovo
2001- Afghanistan
2003- Invasion of Iraq

I've left out the cold war with Russia and China and the Cuban Missile Crisis.
When will this blood lust end?

D.S.W. by C.E.W.

2010-06-21T14:01:00.001-06:00

unabashed love

OLD SCHOOL IN THE AGE OF FACEBOOK

2010-06-17T07:06:00.002-06:00

As a writer, trying to build a platform on facebook is like spitting in the ocean. If he were alive today, would Faulkner tweet?

Reading The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

2010-05-31T11:57:00.003-06:00

The Swedish film version of Stieg Larsson's, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo inspired me to buy the books that make up the trilogy. The hype has been so overwhelming about the author, his life, his writing and his untimely death. I've finished the first book and I'm about to launch into the second. While I found the characters compelling enough to forge ahead with the reading, had I not seen the film and knew what was coming, I might have shelved the book for another, more patient day. I thought the story got bogged down several times in the minutia of the publishing and financial industries. Germane, certainly, but wearying at times.

During my viewing of the film, a woman in the theater shouted, "Yeah!" when Lisbeth took her revenge on Bjurman. My friend said he felt like a willing participant in her violent attack against him. Salander is the great avenger. Without remorse, she commits violence against the violent. It's been said by others that she's a heroine for our times. Scary thought given her anti social behavior and capacity for brutality. But she's smart and calculating and capable of carrying out a plan under incredible stress. She's almost completely shut down emotionally and maybe that's what makes her so effective in her ability to take revenge. These must be qualities a lot of people admire but lack.

While I loved the film, I can't say that I loved the book. I know that puts me in a small, worldwide minority. I have one, possibly silly question: Why are people always making, drinking or talking about making and drinking coffee in the book? Is this leading somewhere in the next book or is this just a Swedish thing?

SPRING AT LAST

2010-05-23T14:24:00.003-06:00

It felt as though Spring would never come. Then I woke up and looked out my bedroom window and the lilacs had bloomed.

FACE CULTURE

2010-05-18T14:42:00.003-06:00

I had never heard the expression 'face culture' before a friend used it to describe the people in his hometown. Apparently it means the common practice of telling someone what you think they want to hear whether or not you mean it or believe it. I've experienced this but had never known there was an anthropological term for it.

How many times have you been greeted by a friend with, "Hi. You look great!" You might have just come from a round of chemo therapy or a four day, alcoholic binge and you look like something the cat dragged in but your friend tells you that you look great. Or there's the ubiquitous remark, "Have a nice day" when you really don't care if someone has a nice day or gets hit by a bus. This is face culture at its most benign. At one time or another we've all been victims or perpetrators of it.

It could be said that these niceties hold the fabric of society together. We ingratiate ourselves to others by these remarks. Conversely you could say that deceit and hypocrisy are the unmaking of social order. If we can't believe what our own friends tell us, then who can we believe. OK, so I've taken it to the extreme but why don't we all stop saying things we don't mean? Where's the harm in that? I wouldn't mind a little less face culture.

PAINTINGS BY CHERYL ERNST WELLS

2010-05-12T17:44:00.001-06:00

Work from 2006 through 2008

The Road Not Taken - Robert Frost

2010-05-07T07:22:00.000-06:00

MAY SUGGESTED READING

2010-04-30T17:41:00.003-06:00

HARD TIMES or BLEAKHOUSE by Charles Dickens, B&N Classics Publishing

MIDDLESEX by Jeffrey Eugenides, Picador, Farrar, Straus and Giroux Publishers

FREAKONOMICS by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, Harper Collins Publishers

Let me know what you think.

DEFINE SUCCESS FOR ME

2010-04-30T10:54:00.004-06:00

Three years ago I decided to try my hand at writing a novel. I've been a professional songwriter since I was seventeen but I had never tried to write prose. In the ensuing three years I have written two novels, a novelette and a number of short stories. I love to write. I don't deceive myself into thinking that I'm a great writer, but I can tell an interesting story.

Four months ago I joined a writer's group here in Colorado Springs, as much for social reasons as for creative discourse. There is no critique process of our writing and most of our discussions involve marketing, social networking, blogging and self promotion. I don't have a problem with all of that, but we never discuss the creative process, that elusive spark that drives us to put word to paper. I feel like we're putting the cart before the horse in these meetings and I'm thinking of quitting.

All my creative efforts have been born out of a need for self expression, narcissistic as that may seem. A fellow writer said that we never know when our creative endeavors will inspire another person to begin their own creative search. To me, that would be my greatest success. While I'm not against recognition or monetary reward for creative work, I feel these should never be the impetus for creativity. I'm not suggesting art for art's sake, but writing simply to make a buck or see your name in print is cheap. It's word pollution and the world is awash in that these days. I choose to embrace the idea that my writing is like the sound of one hand clapping and if a breath of air flows from it then I've succeeded.

NEW LOOK, MORE CONTENT

2010-04-29T08:58:00.005-06:00

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown is in the fight for his political position. His off record remarks caught on microphone calling a long time, Labor Party supporter a 'racist' have him in even deeper trouble. The supporter was complaining about the flood of Eastern European immigrants to Britain.

My Czech friend went to work in England as caretaker to an elderly lady. The salary she could make in British pounds was far superior to what she could make in Czech korunas back home. Can anyone really blame her for wanting to prosper? Can anyone really blame the British citizens for being angry at jobs being taken away from British nationals? When I was in Vienna in 2006 I sat in the Sudbahnhoff train station listening to a young man from Romania tell me about his recent experience in Italy. He had been working illegally in construction there. When the project was finished, the contractor refused to pay him knowing the young man had no legal recourse. He had to go home to his family empty handed after months of separation.

We see the recent law passed in Arizona. Clearly it's racist but can anyone blame the people of Arizona who support the law for their concerns over illegal immigrants. The point I am trying to make is that this issue is not black and white. There are good people on both sides of the argument. We have to come up with solutions that don't vilify either side. Cracking down on employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants is part of the solution. Stronger border monitoring is another. Forcing Mexico to enforce their borders and penalizing them somehow for not doing so would help. But forcing people with brown skin to show papers is not the answer. Blaming European Union citizens for taking advantage of the rights they're now entitled to is not the answer. Cheating poor, desperate people who take desperate measures to feed their families is not the answer either. I think part of the answer is to see ourselves in others and think of the world as one nation. Perhaps if we did, appropriate solutions would follow.

From THE SINGING FOUNTAIN by C.E.Wells

2010-04-26T11:50:00.003-06:00

'Life is very unpredictable,' as Maria had said. That's what makes it so wonderful. Love enriches us all, even if it hurts. And although life doesn't always have a happy ending, your chances of one are better if you hope it will than if you suspect it won't.

For Dorian.

C.E.W.

PHOTOGRAPHS OF PARIS 2009

2010-03-02T08:15:00.002-07:00

The City of Light

ARTWORK BY PAUL WELLS

2010-02-22T10:19:00.004-07:00

Four examples

ARTWORK BY DORIAN SEBASTIAN WELLS

2010-02-21T12:50:00.004-07:00

Retrospective

PAINTINGS BY CHERYL ERNST WELLS

2010-02-18T10:37:00.003-07:00

Shameless self-promotion

CREATIVE INSECURITY

2010-02-11T12:21:00.003-07:00

Does any artist know when their work is good? Aren't we all insecure and full of self-doubt? I've flattered myself that I've done good work before but with time and distance from it I recognize my mediocrity. It's tough to be honest with yourself about your creative work.

Then again, what does it really matter? It makes me think of a great scene from the movie, Julia based on Lillian Hellman's short story. (Apologies to the screenwriter but I'm paraphrasing here). While trying to write her first play The Children's Hour, Lillian says to her lover Dashiell Hammett, "I think I'll give up writing. It's too hard." He replies, "This is a good time to stop. No one will miss you."

Of course she didn't stop, thank goodness, and dammit, neither will I. And neither should you.

MURAKAMI, DU MAURIER & SOMERSET MAUGHAM

2010-01-31T16:10:00.002-07:00

My February Reading List Recommendations

For thrills:

Kafka On The Shore by Haruki Murakami (Vintage International)

For elegance:

Ashenden by W. Somerset Maugham (Doubleday & CO)

For great story telling:

Don't Look Now by Daphne Du Maurier (New York Review Books)

Let me know what you think. CEW

ANOTHER YEAR GONE

2010-01-27T06:41:00.004-07:00

I've reached the age where people say things like, 'Getting older beats the alternative'. None of us really knows if getting older beats the alternative but I'm willing to take it on faith. Despite the physical ravages of time (thank goodness I'm not vain or I would be a basket case) there are so many good things about being 61. Minor insults or disrespect from strangers rolls off of me without ruining my day, I don't get the blues as often as I used to, and I can see through bull**** quicker. I love the people I love more deeply and can look beyond the moment to the greater scheme of things.

