An English Translation of The First Chapter of The Egyptian Heart (Det egyptiske hjerte)

My thirteenth novel, Det egyptiske hjerte was published in Denmark in late 2015. Here is a translation of the first chapter by Mark Kline that takes place in medieval Venice.  (There's a rambling prologue from contemporary Venice before this chapter, but you have to wait for that and the rest of the book until it comes out in your language)

If you're interested in knowing more about The Egyptian Heart, contact foreign rights manager from PeoplesPress, Louise Langhoff Koch (lolk@artpeople.dk) who is at the London Book Fair here in April.  Seventeen publishers around the world are considering my strange and entertaining reincarnation novel right now: six from Germany, four from France, two from Sweden, and one from the Czech Republic, Netherlands, Russia, Portugal, and Brazil. 

 You can read more about the novel on the older entries of my blog. 

Louise Langhoff Koch at lolk@artpeople.dk

Louise Langhoff Koch at lolk@artpeople.dk

Louise Langhoff Koch at lolk@artpeople.dk

Chapter 1

Pietro

Pietro Polani, the thirty-sixth Doge of Venice, greets the person he hates most in the whole world.

    The year is 1144; world history hasn’t reached the lagoon yet. It’s preoccupied with the Crusades and the Holy Land and paying no attention to Serenissima, the Venetian Republic. Actually, the Doge has invited world history to the lagoon several times, but world history keeps giving him the cold shoulder. World history has nothing but contempt for sand banks and merchant fleets. It demands bloodbaths of epic proportions - it insists on massacres of women and entire families. In short, world history is a psychopath, and we’ll never understand it if we don't recognize that.

    Pietro Polani has been Doge for fourteen years. He has grown into the position in such a way that he no longer knows where the Doge begins and Pietro ends. At the tender age of twenty-nine, he was elected because of his reputation for honesty and intelligence. But now the most powerful families of Venice are tired of him because of his honesty and intelligence. 
   The times haven't been kind to Pietro Polani, who wanted to be a Prince of Peace but instead inherited war. Wars are raging everywhere around the Adriatic Sea. When one fire is put out, another flares up. Hungarians attack the Dalmatian coast; Normans try to contain Venice; Padua and Fano are sassy children who receive well-deserved spankings. The world is aflame as always, but luckily it’s God's flame, so there's nothing we can do about that. After all, who should we complain to? The Devil?

The Doge receives the Patriarch of Grado in the Great Hall of the Doge Palace. The Patriarch is the Pope's representative in the lagoon. He wields more power than a Cardinal and is number two in the Church hierarchy. A herald bangs his spear on the stone floor and announces the Patriarch in a high, piercing voice that ricochets off the walls, tapestries, and trunks like stinging slaps to the face.

    Pietro Polani is surrounded by courteous servants and his loyal eunuch, Sano, who was castrated at the age of twelve. The eunuch is a short man with tawny red hair and a wrinkled face who looks like a cross between an elderly man and an infant. He carries several rolls of parchment under his arm. His lips are shaped into a permanent sly smile. The table in the Great Hall is set for a feast, the icy lagoon air oozes in through the smoke hole, the flames in the fireplace flicker. Polani has donned a long ermine robe and leather gloves to keep warm. He's wearing his lemon-yellow Doge skullcap and ear flaps, and a heavy chain of gold hangs from his neck.

    The thirty-sixth Doge of Venice is a thin man of medium height with small, friendly gray eyes, a large nose, and lips outraged by his fellow humans' pettiness. His mouth is small, his cheeks and intuition sharp, his hair and beard curly are every bit as dark as the anxiety he bears.

    The Patriarch of Grado sits at a large, heavy oak table, a gift from the Norman Emperor that had been shipped from Sicily to the lagoon in 1138. The two men are sons of merchants from the San Luca parish close to the Rialto Bridge. They were childhood friends, though they show no sign of that now. Their shared past can be sensed only as a migraine of the soul, but the Doge intends to appeal to the best in the Patriarch, should there indeed be any best remaining to appeal to. In other words, the Doge will look his old friend in the eye before deciding whether or not to crush him.

The Doge's Palace is not the present-day opulent structure on St. Mark's Square, a palatial wedding cake featuring Byzantine embellishments. Back then there was no glazed facade with broad arcade, marble benches, and Gothic columns. Nor did the Lion of St. Mark's stand on its pedestal, staring out at the horizon. And it still lacked wings – they flew in from Persia or Egypt in or around the thirteenth century. The Doge's Palace was nothing more than a large, clumsy Middle Age fortress with stout walls, four round castle towers, and a closed courtyard for knights and their horses.

   Only a small segment of the Middle Age foundation survives today. It rose out of the mud during excavations in the 1700s. Suddenly the gates holding back the repressions of the twelfth century opened. Agonies and memories stood in line to escape; they seeped up from the underground as murderous threats and unanswered prayers, as frail voices, each with a story that segued into a cloud and sailed over the lagoon. Stories never disappear. They bury themselves in the bodies of cities and shape the geography. Stories engrave themselves into the minds of humans and alter their perception of reality … or at least make them aware that realities come and go, for Heaven knows, there are so many versions.

   Pietro Polani's waiter pours wine into the clay-colored mugs.

   The large hall is dark, the air heavy with smoke and mildew. Inch-thick sheep rugs cover the cool stone floor, but no matter how the Doge's men try to keep warm, the freezing wind off the lagoon shows who's boss. One can’t tyrannize nature; it always gets the last word, no matter the century.

