24.12.03
By Kathleen Dixon Donnelly
Author Robert Parker’s wife: “Wait—they’re going to pay you an obscene amount of money, just to show up once a week and teach one class on Wednesdays?! And you don’t know whether you should take it?!”
Parker: “Yeah, but every Wednesday…!”
Wednesday, December 24, 2003, Hollywood, FL
It was a building year.
We Steeler fans have learned the double-edged-sword of that phrase.
52 Wednesdays ago I began this blog and promised to write it every Wednesday. I did!
The coming of the new year means that it’s time to make some decisions about what to do for an encore. As a result of the brainstorming session I did with my husband Tony that I described in last week’s blog, there are going to be some changes made.
We’re going to trade Bettis for….Oh, no. Wait. That’s the Steelers’ changes.
The first change is: No more “Every Wednesday” on blogger.com.
On a relatively weekly basis I will be writing and producing a 15-minute series for the WRLN-FM’s Radio Reading Service (RRS) called “Friends & Neighborhoods” about people and places around South Florida. It will only be heard by visually impaired people in South Florida who have a special receiver, but Tony helped me put up a new blog at www.kdonnellycom.easyjournal.com where I will post these scripts as I finalize them. Some of the early ones will sound familiar to you regular blog readers, so you don’t need to rush over there right now. There will be transcripts of interviews I do with interesting South Floridians (“Friends”) as well as descriptions of places we visit (“Neighborhoods”). I might write it on Wednesdays, just for old time’s sake.
The second change is: Having people read me for free has been great, but it’s time to take baby steps towards being a paid writer. I’ve discovered some great sites where people can download pieces by paying small amounts (through PayPal) or order as a printed book. A lot of the better blogs, listed under informative titles, are up on www.RedPaper.com and are available for 25 cents each. A few pieces that I have written about my writers, “Such Friends,” are up on a more sophisticated site, www.Lulu.com, for $1 each. Some of the pieces I did for the Radio Reading Service about our adventures on Semester at Sea, called Dixon Donnelly at Sea, are also there. On either of these sites you can put “Donnelly” in the search feature and it will list anything I have put up (along with some book on boxing for some reason). I’d be thrilled to have some more sales and would be very interested in what you think of these sites.
But these two are part of larger changes I worked out in the more detailed version of the marketing plan that was last week’s blog.
The third change is: I am reactivating K. Donnelly Communications, which some of you may remember from my Pittsburgh days. “Dixon Donnelly Communications” sounded nice, but I really like my “K.” It’s not embroidered on my sweaters, but I’m not ready to give it up.
The fourth change is: A new monthly e-mail newsletter, called “Hands On Creativity,” which will be sent to anyone who wants it. This will replace my “Such Friends” newsletter that was sent to regular fans who attended my presentations about early 20th century writers’ salons; the new one will include information about those presentations and those writers.
If you would like to make sure that you will be included, e-mail me at kdonnellycom@aol.com.
This leads to the fifth change: Tony and I are working on putting up a K. Donnelly Communications website. Our Luddite days are over. When it’s fit for public consumption, we’ll announce the address in Hands on Creativity.
In addition to leading me to a point in my life where I can support my half of the Dixon-Donnelly household by only doing things that I like to do, the newsletter and website will also provide information about creative ideas and creative people. All those funny mind teasers that I’ve been driving you guys crazy with for the past few years? They are now called “Do It Yourself Creative” and there will be lots of new ones.
This started out as a “How can I earn a living?” exercise and has evolved into a “What am I going to be when I grow up?” exercise. It’s still evolving, but by Sunday, January 4th, it will be launched in a fixed form. It’s been a good “Do It Yourself Creative” exercise for me personally. The cobbler’s son has no shoes, advertising agencies never advertise themselves, and I needed a “Whack on the Side of the Head.”
Originally I was planning that this last blog would be a summary of the past year, but I think it’s better that it has focused on the future. I found quite a few classrooms, half of them in other countries. But next term is the first regular semester in 20 years when I am not be scheduled to teach anywhere. I don’t know if that’s a bad thing. It’s time for a break.
For those of you who want to know what we’ve been doing this past 12 months, I can only say that one or both of us:
Taught in the Bahamas, the Middle East and Fort Lauderdale,
Visited Paris, Brittany, Brighton, Key West and Okeechobee,
Went to three weddings and no funerals,
Had one ER visit, one doctor visit, and one dentist visit,
Got two new kittens and kept two old cars,
Got two new kittens and two old cars fixed,
Made some left-brain people more right-brained,
Worked hard for tips at Hometown Buffet,
Delivered phone directories,
Rented a new office and the same old apartment,
Exercised thrice and walked on Hollywood Beach once, most weeks
Kissed, hugged, laughed, fought, drank, wrote, read, slept and did it all over again.
To insure that your new year is as creative and productive as ours has been, try this “Do It Yourself Creative” assignment for 2004: Clear away one hour weekly to just sit and focus on a problem that’s bugging you, and write down every stupid solution you can think of. For best results, promise yourself you’ll do this…Every Wednesday.
Thanks for reading all year. You can still e-mail me at kdonnellycom@aol.com.
Author Robert Parker’s wife: “Wait—they’re going to pay you an obscene amount of money, just to show up once a week and teach one class on Wednesdays?! And you don’t know whether you should take it?!”
Parker: “Yeah, but every Wednesday…!”
Wednesday, December 24, 2003, Hollywood, FL
It was a building year.
We Steeler fans have learned the double-edged-sword of that phrase.
52 Wednesdays ago I began this blog and promised to write it every Wednesday. I did!
The coming of the new year means that it’s time to make some decisions about what to do for an encore. As a result of the brainstorming session I did with my husband Tony that I described in last week’s blog, there are going to be some changes made.
We’re going to trade Bettis for….Oh, no. Wait. That’s the Steelers’ changes.
The first change is: No more “Every Wednesday” on blogger.com.
On a relatively weekly basis I will be writing and producing a 15-minute series for the WRLN-FM’s Radio Reading Service (RRS) called “Friends & Neighborhoods” about people and places around South Florida. It will only be heard by visually impaired people in South Florida who have a special receiver, but Tony helped me put up a new blog at www.kdonnellycom.easyjournal.com where I will post these scripts as I finalize them. Some of the early ones will sound familiar to you regular blog readers, so you don’t need to rush over there right now. There will be transcripts of interviews I do with interesting South Floridians (“Friends”) as well as descriptions of places we visit (“Neighborhoods”). I might write it on Wednesdays, just for old time’s sake.
The second change is: Having people read me for free has been great, but it’s time to take baby steps towards being a paid writer. I’ve discovered some great sites where people can download pieces by paying small amounts (through PayPal) or order as a printed book. A lot of the better blogs, listed under informative titles, are up on www.RedPaper.com and are available for 25 cents each. A few pieces that I have written about my writers, “Such Friends,” are up on a more sophisticated site, www.Lulu.com, for $1 each. Some of the pieces I did for the Radio Reading Service about our adventures on Semester at Sea, called Dixon Donnelly at Sea, are also there. On either of these sites you can put “Donnelly” in the search feature and it will list anything I have put up (along with some book on boxing for some reason). I’d be thrilled to have some more sales and would be very interested in what you think of these sites.
But these two are part of larger changes I worked out in the more detailed version of the marketing plan that was last week’s blog.
The third change is: I am reactivating K. Donnelly Communications, which some of you may remember from my Pittsburgh days. “Dixon Donnelly Communications” sounded nice, but I really like my “K.” It’s not embroidered on my sweaters, but I’m not ready to give it up.
The fourth change is: A new monthly e-mail newsletter, called “Hands On Creativity,” which will be sent to anyone who wants it. This will replace my “Such Friends” newsletter that was sent to regular fans who attended my presentations about early 20th century writers’ salons; the new one will include information about those presentations and those writers.