True, there's a certain desperation that comes with getting older. Since the days are a diminishing return I feel the need to pack as much living into each one as I can. I have to live with the aching knowledge that I squandered my young years on fruitless pursuits and now those years are gone forever. But, since I believe that the only reason to revisit the past is to inform the future, I hope that I can fashion something of value from the years I have left.

So here's to getting older and hopefully wiser. To hell with the wrinkles!

CHRISTMAS 2009

2010-01-06T17:18:00.004-07:00

The family gathered in Los Angeles as we have almost every year since the kids were babies.

As the decades pass our numbers grow smaller, but the one's we've lost are never forgotten.

REMEMBERING CHRISTMAS 2006

2010-01-05T14:43:00.003-07:00

Journal entries:

•December 24, 2006•

A traditional Czech Christmas dinner includes a baked carp. Two men have set up a table on the corner of our busy street. They have big, beautiful live carp in water filled troughs and people line up to buy them. The men pull the fish out by the tail then smash them over the head with a heavy wooden mallet. It's horrible. On and on it goes. Thud, thud, thud. It makes me think of that old Beatles song, bang, bang Maxwell's silver hammer came down on their heads. Puts me right off fish.

Two blocks from our apartment is the Flora, a three story shopping mall, lavishly decorated and full of shoppers. Credit cards are a fairly new phenomenon here so now the Czechs can dig themselves into debt with the rest of us. It's a real sign of prosperity when people can buy what they can't afford.

•December 25, 2006•

Today we went to a cousin's house for a couple of hours. She made sandwiches and cookies and that was our Christmas dinner. It was just the three of us. Now I know how lonely the holidays are for people without family. One year in Oakland I decided not to make Thanksgiving dinner and we went to a restaurant instead. I remember feeling so sad to see people eating a restaurant turkey dinner alone. To me the holidays are about family together telling funny and touching stories about years passed and remembering loved ones who are gone.

So this was our Prague Christmas. Pretty dismal. But Christmas, like paying taxes, comes every year and there will be others.

VOICES FROM THE VOID

2009-12-19T07:19:00.003-07:00

OK, so there is light in the cyber darkness. Thanks R. I guess a blog is as good a place as any to spill your guts. It's a little like eating food that has no taste but there's got to be some nourishment in it.

I recently joined facebook to see if I could reconnect with lost friends from my years in the music business. I did find a few old friends but was also bombarded with friend requests from people I see frequently. When did talking on the telephone become obsolete? And will someone explain to me why anyone would think what coffee they had at Starbuck's is interesting to anyone else. I'm obviously missing something. omg, I'm beginning to sound like Andy Rooney.

Here's a picture I took in Prague. No banal explanations necessary.

SPACE DUST

2009-11-30T20:50:00.002-07:00

Writing a blog is like drifting weightlessly in space. Without connection it's dark, cold and directionless. I'm beginning to wonder if there is a point to blogging. Is it just a narcissistic exercise? Is it the sound of one hand clapping? Tonight I feel like space dust.

AMSTERDAM 2009

2009-11-02T07:29:00.004-07:00

We've changed planes in Amsterdam many times on our way to Prague but we've never gotten out of the Schipol airport. This time we began our trip in Amsterdam. Our elegant and very expensive hotel was on the edge of lush Vondell park and right around the corner from the Rijksmuseum and the Van Gogh Museum. On every street there is a lane designated for bicycles and the river of cyclists flows day and night at reckless speeds. Little tinkling bike bells warn you to get out of the lane if you happen to step in one and you're far more likely to be hit by a bike than a car if you're not paying attention to where you're going.

Amsterdam in Spring is green and mild. In May, as the plane descends into the airport, you can see miles of colorful tulip fields below on the outskirts of the city. It's like a color field painting from the air. I think charming, a word I don't often use, best describes Amsterdam. The distinctive architecture, the canals with slowly moving boats and people watching from the pedestrian bridges above, the easy going feel of the city make Amsterdam very livable.

In Andel Square we joined a large Hindu procession. We saw a special exhibition of Van Gogh night scene paintings at the museum dedicated to his work and a fabulous exhibition of Odillon Redon paintings the same evening.

Yes, we saw the red light district, the coffee houses and watched break dancers in Leidesplein Square. But walking the back streets of Amsterdam in the evening under a full moon is the best way to see the city.

WINTER APPROACHES

2009-10-13T07:35:00.003-06:00

Winter is coming early this year. We had rain all summer long, keeping the town green and verdant. As a consequence the locals are saying we will have a bad winter. Looking out my office window this morning Manitou Springs is blanketed in fog and the Garden of the Gods Park is invisible. The fog reminds me of the Bay Area. It makes me a little melancholy, longing to see the fog roll down from Wolf Back Ridge in Marin County and pour across the Golden Gate Bridge. I suffer from the restless desire to be anywhere but where I am. It doesn't matter how beautiful a place is, sooner or later I want to move on and see the other place. Why is it that some people can live their entire lives in a small town and never feel the need or desire to see the world? I meet many people here who declare with absolute certainty that Colorado is heaven on Earth. I can't help but wonder how they would know since many of them haven't even seen a fraction of this country much less the world. Is it mass hysteria or small town over compensation?

I've seen a fraction of this country and of the world and I know for certain that there is no such place as heaven on earth. If it exists at all, it's not geographical but spiritual. A dingy apartment can be heaven on Earth to a couple madly in love. Someone at peace within themselves can be at peace in the middle of the worst city on the planet. But not me. I'm ready to move on. Summer in Colorado is over and the winter of my discontent is rapidly approaching.

Passage from LOVE'S LOST & FOUND by Cheryl Ernst Wells

2009-09-16T14:03:00.002-06:00

As a child Fred had been frightened by the notion of an all-seeing God watching him every moment. But as a man he saw religion as self-medication against the injustices of life, the pain of loss and the fear of death. The notion of an almighty God seemed like a children's fairytale to him now and he thought only a simpleton or someone desperate could believe such nonsense. He understood that for many people church was a place of solace in a dangerous world and the congregation was a human wall of protection against isolation; safety in numbers. He couldn't understand how some people could justify the hypocrisy of behaving badly all week then piously on Sunday. Mys'tique was right. He was Godless but what she didn't know was that he wasn't faithless.

He believed in the inherent goodness in people and that instinctively everyone knew the difference between right and wrong without the need of scripture. He believed that there was an intangible force that ordered the Universe, despite the appearance of chaos at times, and that everything good and bad happened for a reason that made sense in the greater scheme of things. Fred had his own personal doctrine born of experience and so far it had sustained him in a troubled world with an occasional lapse of faith.

MORE PHOTOS OF EUROPE 2009 BY PAUL WELLS

2009-09-05T17:05:00.003-06:00

Amsterdam to Brussels, London to Bath and ending with Paris

PARIS 2009

2009-08-22T15:34:00.003-06:00

When we began to plan our trip, we only had France in mind, beginning with Paris. Gradually we expanded our itinerary to include other countries and France somehow got shuffled to the end. I had been to France a few times but Paul hadn't been yet. Leaving Paris to the end of the three weeks was, in retrospect, a mistake. Paris requires a lot of energy to see and do everything the city has to offer and we were by that time a little worn out. We did, however, manage to see the Louvre, D'Orsay and the Rodin Museums. On foot we explored the back streets and galleries of St. Germaine des Pres, Montparnasse and some of the Rive Gauche.

Some of the most interesting, welcoming Parisians we met were immigrants to the country. Much has been written by others about the character of the native French people. Some of it is true and some is exaggeration. Even in Paris a smile goes a long way to bridging the cultural divide.

As artists, we spend the majority of our trips in the museums and galleries of the countries we visit. We linger for hours over the artwork and consequently can spend an entire day in one museum or another. This trip we tried something new. In every city we visited we took a sightseeing boat cruise or bus ride. I've always thought these were too touristy for my taste but I was wrong. We enjoyed them, met and talked with travelers from other countries and learned a lot about the history of each city from the guides. It's also a great way to get off your weary feet. The city buses turned out to be preferable to the Metro (too much walking from stop to stop). They were cleaner and safer.

Paris is terribly expensive. Even the Parisians complain of the cost of food etc. This trip I noticed that the city seems a bit run down. The buildings were grimy and to my amazement there were crumbling ceilings in parts of the Louvre. I think it takes a certain type of person to fall in love with Paris. I'm not that type but I admit, Paris is definitely one of the cities you must see before you die.

BATH AND THE COTSWOLDS 2009

2009-08-18T13:14:00.004-06:00

For more than twenty years I've been a devoted follower of Masterpiece Theater and Mystery on PBS. I love all the Merchant and Ivory movies and any British costume drama on the big or small screen. So naturally I thought when I finally made it to England I would be prepared for the experience. I was wrong. England is greener, more civilized, more enchanted, more of everything than I expected. I think Bath and the villages of the Cotswolds are the prettiest places I've ever seen.

