Category Archives: California

THE FINE ART OF LETTER WRITING

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GARDEN BEHIND JACK LONDON’S COTTAGE (Public Domain)

THE FINE ART OF LETTER WRITING

by

Karen Fayeth (Oh Fair New Mexico)

Over this past weekend on our fun boondoggle of a vacation tour, The Good Man and I found ourselves up in Sonoma, California. Land of wines, a California Mission, and a fantastic historic plaza. Beautiful, wonderful Sonoma.

Another fabulous feature of Sonoma is that the writer Jack London lived there for many years. He and his second wife built an enormous home out in the tall redwoods, which sadly burned down, never to be rebuilt. They built a smaller cottage, and in fact, Jack London is buried there near the site of his home. This location, the ruins of the big house and London’s grave are all part of the Jack London State Historic Park due for closure in 2012 because of ongoing California budget woes.

Since both The Good Man and I are avid readers, we were thrilled to take a tour of the site.

One of my favorite parts of the museum was the many letters both to and from Jack that are on public display. He was quite the articulate one.

Here’s one that especially resonated with me. It’s a rejection letter from the editors at The Curtis Publishing Company in Philadelphia. I believe this was a query to the Saturday Evening Post.

Here’s what it says:

Dear Sir

We have found the “Sunlanders” a story of exceptional interest. We should wish to give it a place in our columns were it not our policy to exclude the tragic from the magazine.

We thank you cordially for giving us an opportunity to examine this manuscript, and hope that you have in hand some tales of a more cheerful manner.

Very truly yours,

The Editors

So, you know. Ouch. Your story? Rocked. But it’s sad. We don’t *do* sad. Write something happy, why don’t you?

Of course, this is also a very strong example, perhaps, of a writer not doing their homework before querying a magazine. I might be guilty of this.

This is but one of the many rejection letters that London received over the course of his notable writing career. He’d wallpapered his cabin in Oakland with them and there were many more to go. His first book was rejected 600 times.

Now that’s tenacity.

Then there’s this letter, a brief note included in the collection with no explanation:

It says:

Dear Comrade – I can’t read your letter. I’ve wasted twenty minutes, ruined my eyesight and lost my temper, and I can’t make out what you have written.

Try it over again and more legibly.

Sincerely yours,

Jack London

PS I can’t even make out your name

Oooh, rasty, rasty Jack. Love it.

But my favorite, far and beyond the best of them all was a two pager regarding some delinquent payments.

It’s a doozy.

Here’s the text:

Messrs M. Clark and Sons,

Gentlemen:

In reply to yours of December 26, 1913, addressed to Mrs. Shepard, which Mrs. Shepard has kindly forwarded to me. I am glad she forwarded to you the letter I sent her the other day.

Before we get to the business end of it, let me tackle the mental end of it, namely, your inability to understand my remark that if you had collected the $1000 when it was due, I would not be pinched for it now. The funniest thing is, that it is just that $1000 I am pinched for now. Put yourself in my place: Mrs. Shepard had charge of the house building and the bill paying. I earned the money. Mrs. Shepard always let me know roughly what bills and expenses were paid each month. Anything that was left over I spent. Naturally, since the $1000 was not collected at the time it was due, it was left over, and I spent it. You know what a dead horse is—–this $1000 is now a dead horse to me. I cannot unspend the spending of it in other directions. Please know that I am very busy, that I travel around a great deal, and that I do not keep up from moment to moment in the details of work performed for me by others. Not until the house burned down did I learn that a first payment due you had not been requested by you.

Now to the business end of it. Here is the situation in a nutshell: I have had what I call a real hard year. No drunken sailor ever spent money more lavishly than I have been compelled to spend it in the past several months on law and lawyers, in a battle line that encircled the globe. Every copyright I possessed was attacked, and I was being robbed by pirate motion picture companies, not only of motion picture rights in my stories, but of book rights, dramatic rights, translation rights, second-serial rights, reprint rights and all other rights whatsoever. I have just now won that fight. Please believe me when I tell you that I am still nursing my financial wounds. By the opening months of 1914, money will be pouring in on me. But I haven’t any $1000 cash right now that I can rationally afford using to pay a dead horse. On the other hand, if I should be sued, I would see my way to paying the money, plus the legal expenses and costs, and shrug my shoulders and get along all right.

But you have so far been so eminently kind and satisfactory (too eminently kind for that matter), that I feel impelled to make a suggestion builded upon your own suggestion, namely, of a note. If you will take a note from me for the total sum of money at stake, payable in six months, I will have that note lifted before the six months are up.

I can only tell you that we are going ahead as fast as possible for the rebuilding of the house. Men are chopping down trees at the present time, which will go into the new house.

Sincerely yours,

Jack London

This letter made me laugh out loud. Makes me want to take a few lines from his work the next time I have to write a gripe to someone who has ticked me off.

Here’s a good example: Dear Sirius Radio, it’s a dead horse, I’m not going to sign up with your service again. I’ve been spending money as lavishly as any sailor ever did (*cough*iPad*cough*) and I’m tapped out. Now go away.

Good ol’ Jack. One hell of a writer.