If you would like to make sure that you will be included, e-mail me at kdonnellycom@aol.com.
This leads to the fifth change: Tony and I are working on putting up a K. Donnelly Communications website. Our Luddite days are over. When it’s fit for public consumption, we’ll announce the address in Hands on Creativity.
In addition to leading me to a point in my life where I can support my half of the Dixon-Donnelly household by only doing things that I like to do, the newsletter and website will also provide information about creative ideas and creative people. All those funny mind teasers that I’ve been driving you guys crazy with for the past few years? They are now called “Do It Yourself Creative” and there will be lots of new ones.
This started out as a “How can I earn a living?” exercise and has evolved into a “What am I going to be when I grow up?” exercise. It’s still evolving, but by Sunday, January 4th, it will be launched in a fixed form. It’s been a good “Do It Yourself Creative” exercise for me personally. The cobbler’s son has no shoes, advertising agencies never advertise themselves, and I needed a “Whack on the Side of the Head.”
Originally I was planning that this last blog would be a summary of the past year, but I think it’s better that it has focused on the future. I found quite a few classrooms, half of them in other countries. But next term is the first regular semester in 20 years when I am not be scheduled to teach anywhere. I don’t know if that’s a bad thing. It’s time for a break.
For those of you who want to know what we’ve been doing this past 12 months, I can only say that one or both of us:
Taught in the Bahamas, the Middle East and Fort Lauderdale,
Visited Paris, Brittany, Brighton, Key West and Okeechobee,
Went to three weddings and no funerals,
Had one ER visit, one doctor visit, and one dentist visit,
Got two new kittens and kept two old cars,
Got two new kittens and two old cars fixed,
Made some left-brain people more right-brained,
Worked hard for tips at Hometown Buffet,
Delivered phone directories,
Rented a new office and the same old apartment,
Exercised thrice and walked on Hollywood Beach once, most weeks
Kissed, hugged, laughed, fought, drank, wrote, read, slept and did it all over again.
To insure that your new year is as creative and productive as ours has been, try this “Do It Yourself Creative” assignment for 2004: Clear away one hour weekly to just sit and focus on a problem that’s bugging you, and write down every stupid solution you can think of. For best results, promise yourself you’ll do this…Every Wednesday.
Thanks for reading all year. You can still e-mail me at kdonnellycom@aol.com.
20.12.03
Wednesday, December 17, 2003, Hollywood, FL
Many of you are familiar with the Whack Pack by Roger von Oech that I use in my creativity presentations and my life. I pull out one or two of these cards from time to time to help me with whatever I’m working on.
The problem is, I’m so familiar with the concepts on the cards that my reaction is always, Oh, right. Well, I already do that… Very un-creative approach.
The past few weeks I kept getting the card, See the Obvious. As I’d drive to my class, thinking about how to teach my grad students the importance of having a creative strategy and a great marketing plan, I’d wonder: What should I do with my life? Duh.
So I dragged Tony down to a deli on Hollywood Beach (he’s Irish—you have to drag him), with the cards, and we had a brainstorming session about how I could support my part of this relationship and still spend my days doing what I like to do. As we wrote down ideas, and tossed around brilliant suggestions, I realized that I was violating my first rule of marketing: See everything from the point of view of your customer.
There I was, thinking and whining and analyzing about what I wanted to do, instead of what the people who could hire me need. All of a sudden I started drawing new diagrams, and then more diagrams, and then charts and lists. I’m very visual.
The result is, a detailed marketing plan for the new K. Donnelly Communications, which will debut after the first of the year. An edited version is below (I left out the boring parts). It’s in outline form, but tabs don’t translate well to this blog, so it doesn’t look pretty. I developed this format years ago and use it in all my classes, so feel free to steal it.
K. Donnelly Communications
Marketing Plan, 2004
I. Situation Analysis (SWOT)
A. Strengths
The owner is incredibly creative and a risk taker. Her particular strengths are presenting in front of diverse groups, one-on-one wisdom, and opening up left-brain people to right brain ways of thinking.
She has a Ph.D., and experience in both operating a business and teaching anywhere in the world.
She has a wonderful network of friends who are extremely supportive and an amazing husband whose job gives them cash flow and health insurance. In addition, she is amazingly flexible with no dependents, except for two non-demanding kittens. She is not above taking on dumb jobs if they will provide a unique experience.
The company has a handy little office, which provides a business address and a place to be really productive, using a cell phone, a laptop and a printer, with a minimum of distractions. Because the husband works at night, the owner can also be productive at home in the evenings.
B. Weaknesses
The owner has absolutely no financial resources, and the slightest disaster could plunge the happy couple into despair.
The company has limited resources, a one-person staff, and little name recognition in the relevant market.
The office has no Internet access and the owner hasn’t figured out how to hook up the printer there.
Any work time spent at home is subject to numerous interruptions, both welcome and unwelcome.
C. Opportunities
The world is in serious need of more creative solutions to problems, and more organizations are beginning to recognize this and allocate resources to it. On an individual level, lots of Boomers are getting to the point where they want to and can afford to become part-time students of life again.
The real world loves a Ph.D.
The Internet provides numerous low-cost opportunities for networking and self-expression, including self-publishing.
There are a lot of professional networking groups in the market that the owner has not yet tapped into.
D. Threats
Companies are less inclined to spend money on outside consultants.
Bush is tanking the economy and we’re all going down with him.
Everyone else on the planet is trying to do the same thing; a lot of them have more experience, more unique content, a lot more resources and a head start.
II. Target market
Anyone who wants to be or is told they have to be more creative.
Anyone looking for a more creative solution to a problem at work or in life.
Anyone looking for answers and willing to pay for new solutions.
Anyone interested in creative people, particularly early 20th century writers
1. For-credit students
Good news: They are supplied by the institution, which can afford to pay. The institution provides credibility for the owner and access to a lot of other resources. Teaching them pays the best.
Bad news: Most don’t want to be there and are only interested in end results, not process. They complain to the dean and bitch about their grades. They are hostile in class, when they are awake, and get up and leave to go for coffee whenever they feel like it. There is a lot of preparation and testing, correcting, etc.
2. Part-time students of life.
Good news: They seek out information or attend events to learn something new. Most are willing to pay to be entertained while they learn something. They love the owner, know her name, and pass it on to friends. There is less preparation, no testing or correcting, a lot of satisfaction, and the opportunity to grow a market through word of mouth. The Left brainers definitely need help and the owner is particularly good at inching these people along to a more creative way of thinking. The Right brainers are already creative, but definitely see the advantage of more creative solutions and may be willing to recommend this type of assistance to their Left brain friends and co-workers.
Bad news: The pay isn’t great and very irregular. Sometimes they attract weirdos who then have your phone number and e-mail address. Some Left-brainers are going to tune out and can sour the whole group. Some Right-brainers feel they don’t need any help in this area; those that do may be disappointed when the owner doesn’t tell them anything they don’t already know.
III. Big Idea, or Strategy.
K. Donnelly Communications will make the world more creative, one individual or group at a time:
What problems can we help you solve more creatively?
IV. Implementation
A. Product
We help people to think more creatively, through (1) formal credit courses, (2) non-credit presentations about creativity, creative people or personal experiences, and (3) writing that sparks a thought or an insight.
B. Price
$2000 minimum for a 3-credit course, plus any travel expenses.
$50-200 per presenting hour for businesses.
One meal for groups that don’t charge admission, or individuals who want advice, if the experience will be interesting.
C. Place
We make people more creative (1) in person or (2) through different media.