We wandered the narrow alleyways of Bath at night and in the morning took a slow, meandering boat trip on the Avon River (learned that there are many different Avon Rivers in England). A swan floated by with six signets tucked under her wings. Spring green hillsides rolled down to the riverside, rushes swayed gently in our wake. A brief cloudburst cooled us. Later we went into a shop on the Bath bridge selling stamps, coins and old medals. The elderly, wizened proprietress was right out of Dickens. Called me Dear.

We toured Stonehenge, the village of Avebury with the great stone circle and had lunch in a sixteenth century pub in Castle Comb.

For me, the five days we spent in southern England were the highlight of our 2009 trip.

LONDON 2009

2009-08-10T14:43:00.002-06:00

From the time I was a teenager I've wanted to go to London. I've been to Europe many times and never made it there. Paul was born there and had studied a short course in microscopy during the eighties in London. I was very excited to be going to England. We took the Chunnel from Brussels and arrived at St. Pancras station.

We had booked our hotel in Bloomsbury near the train station for convenience. The East Indian desk clerk, Hans, was originally from Africa. He kept asking if Paul was related to a previous guest from Wales and seemed to find it hard to take no for an answer. The Booking.com description of the hotel said that some rooms overlooked a garden so we requested one in our reservation. The garden turned out to be a 10' x 10' walled brick patio with wilted potted plants and a stack of moldy mattresses. To say that the room was "cozy" is an overstatement. We could barely move. While clean, the shower was impossibly small and water went everywhere. Still the proximity to the British Museum and being two blocks from all the bus lines and the train station made up for the inadequacies and the full English breakfast included in the price of the room helped.

The collection at the British Museum is fabulous. Notorious treasures like the Elgin Marbles, the Rosetta Stone, antiquities from every corner of the globe are housed in the British Museum and we spent days revisiting the collections. For free! The British are so civilized!

The British people are some of the most polite, friendly and hospitable I've ever met in my travels. Some of them were the stuff of fiction. Sitting across from us on a city bus on the way to the Tate Modern was a man in his sixties with a tuft of hair on his otherwise bald head, glasses like coke bottle bottoms and missing teeth who whistled a three note tune every so often and I think said something about tickety-boo. You know someone that out of it has had a rough time but his good humor and odd behavior are pure Monty Python.

Listening to a young East Indian man studying economics complain of the cost of college in London over a curry dinner, watching children play in the fountain in Russell Square, a Sri Lankan demonstration in front of the Parliament buildings, doing our laundry in a laundry mat with an elderly Chinese woman; all these experiences make London a wonderful memory and a place I can't wait to get back to.

BRUSSELS 2009

2009-08-03T09:17:00.002-06:00

We were advised by friends and travel books to bypass Brussels and go to Brugge instead. I'm glad we didn't listen to their advice. While Brussels will never be on the list of my favorite European cities it is fascinating on a number of levels. Brussels is the seat of the European Union and consequently buzzes with diplomatic activity. The juxtaposition of the ancient architecture with the ultra modern is interesting. The Museum of Ancient and Modern Art houses the most magnificent collection of Northern European art in the world. Belgium is a monarchy and when the King is in the country (he was) the flag flies over his palace and the royal gardens were beautiful.

We spent our few days in the heart of the city which is geared to tourists and diplomats, from the sublime to the profane. Contrary to what we'd read the food was unremarkable and no we didn't have mussels in Brussels. We discovered that a french fry is a french fry whether it comes in a fancy paper cone or newsprint.

RECENT PICTURES OF EUROPE

2009-07-28T10:44:00.002-06:00

We recently returned from three weeks in Europe. We began our trip in Amsterdam then moved on to Brussels. We took the Eurostar under the channel to London then on to Bath and the Cottswolds. We finished our trip in Paris. Here are some of Paul's photographs beginning in Amsterdam.

LOOKING BACK AGAIN

2009-06-17T10:32:00.002-06:00

In 1993 I resolved to put my music career to rest. I had been a professional singer/songwriter for twenty-seven years at that point. I had been 'paying to play' for years and the musicians I was working with at the time, although very talented individually, had absolutely no concept of inter connectivity when we performed. They ran over me like a freight train with amplification and I have the hearing loss today to prove it.

The music industry and I had a mutual mistrust of one another. The industry couldn't figure out how to categorize me for marketing and I didn't want to be pigeon holed. Unlike many of my musical friends, making the transition from performer to non performer was easy for me. I relegated performing to a youthful passion that had waned and took up painting for my creative expression.

But periodically in the years to follow, music would resurface in my life. I was hired as a lyricist for an MGM animated feature. Singers recorded my songs and most recently I was asked by Marc Myers from www.JazzWax.com to discuss my collaboration with the great jazz pianist and composer, Jimmy Rowles, on the song LOOKING BACK. I wrote the lyrics for Jimmy's haunting melody when I was a teenager and Jimmy was somewhere on his way to sixty. Retelling the story of my long, albeit sporadic, relationship with Jimmy made me realize that making music was not something I could turn off and on like a spigot. The joy of it could lay dormant for years but spring to life again with a little encouragement.

I'm a firm believer that things happen for a reason; there is no such thing as chance. I'm waiting to see where this new resurgence of music in my life will lead me. In the meantime I have a new idea for a painting.

MORE WORK BY DORIAN WELLS

2009-04-22T09:02:00.002-06:00

In 2008 Dorian was commissioned to paint a race car for the San Francisco soapbox derby sponsored by Red Bull. This was the second Red Bull event Dorian was invited to participate in, the first being the group show at the Sugar Factory in Manhattan.

DORIAN SEBASTIAN WELLS aka DOR 1

2009-04-08T10:53:00.003-06:00

Paintings, collages and sculpture retrospective.

THE 2006 PRAGUE PAINTINGS AND PASTELS

2009-02-26T09:02:00.004-07:00

Prague is a city for artists. Inspiration is everywhere, from the architecture and sculpture down to the iron gates, fences and cobblestone patterns in the streets. Baroque, Expressionism, Cubism, Jugendstil, Functionalism. The city is a treasure trove of art. These are a few of my works from 2006 inspired by my beloved Prague.

PAINTINGS BY CHERYL ERNST WELLS

2009-02-23T08:22:00.002-07:00

When I can't write I paint.

TOTALLY UNRELATED

2009-02-19T15:14:00.002-07:00

You know when you've done something wrong that one way or another you'll suffer the consequences, right? So if we know this as an individual, do we also know it as a nation? It occurs to me that the mess our nation even the world is in is the consequence of our collective misdeeds. Didn't we all get greedy somewhere along the way in the last ten years?

Two days ago I went shopping at Sam's Club and spent a chunk of money stocking up for just the two of us. There was a young boy and his little sister trying to buy eggs with a stack of quarters and they looked poor and hungry to me. You can't shop at Sam's without a club card and the kids didn't have one so we worked it out with the cashier to let them use ours. I wouldn't take the change they offered for the eggs, they both thanked me and we parted ways. As my husband loaded the boxes of food we had just bought into the trunk of our car I began to cry. I've been poor before but it's been years ago and I was an adult not a kid.

Maybe the kids weren't poor, maybe they weren't hungry. Maybe I just imagined they were but I realized then that there are poor, hungry kids all around me and I haven't seen them. I haven't felt them but I feel them now. Question is, what am I going to do about it? If I feel them, isn't it my responsibility to do something? If the economic meltdown, the housing collapse, jobs and IRA's lost seems totally unrelated to hungry kids, then our elected officials, all of us as a nation, as a world have a lot to answer for.

A FAMILY TRADITION

2009-02-04T15:48:00.003-07:00

My husband Paul, our son Dorian and I are all painters.

PAINTINGS BY CHERYL ERNST WELLS

2009-02-02T15:24:00.003-07:00

These 12 x 12 acrylic paintings are a few from a series of thirteen inspired by cities around the world.

TURNING SIXTY

2009-01-25T12:39:00.002-07:00

Today is my sixtieth birthday. I spent the whole week on the run up to today being depressed. I haven't felt my chronological age for years. I'm always shocked when I look in the mirror. I still expect to see a younger face and I won't even mention my body. My hair is getting thinner, there are deeper wrinkles around my eyes and frown creases at the corners of my mouth. When I put on lipstick within ten minutes it's flowed into those little lines around my lips like tributaries. I guess that is what sixty looks like on me.

Yes, I could do Botox or Lypo suction but I probably won't. I could lose weight and work out at a gym but I probably won't do that either. Instead I'm throwing myself a birthday party and doing my best to celebrate the fact that I made it to sixty. After all, it could be worse. I could be turning eighty.

A CHANGE OF HEART

2009-01-12T14:10:00.003-07:00

When I left Los Angeles at 21 and moved to San Francisco I swore I'd never move back. I hated the cars, the smog, the sprawl, the dissipation and phoniness of everyone I knew there. I was part of the LA sixties music scene and a sadder scene there never was. All my friends could talk about was getting famous and rich. People I knew in the music business went from poverty to affluence practically overnight and the excesses that came with the money frightened me. As a fringe player I left without being missed.

