Still Life with Woodpecker - a book review

"The tears of the Princess, if placed end to end, would have circled Seattle like a moat.
The tears of the Princess, if dammed, would have provided refuge for the hunted whale and moorage for the Ship of Fools."

- Tom Robbins ( excerpt from Still Life with Woodpecker)


Still Life with Woodpecker is a love story that makes one feel the depth of despair of a woman in love.


 The tears of such a woman are the sacred tears -  they are endless like the ocean of her aching soul. When she cries, snows fall in avalanches from the mountains. When she sobs, rains pour over the city, filling earth with salt.  She cries gently but passionately, burying her head deep in the heart of the pillow, searching for the softness of her lover’s touch, reinventing images from the past, going over all the things that went wrong and all the terrible things she had to endure in the name of love.  Feeling forsaken, misunderstood, abandoned and deserted, she weeps a plea of justice.  But knowing that love is unfair and often unforgiving, she dwells in her misery, narrowing her eyebrows in pain and wishing she could call him and tell him how much it hurts and blame him for everything he did to her and make him repent. But her pride would not allow it.

 If you have ever felt such pain, you would know that her will to live is stronger than her grief.  You would know that her mind is more powerful and conniving than an army of angry ninjas.  Oh, but if you knew at least half of what she has survived, you would not stand in the way of her happiness. You would not hope falsely to posses her heart for, although she smiles brightly and her voice sounds chipper and sweet, her heart is shut tight, and she is determined to slay every man who dares to ask her for the kind of love she managed to survive.

Yet, a day will come when she will move on and meet the kind of man who will instill trust and comfort in her doubting head. And when such man will come, she will forget the one, who once has caused her so much pain.  With time, she would not even be able to remember his face and she will wonder why she was so in love with him and, without finding an answer, she will shrug her shoulders and curl up next to her new love and drift asleep peacefully.

"So Princess ... blew her nose. She sat her bare buttocks on the cot wires, careful not to snag anything. She thought for a while... Then she smiled. She turned to Gulietta. her voice was determined and gay.
    "Bring me A'ben Fizel," she said."

(c) - same as above

The Traveler’s Gift by Andy Andrews

Andrews is a casual storyteller, who does not use big words or sophisticated imagery to carry his point across.  Yet messages contained in this half historical fiction, half motivational one-man journey carry words of wisdom that travel through time.

In a way, the message of the Traveler's Gift is similar to the message of Masahide:

"Barn's burnt down—
Now I can see the moon."

The moon in this book represents awakened awareness of a man, triggered by foreseeable, but nonetheless very sudden misfortune (like a burnt barn). By his simple, but moving story of a man in the face of a loss, Andrews is motivating its readers to awaken their minds and follow the principles they have been taught as children about awareness.

Although many will look down upon Andrew’s simple style, everyone can take away some value and motivation from this inspirational fiction.  

New York in June

I leave my stuffy smoking room at the Renaissance hotel (the only descent room available in New York under 600 bucks per night) and walk out onto the Times Square, which is already packed with tourists, and maneuver between numerous taxicabs towards Avenue of the Americas. 


The sun is beating through my sunglasses as I blindly make my way through the crowd of businessmen clad in smart black pinstriped suits talking or frantically typing on their phones.  A sea of stylish briefcases, designer purses, sunglasses, ties and shoes floods out surrounding architecture, mixing the air with the sweet smell of pastries, warm bus exhaust and loud taxi horns.  


Ah the Big Apple, clad in gray high scrapers  perversely covered with colorful billboards, flyers and giant advertisements, vast vestibules with strenuous security and metal detectors, gold leafed elevators, receptionists clad in a stylish dresses and matching Jimmy Choos, colorful art deco chairs,  attorneys, bankers, Oliver Peoples spectacles, cream colored business cards with raised lettering - all of this gives me a feeling of deja vu a la American Psycho.

To ward off boredom, I e-mail friends on my blackberry and make lunch plans with one of my transplanted New Yorker buddies.  Leaving skyscrapers behind, I track towards the Rockefeller Center, thinking about how much I miss walking in the big city.  I meet my friend among the group of tourists taking pictures of the fountains. Despite his protests, I make him sit on the bench in front of the fountains and snap my own picture.

We stop to look at the menus of two outdoorsy restaurants and decide to proceed downstairs to the hopping Rink Bar. We pick a small table under a shady umbrella right in front of the waterfall and order ice teas, vegetarian wrap and crab cakes. 


I watch New Yorkers as they eat their food. Other tourists look at me and mistake me for a native New Yorker. One woman even asks me where I bought my pinstriped suit. I tell her. She sighs "Oh!"

I breathe in the dry New York air and relax in a lounge chair, lulled by the sound of the waterfall. I cannot get enough of sitting outside and catching up with my friend and stay too long. I then run back to the Avenue of the Americas and walk into the deposition late, with my jacket slung across my shoulder and slight perspiration on my forehead. New York lawyers do not approve.  They raise their eyebrows. I smile and apologize. Then smile again.

Sitting at the long pinewood conference table, surrounded by stuffy lawyers rotating in thier comfy contemporary leather chairs, I start thinking about how much I enjoy visiting New York, taking in its grungy air, loud noise, old buildings, and stylish but smile-less people, and wonder if I could live here.

No, I could not. I am too spoiled by comfortable Houston living, cruising around in my air conditioned SUV right up to my air conditioned office building and house, being able to enroll my child in an affordable private school, swimming with her in my own private pool and relaxing in our huge backyard right in the heart of the city, just minutes away from work, shopping, restaurants, parents, friends. 

No, I definitely could not trade my lifestyle for busy New York. Yet, I love taking a small bite of the Big Apple without the inconvenience of actually living here.