    The Doge toasts with the Patriarch.

    The Patriarch toasts with the Doge.

    Sano the eunuch closely observes both men. He has been looking forward to this meeting, because he's convinced that blood will flow.

    The Patriarch of Grado sits erect in his burgundy-colored robe and high hat. He was born Enrico Dandolo, an uncle to the "real" Enrico Dandolo, who sixty years later will be honored as having made Venice a major power. Why? Because he burned to the ground the greatest city of the Middle Ages, Constantinople, along with its 100,000 citizens. I repeat: the road to immortality is always paved with greed. Think of idiots like Alexander the Great, Peter the Great, and Napoleon. What do they all have in common? They could never get enough. That's why they were great.

    The Doge and the Patriarch study each other over the knots of the oak table.

    The spiders on the wall creep closer together.

    Each of these powerful men has devised a strategy for this meeting. The Patriarch has thought through everything down to the tiniest detail, has considered his arguments and weighed them on Biblical scales, whereas the Doge's strategy is the exact opposite – he doesn't have one. The right words will appear when he needs them. Pietro Polani is nothing more than a ventriloquist who seeks his inspiration from St. Mark and trusts that inspiration will flow out of his mouth at the proper time, and should that against all expectations not happen, he will bequeath his fiasco to God – that's his strategy.

    "I have requested Your Excellency's presence to have a talk, man-to-man," the Doge says. The Patriarch nods, but he's already on his guard. His eyes are glued on Pietro, his one eyebrow raised as a sign of an unhealthy skepticism, his fingers readying themselves for drum solos on the table, should they gather the courage.

    The Doge stands up enthusiastically. "Do you remember when we went fishing in Rio San Luca and found a body drifting down the stream?"

    The Patriarch of Grado stares in surprise at the Doge. "No."

    "It was the first dead man we'd ever seen."

    "Aha."

    "You don't remember?"

    "No, unfortunately not," the Patriarch says. He reaches for the documents he has laid on the table; if there hadn't been any documents to reach for, he would have reached out for his wine mug, and if there hadn't been a wine mug, he would have groaned a bit louder than he permits himself to now.

    "You're the one who emptied his pockets and found the three silver coins."

    The Patriarch remains silent.

    "The dead man worked for your father, didn't he?"

    "I wouldn't know." The irritated glint in the Patriarch's eye seems to have hardened.

"Three silver coins was a lot back then. Do you remember what we spent them on?"

    The Patriarch shakes his head.

    "A knife, Enrico. A very dull knife we bought at the market in San Salvador. We took turns using it, and once we fought over it."

    The Patriarch looks down at his boots; where else could he look, with the Doge insisting on blabbering like a stupid hag. The mood in the Great Hall is dull and listless, more so than at any time during the occupancies of the past twenty Doges. In fact, there is no mood; it's fled to the lagoon, for a mood can only take so much.

    The eyes of the Doge and the Patriarch meet for a few short seconds, but the Patriarch doesn't like eye contact. He wishes only a dialogue with our Lord, for our Lord is the only peer of the Patriarch, and even that is debatable.

    "With your permission, Principe." Enrico studies his pudgy hands. "Surely you haven't invited me here to talk about old times?"

    "Indeed, I have." Polani beams.

    A nervous tic flashes over The Patriarch's face. Why is it that the Doge makes him feel so insecure? Enrico is clearly more gifted and superior to Pietro in every way, yet he feels as if he's tagging along behind when he is with his childhood friend. Is it because of the respect associated with the five-hundred-year Doge tradition? No, that can't be it, the Church has existed longer than Serenissima, and besides, Jesus Christ is its King.

    "So you don't believe that our personal relationship has any influence on our present-day disagreements?" the Doge asks.

    "I have no disagreement with you, Principe," The Patriarch says.

    "For the love of God, Enrico." The Doge pounds his fist on the table. "Can't you get it through your thick skull that I'm speaking to you as a fellow human being? I'm trying my best to strip away the formality of our positions, so we stand naked before each other – don't look so shocked, Enrico, I'm speaking metaphorically here. Come on now. We were together in The Holy Land in the time of the old Doge, you even saved my life. Everything we went through together, doesn’t that mean anything at all to you?”

    "There’s no reason to patronize me," the Patriarch snaps.

    "There's every reason to patronize you, Enrico, otherwise we'll never untangle this knot we're in. And may I remind you that I'm responsible for the influence you now have as Patriarch."

    "Let's get down to business," Enrico snarls. How can one take this fool in the Doge's Palace seriously, a man enthusiastic one moment and phlegmatic the next, more known for his strange behavior than his capabilities? Pietro Polani is not a good Doge. For the fourteen years he has sat on the throne, he has been an unworthy representative for Serenissima. He is popular among the citizenry, yes, because he has seduced the hearts of the poor, but fortunately The Great Council clipped his foreign-policy wings before he could do too much damage.

    "With all due respect, Principe, what I mean is, it would be better to –"

    "I'm not sure you know what's 'better', Enrico, for you or for God. But let's get down to business, as you so un-poetically call it. For almost a year now you've attempted to thwart the appointments I've made, the latest of which is the abbess of San Zaccaria. You swept my candidate aside and installed your own."

    "I wouldn't use the word 'thwart'."

    "Well I would." Again the Doge slams his fist down on the table. "Appointments to offices in Serenissima is a responsibility of my office, which is why I take it as a personal affront when you overrule my decision."