By comparison to LA, San Francisco was a small town with clearly defined ethnic neighborhoods living cheek to jowel. Old Italian men would play bocce in Northbeach and the back alleys of Chinatown were as close to mainland China as you could get. You could ride the cable car for a quarter and rent an apartment in the Castro for a hundred dollars. I played in clubs all over town at night and for change in Ghirardelli Square during the day. San Francisco in 1970 was a lull in the transition from the acid high of the Love Revolution to the cocaine fueled Disco Mania. I was a few years too young and a few years too late to know San Francisco in the glory days of the Haight-Ashbury. I lived there through the early days of AIDS, the murders of Moscone and Milk and the death of San Francisco's greatest chronicler, Herb Cain.

In 1979 my husband and I bought a house in Oakland. San Francisco was already beyond our means and Oakland was still affordable. For 26 years we raised our sons there, built our business there and never regretted the move. We rode out the earthquake of '89 and the influx of displaced San Francisco dot-comers in the 90's. Like a cold coming on, I could feel the change in the bay area almost overnight. There were suddenly too many cars, too many people, the old neighborhoods were chi-chified and all anyone could talk about was making money in the stock market and the price of real estate. It was beginning to feel like LA.

In 2006 we made our break with California and moved briefly to Prague then to Colorado. In 2007 a death in the family took us back to LA for a while. There are more people and cars than ever. In Studio City where we spend a good deal of time, everyone is either an actor, aspiring actor, reading or writing a script or just generally trying to look like an important person in the Industry. LA hasn't changed much but I have. Somehow LA feels almost like home again. I like it there now. The people I see in LA are interesting. In restaurants and coffee shops I overhear them talking about art or music or films. People in general are friendly and relaxed (except behind the wheel of a car) and it's green and flowering all year long there. I'm beginning to remember all the good times I had as a girl when I lived in the Los Feliz neighborhood. I remember the lemony smell of magnolia trees on our street on summer mornings and the ice blue, clear winter nights by a fire at the beach.

Yeah, I like LA again. I just might move back.

CHRISTMAS MORNING AT HOME lyrics by Cheryl Ernst Wells, music by John Rosenberg

2008-12-18T09:22:00.002-07:00

Wrapping paper everywhere

The sound of little footsteps running up and down the stairs

On Christmas morning at home

The sight of you by fire glow

A quiet moment for a kiss beneath the mistletoe

On Christmas morning at home

Up and down the streets of town

Decorations have been strung

And somewhere in the distance you can hear

Carols being sung

There's one thing I am certain of

The greatest gift is being happy with the ones you love

On Christmas morning at home.

CAN YOU TASTE IT?

2008-12-15T08:07:00.002-07:00

In my opinion there is no other food that induces joy more than cake. Think of birthdays, weddings, christenings, you name a special occasion, and cake is the high point of the celebration. Buche de noel is a favorite French cake made to look like a log and served only at Christmastime. Cakes these days are often works of art so beautiful it seems a travesty to eat them. There are reality television programs about cake making and pastry chefs become celebrities because of their skill at making fondant flowers and ornamentation. Wayne Thiebaud is well known for his paintings of cakes.

I really love cake, any kind except carrot cake. Cake makes me momentarily happy when I'm blue. I think I get happy just looking at cake.

THE SINGING FOUNTAIN by Cheryl Ernst Wells

2008-12-12T17:17:00.002-07:00

VIENNA

Diane slept peacefully during the turbulent flight over the Atlantic and woke shortly before landing. October in Vienna is the first faint hint of fall with pleasant sunny days and crisp cool nights. The young woman at the Hotel Karlskirche welcomed guests from three countries, switching effortlessly from German to French then English with dazzling courtesy. The hallways and rooms at the hotel were decorated with valuable contemporary sculptures and paintings, all in bright primary colors. The balcony in Diane's room overlooked the magnificent Kunsthistorisches Museum and it's twin, the Natural History Museum across the park. Voluminous white clouds filled the sky and Diane could smell the chance of evening rain in the air.

She walked down to the busy Mariahilferstrasse shopping district. In a gift shop full of Mozart memorabilia and miniature violins in tiny velvet lined cases, she bought some postcards to write on the train to Brno. In the Museums Quarter where the Modern and Leopold Museums face one another from across the wide concrete plaza, Diane sat eating a ham sandwich from a street cart and watched some noisy boys in baggy pants do tricky maneuvers on their skateboards. Hanging three stories up, teetering on the edge of the gray, monolithic Modern Museum was an art installation by Edwin Wurm. It was a small white house with a red roof looking as though it would tumble onto the ground at any second.

Across the plaza the white cube shaped Leopold was exhibiting an Expressionist show featuring the work of Egon Schiele, Kathe Kollwitz, Lyonel Feininger and Emil Orlik among others. Within the serene interior of the museum was a white marble foyer illuminate by skylights four stories overhead. The most notable aspect of the architecture was the absence of echo throughout the vast atrium as the visitors streamed in. The galleries were housed on the floors above and as Diane passed from one to the next she absorbed the impact of the Expressionist movement; the ferocity of color, the boldness of form and the power of the content. She stood before an etching by Kathe Kollwitz of a mother and dead child that moved her so deeply tears welled up in her eyes. A painting by Lyonel Feininger of a woman in a long lavender dress amused her. Feininger had captured the movement of the woman's legs as she walked creating the impression that she would spin right off the canvas into the gallery.

Diane left the Leopold satiated and inspired by the art. Early on in her education she had realized that she lacked the essential mysterious spark that separated a great artist from an average one. She didn't mourn the fact rather she had accepted it. Knowing her limitations allowed her to enjoy painting her minimalist concepts without the angst of longing for recognition or acceptance. Diane was able to revel in the genius of others without envy or self- deprecation in the face of their greatness.

In the time-honored tradition Diane sat at a wood paneled, old world cafe at four o'clock with the Viennese. There were mothers with their children in school uniforms just out of class and tatty, older men smelling of pipe smoke reading the newspaper having cake and coffee. Later Diane slowly strolled through the Volksgarten admiring the last of the summer roses, their colors intensified by the warm radiance of the setting sun. At twilight she took the bus around the Ringstrasse past St. Stephen's Cathedral with it's elaborate Gothic tower pointing up to the heavens. She could see the glittering dome of the Opera house and horse drawn carriages escorting tourists through St. Stephen's Square. The street lamps glowed along tree lined avenues flying off of the circular boulevard like the spokes of a wheel.

When night had fallen as she walked the narrow cobblestone alleyway back to the hotel past rows of little shops selling antiques, old prints and books, Diane wished that she could live half of every year in Europe. Somewhere in one of the apartments above someone was playing Chopin on the piano and Diane imagined that somewhere in Warsaw someone else was playing Mozart. Music and art, she thought, transcend borders.

The Singing Fountain by Cheryl Ernst Wells

2008-12-04T15:44:00.003-07:00

13th century Castle Louka was a fortress

Castle Louka Moravia, Czech Republic

2008-12-04T14:34:00.002-07:00

They turned off of the main road onto a long lane forested on either side by massive oak trees, the thick branches forming a sheltering arch and casting dark, leafy shadows across the lane. The first of the grounds keeper's sheds appeared two hundred yards up ahead, one of several on either side of the gravel pathway leading to the main gate. Once at the arched entry the castle could be seen in full. It was an imposing, rough hewn stone structure with sloped, red tiled roofs, turrets and towers.

Ivan parked the car and they walked the pathway, passing a row of ancient workshops and finally what remained of the damaged storehouse. The blackened brick exterior still stood but the tiled roof and interior timbers had collapsed, exposing the building to the cobalt blue sky above. As they passed through the guard tower, the walls of the five-story palace loomed above them. This was not like the Renaissance Zamek Castle, with it's pristine white plaster exterior carved with geometric scraffiti. This was a Gothic structure, domineering and festooned with small windows on every level. Castle Louka was a fortress.

It was only until the great carved wooden doors to the palace were opened that the real glory of Castle Louka was revealed. The ceremonial hall was as big as a playing field and its' alabaster white, alveolar vaulted ceiling rose three stories high. There was a fireplace one could stand upright in and the stone floors showed the centuries wear of noblemen and women, warriors, servants and now tourists that had trod them. Along the walls of the chamber were carved oak paneling and at the end of the hall was a leaded glass window two-stories high. On either side of the chamber were two wide staircases leading to the upper floors. There were no furnishings within the hall with the exception of a huge globe of the ancient world before the window. Diane had been in many European castles but this one felt different. It felt familiar.