1. In-person
Anywhere the owner can afford to go. If the client is covering the expense—anywhere
2. Through media
Submitting articles to newspapers or magazines, eventually writing a book, sending commentaries to radio, writing the series for the Radio Reading Service, putting up pieces on internet sites and putting up our own website.
D. Promotion
1. Personal Selling
The owner must get her ass out there and meet as many people in the target market as possible. She must then follow up on each contact and develop a simple system for keeping track and communicating with them on a regular basis.
2. Mass Selling
a. Advertising—maybe when we’re rich.
b. Public Relations—create new newsletter to e-mail list.
c. Sales Promotion—get new business cards with mind teasers on the back so people have to e-mail me for the answers.
V. Evaluation
Next year at this time my bank balance will be bigger and I’ll be planning how to expand.
Next week is the last blog. Stay tuned.
See you next Wednesday.
Thanks for reading. You can e-mail me at kdonnellycom@aol.com.
Many of you are familiar with the Whack Pack by Roger von Oech that I use in my creativity presentations and my life. I pull out one or two of these cards from time to time to help me with whatever I’m working on.
The problem is, I’m so familiar with the concepts on the cards that my reaction is always, Oh, right. Well, I already do that… Very un-creative approach.
The past few weeks I kept getting the card, See the Obvious. As I’d drive to my class, thinking about how to teach my grad students the importance of having a creative strategy and a great marketing plan, I’d wonder: What should I do with my life? Duh.
So I dragged Tony down to a deli on Hollywood Beach (he’s Irish—you have to drag him), with the cards, and we had a brainstorming session about how I could support my part of this relationship and still spend my days doing what I like to do. As we wrote down ideas, and tossed around brilliant suggestions, I realized that I was violating my first rule of marketing: See everything from the point of view of your customer.
There I was, thinking and whining and analyzing about what I wanted to do, instead of what the people who could hire me need. All of a sudden I started drawing new diagrams, and then more diagrams, and then charts and lists. I’m very visual.
The result is, a detailed marketing plan for the new K. Donnelly Communications, which will debut after the first of the year. An edited version is below (I left out the boring parts). It’s in outline form, but tabs don’t translate well to this blog, so it doesn’t look pretty. I developed this format years ago and use it in all my classes, so feel free to steal it.
K. Donnelly Communications
Marketing Plan, 2004
I. Situation Analysis (SWOT)
A. Strengths
The owner is incredibly creative and a risk taker. Her particular strengths are presenting in front of diverse groups, one-on-one wisdom, and opening up left-brain people to right brain ways of thinking.
She has a Ph.D., and experience in both operating a business and teaching anywhere in the world.
She has a wonderful network of friends who are extremely supportive and an amazing husband whose job gives them cash flow and health insurance. In addition, she is amazingly flexible with no dependents, except for two non-demanding kittens. She is not above taking on dumb jobs if they will provide a unique experience.
The company has a handy little office, which provides a business address and a place to be really productive, using a cell phone, a laptop and a printer, with a minimum of distractions. Because the husband works at night, the owner can also be productive at home in the evenings.
B. Weaknesses
The owner has absolutely no financial resources, and the slightest disaster could plunge the happy couple into despair.
The company has limited resources, a one-person staff, and little name recognition in the relevant market.
The office has no Internet access and the owner hasn’t figured out how to hook up the printer there.
Any work time spent at home is subject to numerous interruptions, both welcome and unwelcome.
C. Opportunities
The world is in serious need of more creative solutions to problems, and more organizations are beginning to recognize this and allocate resources to it. On an individual level, lots of Boomers are getting to the point where they want to and can afford to become part-time students of life again.
The real world loves a Ph.D.
The Internet provides numerous low-cost opportunities for networking and self-expression, including self-publishing.
There are a lot of professional networking groups in the market that the owner has not yet tapped into.
D. Threats
Companies are less inclined to spend money on outside consultants.
Bush is tanking the economy and we’re all going down with him.
Everyone else on the planet is trying to do the same thing; a lot of them have more experience, more unique content, a lot more resources and a head start.
II. Target market
Anyone who wants to be or is told they have to be more creative.
Anyone looking for a more creative solution to a problem at work or in life.
Anyone looking for answers and willing to pay for new solutions.
Anyone interested in creative people, particularly early 20th century writers
1. For-credit students
Good news: They are supplied by the institution, which can afford to pay. The institution provides credibility for the owner and access to a lot of other resources. Teaching them pays the best.
Bad news: Most don’t want to be there and are only interested in end results, not process. They complain to the dean and bitch about their grades. They are hostile in class, when they are awake, and get up and leave to go for coffee whenever they feel like it. There is a lot of preparation and testing, correcting, etc.
2. Part-time students of life.
Good news: They seek out information or attend events to learn something new. Most are willing to pay to be entertained while they learn something. They love the owner, know her name, and pass it on to friends. There is less preparation, no testing or correcting, a lot of satisfaction, and the opportunity to grow a market through word of mouth. The Left brainers definitely need help and the owner is particularly good at inching these people along to a more creative way of thinking. The Right brainers are already creative, but definitely see the advantage of more creative solutions and may be willing to recommend this type of assistance to their Left brain friends and co-workers.
Bad news: The pay isn’t great and very irregular. Sometimes they attract weirdos who then have your phone number and e-mail address. Some Left-brainers are going to tune out and can sour the whole group. Some Right-brainers feel they don’t need any help in this area; those that do may be disappointed when the owner doesn’t tell them anything they don’t already know.
III. Big Idea, or Strategy.
K. Donnelly Communications will make the world more creative, one individual or group at a time:
What problems can we help you solve more creatively?
IV. Implementation
A. Product
We help people to think more creatively, through (1) formal credit courses, (2) non-credit presentations about creativity, creative people or personal experiences, and (3) writing that sparks a thought or an insight.
B. Price
$2000 minimum for a 3-credit course, plus any travel expenses.
$50-200 per presenting hour for businesses.
One meal for groups that don’t charge admission, or individuals who want advice, if the experience will be interesting.
C. Place
We make people more creative (1) in person or (2) through different media.
1. In-person
Anywhere the owner can afford to go. If the client is covering the expense—anywhere
2. Through media
Submitting articles to newspapers or magazines, eventually writing a book, sending commentaries to radio, writing the series for the Radio Reading Service, putting up pieces on internet sites and putting up our own website.
D. Promotion
1. Personal Selling
The owner must get her ass out there and meet as many people in the target market as possible. She must then follow up on each contact and develop a simple system for keeping track and communicating with them on a regular basis.
2. Mass Selling
a. Advertising—maybe when we’re rich.
b. Public Relations—create new newsletter to e-mail list.
c. Sales Promotion—get new business cards with mind teasers on the back so people have to e-mail me for the answers.
V. Evaluation
Next year at this time my bank balance will be bigger and I’ll be planning how to expand.
Next week is the last blog. Stay tuned.
See you next Wednesday.
Thanks for reading. You can e-mail me at kdonnellycom@aol.com.
12.12.03
Wednesday, December 10, 2003, Hollywood, FL
My husband Tony said it best. �There are a lot of fun things to do in Miami. But by the time you finally get there, you�re so pissed off about getting lost, you can�t enjoy it.�
We have had this experience numerous times since we moved here six years ago. The biggest difference now is that when we get lost, it looks familiar.
We are both big city people who have driven in such hodge-podges as New York City, Dublin, Ireland, and Glasgow, Scotland. We have even dared to cross the street in Naples, Italy. But whenever we are tempted by a great cultural event or business opportunity that is just 10 or 12 miles south of us in Miami, we groan.
First, there are the drivers. I don�t know that they really are any worse in Miami-Dade than they are up here in Broward County. People who complain about bad drivers often say, �The first rule is, there are no rules.� But Dave Barry has pointed out that in South Florida there is a rule: Everyone drives under the rules of his home country.
