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Jay Magidson – Author

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Jay Magidson – Author

Category Archives: books

Sleep Well My Dear Friend

11 Friday Aug 2017

Posted by Jay Magidson in books

≈ 2 Comments

On August 9, 2017, my dear friend, Eva Cellini passed away.  My heart is broken.

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Eva in her studio 2001, photo credit: Gabriella Fabian

Eva and I are friends for almost 30 years (I use the present tense because love cannot die).  We would speak of the word friend as sacred, that too many threw the word around without meaning.  And indeed it has a deep, spiritual meaning for both of us.  It is love for another’s soul.  I have that for Eva and will miss our talks desperately.

swan

Swan by Eva Cellini, oil on board

We met in New York in 1991 when her husband Joseph was showing his artwork at my father’s gallery.  She was in her early 60s and me in my early 30s.  Almost my age now, what a circle.  She sent photos of her paintings to my gallery in Aspen.  I liked them, but hesitated to show them, not sure they were a fit.  Ingrid (my soon to be wife) saw the photos and fell in love instantly, insisting we show her work.  She called Eva that day and made it happen.  This began a long and amazing relationship for the three of us – Ingrid, Eva and me.  There was an instant connection, like people meeting again after many years apart.  Between Ingrid and me, I think we have spoken almost every week to Eva since then.  About art, science, literature, spirituality, the universe, the infinite and the finite.  Eva was insatiably curious, almost like a child about everything.  Our talks would continue for hours.

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Homage to Eva, by Ingrid Dee Magidson, 2007

Ingrid, now my wife, became instant friends with Eva, like sisters, though Eva was decades older.  When Ingrid began to explore her artistic nature, Eva inspired her, and there is much in Ingrid’s work that comes from Eva’s influence and support.  It makes me marvel at the nature of the universe, placing the right person in our path at the right time.  I believe Ingrid inspired Eva late in her artistic career as well, to reach into new and unknown territory.  They fed each other like only artists can do.

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Eva in her studio, ca. 1993

Eva was born in Hungary in 1925.  Her mother was a dancer and never married her father a writer.  Eva loved her mother dearly but would say how ill prepared she was to have a child.  So Eva was mostly raised by her stern, humorless grandparents who tried to stifle her artistic bent.  In 1939 World War II came to Hungary with all the violence and tragedy it could muster.  She told me of one horrific experience that seared itself onto my heart.  One day walking to school, she saw the dead body of her best friend lying on the street.  She was not allowed to stop, or even linger over her fallen friend, a fleeting glance was all she was allowed to say goodbye.

EvaWithWhitePanther

Eva in her studio ca. 2000

Eva’s birth father was Jewish, a death sentence in those days.  When he was arrested by the Nazi occupiers, it was only by her mother’s fierce loyalty and bravery that she was able to free him.  Towards the end of the war, things became so dangerous for anyone with a drop of Jewish blood that the teenage Eva was hidden by friends in their apartment.  One day one side of their building was destroyed by a bomb.  They continued to live in the shattered apartment.  They survived somehow, as did her parents.

IsabellaWithPurpleIris

My daughter, Isabella in Eva’s Studio, ca. 2005

Unfortunately, the cruelty did not end after the war.  The Soviet occupation of Hungary brought new and different horrors.  Eva began working in an art factory, a propaganda arm of the government where posters and fliers were created.  Images of rising officials would one day be plastered on every wall, only to disappear the next, never allowed to be spoken of again.  Her coworkers would sometimes disappear and no one was allowed to speak of them or even acknowledge that they had ever existed.

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Knight of the Cabbage by Eva Cellini, How she felt arriving in NYC without speaking English.

Eva met her beloved Joseph at this art factory, an extraordinary talent.  He was trained to paint like the old masters and was sought out for his skill.  The two became lovers and created a secure life.  That all changed in 1956.  The revolution was triggered with the death of a child by authorities at a soccer match.  The tensions had been boiling for years and this small event erupted into a spontaneous uprising throughout the country.  The Soviet occupation moved tanks and soldiers into Budapest to quell the rebellion.  Thousands fled their homeland, Eva and Joseph among them.

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Drawing of Nude by Joseph Cellini

With the clothes on their back, a few friends and infinite courage, they made their way through Austria, Italy and ultimately to New York City.  Eva spoke no English at the time, Joseph only a little.  She once described her experience to me upon arriving in New York.

me

Monkey in Armor by Eva Cellini

 

 “Everyone was so beautifully dressed and they looked so open, ready to speak to each other about anything.  The many beautiful stores had everything imaginable for sale and everyone was so well fed.  Their eyes shined with ideas and excitement and there was an optimism that was contagious, that anything was possible.  I didn’t believe it was authentic at first, where were the police, the soldiers that would take everything away.  I was so guarded for so long, I didn’t know how to accept this new freedom.”