    "I act only with regards to the reforms of Pope Gregor, which His Holiness in Rome wishes to be implemented –"

    "And in that way you oppose me."

    "This is not a personal attack on you, Principe."

    "Everything in this world is personal, Enrico," the Doge yells, "and I’ve had enough. Last year you intervened by overruling a case under the authority of the Bishop of Castello, but my appointment of the new abbess in the San Zaccaria parish will not be disallowed, Enrico, is that understood?"

    "With all due respect, the Church overrides the secular world."

    "So now you’re saying that you also have no respect for the constitution of Serenissima?"

    "Of course I do. I just have greater respect for God."

    "Then let's get everything out in this Light you claim to be serving." The Doge smiles wanly. "Let's get it all out – your damn pettiness, your lust for power, your enormous inferiority complexes, Enrico. Let's look at how your monks break into cloisters and rape our sisters in the name of God. How they acquire Bishop positions, not because they're pious but because they're granted property with their purchase. Our beloved Church is becoming more and more corrupt. What do you say to that, my fat friend?"

    "Do not call me your fat friend, Pietro."

   "But you’re fat, and you are my friend," the Doge says triumphantly, "so come down off your high Bible and talk to me man-to-man before your intrigues drive me insane. This doesn't have to be so nasty, Enrico. I don't enjoy being mean, but you're forcing me to be."

    The Patriarch stands up and furiously gathers his documents. When he finally speaks, his voice is shaking. "Principe, you should know that a messenger was sent several days ago to His Holiness, to expedite a solution to our problem –"

    "To which of the popes, my dear Enrico, Peter or Judas? Until recently there were two of them."

    The Patriarch's voice trembles. "New winds are blowing across our peninsula, winds that will have great influence on our beloved Republic, but I see no reason to speak more of this. It's out of my hands. Is there anything else, Serenissimo Principe? More ridiculous accusations plucked out of thin air? Or more pointless childhood memories you wish to bring up?"

    Pietro Polani rises. "No, nothing more, Enrico. But I want you to remember one thing: we in Serenissima have never bowed down to Sancta Sedes. We leave that to Pisa, Genoa, and the other cowardly states. We respect His Holiness, but we’re not his lapdog. Tell that to your damned messenger."

    The Patriarch bows ironically, but as he and his shocked entourage are about to depart from the Great Hall, the Doge steps forward and embraces him. To all appearances it's a loving embrace – perhaps an apology for the rough words spoken in the heat of battle? Or for the childish things spoken by the Doge when he was offended? But no, it’s in fact a show of power. More than ever, the Doge has need of demonstrating who may be on a first-name basis with him and who may not, who may embrace the heads of the Church as if they were oversized stuffed animals and who may not. All this is signified by the embrace the Patriarch is forced to endure, from which he attempts to extract himself without pushing the spindly, moody Doge away – Enrico can’t afford to do that. He mustn't even use his talent for quick comebacks to put the Doge in his place. All he can do is show his disgust by peering up at the ceiling or down at the Emperor's oak table or at Sano, the eunuch, who is trying not to laugh at the bizarre sight in front of him – the tall, angry Patriarch and the strange Doge in a long, brotherly embrace. 

   At last Pietro loosens his grip and pounds Enrico hard on the back, as if he's an old mutt with a bone stuck in his throat. Finally the Patriarch can leave the Great Hall, while the Doge is thinking, what a nice day. Or is it a nice day? For who can weigh the consequences of our small Pyrrhic victories? Who can weigh anything while trying to understand something as delicate as a human life? The consequences of what we do and don’t do follow us for centuries. Nothing disappears in this world; all embraces, quarrels, and childish behavior come back to haunt us when we least expect it. The Doge knows this, and therefore he should have acted in a dignified manner, but he couldn't, because he was too wounded.

    We now take leave of the deeply shaken Patriarch of Grado, who steps off the quay and into his gondola displaying the silver and red colors of the Dandolo family. He is followed by his scrivener, a Father, and three demons sitting on his shoulders, screaming for revenge – how dare the Doge speak to the Church's most important man in the lagoon as if he were a simple shepherd of souls! The demons will make certain that the Patriarch is avenged, but more than five years will pass before it happens.

    Enrico sails down the Rio Barrio and through the labyrinthine canals toward the clan's courtyard in San Luca parish, while the banner of the Dandolos snaps in the icy wind. When he arrives at the market at the Rialto bridge, he is shaking from the cold and from an enormous rage he’s almost unable to control.

Translation by Mark Kline. Foreign rights, Louise Langhoff Koch from PeoplesPress, lolk@artpeople. Photo from Arnold Busck book store, Esben Von Tangen-Lund-Christensen. 

Louise Langhoff Koch at lolk@artpeople.dk

****

When Ancient Egypt Creeps Under Your Skin and Comes Out As A Novel

1.
I swear, my novel made me do it.

I didn't mean to go to Egypt with a stop over in Venice. I don't like to travel. I prefer to sit by my computer and stare into the screen like a Danish zombie, but sometimes a writer has to suffer for his art. Sometimes your novel forces you to do the most atrocious things, like going to Luxor on a whim because Osiris begs you. And hey, part of your Danish novel takes place in Egypt in the 18th century, anyway, so it's not as if you don't have an excuse.

Well, okay. I'm a little slow reporting on this, because it all happened a year ago. I came back from Egypt in March, 2015, and Det egyptiske hjerte (The Egyptian Heart) was published a few months ago in Denmark to stellar reviews ... but as all you spiritual airheads know, time is an illusion. Time has laws we're not wise to - and that's the exact feeling you get when you walk around the temples of Upper Egypt, where ancient Pharaohs breathe down your neck and centuries of desert find a way into every part of your body and remain there for longer than you want.

