Nostalgia Archives - Page 3 of 8 - Trisha Sugarek, Author, Playwright & Poet

Life Is Like A Box of Chocolates…..or Words #7

If you’ve read my blog for any length of time, you know by now that I love words and more; their origins.

Ashtray ~~ noun. A receptacle for tobacco ashes of smokers.

In the Urban Dictionary it has taken on a new meaning: ash–tray, useless, unwanted, failure.

Never having been a smoker, I wondered why these two words were slung together; ‘ash’ and ‘tray’. I pictured a butler, back in the day, arriving with a silver tray holding a box of ciggies, gold lighter and a bowl for the smoker’s ashes. Nope. I asked myself why not: butt-dish, fagtray, rollie-bowl, stogie-saucer? These are all slang words for the cigarette: ciggy, lungdart, smoke, coffin nail, butt, fag, rollie, and cancer stick.

At my first wedding back in 1959 we received a cut-crystal ashtray and I loved it. We didn’t smoke but had family and friends who did. Back then visitors smoked in your home and ashtrays were mandatory. This wedding present had place of pride on our coffee table.

‘While rudimentary forms of ashtrays existed long before the 19th century, it was during this time that the design, aesthetic and their popularity really took off. As more and more women began to smoke in the early 1900’s, the ashtray inched closer and closer to an art form of sorts. Many women shunned the use of the traditional ashtray as it failed to reflect their feminine values through an activity that was long heralded as being exclusive to men. What emerged were detailed, often very ornate ashtrays. These ashtrays depicted pastoral scenes of maidens wandering through vibrantly colored landscapes. Some even featured very lavish, cast-iron models of women in frilly dresses, animals in states of play and the occasional porcelain/ceramic tray highlighting extravagant floral arrangements.’

I love to watch people’s rituals when they light up. (the writer in me). They never deviate from it. Open the pack, shake or draw one out. Stick it in their mouth, reach for their lighter, cup the flame with the other hand (whether there is a breeze or not) and take that heavenly, first drag deep into those poor, beleaguered lungs. Ahhhh!
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MY BLOGS feature INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS! Did you miss the past few months? November was best selling author, Grace Burrowes and in December, Reed Farrel Coleman, contributing writer for Robert B. Parker series. January is Dinah Jefferies and February’s author is Sheryl Steines.
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The Birth: ‘Scent of Magnolia’, a Tribute to Billie Holiday

It all started when a jazz singer/actress asked me to write a one-woman show for her; portraying the life and music of Billie Holiday. At the time she had a three piece band and they played small jazz clubs in Chicago. She had just finished acting in a showcase that I had produced (Women Outside the Walls) and was on her way back to the windy city.

I laughed. Why would she want a middle-aged, white Irish woman to write a play for her showcase of an iconic African-American woman? She replied, “you got inside the heads of the women in this play you wrote. You’ve never been in prison or been married to a convict. But you were able to make us feel empathy for these forgotten wives and families.”

I said I’d think about it and started researching Billie Holiday’s life. Sure, I’d seen “Lady Sings the Blues” but felt certain that there was more to the story than a song-bird who OD’d on hard drugs. I discovered the story of a fearless woman who rose above poverty, rape, bigotry, prostitution and imprisonment to become one of the most memorable and celebrated artists of the twentieth century.

The resulting one-woman show was not only Billie’s story, but the nation’s story. In her own words, she talks about her struggle to succeed in spite of the segregation of that time and the difficulties she experienced singing with the great bands, most of which were white men. Without pity for herself, she talks about the daily slings and arrows which are a part of bigotry. She took complete responsibility for her life, her choices, and her actions. Her triumph was her music and her songs that will live on forever. The script does not dwell on the sensationalism of her addiction to alcohol and drugs but chooses, rather, to celebrate the whole woman.

You might wonder about the title. After all Billie was known for her white gardenias. I chose Scent of Magnolia from the lyrics of Strange Fruit.
‘Pastoral scene of the gallant south
The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth
Scent of magnolias, sweet and fresh
Then the sudden smell of burning flesh…..’

Original music by composer/song writer: Gary Swindell PRESS play
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My BLOGS feature INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS! November was best selling author, Grace Burrowes and in December, Reed Farrel Coleman, contributing writer for Robert B. Parker series. Coming up, January: Dinah Jefferies.

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Warmest regards, your fellow writer and friend, Trish

The Bleacher Bums (Chicago Cubs)…Nostalgia #10

trish-blcher-bums-rose-zig — John Sugarek as Zig ~~ Trish Sugarek as Rose

As an actor back in the 80’s I was cast as one of the Bleacher Bums in a stage play. My late husband played Ziggy. I have never been a baseball enthusiast but I was a method actor and fortunately for the cast, so was our Director. So we ate, drank, slept, and lived baseball during the 8 weeks of rehearsal. We went to several baseball games (Portland Beavers) and sat, (in character) in the bleachers across from home plate, heckling the opposing team in character, when they took the field.