Beatle86

Bug by Eva Cellini, oil on board

But accept it she did.  Eva, through all her horrible experiences had an undying optimism that permeated her being to the last.  She believed in people, always surprised and saddened when they disappointed her.

red_leaf

The Red Leaf by Eva Cellini, based on an O’Henry story

Eva and Joseph thrived in New York City.  It was the golden age of illustration, a time when artists like Norman Rockwell and others would be paid thousands for their cover art.  They made enough to move out of the city and buy a home on a hill in Leonia, New Jersey, an artist enclave just on the other side of the George Washington Bridge.  Eva and Joseph transformed the attic of their home into a beautiful studio, windows and skylights bringing in the precious light.  They worked side by side until Joseph’s death in the mid-1990s.

Empty_chair28x24

The Empty Chair by Eva Cellini, an homage to Joseph and the first painting Eva finished after his death

It was Joseph who encouraged Eva to turn to fine art in the 1980s, to break free of the deadlines, commissions and rules of illustration, to paint what she loved for herself.  Again Eva thrived, garnering a one-person show at the prestigious Auberbach art gallery on Madison Avenue.  She loved surrealism and that is what she painted for 40 years.  Work that has found its way to collections across the world, including Saudi Arabian princesses, the Woman’s Museum in Washington and my humble home.

eva-before-the-show-full

Eva resting after we installed her last show in my Aspen Gallery in 2008

Eva never took down Joseph’s easel in their studio, nor did she move his bed that remained opposite hers for 60 years.   Eva dreamed of one day meeting Joseph again and now she has.  I will miss our talks, but I only have to look into my own heart to feel her again.  I can hear her voice at the end of a three hour conversation.“Sleep well my dear friend.”

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Requiem by Eva Cellini.  Eva loved the drama of clouds and gray was her favorite color

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The Mother of All Fears

25 Saturday Mar 2017

Posted by Jay Magidson in books, death, fear, Threshold of the Mind

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

audiobooks, death, fear, religion

Drowned, burned, buried alive, starved, death by thirst, falling off a building, airplane crash, suffocation, are just a few of the truly great fears.  But there is one greater, one that is the source of all others.  It is so insidious we have to bury it deep in our subconscious, push it far away; so heinous we must deny it utterly.  It is in fact so awful, so unimaginable and indescribable that we can’t even conceive of it.

bosch

More Frightening Than Death

And the greatest of all horrors is that we must all face it – that we are all headed straight for this ultimate terror.  It is not death, we know that one.  Death is certain, natural and inevitable.  Many have conquered the fear of death.  It is wise to live well, with intention, because we know it will someday end, will simply go out like the final flicker of a candle.

Humanity staves off the fear of death with religion, science and rationalization.  But we fail to look deeper at the sustained myths of living eternally on a cloud in the sky or being reincarnated.  Even burning in Hell for all eternity is easier to deal with than facing the truth.

alone

One Day We Will Lose Our Self

The consciousness that allows us to comprehend our individuality – our separateness from the billions of other men and women – will absolutely end.  What we call self, that unique person that we spend a lifetime developing and understanding will simple cease to be.  All the money, power, and accomplishments cannot change that.  Worst of all, is that it is inconceivable.  Even the deepest meditation involves mind.  When the mind ends, we end.

What if we could experience that before we die; know what it is like to be a no-mind, a no-self?  Would you try it, travel the unimaginable journey; face this fear and perhaps come back to tell others?

zombie

Zombies as a Metaphor

Zombie stories and movies fascinate our imagination.  We hate these mindless creatures and revel in the men and women who try to survive the cartoonish world of a zombie apocalypse, those brave souls who would bash in the heads of the undead.  But these stories are fairy-tales, unreal, denying nature and physics.  Zombies are just a metaphor for the greater fear.  We use these stories to crack the impossible nature of what we must all face.    It is the no-mind we recoil from.

The development of advanced technology may allow us to experience nothingness, may even force it upon us.  Then the ultimate fear will be realized and the choice will have to be made: eternal life without self or death and the unknown.

cropped-threshold-frontcover
Threshold of the Mind faces the ultimate fear.  Can you?

Available now in print and audiobook – Buy it Today!

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My Favorite Poem at 160 Years Old

20 Monday Mar 2017

Posted by Jay Magidson in books

≈ Leave a comment

arachne

Les Fleur du Mal (The Flowers of Evil), a collection of 101 poems by Charles Baudelaire was first published in 1857.  Six of the poems were deemed so perverse and subversive, the French police rounded up and seized all available copies of the book.  Baudelaire and his publisher were arrested and tried on offenses to public decency.  That conviction wasn’t overturned until 1949.