Next, there are the directions. Every major street has two names, at least. The name given to you by your hostess is rarely the one on the street sign�unless you�re in Coral Gables. Then the name is the same, but it is chiseled in 8-point type on a small rock on the corner that someone has knocked over.
So US 1 is Federal Highway or Biscayne Boulevard, depending on where you are. I was getting directions from a perfectly intelligent businesswoman in Miami Lakes this week and I said, �I�ll be coming from Route 1,� and she said, �What is that?�
Once when a video store clerk was having a hard time describing which direction I should go to get to his store, I asked him, �Should I head towards or away from the ocean?� He said, �I don�t know where the ocean is.� He was all the way inland in Pembroke Pines.
Twice I have gotten directions from the Museum of Contemporary Art in North Miami instructing me to turn off US 1 onto 125th Street. There is no turn off Route 1 onto 125th Street. Each year I find my way to the Miami Book Fair International, careful to NOT follow the directions printed in the paper, which advise getting off I-95 at an exit that has never existed. And if you want to know how we finally found the Knight Center for the Wynton Marsalis concert, buy us a drink.
How come my Miami students who can�t remember the difference between �it�s� and �its,� or �their,� �there� and �they�re,� are able to remember that the Avenues go north and south, the streets go east and west, and how to get from 1st and 1st to 2nd and 2nd.
When we moved here we were advised us to get one of the free AAA street maps of both Counties, and that really did help. We used it so much searching out locations for Tony�s many job interviews that eventually it fell apart. Apparently concerned that people would begin to actually find their way around, AAA doesn�t make that map anymore.
After our first few years here I hooked up with an old friend who lives on South Beach. She has never even had a drivers� license, but she is a Miami native. As an excellent guide to the Beach�s grid of funky streets and neighborhoods, South Beach Patty has helped us crack the code there. Not only can I find the Gleason Center and the Lincoln Theatre, as well as a choice of three terrific-not-expensive restaurants nearby, I even know where to park.
We have a Coral Gables friend who has not yet been able to train us. I�m good at finding the beautiful Biltmore, where I go for meetings, and I have now made my way to fringe parts of the University of Miami. We can whip through Coconut Grove and get to the Playhouse, but if we have to stop anywhere else, we need an escort.
Last week I was in Coral Gables and wanted to meet South Beach Patty for a dinner before going to a lecture at the Miami Museum of Science. She was already in downtown Miami and found a wonderful little Mexican restaurant that she felt she could direct me to.
We turned on the cell phones. She stood on the curb near the restaurant, and I headed east on Route 1, US 1, whatever. Soon it became Brickell, but I was prepared for that. I went over the bridge and had to turn right at the bottom. I was prepared for that. As I sailed past �SE 2nd Ave.� my gut told me I should turn north, but I kept going as the road took me around the corner and�there I was on Biscayne Blvd. again. But, I was prepared for that.
From there I couldn�t turn west onto the street she had suggested, so I called her to make sure that, if I turned onto Flagler, I would be far enough north to head south on a one-way street that would take me to her. She guided me along Flagler, and then I completed my square by turning left onto SE 3rd Ave. There was South Beach Patty, cell phone to ear, standing on the curb, across from the empty parking lot she had described. But as I pulled towards her, I was passed on the left by three or four cars that must have been in an awfully big hurry and really liked their new horns. By the time I could get over to the left, the parking lot entrance was behind me.
Going �around the block� is a relative term when you turn the corner and are immediately faced with a ramp onto a highway. I managed to avoid that with a sharp left and outlined another square as I came back around to the parking lot entrance.
$7! I wasn�t prepared for that. But I figured it was a flat evening rate, so what the hell. I paid it.
I swallowed my rage as Patty led me through an adorable Spanish walkway and into a beautiful, tastefully decorated, and almost totally empty Mexican restaurant. We had a fabulous cheap dinner, and then I watched her walk to her bus stop, confident I could get back to Route 1 South and head to the Science Museum. At least I knew where that was and how to get there.
When I went to pull out of the parking lot, the same attendant who had taken my $7 just 75 minutes earlier, told me I owed another dollar. I showed him the receipt where he had written $7 next to the time stamp. He pointed to the sandwich board sign with the posted rates and calculated that �$3/hour and $3 ea. add�l hour� added up to $1 more than the posted all-day rate of $7. I pulled on my hand brake, folded my arms, looked him right in the eye, and said, �Fine. Make me.�
I knew other cars would pull up behind me soon, and rather than risk losing more extorted dollars he would raise the gate and let me out.
Then I headed south, towards the bridge I had crossed before. I could see it, but couldn�t get to it. I ended up to the west, crossing another bridge. A few dark blocks later, there to my left was the ubiquitous 8th Street; and its intersection with Brickell looked familiar. Once I got on Route 1 I sailed past the Science Museum because you can�t make a left into it. Three traffic lights down I was able to make a legal U-turn and head back to the Museum, just in time for the lecture.
Today I was in Miami Lakes, and when my appointment was over, I managed to get from there, onto the Palmetto, down I-95, off on 103rd Street (thanks to a tip from South Beach Patty), head east, and, when faced with a north-south choice, choose correctly. There I was back on Route 1 again! Exactly where I wanted to be, right in downtown Miami, at the offices of the Radio Reading Service, in the School Board Building. When you do it right�what a rush!
But I have to say, this is a very strange system for a city whose economy is almost totally dependent on the kindness of strangers.
See you next Wednesday.
Thanks for reading. You can e-mail me at kdonnellycom@aol.com.
My husband Tony said it best. �There are a lot of fun things to do in Miami. But by the time you finally get there, you�re so pissed off about getting lost, you can�t enjoy it.�
We have had this experience numerous times since we moved here six years ago. The biggest difference now is that when we get lost, it looks familiar.
We are both big city people who have driven in such hodge-podges as New York City, Dublin, Ireland, and Glasgow, Scotland. We have even dared to cross the street in Naples, Italy. But whenever we are tempted by a great cultural event or business opportunity that is just 10 or 12 miles south of us in Miami, we groan.
First, there are the drivers. I don�t know that they really are any worse in Miami-Dade than they are up here in Broward County. People who complain about bad drivers often say, �The first rule is, there are no rules.� But Dave Barry has pointed out that in South Florida there is a rule: Everyone drives under the rules of his home country.
Next, there are the directions. Every major street has two names, at least. The name given to you by your hostess is rarely the one on the street sign�unless you�re in Coral Gables. Then the name is the same, but it is chiseled in 8-point type on a small rock on the corner that someone has knocked over.
So US 1 is Federal Highway or Biscayne Boulevard, depending on where you are. I was getting directions from a perfectly intelligent businesswoman in Miami Lakes this week and I said, �I�ll be coming from Route 1,� and she said, �What is that?�
Once when a video store clerk was having a hard time describing which direction I should go to get to his store, I asked him, �Should I head towards or away from the ocean?� He said, �I don�t know where the ocean is.� He was all the way inland in Pembroke Pines.
Twice I have gotten directions from the Museum of Contemporary Art in North Miami instructing me to turn off US 1 onto 125th Street. There is no turn off Route 1 onto 125th Street. Each year I find my way to the Miami Book Fair International, careful to NOT follow the directions printed in the paper, which advise getting off I-95 at an exit that has never existed. And if you want to know how we finally found the Knight Center for the Wynton Marsalis concert, buy us a drink.
How come my Miami students who can�t remember the difference between �it�s� and �its,� or �their,� �there� and �they�re,� are able to remember that the Avenues go north and south, the streets go east and west, and how to get from 1st and 1st to 2nd and 2nd.
When we moved here we were advised us to get one of the free AAA street maps of both Counties, and that really did help. We used it so much searching out locations for Tony�s many job interviews that eventually it fell apart. Apparently concerned that people would begin to actually find their way around, AAA doesn�t make that map anymore.