This week, I couldn’t help but root for the Chicago Cubbies and the real club: The Bleacher Bums. Somehow the Cubs winning the World Series was a validation of that small cast, 30 years ago, playing rabid fans, in spite of never winning.

In the bleachers at Chicago’s Wrigley Field, die hard Cub fans root for their team. The group includes a rabid cheerleader, a blind man who follows the game by transistor radio and does his own play by play, a bathing beauty, a nerd and various other bleacher denizens. As the game proceeds, they bet among themselves on every conceivable event, go out for frosty malts or beers, try to pick up the bathing beauty and, occasionally, watch the game. The Cubs inevitably blow it in the ninth and the villainous Marvin, who always bets against the Cubs figuring he can’t lose, cleans up. The bleacher bums remain undaunted they will be back tomorrow to root for the home team.

Congratulations to the city of Chicago, the Cubs and especially to the fans who never gave up hope!!
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My BLOGS feature INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS! October Author, Lisa Jackson. November will be best selling author, Grace Burrowes and in December, Reed Farrel Coleman, contributing writer for Robert B. Parker series

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Writers! Leave Yourself Open To Stories!

If you’ve been reading my blog for any length of time you know that I am a proponent of keeping yourself open to life, stories, and snippets of tales.

I recently heard this question asked of a West African chef, “How did you feel when you heard a fat, rich, white woman (cooking show) claim that her recipe had been handed down from generation to generation in her family? When actually the dish (Shrimp and grits) has been cooked on the west coast of Africa for hundreds of years?”
The answer?
The chef/host who was giving an intimate dinner party in his home in Dakar, Senegal, West Africa (each syllable drips with mystery, doesn’t it?) smiled and said, “Gratitude that our cuisine lives on and is enjoyed in the United States.”

And Gumbo is another example. Louisiana claims it originated there. A poor man’s dish. Ingredients: Fish/seafood from the river out back, tomatoes and other veggies from the garden, a roux from pork drippings,(from the pig pen out back) butter and flour. Again, Africa via France and brought to the south with the Cajuns.

When I heard this conversation (above) what this writer’s ears heard was: “MamaBelle, cook up some of your shrimp and grits as a side dish for my guests!” The fine lady, from the mansion on the hill, had walked down to the kitchen house to talk about the menu for her dinner party. MamaBelle had been the head cook on the plantation for decades but still had knife-sharp memories of arriving in Georgia, bound in shackles, barely surviving the trip on the slave ship from West Africa. Put on the block for auction, teeth examined, hips examined (for breeding) stripped naked. Being marched miles and miles to the plantation. Working the fields until it was discovered that she was of better use in the kitchen. Living through the horror of her children being sold off when the Masta’ needed ready cash. Continue reading “Writers! Leave Yourself Open To Stories!”

Time For More Famous Quotes

It’s been quite some time since I gave my readers some of my favorite quotes from famous writers…those people that inspire me to be a better one. Maybe this weekend, after reading these, YOU will write something new or go back and rewrite something old or write a piece of poetry that you were afraid to lay down on paper.

Or maybe these quotes will just make you smile…

‘I keep six honest serving men. (They taught me all I know); Their names are What and Why and When and How and Where and Who.- Rudyard Kipling (I can’t let this go by without commenting on Kipling’s colloquial term of ‘honest serving men’. He spent decades in India.)

‘I have this feeling of wending my way or plundering through a mysterious jungle of possibilities when I am writing. This jungle has not been explored by previous writers. It never will be explored. It’s endlessly varying as we progress through the experience of time. These words that occur to me come out of my relation to the language which is developing even as I am using it.’- William Stafford (I am particularly fond of this quote.)

‘In Ireland, a writer is looked upon as a failed conversationalist.’- Anonymous

‘Make ’em laugh; make ’em cry; make ’em wait.’- Charles Reade

‘No tears and the writer, no tears and the reader.’– Robert Frost

take a writer away from his typewriter
and all you have left
is
the sickness
which started him
typing
in the beginning. ~Charles Bukowski

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‘Many a fervid man writes books as cold and flat as graveyard stones.’- Elizabeth Barrett Browning

‘This morning I took out a comma and this afternoon I put it back again.’- Oscar Wilde

‘Thought flies and words go on foot.’- Julien Green (this is why I type 80 words a minute)

‘What I like in a good author is not what he says, but what he whispers.’- Logan Pearsall Smith

‘Writers aren’t exactly people, they’re a whole lot of people trying to be one person.’