Aren’t you just a little curious?

To the Reader

Folly and error, stinginess and sin
Possess our spirits and fatigue our flesh.
And like a pet we feed our tame remorse
As beggars take to nourishing their lice.

Our sins are stubborn, our contrition lax;
We offer lavishly our vows of faith
And turn back gladly to the path of filth,
Thinking mean tears will wash away our stains.

On evil’s pillow lies the alchemist
Satan Thrice-Great, who lulls our captive soul,
And all the richest metal of our will
Is vaporized by his hermetic arts.

Truly the Devil pulls on all our strings!
In most repugnant objects we find charms;
Each day we’re one step further into Hell,
Content to move across the stinking pit.

As a poor libertine will suck and kiss
The sad, tormented tit of some old whore,
We steal a furtive pleasure as we pass,
A shriveled orange that we squeeze and press.

Close, swarming, like a million writhing worms,
A demon nation riots in our brains,
And when we breathe, death flows into our lungs,
A secret stream of dull, lamenting cries.

If slaughter, or if arson, poison, rape
Have not as yet adorned our fine designs,
The banal canvas of our woeful fates,
It’s only that our spirit lacks the nerve.

But there with all the jackals, panthers, hounds,
The monkeys, scorpions, the vultures, snakes,
Those howling, yelping, grunting, crawling brutes,
The infamous menagerie of vice,

One creature only is most foul and false!
Though making no grand gestures, nor great cries,
He willingly would devastate the earth
And in one yawning swallow all the world;

He is Ennui! -with tear-filled eye he dreams
Of scaffolds, as he puffs his water-pipe.
Reader, you know this dainty monster too;
-Hypocrite reader,-fellowman,-my twin!

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Books are Dead – Long Live Stories

15 Wednesday Mar 2017

Posted by Jay Magidson in books, fiction, Science Fiction, Threshold of the Mind, Virtual Reality

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

audiobooks, creativity, future, libraries, Sci Fi, Virtual Reality

Long_Room_Interior,_Trinity_College_Dublin,_Ireland_-_Diliff

I love books.  I have hundreds in my library, have read hundreds more.  I get a warm comfortable feeling when I go to a bookstore or public library.  But I also know that the end is near for books.  I’m not sad or nostalgic about any of it.  Things change.

Tens of thousands of years ago, long before speech, man told each other stories through pantomime and play acting.  They acted out their hunting adventures or mishaps, probably laughed when Grog hit his head on a rock.  You can feel the truth in this, have this genetic memory as I do.

tapestry_design_apollo_in_his_chariot_led_by_aurora

Thousands of years after that, our brains developed speech and the stories got more sophisticated, more detailed.  They were passed around, embellished, exaggerated until they became myths and legends.  Really exaggerated, like Atlas holding the world on his shoulders and Apollo pulling the sun across the sky.

Mankind lived on the earth for hundreds of thousands of years telling stories without books.  Then some clever fellow in Mesopotamia scratched symbols in the dirt and invented writing.  Someone else smeared these symbols onto parchment (no fun for the lamb by the way) and presto we have scrolls, and if they are long enough, are really just rolled up books.

parchment

Thousands of years after that, Gutenberg figured out a way to make multiple copies of the bible and by the 20th Century, we’re neck deep in books.  Millions and millions of them.  Even Hitler couldn’t burn enough to make a dent in the growing pile.

But if you look at the bigger picture, the history of humankind at approximately 500,000 years, books are still pretty new.  Writing is barely 5,000 years old, printed books only about 600 and the novel as we know it, less than 300.  And sad, though it may appear, books are going to disappear, are already disappearing, or more accurately, evolving.

Do you have children?  If not, have you ever seen one?  They love video.  In my day it was TV, “Gilligan’s island, Lost in Space.”  Horrible stuff.  Now it’s six second vines.  Amazing really, that you can tell a story in only six seconds.  YouTube, Amazon, Netflix, Hulu, Vimeo, Facebook, video is king.  We love them, devour them like chocolate on Easter.  They’re stories.

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Oh I know the argument, video and movies do the imagining for us.  Books make us create the pictures in our own head.  “The movie was pretty good, but the book was great.”  But someone had to create those stories, imagine them and how to present them.  Grog didn’t worry about that when he acted out a good hunt in front of the fire half a million years ago.  Plays are high art and movies are not?  Nonsense.  It’s all just human beings telling stories to each other.  And that’s what matters.