After our first few years here I hooked up with an old friend who lives on South Beach. She has never even had a drivers� license, but she is a Miami native. As an excellent guide to the Beach�s grid of funky streets and neighborhoods, South Beach Patty has helped us crack the code there. Not only can I find the Gleason Center and the Lincoln Theatre, as well as a choice of three terrific-not-expensive restaurants nearby, I even know where to park.
We have a Coral Gables friend who has not yet been able to train us. I�m good at finding the beautiful Biltmore, where I go for meetings, and I have now made my way to fringe parts of the University of Miami. We can whip through Coconut Grove and get to the Playhouse, but if we have to stop anywhere else, we need an escort.
Last week I was in Coral Gables and wanted to meet South Beach Patty for a dinner before going to a lecture at the Miami Museum of Science. She was already in downtown Miami and found a wonderful little Mexican restaurant that she felt she could direct me to.
We turned on the cell phones. She stood on the curb near the restaurant, and I headed east on Route 1, US 1, whatever. Soon it became Brickell, but I was prepared for that. I went over the bridge and had to turn right at the bottom. I was prepared for that. As I sailed past �SE 2nd Ave.� my gut told me I should turn north, but I kept going as the road took me around the corner and�there I was on Biscayne Blvd. again. But, I was prepared for that.
From there I couldn�t turn west onto the street she had suggested, so I called her to make sure that, if I turned onto Flagler, I would be far enough north to head south on a one-way street that would take me to her. She guided me along Flagler, and then I completed my square by turning left onto SE 3rd Ave. There was South Beach Patty, cell phone to ear, standing on the curb, across from the empty parking lot she had described. But as I pulled towards her, I was passed on the left by three or four cars that must have been in an awfully big hurry and really liked their new horns. By the time I could get over to the left, the parking lot entrance was behind me.
Going �around the block� is a relative term when you turn the corner and are immediately faced with a ramp onto a highway. I managed to avoid that with a sharp left and outlined another square as I came back around to the parking lot entrance.
$7! I wasn�t prepared for that. But I figured it was a flat evening rate, so what the hell. I paid it.
I swallowed my rage as Patty led me through an adorable Spanish walkway and into a beautiful, tastefully decorated, and almost totally empty Mexican restaurant. We had a fabulous cheap dinner, and then I watched her walk to her bus stop, confident I could get back to Route 1 South and head to the Science Museum. At least I knew where that was and how to get there.
When I went to pull out of the parking lot, the same attendant who had taken my $7 just 75 minutes earlier, told me I owed another dollar. I showed him the receipt where he had written $7 next to the time stamp. He pointed to the sandwich board sign with the posted rates and calculated that �$3/hour and $3 ea. add�l hour� added up to $1 more than the posted all-day rate of $7. I pulled on my hand brake, folded my arms, looked him right in the eye, and said, �Fine. Make me.�
I knew other cars would pull up behind me soon, and rather than risk losing more extorted dollars he would raise the gate and let me out.
Then I headed south, towards the bridge I had crossed before. I could see it, but couldn�t get to it. I ended up to the west, crossing another bridge. A few dark blocks later, there to my left was the ubiquitous 8th Street; and its intersection with Brickell looked familiar. Once I got on Route 1 I sailed past the Science Museum because you can�t make a left into it. Three traffic lights down I was able to make a legal U-turn and head back to the Museum, just in time for the lecture.
Today I was in Miami Lakes, and when my appointment was over, I managed to get from there, onto the Palmetto, down I-95, off on 103rd Street (thanks to a tip from South Beach Patty), head east, and, when faced with a north-south choice, choose correctly. There I was back on Route 1 again! Exactly where I wanted to be, right in downtown Miami, at the offices of the Radio Reading Service, in the School Board Building. When you do it right�what a rush!
But I have to say, this is a very strange system for a city whose economy is almost totally dependent on the kindness of strangers.
See you next Wednesday.
Thanks for reading. You can e-mail me at kdonnellycom@aol.com.
5.12.03
Wednesday, December 3, 2003, Hollywood, FL
The first time I traveled outside the continental United States (Tijuana and Niagara Falls don’t count) I made sure it was to Ireland, where most of my great grandparents had come from. On my last night in Dublin I treated myself to dinner at a “nice” restaurant, right off O’Connell Street. I sat at the table in the window so I could watch the Dubs walking on the quay along the Liffey, but the more interesting story was inside at the table next to me. The restaurant was quiet, so it wasn’t hard to hear, and I soon figured out that one couple was giving another couple, with a newborn baby, advice on their new posting in Beijing. The men worked for the same company and this was an opportunity for one young wife to tell another about the great experience she would have. Their talk was of practical things: Where to get formula, did they have nappies, were the people friendly.
As the not very well-traveled American, I had only one thought: There are Irish living in Beijing?! That baby would be 13 now, regaling all his friends with stories he remembers from his early years growing up among the Irish in China.
Two years later I spent the whole summer in Ireland and came back with my favorite souvenir, now my husband, Tony.
As many of you know, Tony’s older daughter Kerrie married a Frenchman this summer, and we got to visit Brittany for the wedding. I was the only American there, among the Irish and the French, and they all complimented me on my accent. The judge who performed the ceremony described the groom as “a student who loved to travel to see new things, traveled to Ireland and found Kerrie.” Their “European Union” united two continents, three countries, and one family
Tony’s first grandchild and Kerrie’s niece, Erin, was a big hit at the wedding—as she was at ours in Florida just a year earlier. At the age of four she assumes that whenever you get on an airplane, you end up in a different country with people who talk funny and you get to be a flower girl.
Last Thanksgiving, Tony and I drove up to Pittsburgh and celebrated the holiday with my friend Liz and her family. As we sat around that table, none of us could know that one year later, at this Thanksgiving, her mom, of indeterminate age, would no longer be with us.
But we also didn’t know then that the new dinner guest would be Liz’s first grandchild, Sebastian, just three months old. His mother is from America, his father is from Mexico, and they have just started a business importing handcrafted artifacts from their friends in Mexico City to a shop in Pittsburgh.
So Liz and I, who both grew up far from any international borders, have through different routes become grandparents to beautiful children of different nationalities. Liz is learning Spanish so she can talk to her daughter’s in-laws; I’m planning my schedule so Tony and I can be in Dublin for the birth of his second grandchild, next summer.
A few weeks ago Miami hosted a conference for the Free Trade Association of the Americas (FTAA), in the hope that the organization would choose us as their headquarters. Many local business leaders welcomed them with open arms, but many protesters greeted them with shouts and demonstrations. I think being an anti-globalization protester would be a great vocation, because you get to travel to so many fascinating places: Seattle, Milan, Cancun, Miami.
I have no way of knowing whether FTAA would be a good or bad thing for Miami, and as a radical child of the 60s, my political heart usually leans to those mounting the barricades in the street.
But I wonder if the protestors are like King Canute, trying to hold back the waves? Sebastian in Pittsburgh, bi-lingual from birth, and Erin in Dublin, well traveled by the age of four, are bringing us together, and it will be a global village that raises these children.
See you next Wednesday.
Thanks for reading. You can e-mail me at kdonnellycom@aol.com.
The first time I traveled outside the continental United States (Tijuana and Niagara Falls don’t count) I made sure it was to Ireland, where most of my great grandparents had come from. On my last night in Dublin I treated myself to dinner at a “nice” restaurant, right off O’Connell Street. I sat at the table in the window so I could watch the Dubs walking on the quay along the Liffey, but the more interesting story was inside at the table next to me. The restaurant was quiet, so it wasn’t hard to hear, and I soon figured out that one couple was giving another couple, with a newborn baby, advice on their new posting in Beijing. The men worked for the same company and this was an opportunity for one young wife to tell another about the great experience she would have. Their talk was of practical things: Where to get formula, did they have nappies, were the people friendly.