2.
But oh, my God, Egypt is worth all kinds of suffering, the simple reason being that most of the ancient wisdom accessible to us today derives from this land - not from the time of the Dynasties as historians like to call them, but from the older mystery schools where souls were initiated and taught about our place in the universe - about our relationship to Sirius, Orion, and the understanding of time.

An example: The Pyramids and the Sphinx in Giza are much older than we think. They're not from 2,500 BC or 3, 500 BC but probably from 10,000 BC.  However, that might be wrong, too, so what if there's another explanation, one that's more logical and provocative? Perhaps they were never built.  Maybe the Pyramids have always been there as a silent witness to our dreams and aspirations? Why is it that we humans want everything to have a beginning and an end? What if the most sacred is eternal in a way our minds can't comprehend?

For instance, the Buddhists argue that the world never was created. It has always been here and will always be here, and so will we in one form or another, traveling through the universe, slowly shaking off our egos and desires like they were dandruff.  We're all on a long journey through time, suddenly finding ourselves in bodies in today's Copenhagen, in Pietro Polani's medieval Venice, or being inspired by an 18th century explorer, Frederik Norden, while we learn more about ourselves and our Source on the way.

Experts or not, we know very little about the universe or Prehistoric Egypt for that matter. Our "facts" mostly come from myth and intuition, the odd vision under a starry sky, a sudden goose bump at the banks of the Nile. So when I walked around the temples at Karnak, Luxor, Hatshepsut, Ramses III and Medinet Habu, I discovered I wasn't the slightest interested in Kingdoms, Dynasties, and Pharaohs - I just wanted to meditate and sense these amazing places, so I could go back to a time the eternal part of me knows so well.

On the surface, Det egyptiske hjerte (The Egyptian Heart) isn't a novel about Ancient Egypt. Most of it takes place in before-mentioned Venice, Copenhagen, and on the banks of the Nile in 1736-37, but my book is deeply inspired by Egyptian mysticism. All mystics are inspired by this ancient land, so I didn't go to Luxor just as a writer who wanted to finish his book. I went there as a human who hoped to remember what he forgot.

But enough of this for now. I'm going to shut up and let my pictures speak.  

 

You can get Det egyptiske hjerte in all Danish book stores or online at https://www.saxo.com/dk/soeg/boeger?query=Det+egyptiske+hjerte, both as regular book, e-book, and audio book.

Foreign rights, Louise Langhoff Koch, lolk@artpeople.dk

*****

Presenting My Novel 'The Egyptian Heart' - Magical Realism for the Spiritually Inclined (And It Doesn't Hurt If You Have a Sense of Humor)

1.
After five years of hard work, my novel Det egyptiske hjerte (The Egyptian Heart) finally came out in Denmark in late October. Man, it's been a long journey. Since 2009 I've been writing on two novels at the same time going back between Danish and English, tearing the hair out of my skull every morning. Also, I went on research trips to Luxor, Egypt and my favorite city in the world, Venezia, Venice, Venedig (take your pick). I even got diarrhea but there's no limit to what a writer will do for his reader.

Det egyptiske hjerte is written in this strange tongue called Danish.  It's a sweeping, often humorous and love-affirming novel about reincarnation, eternal love and the stories we tell to make sense of our existence. It's an accessible and lively book for those who love history, spirituality, and thought-provoking storytelling about the inner connectedness of our relationships.

2.
There are three storylines in the novel that intertwine: One in 12^th century Italy about the Venetian Doge, Pietro Polano  (1130-1148) and one in contemporary Copenhagen with Zia, a historian who is writing a thesis about an Egyptian explorer, Frederik Norden. Zia and Pietro Polani are both emotional, impulsive, and zany characters who have had experiences with sexual abuse, mysticism, and fire. None of them is comfortable with dogmatic systems but have a strange fascination with Egypt and the Pyramids. Is Zia an incarnation of Pietro?  And is Frederik Norden Zia's guardian angel on her voyage into her past and herself?  The reader will have fun following the clues.

A lot of foreign publishers showed interest in The Egyptian Heart at the Frankfurt book fair so hopefully it'll be sold to a lot of countries within the next few months. If you're a publisher you can get a two-chapter translation in English by Mark Kline by mailing People's Press Foreign Rights Manager, Louise Langhoff Koch at lolk@artpeople.dk

 

3.
A few days ago I got a review to die for in Denmark's most important paper, Politiken. "I'm totally hooked," senior editor Bjørn Bredal writes. "The Egyptian Heart is one of the most charming, humorous, and clever books I've read in a long time. Peter H. Fogtdal isn't just knowledgeable, he's witty, has bite, and leaves the Dan Browns of the world in the dust." (I'd rather leave Jonathan Franzen in the dust but okay, I can live with that compliment)
 

Here is a great quote in Danish about the quality of my prose: "Man sejler igennem det hele, lystigt vuggende i Fogtdals sproglige gondol, som ikke giver en eneste mislyd i lagunen. Han kan skrive, kan han, og han har noget på hjerte om det store, det små og det onde i historien – verdens og romanens."  ("You cruise through the novel, gently bopping in Fogtdal's linguistic gondola ... He can write, can he and he has something important to say about the big and small issues and cruelty through the ages.")

