I’m a Lucky Mother
With Mother’s Day coming up soon, I want to express my appreciation for my son, Noah Bean. He has been immensely helpful with my book and has even created an excellent book trailer which will be revealed soon. He is my main muse for writing, always providing support and unconditional regard. I’m a lucky mother!
Noah was a shy, quiet kid growing up, but he was also kind, friendly, humorous and an excellent listener. In fact, he listened and observed so well that he could do an instant impersonation of almost anyone (but never in public). He blossomed as an actor in high school and says that acting gave him a voice in front of other people.
Many have asked about his next role on television and I’m happy to say that he will be starring in an adaptation of the 1995 science fiction classic, 12 Monkeys.
The US cable channel has ordered a 13-part series, including the pilot, produced by Universal Cable Productions and Atlas Entertainment.
12 Monkeys follows the journey of a time traveler from the post-apocalyptic future who appears in the present day on a mission to locate and eradicate the source of a deadly plague that will eventually decimate the human race. The pilot episode was filmed on location in Detroit, home to some breathtaking post-apocalyptic looking spaces and scenes. This awe-inspiring series will premiere in January 2015.
Along with Noah, it stars Aaron Stanford, Amanda Schull, and Kirk Acevedo. Noah and Aaron worked together most recently in the TV series, Nikita, on CW network.
In June and July, 2014, you can also see Noah onstage as Cassio in San Diego’s Old Globe […]
Parenting, Motherlove, and Guns: Why Teach Children to Kill?
I’m not sure we can understand the “how” or the “why” in the aftermath of this recent massacre in Newtown, Connecticut, but there are reasons to see this event as an anomaly; the result of negligent stupidity on the part of a parent. The National Association of School Psychologists is suggesting that children should be reassured that this shooting was an unusual event and they are safe in their schools. http://www.nasponline.org. This may be true, but only if parents of children with mental health issues make wise decisions about which activities are beneficial and life enhancing. The mother in this case collected guns and taught her child how to shoot them. Her relationship with her son was described as “close.”
It is also a reality that the winter holidays are accompanied, for many people, by a malaise: a sad inefficacy, a complex of emotions that can become almost intolerable. Some folks are unhappy because they think they “should” be happy. Others resent that they are no longer children and they can’t line up at Santa Land and sit on the lap of a benevolent fat man who will make all wishes come true.
What is this unhappiness that spreads over so many like a film of grimy discontent during this holiday when hours of daylight decrease and the symbols of childhood magic increase? Decorated trees, wreaths, toys, red and gold wrapped gifts, diamond studded fake snow – all full of the promise of happiness. Some could experience a kind of profound disappointment that life isn’t what it appears to be.
When people are disappointed and desperate for solace, they might do almost anything. For example, if they think their mother loves guns more than […]
Writers and Their Mothers: A Journey in Fur
I dealt with the furs today. I went to Mesahekow Furs in Waterford with the mink, the muskrat, the persian lamb, the black rabbit, the Russian squirrel stole and the formerly white bunny wraps (they are yellowed now, like rabbits who need a bath). Since my mother’s death in 2008, I kept her furs in the same cedar closet where they had lived for years. Downsizing furs is not easy. I don’t wear fur, but these felt like my mother’s pets. I’m feeling sentimental about a bunch of dead animal skins or perhaps I need to honor my mother’s eccentricities.
The showroom at Mesahekow’s had the temperature and mysterious darkness of a wine cellar and might have been painted pale blue except the walls were in shadow. This is the only furrier within one hundred miles of the cedar closet. The spot lighting here and there cast light only in certain directions, highlighting ghostly fur-clad mannequins and creating dark corners in the rest of the room like the interior of a ship sailing near Antarctica in the endless night winter season or some other frozen place. Furs need to be cold and I suppose if the room was warm no one could be enticed to try on one of these dead creatures. In cold and darkness fur feels warm and safe. An igloo atmosphere, cave-like, makes it enticing. Fur bespeaks luxury and survival. Capturing, skinning, preserving this amount of warmth against snow and ice could be the difference between the life and death of a hunter.
Nate, the furrier in charge, didn’t look like much of a hunter but […]