As they climbed the staircase and passed from one wing to another, Ivan spoke of the Vindrich clan, the Moravian family that had owned the castle through the centuries and the changes they had made to the original structure as their fortunes grew. In 1948 the last descendant who had supported the Nazis was forced out of Czechoslovakia and had sold the castle to Mr. Paul de Meyer for a desperately low price. Now there were tours all year long with the exception of mid December when the younger Mr. de Meyer spent his holidays there.

Diane and Ivan crossed a covered wooden bridge connecting the palace with the tower, four stories above the main courtyard with a wonderful view of the river below. A small ferryboat was slowly shuttling tourist from the nearby village and depositing them at a dock from which they could climb the steep, wooded path that led up to the castle entrance. A group of ten or so people was gathered in the courtyard waiting for the next tour.

As they entered the tower Ivan said, "This wing is off limits to the tours so you won't be disturbed. It now houses guest quarters and Mr. de Meyer's private apartments. The light is good most of the day. You will be sharing the large studio with Maria but you each have your own bedroom. We men are in the other wing." Ivan opened the door to the studio which was a large converted sitting room flooded with light from windows on three sides. Maria Varias was in one corner working on a life size, Gothic marble sculpture of Christ on Mount Olive.

Excerpt from The Singing Fountain

2008-12-04T09:10:00.002-07:00

I wrote my first novel The Singing Fountain after returning from Prague. It is the contemporary story of a San Francisco painting conservator, Diane Nolan, who travels to Moravia, Czech Republic to restore fire damaged paintings at Castle Louka, 13th century ancestral home of the Vindrich clan. The castle is now privately owned by a Belgian billionaire, Stephen de Meyer. He has assigned Ivan Sudek the task of hiring a team of international conservators to restore the castle's valuable art collection.

A love affair with de Meyer's enigmatic assistant, Willem Verhoeven, dramatically alters the course of Diane's life and the discovery of a hidden castle room reveals an 18th century Vindrich family secret that mirrors Diane's life in the 21st.

Summer in San Francisco, autumn in Vienna, New Years Eve in Prague, Spring in the Hampton's and a happy ending in Moravia.

Sometimes Little Things

2008-11-17T19:52:00.002-07:00

There's a tunnel across from the National Theater in Prague; an underground pedestrian walkway that connects one side of the busy Narodni trida with the Stare Mesto. We used it almost everyday as a short cut to our favorite cafe when we lived on Pstrossova Street. There's nothing particularly remarkable about the tunnel, in fact it's funky. It's damp, covered in graffiti and smells of urine. Nevertheless, it's one of my favorite places in Prague. I loved stepping down into the darkness and hearing the sound of my footsteps echo off the walls, then resurfacing again, squinting my eyes for a moment against the sun.

I'm not sure why, of all the beautiful places in Prague, that funky tunnel is one of my favorites. I can't explain it.

Living In The Old West

2008-11-13T08:27:00.004-07:00

It's different here in Colorado from anywhere I've ever lived. This is the old west with the military thrown in. There are cowboys, good old boys, suits and soldiers. We have Fort Carson army base, NORAD and the Airforce academy. We have ranches, housing subdivisions as far as the eye can see and magnificent mountain ranges that stretch like a backbone down the state. The first thing I noticed when I moved here was how polite most people are. It's a shock to the system having just returned from Prague where, in general, many people are bordering on rude.

The pace of life is slower, the air is cleaner and the traffic on the roads and highways is thinner. Whereas the Bay Area where I lived for thirty some years was one of the most liberal places in America, Colorado Springs is one of the most conservative. A lot of the people I meet here are overtly cheerful, think Colorado is heaven on earth, and resent the influx of Californians. We are a subject of ridicule here which frankly amuses me. Whenever I see those 'come to California' commercials I get a little weepy and if I see a picture of the Golden Gate Bridge I practically fall apart. I miss the Bay Area with all it's faults. That aside, it is wonderful to be with family here. I was raised by a single mother and my only sibling, my older brother, had gone off to college by the time I was eight. As a child of the Leave It To Beaver and Father Knows Best generation, I always longed for a traditional family. I must be careful not to expect a TV show version of family life. I'm prone to fantasy and have a natural aversion to reality.

Brzy Nashledanou Goodbye Prague

2008-11-03T09:58:00.002-07:00

January 24 - 29, 2007

2008-11-03T06:21:00.003-07:00

•January 24, 2007•

We were worried about what penalty we would have to pay to break our six month lease with Sylvia. Turns out she was very understanding. We are packing and cleaning the apartment today. Decided to fly out of Vienna for Colorado to stay with family. Paul's sister and brother, niece and nephew live there and we haven't seen them in quite a while. If we had really wanted to stay in the Czech Republic I'm sure we would have tried harder to solve the problem. The reality is we're both ready to go home, home in the broader sense of the word. That icy wind off of the Vltava was the harbinger of our departure. Even the Rocky Mountains couldn't be that cold.

•January 25, 2007•

Today is my birthday so we went into old town to shop for presents to take home. We bought art deco and art nouveau jewelry, Czech glass from the 1930's, books and pashmina scarves. It was a great way to spend my 58th. I'm very happy to be going back but I know that when I'm in the U.S. I will miss Prague. I'm never satisfied to be where I am and always wanting to be on the go again. Paul doesn't know how to explain our decision to cut our trip short to friends and family. For my part, in the words of Rhett Butler, I say, 'Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn.'

On January 29, 2007 we flew from Vienna to Denver. We spent a few weeks with Paul's sister in the small town of Manitou Springs on the eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains. The house next door to hers was for sale; a big, rambling, split level 60's house with a fireplace, great views of the Garden of the Gods park and Pikes Peak. The neighborhood is quiet, the neighbors are friendly and mule deer forage in the backyard. One morning Paul and I looked at each other and said, "Why not?" and made an offer on the house. A month later we moved in and , for the present, Manitou Springs, Colorado is home. But knowing us, that could change at any moment.

Trip To Vienna

2008-10-27T11:31:00.002-06:00

•January 15, 2007•

We just got back to Prague from a four day trip to Vienna. It's a scenic train ride from Prague through the dense forests of Vysocina province, miles of dormant farmland and snow covered hillsides under a bright blue sky. Imagine the sight of a small village, every cottage with a plume of smoke rising from the chimney and kids bundled up and playing by the tracks, waving as the train speeds by. The countryside is so dreamlike in white. Four hours later the train pulls into Sudbahnhof station and the stately, Baroque splendor of Vienna greets you.

We stayed in a small hotel near the Museums Quarter and spent every day in one museum or another. The Leopold had a magnificent exhibit of German Expressionists. Explosive, bold color and thought provoking content infuse the works of Emil Nolde, Max Pechstein, Ernst Kirchner, Otto Mueller, Lyonel Feininger and Kathe Kolowitz. I love Impressionism, Modernism, Cubism and Symbolism but at this stage of my life, none of them speak to me with as much volume as Expressionism. There is so much raw power and psychological intensity in the work of these artists from the 20's and 30's that you can't help but be moved. One of my favorite painters is Egon Schiele who died in 1918 before the full force of Expressionism was felt in Austria.

We spent one whole day in the Kunsthistorisches Museum. I would be willing to live in a broom closet just to spend everyday with the magnificent works of art there. Monumental works by Rubens, country village scenes by Brueghel the elder and his incredibly detailed Tower of Babel, portraits by Holbein that are so realistic you expect them to speak. Cranach, Vermeer, Canaletto, Caravaggio, a spirit elevating feast of beauty. When it comes to art I'm a real gusher.

With some exceptions the Viennese speak English. Although I can say a few things in German, I'm always embarrassed that I'm unable to communicate in the language of the countries I visit. I speak some French but I have a terrible time remembering gender. I don't know why inanimate things have to be assigned a sex. Why is a pen feminine? Doesn't make any sense. Maybe that's why I can't remember.

I bought six, delicate 19th century French pencil drawings in a shop in an alleyway, all signed with the name Marie Alexandre Dumas. What a moniker!

•January 20, 2007•

We went to the Czech and American Embassies today for information about my visa extension. Got two different stories as to what I should do. A little disconcerting. At the moment so many people are coming to the Czech Republic and overstaying their visas that when they're caught the government is expelling them and not allowing them to return. Many laws and rules here change so rapidly that web information is not always current. At the American Embassy we asked if another trip for a few days to Vienna would suffice and they were pessimistic. They gave us the address of the foreign police station and suggested I file for an extension there. We arrived and found the office vacant and stood there with a Korean couple trying to read a note on the door in Czech. We're talking about the place that is supposed to service foreigners here!

Overnight the weather has gone from balmy to bitterly cold. Paul and I stood shivering and I asked him, "Are you ready to leave yet?" and without hesitation he said yes. Three months is up on the 27th and on that day we will be on a train out of Prague for somewhere as yet unknown.

New Years In Prague

2008-10-22T20:35:00.002-06:00

•January 1, 2007•

Paul and I almost never go out on New Years Eve so staying home and going to bed at ten is no sacrifice. It's the tradition here to shoot off fireworks, not just little poppers but big, loud boomers. It sounded like war had broken out. Paul's cousin, Milan, usually spends New Years Eve in his front yard with a hose at the ready in case fireworks set his roof on fire. The main celebration takes place in Wenceslas Suare and is covered on the local TV station.