For some reason the review isn't online at http://politiken.dk/kultur/boger/ yet but should be soon. Not that I'm complaining about much right now ...

Signing books at Politiken boghandel November 4. I'll be at the Copenhagen Book Fair, BogForum Sunday November 8 at 1.30 PM and at Tranquebar boghandel, Borgergade 14 in Copenhagen, November 26 at 7 PM.  Cover, 50 DKK.

++++++++

The Three Days With Sam Shepard That Changed My Writing Life

1.
It happened on a hot day in the beginning of the Eighties.

Everybody was sitting at a long table waiting for the Master. And it wasn't just young students like me. It was professional actors and writers from Hollywood who were going to work on His play at the Padua Hills Playwriting Workshop outside L.A.

Sam Shepard entered. He was tall and shy and threw himself into a chair. He wasn't much known as an actor back then but as a poet and playwright who'd just won the Pulitzer Prize for Buried Child. Everybody was ready to write down His words of wisdom, so we all could become instant artists and win the Pulitzer ourselves one day.

Sam Shepard looked us over and said: "So what do you want to talk about?" We all glanced at each other. What a strange thing for the Master to say. Wasn't He going to give us the recipe for greatness, the Keys to the Kingdom, the magic wand that could turn a tired cliche into a pot of gold?

A few started to ask Him about Buried Child and other of His plays, but the Master shook His head, "I'm here to talk about your writing, not mine." Then He sent us out into the hills with an assignment. "Write what you feel in your body."

We looked disappointed at each other and walked into the hills, hoping not to come across one of the coyotes or rattlesnakes that roamed in the area. After an hour we came back, sat at the table, and read loud what we'd written. Sam Shepard was honest and soft-spoken. There wasn't any "what a great sense of place" bullshit here. There was no "Gosh, I loved it, but ..."  Only a few crisp words from the Master to the dramatist students who now had been forced into poetry by the rugged hills.

We did this three or four days in a row. At every session, the Master would praise two or three pieces, never more. To my huge surprise, I got encouraging feedback twice and was very proud of that. But more was to come.

The fourth and final day Shepard was around I read my piece, Sam Shepard did something He hadn't done to anyone during His stay. He stared me down for a few seconds without saying a word. "Oh my God, what have I done?" I thought. Was America's greatest poet-playwright going to punch me in the mouth? There was a long pause, then He said, "You have an incredible sense of imagery. You should really cherish that." Pause. "Yeah, you should really cherish that."

There wasn't a sound in the room, and I almost died of happiness on the spot. After all, I was just a foreign student and the only one out of twenty writing in my second language. And everybody had hated my funny stuff before Sam Shepard had taken over the workshop.

The next two nights I couldn't sleep. I felt as if I was high on mushrooms. I wrote a short play that later was produced at my school, Cal State Fullerton - and when I moved back to Denmark, I wrote an altered version that I sold to DR, our national Danish TV station, and was broadcast in 1986. In a certain sense, my professional career started when those words came out of Sam Shepard's mouth. They became my antidote when I later got disappointing reviews for my first novels in Denmark; they protected me against self-doubt and inferiority complexes when people accused me of being a lightweight. It hurt me but I knew it wasn't true. Sam Shepard had seen me for what I was. And what I didn't know at that time was that my best work was going to be my serious novels, Flødeskumsfronten  (Le Front Chantilly, O Paraiso de Hitler) and Zarens dværg (The Tsar's Dwarf, La Naine du Tsar, A Anä Do Czar) that reflected some inner truths, if not outer about myself. His words were a gift, and I won't forget them as long as I live.

2.
So why am I writing this on my fluffy blog - to brag?  Well, that, too, of course, but mostly because I learned how important it is to encourage others, especially when you really mean it.

At The Padua Hills playwriting workshop, Sam Shepard wanted people to write about what they'd experienced themselves. He didn't want any bullshit no matter how poetic it sounded. Once he actually scolded a black girl for writing about the slaves coming over from Africa.  He did it in a very polite way but his point was, you've never been a slave, so how can you write that?

I was reminded of this workshop when I saw Sam Shepard in Bloodline on Netflix as the old patriarch of a troubled family. I got goosebumps all over because my three days with him changed my writing life and also inspired me during the years I taught Advanced Fiction Writing at Portland State University.

Be honest in your writing. If you're funny, be funny. If you're poetic, be poetic.  Write what you are; not what you think you should be!  Or simply, write what's going on in your body, and be authentic. Let it come from within!

And remember to encourage beginning writers on your way when you see something in them that they might not be aware of themselves ...



*******

Floating - A Healthy Trip Into Your Mother's Womb and Your Own Twisted Mind

Floating is the new craze. Or if it isn't, it should be. It's the closest you get to tripping in a salty environment.

So you go to this place called Float On on SE Hawthorne in Portland, Oregon that looks like a gay sauna club from 1977. They have six float tanks, sell legal drugs over the counter, and if you don't watch your back they'll get you juiced up on herbal tea. Then you're put in your own saltwater tank that's the same temperature as your body. It's totally dark inside, no sounds reach you except for the beating of your heart (if you have one). After a few minutes you feel you're back in the womb of your mother or being embraced by stress-free archangels.

I've floated six times, and it's a great meditation unless you suffer from claustrophobia or a fear of imaginary sharks. The first time I got so bored I tried to drown myself though, but the salt keeps you afloat no matter what - and slowly you melt into the darkness like a humid little demon. Every muscle relaxes, and after a while your neck learns that the water isn't dangerous; it's your friend, your lover, your muse.