VACATION – CARMEL BY THE SEA

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Mission San Carlos Borroméo del río Carmelo, also known as the Carmel Mission, is a Roman Catholic mission church in Carmel, California. It is on the National Register of Historic Places and a U.S. National Historic Landmark. It was the headquarters of the original upper Las Californias Province missions headed by Father Junípero Serra from 1770 until his death in 1784. MORE [Wikipedia]

Our original intention in going to Carmel was the annual Bach Festival. Carmel isn’t too far from my place – about two hours – unless I’m driving. I wasn’t this time, but I was co-pilot. We left at 8:30 a.m. to make an 11:00 a.m. concert. Thankfully we didn’t buy our tickets ahead of time. We arrived at 3:30 p.m. after an extended tour of several highways, not all of which I remember. A bit longer and we’d have been in Los Angeles.

The Mission San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo (1770) is in Carmel. It is one of the twenty-one Spanish missions built during the colonial era when Spain ruled New Spain (1521-1821), which eventually became the Estados Unidos Mexicanos (Mexico). Juan Carlos, the king of Spain, had heard of the incursions that the English, Germans, and Russians were making in North America and wanted a foothold for Spain. From New Spain, he sent a soldier (Gaspar de Portolá) to plant the Spanish flag and a priest (Junípero Serra) to plant the cross, as some say “a sinner and a saint.”

It’s a mixed thing – much like the zoo visit described in another post – to visit the missions. The architecture and gardens are lovely and these days they are peaceful places. Their history is, however, marked by the decimation of the native peoples due to illness (disease brought in by Europeans and to which the native peoples had no immunity), enforced labor, and other abuses.

Currently, the Carmel Mission has the advantage of being active as a parish church and school and is in repair and open to the public. In addition to the church, there are several small museum galleries on the property from which you can learn much – albeit one-sided – history. One gallery explores the mission restoration that began in the late 1800s and another provides history of notable European families. There is a gallery with the cell in which the religious leader of the mission expansion, Father Junipero Serra, slept during his life there and in which he died. His tomb is in the church. There is also a rotating art gallery. All interesting. All worth your time at just $6.50 per person. If you want to know the native side of the story, though, you will have to do your homework. The original peoples of the area where the Esselen who were eventually pushed south to Big Sur by the Ohlone. For native view of the history, link HERE.

Carmel-by-the-Sea is a lush and lovely town … so beautiful that artists and writers lust to visit it and to live there. It’s old art colony was described in The Valley of the Moon by Jack London.

Jack London (1876-1916)

American novelist, journalist, and activist

You can smell the ocean from anywhere in Carmel, even if you can’t see it. Carmel is hilly and rich in winding streets, dense tree canopies, and dark green foliage, including the dancing shapes of the dark cypress trees by the water. The restaurants and hotels are fabulous, including The Cypress Inn in which Doris Day has a part-ownership. Her love of dogs is well know, so pets are allowed. It’s great fun to dine outside and watch the pups and their peps. Carmel is also the town that Clint Eastwood put on the map when he became mayor in 1986. He owns the Hog’s Breath Inn Restaurant and Bar and the  Mission Ranch Hotel and Restaurant. I haven’t been to either one. Can’t make a recommendation.

This photograph by Arnold Genthe was taken in c. 1906-1911 and it captures just what comes to mind when I think of Carmel.

And here is a slide-show tour:

Credits ~ Mission video upload to YouTube by ; Mission photo courtesy of Stephen Lea under Creative Commons Attribtion-Share Alike; Jack London photo courtesy of Bancroft Library, Berkeley, CA; Arnold Genthe’s photograph courtesy of Wikipedia; Carmel video slide show courtesy of .

Related pieces: Eighteen Things To Do at Carmel-by-the-Sea

VACATION – THE ZOO

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Zoo animals are ambassadors for their cousins in the wild. Jack Hanna, American Zookeeper, Director Emeritus of the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium, and host of Jack Hanna’s Animal Adventures (1993-2008)

My dearest and oldest friend in California was here from Roseville to visit and there was nothing she wanted to do more than go to the San Francisco Zoo, an adventure that I know pales beside everyday life for our friends in South Africa. Sigh! Oh well, it’s the best we can do …

THE SAN FRANCISCO ZOO rests in southwest corner of the city between the freshwater Lake Merced and the Great Highway, which follows the Pacific coast.

The Great Highway with the Pacific Coast to the right.

The San Francisco Zoo houses some 280 species on 100 acres. Gone are the elephants. Lulu packed her trunk in 2005 and headed to the Sierra Foothills (wine country) for sanctuary and more space. This was after the deaths of two elephants and community demands for at least fifteen acres of habitat for each elephant. This was the only thing that distressed May. She loves elephants and was disappointed not to get to see them. I hadn’t the heart to tell her why they’re no longer at this zoo. The other animals now seem to have a fair amount of space and natural surroundings: water, grassy knolls, little hills, trees … The best for me were the giraffes. I’m always amazed that such gangly creatures are so graceful.

After four hours of rambling around the zoo, we drove over to the coast to breathe the clean salt air and hear the roar of the ocean … just about as much fun and not nearly as fearsome as the roaring lions . . . and here I am now … gone from big cats to little …”baby” sitting with grandkitty … No roars. Just a lot of petulant meows!

Gypsy of The Cat’s Meow fame ignoring me.

Credits ~ Video upload to YouTube by . The Great Highway (looking south from Sutro Heights Park) by Octoferret under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 License. Giraffe courtesy of MorgueFile. Gypsy courtesy of my MacBook.