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Not long from now, we’ll agonize over the displacement of video and movies too.  We’ll watch and interact with Virtual Reality or maybe someday images will be beamed directly into our minds.  We can’t live without stories.  Marshall McLuhan coined the phrase, “The medium is the message.”  I think it misses the point.  We are not that different from Grog in front of the fire, maybe no different at all.  I think we’re all just kids begging dad to tell us a goodnight story and don’t really care how it gets into our heads.

Threshold of the Mind by Jay Magidson

Threshold of the Mind by Jay Magidson a novel about  mankind addicted to Virtual Reality in the near future.

Available on Amazon.com in print, kindle and audiobook.  Buy it today!

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The Light Shines Brightest in the Dark

02 Friday Dec 2016

Posted by Jay Magidson in books, discovery, distopia

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

dark fiction, edgar allan poe, heart of darkness, lovecraft, overcoming fear

My friends are sometimes surprised by the darkness of my writing.  I guess I seem reasonably happy and modestly well-adjusted in person (which seems very strange to me).  But I love the darkness, gloom, and sometimes hopelessness, of the best fiction and poetry.  As a child, I loved reading Edgar Allan Poe.  I was often disappointed by the happy Hollywood endings of the movies my parents took me to.  The characters in the Tale Tale Heart and The Cask of Amontillado didn’t have happy endings.  They died miserably and got what they deserved.  Dark, I know, but oh so satisfying.

Image result for gates of hell by rodin

So I asked myself, why is that.  Certainly, I can’t be alone.  Dante, Poe, Lovecraft, King, etc. have been writing tales that millions of people love and keep loving.  Many, like Poe and Lovecraft don’t give much, if any hope in their stories.  The darkness overwhelms the reader, yet he plods on through the dim corridors, deeper and deeper into the impenetrable mist.  Perhaps it’s like a roller coaster, the controlled fear, knowing we are basically safe, but scared into gratitude that we are alive, heart pounding in our chest, but alive. Maybe it’s schadenfreude, sharing someone else’s misery, but happy that they have it worse.  Or maybe it’s something deeper, something fundamental.

Why we Fear and Love the Dark

It is primal to fear the unknown, the darkness that shrouds the dense forest.  Do you have a pet, a cat or dog?  Why do they put their noses into dark holes in the ground?  They might smell an animal down there, but could just as easily get an eye poked or worse.  They’re curious.  And so are we.  It’s built into our DNA; we have to know what’s under that log (rattle snake, probably), in that cave (rabid wolf, most definitely), or in the abandoned mental institution (vindictive ghosts, of course).

Image result for dore adam and eve snake

We go into the dark to shine our light into it, to expand our lives by testing our fear, pushing our own boundaries a tiny bit.  The worst thing God did for Adam and Eve was to make life too easy.  So he gave them a talking snake, pretty scary, right.

The Gift of Darkness

All decent stories have a problem, a challenge for the protagonist to overcome.  The darkest stories make that challenge insurmountable, tearing the fool’s eyes out for sticking his face into the fox hole.  One of my favorite books of all time is Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad.  It’s written with such mastery that the reader is drawn inexorably into the deepest gloom imaginable, unable to pull free until its black conclusion and Kurtz’s dying words: “The horror, the horror.”

Image result for heart of darkness kurtz

Is it hopeless?  I don’t think so, at least that’s not the message I get from these stories or the ones I think of in my own writing.  We need the dark so we have a place to put the light.  Shine your flashlight on a summer day – nothing.  Then do it in a subterranean cave.  Fear is a limitation, a doorway into the unknown, and the only way to expand is to cross the threshold.  Otherwise, we stay on this side of the Garden of Eden, naked and stupid.

Image result for thx 1138 final scene

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My Time Machine is Late Again

05 Sunday Jul 2015

Posted by Jay Magidson in books, humor, Science Fiction, Time Machine

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

fun with time machines, H.G. Wells, humor, Science Fiction, Time Machine, time travel

Time MachineWe love the concept of the time machine, going back in time and fixing things or warning our younger selves of imminent danger. Since H.G. Wells wrote his classic story, science fiction writers have been absolutely fascinated with the possibilities and tried hundreds of ways to make it work. They seem to always get in trouble and never seem to have all that much fun with them, however. So with that in mind, I came up with a short list of:

Fun things to do with your time machine:

  • Go 5 minutes back in time and destroy your time machine before you get in just to see what happens.
  • Go back in time and ruin your parent’s marriage before you were born.
  • Go back in time 1 minute and greet yourself. There are now two of you. Do this 999 times more, so that there are 1000 of you. If you have the patience, fill the whole earth with yourself.
  • Go back in time one minute so there are two of you. Then zoom 20 years into the future and get all your old you’s memories and experiences and kill your old self. Repeat and continue until you are 1 million years old.
  • Go back in time with you and your time machine 1 minute, so there are 2 yous and 2 time machines. Each of you repeats this until there are 7 billion time machines. Give one to each person on earth, sit back and enjoy the show.
  • Go back to 1933 and kick Hitler in the balls, go back one minute before that and do it again. Repeat.
  • Take your girlfriend to the top of the Empire State Building. Tell her you’ll be right back. Take your time machine to earlier that evening and rearrange the CitiCorp sign so it lights up with her name on the tower. Return one minute after you said you’d be gone, point out the sign and reap the rewards.
  • Go back in time one billionth of a second over and over so you are invisible.
  • Go back to the Cretaceous (not Jurassic) period and take photographs and videos of velociraptors. Bring the photos to Steven Spielberg and explain to him once-and-for-all that they had brains the size of a pea, and were not smarter than people.
  • Find someone with a “WWJD” (what would Jesus do?) sticker. Send him back 2000 years so he can ask in person (I didn’t say anything about bringing him back).
  • Climb to the top of Mt. Everest with your time machine. Open a parachute just as you travel 10 million years into the future. Then float down onto the eroded hill below.
  • Go one year into the future and find out all the new fashions. Bring some back and wear them in your own time, then constantly brag about how you are always ahead of your time.
  • And finally, get the winning lottery numbers, horse race winner, stock market successes, and get yourself very rich indeed.

Got any more? Add them in the comments, and they had better be good. Don’t make me go back in time and break up your grandparents’ marriage.

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When There was an East Berlin

24 Wednesday Jun 2015

Posted by Jay Magidson in books, colors, discovery, fiction, Science Fiction, writing

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Berlin, Berlin Wall, Checkpoint Charlie, Copenhagen, DDR, East Germany, Eurail, Soviet Union

berlin wall- wireThe dark sky overhead threatens snow as I walk the nearly deserted streets. Ominous gray buildings with their unlit windows reflect the steely sky, glowering down at me. Out of nowhere, a lone man rushes by, I can’t see what he looks like, the collar of his long wool coat pulled up to hide his face.  He moves close enough that I hear his accented whisper, “Go home, this place is not for you.”

That was winter 1980 in a city that no longer exists today. Well, it does exist, but not its name, East Berlin. This is the real story of how I found myself in a city surrounded by razor wire and land mines.

Copenhagen

Copenhagen

I spent my final year of college in Copenhagen, Denmark, a fantastically beautiful city, full of charm and history. In between semesters, many of the foreign students traveled, bought ridiculously affordable Eurail passes and used them to go as far and as wide a possible during the two week break. I went with a friend to Germany, along the Rhine visiting castles and breweries. We parted ways to travel alone and increase the adventure. You meet people when you travel alone; you have to, or you go crazy. I learned quickly that language isn’t the biggest barrier to communication, fear is. I found that if you try to talk to someone, whether you know their language or not, you can communicate pretty well.

So somewhere in Western Germany at a youth hostel on my winter break, I decided to go to Berlin. Sounded good, why not. After World War II, Germany was divided into two countries, West Germany and the DDR (Deutsche Demokratische Republik), or East Germany, as everyone outside of the country called it. They were still divided in 1980 and I wanted to see the scary half. West Germany was like the rest of Europe, easy travel, friendly people and they honored my Eurail passes. But East Germany was verboten, off limits, a Soviet state, unknown and tempting. So crazy 20 year-old me had to go.

By this point in my European travels, I had been to Poland, Hungary and Yugoslavia, also Soviet block countries. I didn’t know it at the time, but I think I had a sense all of this would disappear in time, the separateness, the old countries held onto with the iron grip of the USSR. And I wanted to see it before it went away.

Berlin

Berlin

Berlin, the giant decadent German metropolis, was also split into East and West, a city arbitrarily cut in half. The strange thing about this arrangement was that West Berlin being in the Eastern part of Germany was surrounded by East Germany, essentially an island in another country. So when I and my fellow travelers took the train from Western Germany to West Berlin, we traveled through miles and miles of East Germany. The train was like a space craft, rushing through the forbidden void, where we were allowed to breathe the air, look out the window, but nothing more.

The train stopped just before entering Berlin in a kind of special security station. The doors were not opened and no one was allowed off the train. Soon, black uniformed police officers and dogs (yes, German Shepherds) worked their way through the compartments, inspecting bags, lifting seats and pulling parts of the ceiling down looking for illegal and smuggled substances, drugs I assumed, since I didn’t speak any German.

leaving sectorAfter an hour or so of this unnerving experience, the train continued on to Berlin. It was about 4 in the afternoon, in late December, and like most of Central Europe in the winter, dreary and cold, but it wasn’t dark. Berlin was brilliantly lit and lively. That was a long time ago, but I assume it is even more so today. A big lively, energetic city in the middle of this other country. It was a strange feeling, like they were trying to make up for their oppressed brethren by being even livelier than they had to be. “Party like it’s 1999” and all that.