As the not very well-traveled American, I had only one thought: There are Irish living in Beijing?! That baby would be 13 now, regaling all his friends with stories he remembers from his early years growing up among the Irish in China.
Two years later I spent the whole summer in Ireland and came back with my favorite souvenir, now my husband, Tony.
As many of you know, Tony’s older daughter Kerrie married a Frenchman this summer, and we got to visit Brittany for the wedding. I was the only American there, among the Irish and the French, and they all complimented me on my accent. The judge who performed the ceremony described the groom as “a student who loved to travel to see new things, traveled to Ireland and found Kerrie.” Their “European Union” united two continents, three countries, and one family
Tony’s first grandchild and Kerrie’s niece, Erin, was a big hit at the wedding—as she was at ours in Florida just a year earlier. At the age of four she assumes that whenever you get on an airplane, you end up in a different country with people who talk funny and you get to be a flower girl.
Last Thanksgiving, Tony and I drove up to Pittsburgh and celebrated the holiday with my friend Liz and her family. As we sat around that table, none of us could know that one year later, at this Thanksgiving, her mom, of indeterminate age, would no longer be with us.
But we also didn’t know then that the new dinner guest would be Liz’s first grandchild, Sebastian, just three months old. His mother is from America, his father is from Mexico, and they have just started a business importing handcrafted artifacts from their friends in Mexico City to a shop in Pittsburgh.
So Liz and I, who both grew up far from any international borders, have through different routes become grandparents to beautiful children of different nationalities. Liz is learning Spanish so she can talk to her daughter’s in-laws; I’m planning my schedule so Tony and I can be in Dublin for the birth of his second grandchild, next summer.
A few weeks ago Miami hosted a conference for the Free Trade Association of the Americas (FTAA), in the hope that the organization would choose us as their headquarters. Many local business leaders welcomed them with open arms, but many protesters greeted them with shouts and demonstrations. I think being an anti-globalization protester would be a great vocation, because you get to travel to so many fascinating places: Seattle, Milan, Cancun, Miami.
I have no way of knowing whether FTAA would be a good or bad thing for Miami, and as a radical child of the 60s, my political heart usually leans to those mounting the barricades in the street.
But I wonder if the protestors are like King Canute, trying to hold back the waves? Sebastian in Pittsburgh, bi-lingual from birth, and Erin in Dublin, well traveled by the age of four, are bringing us together, and it will be a global village that raises these children.
See you next Wednesday.
Thanks for reading. You can e-mail me at kdonnellycom@aol.com.
29.11.03
Wednesday, November 26, 2003, Hollywood, FL
Last week I went to a lovely event to thank all of us who volunteer at the local NPR station, WLRN. Every year so far this dinner has been held in a different location, and this year it was at the Miami Women’s Club. I drove over the causeway that cross the Intercoastal and wove through the maze of buildings on the Miami side.
The four-story, U-shaped, Spanish-style building sits on a piece of land holding on for dear life between the towering Marriott and the under-construction Radisson. Apparently, the women weren’t going to sell out to the developers who have bought up every other inch of this part of Miami.
Outside were concrete picnic tables and benches under shade trees. It was night, but during the day I’m sure you can see across the water to Miami Beach, which has its own Women’s Club building, that I visited for a different meeting.
Both women’s clubs have great ladies’ rooms. Not just clean, but really big, with dressing tables, marquee lighting around the mirrors, and white wicker lounge furniture. Those women really knew how to decorate a big bathroom.
Now a small art college takes up most of the space in the Miami Women’s Club building, and it’s rented out for special events. What did the women do with it? It must have been built during the Florida boom of the 1920s. When you consider what property was going for in those days, I’ll be they got Miami’s prominent men, who were their husbands and fathers, to buy the land and build it for them. The men went to their offices, and nannies took care of their kids. The women would get together for luncheons, fashion shows, and meetings to plan fund-raising projects.
Our town of Hollywood also has a small, older building that was the Hollywood Women’s Club. Because it is right across from the train station, it has been turned into a model train museum and is also rented out for functions. My husband’s company is having their Christmas party there.
Virginia Woolf said that Shakespeare’s sister could have been a writer if she had had an income of 500 pounds a year and a room of her own. I think that’s what these women were trying to create for themselves.
A few weeks ago I gave a presentation at the Ft. Lauderdale Museum of Art. The group that invited me was the “Friends of the Museum,” but I’m sure it started as the “Ladies Auxiliary.” These organizations are no longer limited to women, but the only man who was at my presentation was the treasurer of the group. Are we still unsure about handling money by ourselves?
After my talk, the Friends had their business meeting and reported on their bank balance (healthy), their past projects (successful), and their upcoming events (numerous). There will be luncheons and fashion shows, mostly fund-raisers for the Museum. They have already given $20,000 for a new sound system in the auditorium, and it sure worked well when I used it.
My hostess mentioned that they had agreed to split the presidency this year among three members, because no one had the time to take it on alone. In addition to whatever time they give to this group, many of these women serve as volunteer docents, leading tours of the museum. Most of them are in their 60s and 70s; I probably was the youngest one there.
Who will replace them? For the past few decades, non-profit organizations have struggled with re-organizing their volunteers. There are people out there willing to donate their time, but “everyone wants to do strategic planning,” a board member once told me. Who will stuff envelopes? Organize the luncheons? Do the necessary grunt work that, in an age of decreased government funding, non-profits can’t afford to pay for?
When I worked at a large hospital, we requested a volunteer once to do some kind of boring job—I forget what it was, sorting some papers. I apologized to the woman because she would have to sit for hours doing this routine work in a room away from other staff. “Honey,” she said to me. “I’ve got five kids at home. You have no idea how I look forward to coming here and doing this.”
One of the female students in the graduate business course I’m teaching came to me after class to tell me that she would be missing the next two sessions because she was having a Caesarean birth. I told her she could of course take more time off than that if she wanted to. “Are you kidding?” she said to me. “I’ve got five kids at home. I’d rather be here in class!”
See you next Wednesday.
Thanks for reading. You can e-mail me at kdonnellycom@aol.com.
Last week I went to a lovely event to thank all of us who volunteer at the local NPR station, WLRN. Every year so far this dinner has been held in a different location, and this year it was at the Miami Women’s Club. I drove over the causeway that cross the Intercoastal and wove through the maze of buildings on the Miami side.
The four-story, U-shaped, Spanish-style building sits on a piece of land holding on for dear life between the towering Marriott and the under-construction Radisson. Apparently, the women weren’t going to sell out to the developers who have bought up every other inch of this part of Miami.
Outside were concrete picnic tables and benches under shade trees. It was night, but during the day I’m sure you can see across the water to Miami Beach, which has its own Women’s Club building, that I visited for a different meeting.
Both women’s clubs have great ladies’ rooms. Not just clean, but really big, with dressing tables, marquee lighting around the mirrors, and white wicker lounge furniture. Those women really knew how to decorate a big bathroom.
Now a small art college takes up most of the space in the Miami Women’s Club building, and it’s rented out for special events. What did the women do with it? It must have been built during the Florida boom of the 1920s. When you consider what property was going for in those days, I’ll be they got Miami’s prominent men, who were their husbands and fathers, to buy the land and build it for them. The men went to their offices, and nannies took care of their kids. The women would get together for luncheons, fashion shows, and meetings to plan fund-raising projects.
Our town of Hollywood also has a small, older building that was the Hollywood Women’s Club. Because it is right across from the train station, it has been turned into a model train museum and is also rented out for functions. My husband’s company is having their Christmas party there.