Some people get in touch with unknown anxieties when they float. Others have lucid dreams, or just empty their bladders into The Great Unknown. I've had two small flashes from past lives, and at one point I thought I'd invented the toaster, but when I came out somebody told me I was sixty years too late. I also DID empty my bladder, hoping it was a rite of passage because I don't want to be a Danish pig. But man, the water is SO relaxing, and the float hipsters clean it afterward with their state-of-the-art filtering system.

That's right, you get your own water to soil, including visions, longings, and ideas for your next novel or snack. Floating is not a trip down memory lane but a journey into altered states you had no idea existed  - a scenic drive on the freeway of your subconscious. Or at the very least, you get saltwater in your eyes, which can be a religious experience, too.

So friends, followers, health nuts, I can wholeheartedly recommend an anti stress floating to anybody who can stand their own company for an hour and a half. Most people can't, of course. That's why they get iPhones, but that's another story altogether.

(Check out www.floathq.com here in Portland. However, they have float tanks several other places in the world)

This is a picture of the float I did this morning (it's me in the middle). Float On in Portland offers three kinds of rooms, two ocean floats, two oasis tanks, and two float pools. I like them all and they seem to like me.

Dammit, Why Did We Miss The Naked Bike Ride in Portland? (Sweaty Balls and All)

1.
I'm still disappointed I didn't make it to The Naked Bike Ride Saturday night in Portland. All those bloated bellies and saggy balls flapping in the wind.

My Pale Beauty and I wanted to go, but as everybody knows it's hard work getting naked. First you have to take off your clothes, then you need to make sure that your genitals are behaving.

But if God has blessed you with a great body, you have a responsibility to flaunt it. We belonged in that race, and I wasn't going to wear a sissy helmet or a g-string like all the Germans I know. No, I was going to get Danish and dirty, ripping off my helmet and shouting obscenities at Volvos.

The ride is supposedly part of The World Naked Bike Ride, an annual occurrence in Portland, San Francisco, and several pornographic cities in Europe. I've heard they even have one at Guatanamo bay. This year thousands of Portlanders biked through downtown to prove that riding naked is the thing to do when it's 56 degrees and your nipples are as hard as kidney stones.

2.
But as I said we never made it. My Pale Beauty and I had just stripped naked when we found a mouse in the house. The mouse raced through the apartment and hid under the sofa. I tried to get it out with a broom. When that didn't work I went New Age on the rodent. "I see God in you, so get the fuck out of there before I call Rent-a-Cat, okay?"

And it's true. I don't want to kill sentient beings; it's only people I feel like terminating. God, we did everything in our power to get rid of the mouse. First, we put on a noisy fan, then we ran around screaming like maniacs.

"No, we have to do something nastier than that," I said to my girlfriend and put on the latest Justin Bieber CD, but the mouse still stayed put. Later we found out that it had built a nest under one of the cushions. It was quite comfortable there, munching on tofu crackers and baba ganoush - the rodent even enjoyed watching Dancing with the Stars.

3.
So yes, My Pale Beauty and I missed The Naked Bike Ride. And we wanted to go so badly - not to show off, but as an homage to naked cyclists who are killed every day - by truck drivers wearing too much clothes.

So it's high time that we take action - and Saturday thousands of cyclists in Portlandia made the kind of political statement that can bring world leaders to their knees - at least if we hand them a pair of binoculars.


*****
This is a rewritten and updated version of my blog about The Naked Bike Ride in 2009. We still haven't caught the mouse, by the way.

A Course In Political Miracles: Marianne Williamson May Be High on Tofu But She Still Makes More Sense Than the Politicians on the Hill

1.

Marianne Williamson is running for Congress in California's District 33. 

If you have no idea who she is, it's probably because you need A Course in Political Miracles. Marianne wrote A Return to Love and is one of America's finest spiritual writers and teachers. One of her many homes is The New York Times bestseller list where she often stays for months. She is also Oprah's advisor in matters of the soul --- and surely you have heard of Oprah?

During a short trip to Southern California I went to a meeting for Marianne's many volunteers. (By the way, I'm allowed to call Marianne by her first name. Even her own website does: MarianneForCongress.com)

The volunteer meet-up took place in The Source, a beautiful spiritual center on Rose Avenue in Venice --- the kind of area where hippies wear Armani and order pizza with vegan crust. When I walked in, I was delighted to see mandalas, smiling Buddhas, and about 150 levitating volunteers who wanted to help Marianne get elected. I doubt Mitt Romney's headquarters looked like this. Romney never seemed like a man who would get Yogis excited about anything.

The Source is an old historical church with a saintly and serene atmosphere. (In America any structure built before 1980 is considered historical). Normally it's used for meditations, sacred chanting, and all those things that make Shirley Maclaine excited. The Source seemed like the perfect venue for a woman who is staring a movement that's based on the best four letter word of all, love. MONEY OUT, PEOPLE IN, as it said on a hand-out. Which downward dog wouldn't agree with that? 

2.

Since I'm a Dane from Portland who isn't allowed to vote in the U.S. (except for American Idol) I didn't know where to sit in the crowded church. All around me people were holding up signs, Santa Monica, South Bay, Marina del Rey etc, so I decided I belonged to Venice since I got drunk on their boardwalk once. Luckily I was graciously accepted into Venice's circle of volunteers, all of them sweet and enthusiastic.