I didn’t have much money, so I stayed in some youth hostel or cheap hotel. The next day, I went to the American Embassy to get a visa to visit East Berlin, that’s why I came all this way after all. The young woman at the window asked me why I wanted to do that, did I have family, business, diplomatic interests? Nope, I just wanted to see it. “Are you sure?” She asked. “Yeah, I’m sure.” I replied, not at all sure. I gave them the $25 and got a huge colorful stamp in my passport that allowed me 24 hours in East Germany. “Be sure to be back before your visa expires.” She warned me. “What happens if I don’t make it in time?” I asked. “Just be back.” She said seriously.

Berlin Wall

Berlin Wall

Of course, I didn’t have a car and you can’t exactly hitch-hike across a mine field, so I walked. This part of my travels was worth the entire trip. Forget East Germany, Berlin, lights, and whatever was on the other side of that high cinder-block wall, just walking through a military check point will satisfy almost any travel junky.

If you are under 40 years old, you may have no idea what I’m talking about, but try to understand, West Berlin was big and exciting, tall buildings, music, food, beer, you know, a modern energetic city. And East Berlin was the complete opposite, gray and dark, no lights, low rise, oppressive Soviet style buildings and probably (just to torture the Germans) bad beer. Berlin is built on a slight hill, West Berlin was on the upper slope, so those in the Eastern half could see it, look up at all that shiny fun, they just couldn’t get there. That was just cruel.

Checkpoint Charlie

Checkpoint Charlie

Friedrichstrasse or Checkpoint Charlie was one of the pathways from West to East. That’s what it was called before they pulled it all down and rejoined the two German halves back together in 1990.  The two cities were divided by a tall, ugly cinder-block wall covered in graffiti on the eastern side. It was topped with razor wire and broken glass.   After that, a wide, dead stretch of land filled with land mines ended in a tall chain-link fence, and also topped with razor wire, and you were on the western side of the city.  Every 100 feet or so, a tower rose along the fence, each housed with soldiers armed with search lights and automatic rifles, and probably heavier weapons. Imagine guards in a prison tower and multiply that by 10. Checkpoint Charlie was the route through this dead zone. It was designed for vehicles, zigzagging, so you couldn’t force your way through. As I walked through this maze of soldiers and concrete, my visa and passport was checked three times. I was frisked, smelled by dogs, asked several times what my business in East Berlin was, and reluctantly allowed into the other side.

Checkpoint Charlie

Checkpoint Charlie

Suddenly, and anti-climatically, I found myself in East Berlin with no plan, and no idea that my American passport with its current and legitimate visa was probably worth killing for. Only looking back now, do I realize how foolish and dangerous my actions had been. That scary wall and field of landmines was there for a reason, and people died regularly trying to cross it into West Berlin. But God protects children and stupid tourists.

East Berlin

East Berlin

They made me convert 100 of my precious US dollars into East German Marks. Two problems with that, 1) nothing to buy, and 2) you couldn’t take the currency out when you left. This was becoming an expensive trip for a poor college student. But I plunged on, there must be something to do here, it was a pretty big city after all. I walked into the bleak streets of East Berlin, heavy dark buildings greeted me on the wide boulevards, but there are no shops or restaurants, and more strange than that, no people. Everyone must be inside hiding from the KGB or something. I walked on, but the landscape didn’t change much and it was cold. No benches, no cafes or bookstores, no castles or even churches. This is where bad tourists go after they die, those who didn’t lead a good enough life to get into Paris. I looked back and there was West Berlin rising above on its hill, all lights and fun, and more importantly right now, food.berlin wallA little bored, but not ready to give up, I walked on. That’s when the stranger passed me. “Go home, this place is not for you.” He said in a thick German accent, gone before I even understood what he had told me.

In that moment, I realized where I was and what danger I might be in. This stranger, too afraid to even slow down and talk to me, had warned me. It was like a scene out of a Cold War spy novel. I immediately turned around and walked back toward the transfer building, constantly looking over my shoulder, starting at shadows or any stray movement. An hour later, I arrived, relatively safe in the eastern check point building . There were lots of soldiers, and thankfully a diner. I spent as much of my play money on the food as I could. Unfortunately, it was as cheap as it was terrible. I gave up and went back through Check Point Charlie, somewhat disappointed and tired.

