
Dispatches
DISPATCHES FROM HOME – Tea and Sympathy.
As I enter my “golden” years, I often sit in the still quiet of the morning, a hot cup of coffee in my hand, pondering what the future holds and the past reveals.Thoughts of the future usually find me traveling…
Dispatches from Home: The Nazi’s Titanic.
In the aftermath of the Titanic disaster, the ship became a metaphor for all of society’s misfortunes. The years leading up to the sinking had been excessively optimistic. Rich and poor alike put their faith in technological advances, believing mankind…
Dispatches from Home – The Titanic’s Unknown Child.
On a foggy, cold day, April 17, 1912, the cable-laying ship Mackay-Bennett steamed out of Halifax, Nova Scotia. Her destination was the arctic-cold North Atlantic. Her job was to search for and recover the bodies of the Titanic’s dead passengers.…
Dispatches from Home: Titanic – The Old Curiosity Shop.
Like Dickens’ old curiosity shop, my little house is a repository of battered antiques, ruined finery, and dusty memories. Because less is best in interior design these days, when I shuffle off this mortal coil, my treasures may bring a…
Dispatches from Home: Prophecies, Bad Omens, and a Lucky Pig.
“I don’t believe in fortune-tellers!” Edith said, sitting in the gilded splendor of Madame de Thebes’ Parisian salon, the most famous fortune-teller of the late 19th Century. “I shall predict your fortune anyway,” the lady said in the flickering candlelight,…
Dispatches from Home: The Titanic – A Bejeweled Book, a Naked Lady, and a Mummy’s Curse.
Deep within the submerged rusting hulk of the Titanic rests one of the world’s rarest books, a monumental painting of a naked lady and a mysterious mummy’s curse. Because the Titanic was practically unsinkable, so said the White…
Dispatches from Home – A Cat with a Premonition.
Because by the Titanic’s grandeur, the glamour of its 1st Class passengers, and the immigrant dreams of those in steerage, everything from its rivets to its china patterns has been scrutinized. But what about the ship’s famous cat and the…
Dispatches from Home – Ten Seconds.
What can happen in ten seconds? You could try to kiss your date in a bar and have a drink thrown on your face. Perhaps you could score a winning goal? Every ten seconds, 104,500 Coca-Colas are consumed worldwide. Every…
Dispatches from Home – Battles.
When the word, battle, is spoken, what comes to mind? Perhaps famous conflicts like the Battles of Yorktown and Gettysburg, the Battle of Verdun, the Normandy Invasion of WWII, or the Tet Offensive? But other battles are often fought alone,…
Dispatches from Home – Happy Birthday, Mr. Williams!
March 26, 1911 – Happy Birthday, Mr. Williams! Some years ago, I was asked why I wanted to direct “A Streetcar Named Desire.” I told her it was because of the play’s characters and what made them honest and authentic.…
Dispatches from Home. The Very First Song.
Here’s the question: What is the first song—Hymn, Big Band, Opera, Operetta, Rock-In-Roll, Symphony, Motown, Musical, etc.—you remember hearing. Me? It was the old hymn, “Holy, Holy, Holy.” When I was a child, Dad, Mom, and I attended Biloxi’s Trinity…
Dispatches from Home: Reflections On Turning Sixty-Five! (February 5 2017)
When I was a child in the late 50s, I often spent summers with my sweet Granny from D’Lo. Many a morning I’d hear moans and groans as she got out of bed. To my young mind, something was wrong.…