Which brings me to television in the Czech Republic. I'm sure there are the equivalent of cable stations but we don't get them in our apartment. One local station shows old episodes of Night Rider, Charlie's Angels and Air Wolf all dubbed in Czech. These are shows I never watched when they were current much less in Czech and how ever many years later. Current American shows like Monster Garage, Pimp My Ride and Orange County Cycles are popular here, all dubbed in German. We get CNN and thankfully Conan O'Brian and Jay Leno.

We've gotten addicted to a German reality show called the Ludolf's about four, bachelor brothers who own a car parts junkyard in some small German town. It's in German with Czech subtitles and the characters are so compelling we never miss an episode. The two middle aged brothers live in an apartment above the junkyard and look as though they haven't bathed, cut their hair or changed their clothes in weeks. They all love to play with model cars. Everything in the yard is piled high in well organized rows and the oldest brother has total recall of every item. If someone needs a carburetor for a 1970 Volvo sedan, he knows if they have one and exactly where it is in the yard. It's a kind of idiot savant show and we're hooked. I wonder what that says about us?

•January 10, 2007•

It is coming up on three months since we arrived and I have to extend my visa. Our first trip to the Czech Republic was in 2002 for a family reunion. Three generations of relatives came from Canada, Slovakia and America. Paul and I became enchanted with the country, decided to buy a house here and began the complicated bureaucratic process to establish foreign ownership. We spent months in the States searching Czech real estate sites on the Internet. We wanted to buy an apartment in Prague but even in 2002 that was really out of our reach. The price of real estate, like everything else here, is going up and the British and Dutch are buying in.

Photos of Prague by Paul Wells

2008-10-16T07:43:00.002-06:00

December 21 - 28, 2006 Christmas in Prague

2008-10-13T10:48:00.003-06:00

•December 21, 2006•

It feels much longer than two months since we've been here. It's unlikely that we will move back to California but we're having difficulty deciding where to settle next. Of our own choosing, we are displaced persons without a home here or elsewhere to go to. Strange feeling. It was fine when we were young, moving from place to place, but age tends to make us all want to sink roots.

The best advice I would give any young person is to travel. Young people are welcome almost anywhere and have the flexibility to adapt to situations and minor hardships. It doesn't take a lot of money to travel if you're willing to stay in hostels, camp out or meet other young people who will let you couch surf. At best, I think travel can teach tolerance and broaden human understanding and at worst it makes you appreciate home more. Having extolled the virtues of travel, I must admit I'm ready to go back to the U.S.A. I've begun to count the weeks until we return. So much for life as an ex-patriot.

•December 24, 2006•

A traditional Czech Christmas dinner includes a baked carp. Two men have set up a table on the corner of our busy street. They have big, beautiful carp in water filled troughs and people line up to buy them. The men pull the fish out by the tail and then smash them over the head with a heavy wooden mallet. It's horrible. On and on it goes, thud, thud, thud. I makes me think of the lyric from that old Beatles song, Bang, bang Maxwell's silver hammer came down on their heads. Puts me right off fish. Two blocks from our apartment is the Flora, a large, multi-level shopping mall. It's lavishly decorated for the holidays and full of shoppers. In the Levi's store they are selling an ordinary looking pair of jeans for $200. Am I out of touch or is that nuts? Everything in the Flora is expensive but it doesn't slow down spending.

Credit cards are a fairly new phenomenon in the Czech Republic so now the Czech's can dig themselves into debt just like the rest of us. It's a real sign of prosperity when people can buy what they can't afford. Eva goes to Germany where she can get quality merchandise for less money. It's only a two and a half hour drive to Dresden and a four and a half hour train trip to Vienna. I bought Paul an etching and a beautiful book on Czech Cubism for Christmas.

•December 25, 2006•

Today we went to Eva's for a couple of hours. She made sandwiches and cookies and that was our Christmas dinner. It was just the three of us. Very grim. Now I know how lonely the holidays can be for people with no family. One year in Oakland I decided not to cook Thanksgiving dinner and we went to a restaurant instead. I remember feeling so sad to see people eating a restaurant turkey dinner all alone. To me the holidays aren't about presents or parties. Holidays are about family together, telling funny and touching family stories and remembering loved ones who are gone.

So this was our Prague Christmas. Pretty dismal but Christmas, like paying taxes, comes every year and there will be others.

•December 28, 2006•

We went to a fabulous exhibit in Old Town of Czech Cubist and Expressionist painters and print makers. You would have difficulty finding the name of a Czech artist in most of the books on Modernism, Fauvism and Cubism. it's a shameful omission that artists like Emil Filla, Josef Capek and one of my favorites, Jan Zrzavy, have been so overlooked. We saw an exhibit of paintings by Rudolph Kremlicka, one of the first Czech Modernists, and friend of Andre Derain at the Tower of the Stone Bell in Old Town when we first arrived. I was very inspired by his paintings. He made me want to come home and paint.

At last a dusting of snow! Excuse my enthusiasm but I'm from California and haven't seen snow since I left Ohio at ten. There is so little of it that it will be melted off by tomorrow but for the moment I'm enjoying every flake on my coat and in my hair.

Art Is Everywhere In Prague

2008-10-10T05:21:00.002-06:00

December 12 - 19, 2006

2008-10-06T06:21:00.002-06:00

•December 12, 2006•

The four a.m. music again and this time Paul knocked on the right door. Sure enough, when it opened a young man stood there looking as though he had just smoked a bong full of weed and the apartment reeked of it. The guy spoke English and Paul told him to turn it down. The guy apologized and Paul told him to get some earphones.

•December 16, 2006•

I have neglected the journal lately. I've been sitting day after day at the kitchen table drawing, painting and constructing mobiles and paper dolls for Christmas presents. Our tree is decorated, there are festive decorations all over the apartment but it still doesn't feel like Christmas. I'm homesick.

Our original plan was to move here in June and be back in the U.S.A. by Christmas but our house didn't sell until June and the debacle with our studio was unexpected so our plans were moved later into the year. Paul doesn't attach much importance to the season but I knew for myself that the holidays away from family back home would be lonely. I had anticipated having Christmas with the Czech family but for some reason that is not going to happen. Thanksgiving was weird. We had a bad Chinese dinner in a shopping mall and then went to see The Illusionist at the IMAX.

•December 19, 2006•

Some personal observations about the Prague Czechs: They do everything in a rush,walk, eat, talk. The average Czech man is unusually tall and not terribly fashionable but the average Prague woman is beautiful and stylish. The current rage is the long, straight dyed black hair and tanning salon look. They wear fur lined jackets and very high heeled boots. It's amazing to watch these women navigate the treacherous cobblestone streets in these high heeled, pointed boots and shoes.

The average Praguite has no sense of personal space. They could have an empty boulevard and yet they still manage to get as close to you as possible without physical contact. On the street they make these speedy advances toward you and you're sure that they will bump you or knock you down. Just before impact they artfully twist a shoulder or step sideways and move on. For a person like myself with limited mobility issues, getting on and off a tram and subway is a nerve wracking experience.

Politically correct hasn't made it to the Czech Republic. That's a good thing or a bad thing depending on your weight, race or disability. There is no such thing as disabled access in many buildings and the cobblestone sidewalks and streets can be hazardous with the odd missing stones. You see very few people of color in Prague and fewer still in other cities with the exception of the Chinese and Vietnamese. I've heard that some Czech's have their prejudices against Asians living here because of the flood of cheap goods they sell in their shops. They feel this gives them an unfair advantage over the Czech shop owners. Just wait until Walmart opens here.

Prague has a problem with the Romas. Some of them are thieves and criminals. They ride the trams in small groups pickpocketing and stealing purses and briefcases. Paul and I have both had to fight them off on the streetcars. Prostitution is legal here and there are brothels in the Wenceslas area. Like any big city there is crime and drug dealing here. We read on the English version of the Prague Post that one rapidly growing crime is elder shoplifting. As I wrote before, everything is getting more expensive here and some of the elderly on fixed incomes have taken to the old five finger discount. When they're caught the police make them return the goods and frequently let them go without charges.

Paul had a funny experience along those lines. He was in a small market near the apartment and had put his gloves in the shopping cart. He was choosing produce and when he turned back to his cart some guy was trying on his gloves. Paul made him aware that they were his and the guy was appropriately apologetic but probably would have made off with them had he not been caught.

