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Main Street
N.Y. poet Ackerman takes part in Montalvo series
By Mary Ann Cook
AT MONTALVO: Diane Ackerman never knows "what kind of book I'm coming down with next." That phrase indicates her obsessive nature and her massive research, whenever she starts a new project. Ackerman is a poet/essayist/naturalist who read from her works at Montalvo recently.
Creativity runs in her family, she says, and stick-to-it-tiveness, as well. She cites a recently deceased aunt who performed belly dances well into her 80s, despite mastectomies and encroaching age. "She just kept adding veils. And performed for older and older audiences who couldn't really see her anyway."
Ackerman's own path leans more toward nature than navels. One of her recent books is A Natural History of My Garden, which describes with lyric grace and careful observation the deer and other wildlife, flora and fauna rampant through her wooded property in Ithaca, N.Y.
She has also written A Natural History of the Senses and A Natural History of Love. She gets unusual assignments: At the moment she is absorbed in writing a foreword about Shakespeare's brain. What was it that made him so creative?
About the preciousness of life: "Ransom each day" is Ackerman's advice. She says wonder is the strongest element in her personal periodic table. And that rediscovering innocence and wonder is the primary aim, resource and bulwark for a writer and nature lover.
Others in the Expressionists series literary talks at Montalvo, are Anne Lamott on Oct. 29, and Terry Gross, Nov. 10. Both talks are sold out.
COMMUNITY: Jennie Magid founded Hospice of the Valley after the death of first her mother and father and then her husband, Paul--all in a short space of time--dramatized for her the imperative need for such a service for the terminally ill.
Magid is still very much in the thick of things, community-service-wise. She's an honorary member of the hospice board, for starters. And she helps fundraise for the Health Trust as a member of the grants committee and for the Youth Science Institute.
She's on the board of the applied theology section of the Grand Theological Union at UC-Berkeley. An avid opera- and theatergoer, she's the grandmother of seven.
Recently her children gave her a bang-up 70th birthday in Seattle. Those offspring are talented folks, too. Oldest son Paul is one of the Flying Karamazov Brothers, a mix of comedy, acrobatics and music that performs on Broadway, with symphonies and elsewhere.
Morgan is a Santa Cruz dermatologist and Victoria Barklow works in the financial side of Matrix Semiconductor. Barklow was also one of the 10 original people with Palm Pilot. Yikes.
APTITUDE FOUND: LaVonne McCarthy is a flight attendant for American Airlines--for 22 years--and mother of two who wanted to explore her options at this point in her life. So she hied herself to Johnson O'Connor Research Institute in San Francisco to see what she was suited for.
The process takes two half-days of testing and one-half day of reviewing results. The testing showed McCarthy has a talent for marketing, a field she had never considered. After attending a career night at UC-Santa Cruz, she signed up for marketing classes this fall.
Meanwhile, daughter Meghan, who also took the testing, is off for her freshman year at UCLA. Testing young people at that age gives a stronger sense of direction, too, McCarthy says.
One of the most provocative questions the ideaphoria part of the testing posed was "What would you say to people today if no one had the ability to talk the next day?" Another maxim that impressed McCarthy was "Aptitude ignored is more frustrating than performing a job you're not suited for."
HIF FUNDRAISER: Realtors in five area cities have combined forces to fight homelessness in the South Bay. They held their third annual "Home for the Holidays" fundraiser in late September. The event was expected to raise $60,000 for the Housing Industry Foundation.
H for the H was held at Sacred Heart Church and included an auction, raffle, hors d'oeuvres, music and dancing. The grand prize was a trip to Hawaii. Robert Reid and Debra Patterson were the co-chairpersons. Cities taking part are Saratoga, Los Gatos, Cupertino, Sunnyvale and Santa Clara.
"The funds will be put to work immediately to prevent local families from losing their housing," says Reid.
SHORTS II: On tap at the Gaslighter Theater in Campbell on Oct. 15, at 1:30 p.m. is a staged reading of seven short plays, finalists in the Silicon Valley Playwrights Association Festival of New Plays. I only mention this because I'm one of the playwrights. A staged reading is one of the steps leading to full production.
NEW SPIN: Here's a convention with an unusual spin to it: The Carousel Association Convention. Well, Jim and Kik Sugai are just back from Cleveland where they attended that very event and report it was quite a lark. A new circle of friends, perhaps. Jim, retired from LG Parks and Rec, is one of those volunteers who tends to the Oak Meadow carousel.
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Los Gatos, California Since 1881