Virginia Woolf said that Shakespeare’s sister could have been a writer if she had had an income of 500 pounds a year and a room of her own. I think that’s what these women were trying to create for themselves.
A few weeks ago I gave a presentation at the Ft. Lauderdale Museum of Art. The group that invited me was the “Friends of the Museum,” but I’m sure it started as the “Ladies Auxiliary.” These organizations are no longer limited to women, but the only man who was at my presentation was the treasurer of the group. Are we still unsure about handling money by ourselves?
After my talk, the Friends had their business meeting and reported on their bank balance (healthy), their past projects (successful), and their upcoming events (numerous). There will be luncheons and fashion shows, mostly fund-raisers for the Museum. They have already given $20,000 for a new sound system in the auditorium, and it sure worked well when I used it.
My hostess mentioned that they had agreed to split the presidency this year among three members, because no one had the time to take it on alone. In addition to whatever time they give to this group, many of these women serve as volunteer docents, leading tours of the museum. Most of them are in their 60s and 70s; I probably was the youngest one there.
Who will replace them? For the past few decades, non-profit organizations have struggled with re-organizing their volunteers. There are people out there willing to donate their time, but “everyone wants to do strategic planning,” a board member once told me. Who will stuff envelopes? Organize the luncheons? Do the necessary grunt work that, in an age of decreased government funding, non-profits can’t afford to pay for?
When I worked at a large hospital, we requested a volunteer once to do some kind of boring job—I forget what it was, sorting some papers. I apologized to the woman because she would have to sit for hours doing this routine work in a room away from other staff. “Honey,” she said to me. “I’ve got five kids at home. You have no idea how I look forward to coming here and doing this.”
One of the female students in the graduate business course I’m teaching came to me after class to tell me that she would be missing the next two sessions because she was having a Caesarean birth. I told her she could of course take more time off than that if she wanted to. “Are you kidding?” she said to me. “I’ve got five kids at home. I’d rather be here in class!”
See you next Wednesday.
Thanks for reading. You can e-mail me at kdonnellycom@aol.com.
23.11.03
Wednesday, November 19, 2003, Hollywood, FL
I want to tell you about an amazing man.
When I was doing my research for my dissertation on early 20th century writers’ salons—W B Yeats and the Irish Literary Renaissance, Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury Group, Gertrude Stein and the American expatriates in Paris, and Dorothy Parker and the Algonquin Round Table—there was this character who kept popping up. Like Woody Allen’s Zelig he appeared in biographies, memoirs and letters of the time, as well as in group photos of people like Yeats, Picasso, Matisse, Ezra Pound, James Joyce. Who was this guy?
When I first came across John Quinn, I checked the bibliographies and saw that there was one biography about him, B. L. Reid’s The Man from New York: John Quinn and His Friends (New York: Oxford University Press, 1968). Earlier this year I began doing some research on the 1913 New York Armory Show to include in my work-in-progress about the writers’ salons, “Such Friends.” There was John Quinn again, buying art in Paris, organizing the first exhibition of international modern art in the United States, writing to Joseph Conrad and other struggling writers of the time.
Jealous that someone else had written the definitive history of this intriguing creature, I broke down and took the biography out of the library. I discovered that it is really awful—badly written, hard to read, poorly organized. And, worst of all, the author makes this fascinating man’s life seem boring.
So here is the John Quinn I discovered. I’m still working on some of the details.
He was born in Ohio in 1870 of Irish immigrant parents; his father was a baker. He grew up in middle-class Fostoria, OH, and attended the University of Michigan. A family friend who was appointed Secretary of the Treasury under President Harrison invited Quinn to come to Washington DC to work for him. While working full-time in the federal government, he went to Georgetown University law school at night. After received his law degree, he earned an advanced degree in international relations from Harvard. Not bad for the son of a shanty-Irish baker.
Quinn then moved to New York City, which was to be his home for the rest of his life. He predictably got a job with a major New York law firm and worked on a lot of high profile corporate cases. During a two-year period there were a lot of deaths in his family—parents, sisters, etc.—and he began to explore his Irish roots. Right after the turn of the century he went to Ireland and, while attending a Gaelic language festival in the west of Ireland, met Lady Augusta Gregory and other friends of Yeats involved in the Irish Literary Renaissance. While helping them found the Abbey Theatre, he started his own law firm in 1906.
His successful law firm was supported by retainers from major corporations, and he became involved in New York’s Tammany Hall politics. But when his candidate didn’t get the nomination at the 1912 Democratic Party convention, he got disgusted with the whole system (go figure.) After that he turned his considerable energies to art and literature.
Quinn did delegate a lot of the work in his law firm when he was away, but, like a true control freak, he was always unhappy with the way his employees handled everything. During the first two decades of the 20th century he managed to: help organize the Armory Show, fight Congress to have a tariff on contemporary art changed, bail out the Abbey Theatre after they were arrested for performing The Playboy of the Western World in Philadelphia, have an affair with Lady Gregory and a number of other much younger women, support Yeats’ father in New York City by buying his paintings, support James Joyce in Paris by buying his manuscripts as he wrote them, argue the original case to have excerpts of Ulysses published in the United States, and amass an incredible collection of modern art, focused primarily on European painters. During that time he kept up a detailed correspondence with all of the above as well as Ezra Pound, Joseph Conrad, Augustus John and many other cultural luminaries of the early 20th century. Quite a guy. I get tired just thinking about all he accomplished.
Quinn died of intestinal cancer at the age of 54, and, having no heirs, willed that his art collection be sold off and dispersed among museums and collectors around the world.
Yesterday I gave my first presentation about the Armory Show to a group of art collectors at the Boca Raton Museum of Art. I hope I communicated to them John Quinn’s enthusiasm for supporting the living artist as well as the art.
Currently I am doing more research about Quinn and plan to write an article about him. Eventually I would like to give him the decent biography he deserves. I’ll keep you posted.
See you next Wednesday.
Thanks for reading. You can e-mail me at kdonnellycom@aol.com.
I want to tell you about an amazing man.
When I was doing my research for my dissertation on early 20th century writers’ salons—W B Yeats and the Irish Literary Renaissance, Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury Group, Gertrude Stein and the American expatriates in Paris, and Dorothy Parker and the Algonquin Round Table—there was this character who kept popping up. Like Woody Allen’s Zelig he appeared in biographies, memoirs and letters of the time, as well as in group photos of people like Yeats, Picasso, Matisse, Ezra Pound, James Joyce. Who was this guy?
When I first came across John Quinn, I checked the bibliographies and saw that there was one biography about him, B. L. Reid’s The Man from New York: John Quinn and His Friends (New York: Oxford University Press, 1968). Earlier this year I began doing some research on the 1913 New York Armory Show to include in my work-in-progress about the writers’ salons, “Such Friends.” There was John Quinn again, buying art in Paris, organizing the first exhibition of international modern art in the United States, writing to Joseph Conrad and other struggling writers of the time.
Jealous that someone else had written the definitive history of this intriguing creature, I broke down and took the biography out of the library. I discovered that it is really awful—badly written, hard to read, poorly organized. And, worst of all, the author makes this fascinating man’s life seem boring.
So here is the John Quinn I discovered. I’m still working on some of the details.
He was born in Ohio in 1870 of Irish immigrant parents; his father was a baker. He grew up in middle-class Fostoria, OH, and attended the University of Michigan. A family friend who was appointed Secretary of the Treasury under President Harrison invited Quinn to come to Washington DC to work for him. While working full-time in the federal government, he went to Georgetown University law school at night. After received his law degree, he earned an advanced degree in international relations from Harvard. Not bad for the son of a shanty-Irish baker.