Photographs by Paul Wells

2008-10-05T06:38:00.002-06:00

Winter In Prague

Prague Journal December 3 & 5th, 2006

2008-09-15T07:01:00.003-06:00

•December 3, 2006•

The rains that have been pounding western Europe are now moving east so our drive through the countryside will have to wait for better weather. We have been spending a lot of time in the Stare Mesto these past few days. It's being turned into a replica of a medieval village in preparation for the holidays. There are food stalls selling sausages and mulled wine, shops selling traditional crafts and sweets, and a large stage in the middle of the square for musical performances. It's like the tower of Babel here. People come from everywhere to spend Christmas in Prague. Judging by the chill in the air we should have a white Christmas. My poor arthritic knees are feeling the wear and tear of walking everywhere and soon we will have to break out the thermal underwear.

Art is everywhere in Prague, right down to the iron gates and fences. The city is full of examples of Jugendstil, Cubist and Futurist architecture. Today we visited the Cubist Museum. Artists like Kubista, who changed his surname to reflect his art, Gocar and Gutfreund made a strong impression on me. The museum has a wonderful collection of furniture, paintings, sculpture, ceramics and graphics on three floors. Czech cubism is so dark and muscular, not fanciful like so much French cubism. We had lunch in the museum restaurant with its evocative black and white decor. Lousy food but great ambiance.

Around the corner from the museum is the Dorotheum auction house annex. We bought some etchings by Czech artist Emil Orlik and a lovely drawing by T. Frantisek Simon of a Dutch woman by the sea. There is so much affordable, beautiful art to buy here. I feel like a kid in a candy shop. Soon I will venture out and do some drawing of my own around town.

Down a side street we came upon the Estates Theater where Mozart conducted Don Giovanni. There is a fabulous sculpture in front, a cloaked figure with no body inside. We watched an ice skating rink being erected across the way. The juxtaposition of the old and new looks so strange.

•December 5, 2006•

All over town tonight you see groups of three dressed up like bearded St. Nicholas in a long white robe, an angel and a devil parading the streets. Parents are out with their little children and when one of these trios approaches they ask if the child has been good or bad all year. If the child has been good the angel gives him/her a treat if the child has been bad the devil will take them. Of course no child will admit to being bad. Seems a little like Halloween with treats and frights.

Last night we attended a vocal concert given by the students of Charles University where Eva teaches. The students ranged in age from 15 to 18 and were quite good. The concert took place at the top of a 17th century tower which used to be the entrance to old Prague. We climbed the creaky wooden stairway and sat with about thirty parents and teachers. It was strange to imagine that hundreds of years ago guards stood watch in the very room where we sat. I think more than anything I will miss the ever present reminders of Prague's rich history.

I'm getting wanderlust and want to be out in the fresh air of the countryside. The air in Prague is pretty bad because of all the diesel fuel. Eva says there is something called the Prague cough. You don't see smog like you do in L.A. Here it's low lying bad air. You see black grime on the first floor of buildings and dust accumulates in the apartment. I'm not sure one is related to the other but everyday I sweep piles of dust. It must come in on our clothes and shoes because it's too chilly to open the windows. Mystery dust.

People of Prague by Paul Wells

2008-09-09T08:21:00.002-06:00

•November 22 - December 1, 2006•

2008-09-08T08:52:00.002-06:00

•November 22, 2006•

We were woken up last night around four a.m. by loud hip hop music in the building somewhere. It went on for a while and finally we went into the hallway to locate the offending neighbor. We went upstairs and knocked on what we thought was the right door. Behind it, a fragile, frightened woman's voice said, "Ano?" or yes and we realized we had made a mistake. This morning we complained to the building manager on the top floor and she said she hadn't heard a thing but suspected it came from an apartment rented by two young Slovakian men who came and went a lot. It turned out that the disembodied voice we had heard behind the door was that of an older woman who had lost her husband to cancer two weeks before. We felt horrible.

What I can't understand is why no one else in the building was complaining. No one even peeked out into the hallway. Some Czechs who lived under the repressive Communist regime are very non confrontational. They learned to make themselves invisible to avoid scrutiny and to this day are obsequious to authorities. Others have reacted completely the opposite and rebel against even the slightest imposition of authority. Paul's cousin, Klara, told us that when she complained to a neighbor who had parked in front of her driveway, he wouldn't move the car claiming that the streets belonged to everyone. An obvious case of democracy run amok. The Czechs have been oppressed and dominated for decades, centuries actually, by one nation and another and psychologically those traumas are still being played out even in the new generation. Maybe that's one explanation for the other occupants being able to tolerate the intolerable.

We bought flowers and put them in front of the old lady's door with a note of apology.

•November 26, 2006•

After one month we have stopped worrying. We are taking a more what will be, will be attitude. Not very mature or pro active, but it feels more like life. One of the best things about the location of our apartment is that it's two blocks from an IMAX theater showing all the newest releases. We went to see Borat the other day with Czech subtitles. Paul and I were in hysterics but the young Czechs didn't seem to find it very funny. Lost in translation maybe.

•December 1, 2006•

I'm not someone who starts conversations with strangers in foreign places. I know people who are. My Aunt Eve, for instance, can make acquaintances anywhere in the world as long as they speak English and will spend an hour talking to strangers in a cafe. I guess I'm a little shy when meeting people and consequently I haven't made any friends here yet which was one of the things I looked forward to. Many Czechs especially in Prague speak English so the language barrier isn't the problem. It's not just my shyness either. As previously stated, the Czechs are reserved.

Interestingly enough, the older Czechs are often the friendliest. Paul and I were at a bus stop and , in my pathetic Czech, I asked an older woman what buses to take to get to a certain location. She began speaking Czech to me and seeing that I didn't understand, guided us on to a bus and got on with us. We had to change buses mid way and when we'd arrived at our destination she got off, walked us to the address we were seeking, waved goodbye, crossed the street and caught a bus going in the opposite direction. She had gone clear across town just to make sure we got where we were going. I was very moved. Things like that give me renewed faith in humanity.

Photographs of Prague by Paul Wells

2008-09-03T09:23:00.002-06:00

Prague is one of the most unchanged capitol cities in Europe.

Prague journal November 17 - 19, 2006

2008-09-02T06:48:00.005-06:00

•November 17, 2006•

I am having difficulty adjusting to public transportation. The streetcars are always crowded and we spend a good part of each day waiting for one. A very nice custom prevails in Prague. If you are elderly or disabled, people will readily give up their seat to you. In California we drove everywhere. I can't imagine driving in Prague. It's chaos. It's not like Italy. That's pure insanity. Our landlady, Sylvia, says that drivers in Prague will cause an accident just to prove that they have the right of way. That must explain the ever present sirens. The day Sylvia drove us in her black Rover to our apartment she tried to merge into oncoming traffic and was nearly rear ended, horns blaring. She jumped out of the car and started a shouting match with the driver behind us. Thirty seconds later they were laughing and waving goodbye. Try that in Oakland and see what happens.

Sylvia and her husband are interesting characters. She is Czech and married to an Italian. They own an Italian shoe boutique in Wenceslas Square. She is high energy, lots of make up, dyed jet black hair and speaks Italian with a Czech accent to her husband who speaks Czech with an Italian accent back to her. They're fair landlords but they haven't invested a penny to improve the apartment so we've spent money at the IKEA on the outskirts of town trying to make the place more comfortable and homey. Fortunately Paul packed three of our Japanese scrolls in his suitcase and we've hung them on the otherwise bare, white walls.

One thing I will never adjust to is smoking in restaurants here. I'm a reformed ex-smoker so I can sympathize with the addiction, but four or five chain smokers in a crowded, over-heated restaurant while you're trying to eat is a form of torture. In one of our favorite restaurants we were seated at a long, shared table having lunch one afternoon when two men sat down across from us. They took out their cigarettes, ready to light up when Paul said, "Ne, prosim," or no please. They looked at us as though we were crazy. They did, however, wait until we'd finished eating then lit up. I bet that would start an international incident if you tried that in France.

It was a clear, Autumn day today so we decided to explore the Stare Mesto or Old Town. This is one of the most popular tourist areas and it is easy to see why. Millions of korunas have been spent on beautification projects to 17th century cathedrals and building facades. Elaborate architectural detailing and heroic statuary decorate the pastel buildings, side by side, like a tray of fancy cakes. Narrow dark alleyways lead you to iron gated gardens or tree lined boulevards with elegant shops. In the Josefov district is the ancient Jewish cemetery and the several synagogues that compose the Jewish museum tour. Horse drawn carriages clatter on cobblestone streets and a quiet little back street will suddenly deposit you onto a busy boulevard next to the Vltava with a stunning view of the castle and St. Vitus Cathedral on the hills, high above the opposite bank. This part of town, along with the Mala Strana on the other side of the river, are what most tourists see of Prague and little else.