The thing about travel adventures is that they are always better in remembrance than at the time. I didn’t really give the experience much thought in my two days in Berlin, but only later when I saw myself standing in that empty bleak city with the gray sky. Everything about it was oppressive, as if it were designed to crush the spirit of all who lived there. I’ll never forget the feeling of that city, or the man’s voice who warned me.

Colors by Jay Magidson - Now Available in Print

Colors, the book

Prologue:

I told you this story so I could explain where ideas come from. This experience gave me the idea for a short story I titled, Gray, which I wrote 30 years later. While writing it, I hadn’t realized where I had seen the gray city or the steel sky of my story. But it had stayed in my consciousness, all those years, like a seed waiting patiently to germinate. That year, I wrote eight more short stories and combined them into a book called Colors.  Only looking back now, as I write this, do I realize that all of it, the experience, the stories, even this essay is an attempt to understand and describe the feeling of East Berlin on that winter day, so long ago.

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Will Printed Books Disappear?

11 Monday May 2015

Posted by Jay Magidson in audio books, books

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Tags

audible.com, audiobooks, books, death of books, Jeff Clarke

Each year more books are published, and each year fewer books are read. We are bombarded by information. Facebook, Google, YouTube, Twitter, Netflix, Hulu, Television and a thousand other distractions draw our attention away from reading. We wake up in the middle of the night to check email or find out if our Facebook post got any likes. When we do take time to read, it might be for work, or to read long email updates from our children’s school. Sitting on the sofa in the evening curled up with a good book just doesn’t happen as often or for as long.

But people love books, don’t they?

Older people with the habit of reading, probably still do, but what about young people? When I was in school, I would see certain nerdy kids with their faces buried in a book while they slowly walked to school, on the bus, or at the lunch table. OK, I admit it, I was one of them. Sure I see kids with their faces plastered to their phones today, but not reading books, at least not very often, and not if they can help it.

It is not likely we will see books go away entirely anytime soon. But the way future society consumes information, it is unlikely books will stay the same.

How can a book not be a book?

No matter how technologically advanced we get, we are still human, still have a deep need to hear stories. It is so deep in fact, we could call it genetic. Many of us will lament the loss of books. But books are not all that old, barely a few hundred years. Before books, we told each other stories, invented plays, maybe chose some talented person to share those stories on long winter nights.

We’ll always tell stories to each other

Movies, videos, short animations captivate us because they fill that story telling/listening need in each of us. Written stories are different however, asking more of our imagination, which is more difficult to satisfy in other ways.

The Audiobook as storyteller

The audiobook is a relatively recent technological innovation whose concept is actually quite old, far older than books. The recorded voice of a performer retells a story with the energy and enthusiasm of an actor, bringing a tale to life. It is no wonder audiobooks are growing so quickly in popularity. They fit into a busy modern life, listening while driving, riding a train or even while working (if it’s mindless enough). And the lowly book gets a reprieve, while we continue to tickle our hungry imaginations.

But What About Printed Books?

Printed books made from paper, ink and glue may very well disappear one day. Technology already exists to do that. But stories will not, cannot go away, it is part of what makes us human. We may listen to stories through implanted devices in our head, watch holographic movies projected through Virtual Reality glasses, or simply absorb entire stories instantly into our augmented brains, but stories themselves will never go away.

I don’t lament the loss of books. What are they anyway, just a temporary medium, a means to get the story from writer to reader, from creator to audience. A Kindle is not a book, but reading a story on it can and is just as satisfying. An audiobook is not a storyteller sharing a tale by firelight on a winter night, but it too can be just as satisfying. Things change, ways of telling stories change, but the need to share stories never does.


Threshold of the Mind is the futuristic story of mankind whose stories come from Virtual Reality and brain augmentations, where reality is far too stark and unpleasant without them.

In print (yes, ink and paper) from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, etc.
Now in Audiobook on Audible.com read by award winner actor, Jeff Clarke

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Government and Boiled Frogs

18 Tuesday Nov 2014

Posted by Jay Magidson in audio books, books, ebook, fiction, Science Fiction, Threshold of the Mind

≈ 1 Comment

 

Q: How do you boil a frog?
A: By slowly raising the temperature.

We are the frog, the government is the water, and corporations are the flame. Corruption of government is nothing new, as old as government itself. What tells me that we are near the end of having any influence at all, is how bold and obvious the corruptors have become. The bribes (campaign contributions) have become focused, obvious and enormous. The manipulators are out in the open, bold, unapologetic. Because they know it doesn’t matter, nothing can or will happen to them. The officials they help elect will protect them while continuing to enrich each other.

capitol

Since we love to blame someone, who shall we pick?