– F. Scott Fitzgerald

‘The truth is, we’ve not really developed a fiction that can accommodate the full tumult, the zaniness and crazed quality of modern experience.’- Saul Bellow

‘Writing is one of the easiest things: erasing is one of the hardest.’- Rabbi Israel Salanter

‘The free soul is rare, but you know it when you see it – basically because you feel good, very good, when you are near or with them.’ – Charles Bukowski

1.Creative.Write.BookCoverImage — Journal/Handbook by Trisha Sugarek

and I’ll finish with a not-so-famous quote:
‘As a writer, I marinate, speculate and hibernate.’   Trisha Sugarek
……that is, when I’m not beating up the writer in me with a large stick in the shape of a pencil.
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DON’T MISS BLOGS featuring INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS!   In April, a long awaited interview with Kathleen Grissom (The Kitchen House) May’s author is Jordan Rosenfeld. Michael Saad, Canadian author, will be June’s author.

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Cursive Writing. A Thing of the Past?

My brother, Jack, (84) recently reprimanded his great grandson for his terrible penmanship. He complained that he couldn’t read what the boy had hand written. Jason’s reply was, “Paw-Paw, I don’t need to know how to write, everything is done on the computer. My brother was outraged. But, it got me to thinking, is cursive writing a thing of the past?

If you are over forty, you remember you had classes in penmanship and spelling. Those are not classes offered or required in many schools. It’s hard to get my head around this. A beautiful ‘hand’ (penmanship) was the benchmark of a well educated person, a refined person. And it doesn’t matter anymore. Okay, I can’t remember when I last received a hand written letter, I’ll admit.
Educator Weston Kincade, English teacher at the Akron Digital Academy, weighs in on the cursive writing debate to offer his opinion on why such instruction is not needed in the classrooms of today’s society. To Kincade, cursive writing instruction is outdated and therefore a waste of time. “The technological revolution that started in the 1970s and ’80s brought many new types of written communication: email, texting, Continue reading “Cursive Writing. A Thing of the Past?”

Curiosity Killed the Cat? The real Story!

Oddly, (I think) many searches/views on my web site contain the phrase, ‘curiosity killed the cat’. I thought it would be fun to tell my visitors where this story actually came from. (Part of my collection of 10 minute plays for the classroom)

By now you know that I write frequently based on family stories….true ones.

This (short play) comedy is true which just goes to show, once again, that ‘truth is stranger than fiction’.

My auntie Ivah had been grubbing all day in the garden of her brick mansion in the Laurelhurst district in Seattle. While she could afford a gardener or two, she was an avid gardener herself and could be found there, bare foot, in shorts and a sun hat every fair day. Ivah wore shorts whenever she could because she had ‘Betty Grable legs’ (An actress circa 1940’s-1950’s whose legs were insured for a million dollars) and Ivah was quite vain about hers. She was eager to show them off at every opportunity…even if it was just to her flowers abounding in her gardens.

Around dinner time her husband, Arthur (an attorney) arrived home and announced that he had a client stopping by to sign some documents on his way to the airport. Ivah, dirty and smelly from the garden said she’d hide in the kitchen, putting final touches on dinner, until the client was gone. Continue reading “Curiosity Killed the Cat? The real Story!”

What are Writers? Crazy?

……..to want, to need to be writers?? I am happy (and nostalgic) to report that the world of writers has not changed all that much…..I came across these quotes and laughed. Writers of the World! We are not alone!

John Steinbeck: ‘The profession of book writing makes horse racing seem like a solid, stable business.’

Edna St. Vincent Millay: ‘A person who publishes a book willfully appears before the populace with his (or her) pants down….if it is a good book nothing can hurt you. If it is a bad book nothing can help you.’

Somerset Maugham: ‘There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.’

Trisha Sugarek: ‘Writing is a lonely business. You pour your heart and guts into the written word, often exposing what you’ve experienced in your own life. You nurture it, feed it, trim its toe-nails, wash its hair, dress it up and send it out into traffic.’ Continue reading “What are Writers? Crazy?”

Alan Rickman….A Eulogy

I was devastated to read of Alan Rickman‘s passing. In my opinion he was an actor up there with Lawrence Olivier, Anthony Hopkins, and Dustin Hoffman. Coming from blue-collar, humble beginnings this actor was classically trained and attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London. He went on to hone his craft to new heights through his 45 years on stage and in film. I used to joke that “I would watch Alan Rickman eat corn flakes.” Surprisingly, (or maybe not) the obituaries do not mention his more subtle roles. Sense and Sensibility, and Snow Cakes, for example. Two films not to be missed if you are a true Rickman fan.

I wept knowing that the world will never witness his talent and subtlety; his ‘less is more’, his understated brilliance ever again. His seductively brandy-smooth voice is stilled.

he trod the boards, sure
light illuminates his steps
he’s gone now… is he?

For more details here is the NY Times article: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/15/obituaries/alan-rickman-dies-at-69.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&_r=0

‘What desperately sad news about Alan Rickman. A man of such talent, wicked charm & stunning screen & stage presence. He’ll be sorely missed.’ Stephen Fry

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