When Marianne Williamson appeared, she impressed me. She was honest, passionate and didn't sound like any other politician. Instead of repeating the usual "Washington is broken" mantra, she talked about how WE are broken inside and how that affects the society we are part of. 

She also had a stern warning: "The American government is constantly chipping away at our democratic freedoms---one capitulation to moneyed interests at a time, one new gerrymandered district at a time, one government surveillance program at a time, one limiting of our voting rights at a time, one intimidation of journalists at the time, one Patriot Act at a time ... So at what point do we stand up to our own government and say, "hey, guys. Whose side are you on?"

This quote could easily have been used on Human Rights Day, December 10 when 562 writers from 83 countries (including Nobel prize winners like Umberto Eco, J.M. Coetzee, Orhan Pamuk, and little me) signed a petition called Writers Against Mass Surveillance that was printed in newspapers around the world, including The Guardian, Frankfurter Allgemeine, El Pais, La Repubblica, and Politiken. 

But Marianne Williamson went further at the meet-up in California. She promised to run an outer and an inner campaign, trying to raise consciousness everywhere, since we can't demand change from Washington if we don't change ourselves.

So from a spiritual  perspective we shouldn't just be angry with our government. We should see it as a frightened part of ourselves, obsessed with the fear of terrorism and love of control.

3.

Well, almost everything Williamson said that evening made sense to a spiritual airhead like me. She did NOT come across as if she had overdosed on soy milk. She was NOT a new age caricature but argued well. And thank God, she doesn't run for the Democrats but as an independent who wants love and dignity for everybody "instead of a sociopathic economic system that operates without a heart."

"I would be the happy if all my readers would donate as little as $5 to this campaign. In that case we would have more than enough money," Marianne said, finishing the evening with the kind of prayer you won't hear in Congress too often.

4.

But why should I go on about Williamson's Gandhi-like campaign? Go to her own website MarianneForCongress.com and see for yourself. Marianne Williamson is just one of many visionaries who knows that it's last call for humankind. Something has to be done about our fading democracy where money has such an obscene influence on what happens in Washington. Passing a decent law here and there isn't enough. We need a series of earthquakes to jolt us out of our self-absorbed empathy - you don't have to be Mamas & Papas to see that.

The question is actually simple: What is going to win in the end?  Love and trust, or fear and surveillance?  Most of the media and the establishment will definitely laugh at Marianne Williamson. But no matter what you think of a movement like hers, independent candidates are on the rise. How could they not be when Congress and Obama are fighting like toddlers? 

But perhaps Marianne Williamson could lead the way in America. Now that would be A Course In Political Miracles indeed.

....

Learning Italian in Lucca: Calvino, Puccini, Vaffanculo. It's All Poetry To Me

1.
During a short stay in Italy last month, I passed through Lucca in Toscany where it all started for me.

In the nineties I decided to do something I wanted since I was a kid: learn Italian. I suffered from depressions back then and since wine wasn't the answer, Italian had to be. Luckily I was right. The second I started to speak the most beautiful language in the world, clouds would evaporate in my head, beauty filled every cell in my body, and I came instantly alive, helped by the sun, the mountains, and the penne arrabbiata.

After half a year I could almost read Calvino and I could definitely shout vaffanculo. My writing became more vibrant, my digestion improved - how could it not since I was surrounded by saints, gelato, and language? Sometimes I would break down in gratitude, munching on words like melanzane and abbastanza, while getting high om condizionale. There was so much LIFE in Italy, so much forbidden fruit passing me on scooters, so much dirty linen hanging from lazy balconies, so many signs that blew me away: Campobasso, francobolli, caduta massi, all of them were poetry to me. The cities steeped in history reminded me of earlier incarnations as an actor in the Veneto region, a Franciscan monk in Urbino, and a mystic in Venezia.

At one point I dreamed of marrying Italy, but today I only want her as my mistress. I drop by as often as I can, knowing that all hill towns, lemon orchards, and mountain lakes will be in my blood until the day I die. In some ways I feel more Italian than Danish, except that I'm as impatient as most Scandinavians and I want things to work. But things don't really work in Italy. Italians thrive on chaos and temper tandrums, which is charming one month a year, not more. So come to think of it, I will keep my Danish passport for now...

2.
Lucca is the prettiest town in Tuscana. Forget overrated Firenze, crowded Siena. touristy Pisa, and ridiculous San Gimigniano. They are all fine if you like Disneyland. No, Lucca is the real deal. It's quiet, sleepy, stylish, and magical at night when all the tourists have gone back to their cruise ships and the five star hotels in Florence.

The greatest thing about Lucca is that it doesn't have a single "important" thing that snobs have to see, except for Le Mura, the walls around the old city that may be the greatest place in Central Italy to walk your Schnauzer, or go for a jog. Lucca is a city for people who truly love Italy. But I'm only talking about centro storico, of course. Everything outside le mura is uninteresting and a little drab, except for a cute stream and a few good restaurants.

3.
I started learning Italian at Koine in Via Mordini in 1994, came back several times the following years, continued my studies at E.St.Veneto in Feltre (a lovely place) and in Perugia where I survived the big earthquake and the chocolate. 

Around 2000 my Italian was pretty damn good, but now it has deteriorated because I live in America and can't drop by as often as I would like. But literary as I am, I still read Corriere dello Sport and Stefano Benni's short stories. I listen to Zucchero and Irene Grandi, admire the hell out of the films by Paolo Sorrentino, and I love the art of Canaletto and Andrea Pirlo. Italy is part of me and has given me so much joy and inspiration. At least four of my thirteen novels were partly written in one of the greatest countries on earth, the obscenely beautiful and delightfully dysfunctional Italia.