I choose us, the people. Sure, we’ve been manipulated, but it has always been our choice. We could shake the wool off of our eyes at any time, but we never do. Our obsession with money is why. We want more and more stuff: bigger houses, new cars, faster cell phones, splashier entertainment, etc. We worship those who have a lot of money, not because they are virtuous, inspiring, or even that interesting, but simply because they have more. They have beautiful homes, clothes, jets, they get on TV, are interviewed in glossy magazines, and have scandalous 15 minute relationships with other empty shells.

Our love of money (and consequently, fame) has brought us to this point – a near breakdown of democracy. Our voices no longer matter. Like us, our politicians have sold out to the highest bidder. Why bother trying to please us, the teaming millions, when they can please a few dozen and keep the power and money they so crave. We showed them the way, they simply obeyed. Those who have lots of money buy our elected officials, who in turn help them get more money. The cycle spirals upwards at the expense of the many, squeezing more and more wealth upwards.

Here are the dry facts:

The median household income in the US continues to fall, lower today than 20 years ago (US Census, Sept. 2014). In the same period, the wealthiest 1% has gone from owning 15% of the nation’s wealth to over 40%.

Then Why should the government be more afraid than its people?

Automation and technology will take us to new heights of corruption and abuse. If you are really, really rich and you want something, why bother with the government at all? Because, eventually, if you do something really terrible, you will get exposed and possibly punished. The government holds the ultimate card – force.

But for how much longer?

Our government officials blinded by their insatiable desire for money and power, continue to make choices based on one criterion – money. So they will always sell out. Morality based on money is no morality at all. Here are the steps to our ruination.

  1. Our financial system is private, even our money supply is run by a non-governmental agency – the Federal Reserve. They finance the government, not the other way around. What is to say they can’t stop funding the government?
  2. Our prison system used to be completely run by local, state and federal governments. Now it is mostly outsourced to private companies. And our prison population has skyrocketed – 5 times more people per capita are in prison today than in 1970 and most are minorities. Coincidence?
  3. The military is beginning to supply local and state police forces with military grade weapons, serious and overwhelming firepower. Why?
  4. Automation and technology are advancing briskly in the military, spy satellites, unmanned drones, extremely accurate rockets and even computer guided bullets. Next up are unmanned tanks, robotic weapons and soldiers, insect sized spy drones, etc.
  5. Much of our military operations are already being supported and supplied by private corporations (food, fuel, infrastructure, transportation, even security). Outsourcing the actual military and police departments to private corporations is not a stretch of the imagination. They’ll be cheaper and more efficient

The End Game

Your clue to the timing of the end, will be when you read about a certain experiment, where a municipal police force is outsourced to a private corporation. Cash strapped municipalities will love the idea of stretching their thin budgets.  That is the day our democracy as we know it ends completely. When the government relinquishes its only trump card, why would there be any need for corporations to bother with them any longer? Corporations will do what they want with impunity, as they’ll have private and competing police forces working for them. Government will be superfluous.

How will the Constitution protect you then?

Want to read more?

Threshold of the Mind by Jay Magidson gives us a hard view of a corporate controlled world in the year 2080. A world where everything is for sale – even your mind.

Threshold of the Mind by Jay MagidsonAvailable at Amazon.com: print and Kindle
On Barnes & Noble: print and Nook
On Smashwords: epub and ebook (iTunes)

and coming soon:
Audio Book on Audible.com
and iTunes

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Threshold of the Mind in Audiobook Production

16 Wednesday Jul 2014

Posted by Jay Magidson in audio books, books, fiction, Jeff Clarke, Science Fiction, Threshold of the Mind

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

acx, audible.com, audiobooks, Jeff Clarke, Sci Fi, Science Fiction, Threshold of the Mind

Threshold of the Mind will be available as an audiobook this coming August.  Actor Jeff Clarke (Madmen, Zack Files, Chicago, etc) will be doing the narration.  He has a fabulous voice and a great understanding of the story.  It will be fun to listen to his interpretation.

Threshold-FrontCoverThe process has taken several months and has been relatively smooth.  The production is being facilitated by ACX a division of Amazon.  It was decided to go this route because of their broad reach in distribution: Amazon.com, iTunes, Audible.com, and more.  This growing segment of the book publishing industry is expanding dramatically, though not without its challenges.  The cost is too high for most self-published authors and the royalties have changed in the last few months.  It is no surprise that the listening audience for audiobooks is growing rapidly; long commutes, airline travel, exercise, the ease of listening on mobile devices and the improved production quality make it a great boon for new books.

There will be audio excerpts from the completed book in the coming weeks.  Stay tuned, it is a really exciting and rewarding project.  Big thanks to Jeff Clarke.

Threshold of the Mind is available at Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble (stores and online), smashwords, iTunes and many other venues.

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