•November 18, 2006•

We are living such a disconnected life here, we showed up a day early for a dinner engagement with Paul's aunt Jetti. I think our being here without a job or even a plan, baffles our Czech relatives. No one, not even our closest friends, had any idea the stress we were under before leaving the States. We sold our home at the beginning of the real estate slowdown in California. Our business landlord of twenty-six years was considering tearing down the building and putting up live/work lofts and wouldn't guarantee that we would have our space in six months, even if we prepaid the rent. We decided that it was wise to close up shop rather than take the chance of a mid-winter call from him telling us to vacate our studio. We began to take every difficulty as a sign that it was really time to move on and an affirmation of our decision to leave. So in three months we moved an entire household and business and finished two difficult restoration projects for equally difficult clients before leaving. Maybe that is why we are sleeping an average of ten hours a day and find it difficult to initiate any serious undertaking. We're still a little befuddled and it's probably the reason we don't even know the day of the week. We did show up the next night for dinner with Jetti and Eva and had a great time.

•November 19, 2006•

Eva is a jazz singer and we went to hear her perform at a festival in Wenceslas Square. There were several acts at the concert, one of which was an African American blues singer named Vera Love. She's seventy-some years old and sings every song at the same ear-splitting volume. She sang a lot of standard like Kansas City, Stormy Monday and the like. The Czech audience, at first reserved, was finally won over by her total enthusiasm. She was like a force of nature, thrusting her hips and shimmying, repeating "Dobry, dobry, dobry," which is good in Czech, and by the end of her performance the crowd was cheering. Paul and I were sitting with another African American singer who lived in Germany and she and I were in hysterics at Vera's lack of inhibition and energy at seventy. Poor Eva, who was not feeling well that night, had to follow Vera's act. As a former singer myself, I know how demoralizing it can be to follow an act that is dynamite and loved by the crowd. Eva was a true professional and soldiered on, sore throat and all.

There are concerts and clubs with live music every night in Prague. There is the ballet at the National Theater and symphony at the State Opera house near our apartment. There are chamber orchestras playing in churches and at the castle and jazz groups at cafes all around town. It's a great city for music.

Prague journal November 14 & 16, 2006

2008-08-25T11:03:00.001-06:00

•November 14,2006•

Our sixth day in our apartment in Prague on Vinohradska Street. It's seven a.m., blue-gray and wet outside. We live in a well kept, five story building and aside from the creaking floors, soft footsteps of our upstairs neighbors or the occasional shriek of laughter from the child one floor down, this building is silent most of the time. Our third floor apartment is spacious with typical high ceilings, a large living room with a wall of windows looking out on busy Vinohradska, a bedroom with two armoires, exercise cycle, and a kitchen with room for a pony.

How can I describe the bathroom? A toilet and bidet, small sink, washing machine and a deep triangular shaped tub with a semi circular shower curtain rod all in miss matched shades of blue and green. At least once a day the odor emanating from the toilet, probably due to outdated plumbing, forces us to spray copious amounts of air freshener and keep the bathroom door closed. So far everything works and that's what matters most. The furniture is ugly at best and torturous at worst. The bed is basically a three inch foam mattress on top of a hard platform. The television works but a former tenant stole the remote control and the landlady hasn't replaced it. The inconvenience of having to get up and change channels doesn't much matter since there are only four t.v. stations in the Czech Republic and not much worth watching on any of them.

There is nothing apart from the luxury of space and the good location that makes the apartment worth the price we pay every month. In our desperation for a place to live, we overlooked the deficits of this apartment because of its superiority to others we had seen for the same rent. Having stated the worst, the upside is that it's quiet, clean, functional, warm and directly across from a streetcar stop.

When we stayed in Prague in 2004 we lived one month in an apartment next to the Vltava River behind the big boulevard, Narodni trida, and the majestic National Theater. On the ground floor you could still see the tide line from the flooding of the river during the disastrous storms of 2002. Everything then was inexpensive except for petrol. Two years later the value of our dollar has declined and the Czech currency, the koruna, has strengthened. The cost of many things here has doubled with the exception of petrol. Beer and bread, the staples of life here, are still cheap.

When we told our friends we were moving abroad, almost without exception, they said, "How great! I wish I had the courage to do that." I realize now that it wasn't courage but rather desperation that motivated our move. We were sick of Oakland, California, couldn't bear the idea of breathing the toxic fumes associated with painting restoration one more year and as two people looking at the downhill slope of middle age, we figured it was our last chance to start a new life in a new country. From our previous trips here we found the country and culture different enough from our own to be fascinating and yet similar enough to be comprehensible.

So here we are, thousands of miles from friends and family in the U.S.A., in a country where the language would take me a lifetime to learn, winter and the holidays rapidly approaching and clueless of what comes next. When I stop to think of it, that's what life is really about. We're all clueless of what comes next.

•November 16, 2006•

We're living an aimless life for the moment. We're so physically and mentally exhausted from the hard work and upheaval of the last several months that we sleep a lot. We even nap during the day and this is new to me. I've never been a daylight sleeper. It used to amaze me that Paul could fall asleep any time, anywhere. Of course, then I would hear him up in the middle of the night, pacing and worrying about one thing and another. I think that worrying is a natural by product of aging. Paul and I have decided to take worry duty in shifts. He takes the night shift and I take the day, however I'm consideringt retiring from worry as it doesn't seem to be very productive. The reality of what we have done is sinking in now but the excitement is keeping panic at bay.

We try to communicate with people in Czech as much as we can. We've studied the language back in the States but anything other than the niceties gets dicey and degenerates into gibberish. I find that the Czechs, knowing that their language is difficult, appreciate even a half hearted attempt. Even foreigners who have lived here a while can still make glaring errors. Eva, Paul's cousin, told us a story about her French mother's struggle with the language after years living here. Eva, her mother Malci, and Eva's infant son, Petr, were in a store when a woman looked at Petr and said, "What a beautiful little girl." Malci replied, "Madame, he is not a she. She is a he." It sounded even funnier in Czech.

My mother used to tell me that I was born with a little gray cloud over my head. That's the impression the Czechs give me. On the streetcar, in the shops, going about their daily lives they seem perpetually gloomy. Maybe it's a hold over from the Communist era or maybe it's cultural. I don't know. I do know that they are not overly demonstrative, are deeply family orientated, culturally proud and naturally private, unlike the average Californian who will tell you their life story without hesitation. These, of course are generalities, something my husband tells me I'm prone to.

Certain very old Czech customs prevail. One is the country cottage or chata. On the weekends the Czechs head out of town to their chaty, some of which have been in their families for generations. They can range from shacks with outhouses to chalets with all the modern conveniences. This tradition is something the Czech people treasure. The countryside takes your breath away with its little villages and golden fields of safflowers merging with low rolling hills of bright, green grass. In the winter it is a sea of snow with herds of fallow deer in the woods and families ice skating on the frozen Brno reservoir, when viewed from the surrounding hills, become a living Brueghel painting. It must break hearts to have to head back to the city on Sunday night.

Three Months In Prague

2008-08-19T18:10:00.003-06:00

You know that feeling when you wake up in the morning and say, "Enough is enough.'? It doesn't matter what it is, you just know that you're done. My husband Paul and I reached that conclusion together and the result was the most dramatic change of our thirty-three years together. Within four months we sold our home in Oakland, closed the door to our business of many years without even telling most of our clients we were leaving and put everything we owned in a storage unit in Alameda, California. We were going to live on our savings in Prague, Czech Republic and discover if living in Eastern Europe would suit us on a more permanent basis. We found a beautiful flat to rent on expats.com and pre arranged a six month lease with the Slovakian owner currently living in Manhattan.

We caught a seven a.m. flight on October 25, 2006 from SFO to JFK and spent three days in the Hamptons saying goodbye to our son Dorian and his girlfriend Rebecca. From there we flew to Vienna for a day of museum saturation and pampering in a small luxury hotel then caught a train for Brno, Czech Republic. After visiting relatives in Moravia we took a bus to Prague and parked ourselves in a tourist hotel until we could see our modern, split level flat in the elegant Bubenec district above the Castle and St. Vitus Cathedral.

As a portent of things to come, on our way to a meeting with the flat manager we were pulled off the tram we were riding by two officious plain clothes officers for having absent mindedly forgotten to stamp our tickets when we boarded. To this day I'm still not sure if they were legit or just petty thieves. One of them was trying to pull my ticket from my hand claiming it was no good. I held it in a death grip, he shook his big block-head mumbling, "Big trouble for you lady," to which I replied, "What are you going to do? Throw me in tram jail?" They fined us a thousand korunas, about forty dollars in 2006, and sent us packing on foot to find the flat where the manager awaited us. Upset and unnerved, I vaguely remember hearing Paul call them operavatceks, an insult from the Communist era, as the tram rolled away.

The flat was everything the owner had promised with one or two big exceptions. There was no heat and no hot water and the young Czech woman acting as property manager couldn't give us a time certain when they would be turned back on. After another three expensive days in a not so friendly Prague hotel we still had no indication when the flat would be ready and winter was just around the proverbial corner. We went on-line again and found an apartment in the Vinohrady neighborhood where two of Paul's cousins lived and we signed the rental agreement on November 9, 2006. What will follow is a journal of what should have been six but turned out to be three months in Prague.