Take an Italian class in Italy. When I started I only knew how to say, due cappuccini, so there's hope for you as well.

Back in the early nineties in Rome where I only understood the football scores in the sports paper.

*****

The Rescue of the Danish Jews in October 1943: My Grandfather Was One of Them

Seventy years ago today, my Jewish grandfather David Huda escaped to neutral Sweden in the bottom of a fishing boat. He went off from Gilleleje in Northern Seeland in the middle of the night with eight others. The rescue was beautifully organized, and seven thousands Danish Jews got away during October 1943. 

Denmark has always taken pride in the fact that we saved 92% of our Jewish citizens. However, one of many reasons we were so successful was actually because of the Germans. Most of them weren't interested in catching the Jews, since there wasn't much anti-semitism to play into in Denmark. So the Wehrmacht made the  calculation that prosecuting the local Jews only would create more trouble in a country that finally had started to fight back against the German occupation.

Two weeks after my grandfather escaped, my Christian grandmother, uncle, and mother followed from Kalkbrænderihavnen in Copenhagen. My half-Jewish Mom was ten years old in October 1943, deadly scared that Gestapo or the German soldiers were going to find them. But everything went smoothly. They met up with my grandfather in a refugee camp in Molle, Scania (Skåne) and stayed in seven different places in Sweden until Denmark was liberated in May, 1945 by British and American soldiers.

Before the war, my family lived in Kibæk in rural Jutland. My grandfather was the only Jew in the  area, and definitely the only Christian Jew since he had been forcibly converted when he arrived from Palestine in 1906. 

In early 1943, my grandfather joined a small resistance group that hid English agents in their barns. He also was crazy enough to befriend a soldier from Vienna at the same time. Call it intuition because the German-Austrian soldier ended up helping my grandfather escape in October 1943. 

In 1998 I told David Huda's amazing life story in Drømmeren fra Palæstina (The Dreamer From Palestine). It was my first best seller in Denmark and was later translated into French as Le Reveur de Palestine (Gaia Editions, 2005). One day I hope it will come out in English and in many other languages as well.

Needless to say, I miss my whole family like crazy these days. They all survived the Second World War, but one of them died in June 1945. That story you can read as well in Drømmeren fra Palæstina. You can download the ebook (ebog) here from Arnold Busck in Danish.

 

My novelized biography from 1998 (Lindhardt & Ringhof) came out in five editions. The book sold out a long time ago, but it was re-released as an audiobook last year. You can download the Danish audiobook here and listen to it immediately http://www.altfortalt.dk/17572-drommeren-fra-palastina.html

I presented the French edition at the book festival Litterature Europeenne Cognac in France in 2006. I still count that as one of my greatest moments as a novelist.  You can still buy the French edition from Gaia Editions on Amazon.

 

 My mother Marie Søndergaard Huda in Dalarne, Sweden in late 1944. 

 

My grandmother Marie Angelique Søndergaard Huda and my mother half a year before the German occupation. 

 David Huda wrote his own life story in 1950 called Fra Haifa til Hammerum Herred. Funnily enough, my novelized biography from 1998 was much closer to the truth than his own autobiography, because my grandfather chose to leave out some of the most dramatic and painful events. I put them in which was important to my mother as well.

I partly based The Dreamer from Palestine on his book, my mother's recollection, and most of all, my own imagination. There were so many holes and half-truths in my grandfather's story that I used it as a template to write an epic novel about one of 20th century Denmark's first immigrants. But I'm still loyal to what actually happened in Safed, Jaffa, Jerusalem, Kibæk, Herning, Copenhagen, and Sweden during my maternal granddad's 82 years on planet earth.

God bless you David, Erik, Marie, and Marie. I hope you read this blog wherever you are.

........

Homage to Indie Book Stores Everywhere. What Would We Do Without You?

In a small town on Spanish Ibiza, there's a small book store called Libro Azul. Earlier this summer, I went there with a friend to buy her a small gift. My first choice going in was Siddharta by Hermann Hesse, followed by The Magus by John Fowles, and The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Murakami (Arundhati Roi's The God of Small Things or Olga Tokarczuk's House of Day, House of Night would be great, too)

I knew it was a long shot that a small indie store would have those books in English. I expected a bland soup of Da Vinci Codes, 1001 Shades of Gray, and icy Swedish thrillers where even the prose has been viciously beheaded. My friend and I walked straight to the small English section that consisted of about three hundred books, and to my shock this small independent book store in sleepy Santa Gertrudis on Ibiza had the first three!

That's right. Out of three hundred books in English, Siddharta, The Magus, and The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle were all there!

"What a fantastic selection you have," I said to the owner, trying hard not to hug him to death and shower him with the kind of atrocious kisses you would expect from deranged novelists.

"I want people to read good stuff," he said with a shrug, "so when they ask for a bad book, I try to convince them to buy a good one." He picked up The Big Book of Pussy that was lying on the front desk for all kids to see. "With a few exceptions, of course," he added with a big smile.

A few minutes later we walked out of the store, with the firm belief that independent book stores will survive absolutely everything, including cockroaches and who knows, maybe even Amazon?

A young reader dreaming of Harry Potter and Pippi Longstocking?  What would she do in a world devoid of small indie book stores that prefer pulp from the sublime?  Even kids can't be online all the time. So I've been told, anyway.
******