Quinn then moved to New York City, which was to be his home for the rest of his life. He predictably got a job with a major New York law firm and worked on a lot of high profile corporate cases. During a two-year period there were a lot of deaths in his family—parents, sisters, etc.—and he began to explore his Irish roots. Right after the turn of the century he went to Ireland and, while attending a Gaelic language festival in the west of Ireland, met Lady Augusta Gregory and other friends of Yeats involved in the Irish Literary Renaissance. While helping them found the Abbey Theatre, he started his own law firm in 1906.
His successful law firm was supported by retainers from major corporations, and he became involved in New York’s Tammany Hall politics. But when his candidate didn’t get the nomination at the 1912 Democratic Party convention, he got disgusted with the whole system (go figure.) After that he turned his considerable energies to art and literature.
Quinn did delegate a lot of the work in his law firm when he was away, but, like a true control freak, he was always unhappy with the way his employees handled everything. During the first two decades of the 20th century he managed to: help organize the Armory Show, fight Congress to have a tariff on contemporary art changed, bail out the Abbey Theatre after they were arrested for performing The Playboy of the Western World in Philadelphia, have an affair with Lady Gregory and a number of other much younger women, support Yeats’ father in New York City by buying his paintings, support James Joyce in Paris by buying his manuscripts as he wrote them, argue the original case to have excerpts of Ulysses published in the United States, and amass an incredible collection of modern art, focused primarily on European painters. During that time he kept up a detailed correspondence with all of the above as well as Ezra Pound, Joseph Conrad, Augustus John and many other cultural luminaries of the early 20th century. Quite a guy. I get tired just thinking about all he accomplished.
Quinn died of intestinal cancer at the age of 54, and, having no heirs, willed that his art collection be sold off and dispersed among museums and collectors around the world.
Yesterday I gave my first presentation about the Armory Show to a group of art collectors at the Boca Raton Museum of Art. I hope I communicated to them John Quinn’s enthusiasm for supporting the living artist as well as the art.
Currently I am doing more research about Quinn and plan to write an article about him. Eventually I would like to give him the decent biography he deserves. I’ll keep you posted.
See you next Wednesday.
Thanks for reading. You can e-mail me at kdonnellycom@aol.com.
16.11.03
Wednesday, November 12, 2003, Hollywood, FL
Last week I went up to Okeechobee for a few days to stay with an old friend who had had surgery. Well, she’s as old as I am; Debbie and I grew up together in Pennsylvania. She came to Okeechobee fresh out of college to take a nursery school teaching job sight unseen and she has stayed for 30 years. Six years ago, when I moved down to Miami for a job at a large state university, she was thrilled.
Just like I did for most of my adult life, Debbie lives alone with her cats, and she has an incredible network of friends in Okeechobee and they’re all happy to come around whenever she needs them. But the doctors said she had to have someone around 24 hours a day for the week after she got out of the hospital. Because I’m only teaching Monday through Wednesday mornings, I volunteered to come up to cover the Thursday-to-Sunday shift.
Thanks to my laptop, cell phone, and Debbie’s DSL hook up, I knew I could do my work in Okeechobee. But what about NPR? What about decent food and nights out on the town? What about theatre, art, culture? I know—It’s only four days. But I’m a big city girl.
To get there, I decided to take the back route. It takes a bit longer, but it’s much more interesting than I-95-turn-left-at-West-Palm-Beach. About a mile west of our house, I threaded my way through the interchange that braids three interstates together and headed off to the four-lane, straight as an arrow, Route 27. If your car has good alignment, you can take your hands off the wheel and just let the vehicle coast up the road. It’s flat, even, and almost empty, spread out under the clouds hanging low in our amazing Florida skies.
After an hour of that I came to the bottom tip of Lake Okeechobee and made a right to take the road marked as a scenic route on the AAA maps. I could smell a hint of sugar cane, but couldn’t see the lake because it’s on the other side of what passes for a hill here in South Florida. I went through small towns that didn’t even have fast food restaurants or gas stations. As I came out the other side of Pahokee, a sign said “Rough Road” and for the next few miles it was bumpity bumpity ta bump ta bump. I lost one NPR station but then quickly picked up another.
Entering downtown Okeechobee from the south, I had a rendezvous with my old friend, Cap’n D’s Seafood, which I knew from past trips was the best fast food in the area. Then past the Wal-Mart, past the Pizza Hut, past the Fat Boy’s Bar-B-Que, straight north, left at the stoplight in the middle of downtown, and on to Debbie’s house. When she first moved here that was just about the only stop light.
Debbie’s getting around fine, but she is still recovering so I drove her SUV on our errands. One of the older shops we went into sells a panoramic photo of the main intersection of Okeechobee taken about 100 hundred years ago. At that time there was a hotel, train station and a feed store. Now there’s a Motel 6, parking lot and an Italian family restaurant.
We spent most of our time in Debbie’s big rambling two-bedroom house. Her door is unlocked when she’s there during the day, and her friends come in and out all the time. At one point, Debbie called her neighbors and left a message on their answering machine asking to borrow a whisk. Before she was done leaving the message, her neighbor walked in the door with one. “How did you know I needed a whisk?” Debbie asked. “I heard you on the message, so I didn’t bother to pick up the phone.”
One afternoon when we came home, there was a pickup truck in the driveway. “Whose is that?” I asked. “Oh, probably somebody visiting the neighbor. Sometimes they park here.” It’s a fluid community.
I thought I’d have to give up my newspaper jones while I was there, but the Okeechobee News was delivered every morning. It ain’t the New York Times, but there was a great mix of local, national, and, because we’re at war, international news. I couldn’t pick up NPR at her house, but Debbie’s wide-screen TV has CNN and other news channels on most of the time.
We went to a couple of flea markets to see if she could track down a piece of family jewelry she had lost. The signs proclaiming “No sale of guns here” appeared to be honored more than the ones proclaiming “Absolutely no pets.” Most of the tables had standard yard sale fare; a Chinese family ran one concession stand and a snack bar was selling Perrier. Debbie chatted up each jewelry dealer and left her card in case they saw the ring she had lost. One large, well-stocked jewelry shop was run by the family of one of her former students. The parents sure remembered “Miss Debbie,” and she remembered the girl, even after 15 years.
Debbie and I met in Catholic grade school, and since then we have each become recovering Catholics in our own way. I’ve replaced Sunday Mass with a firm belief in the importance of creativity to living a full life, and Debbie has become an Evangelical Christian. We went to her church on Sunday and she was greeted with hugs from everyone she talked to in the large congregation. They all knew about her surgery and were thrilled to see how well she was doing. At the beginning of the service, the pastor asked everyone to pray for church members who were sick, and he said how pleased he was to see Debbie there. “Keep praying for me!” she shouted back as everyone in the church applauded.
Some of the high school students presented a video and music tribute to our troops serving overseas that they had produced. Everyone who had relatives serving in Iraq or Afghanistan stood up to be acknowledged by the whole church.
I left late on Sunday afternoon in order to make it back to Ft. Lauderdale-Miami before dark. The direct route back took me through downtown, onto a 2-lane highway and then, one hour later, onto the interstate. The smells were of horses and big diesel trucks. The farther away from Okeechobee I got, the stronger the NPR signal became.
When Tony and I got married here in South Florida last year, we were surrounded by our new Florida friends and others who came from all over the country. My brother tried, but had family problems at the last minute and wasn’t able to make it. Tony’s kids and granddaughter made it all the way from Ireland, but Debbie was the closest thing to family I had at the ceremony.
At certain times in your life, the most important family members you have are the ones you’re not related to.
See you next Wednesday.
Thanks for reading. You can e-mail me at kdonnellycom@aol.com.
Last week I went up to Okeechobee for a few days to stay with an old friend who had had surgery. Well, she’s as old as I am; Debbie and I grew up together in Pennsylvania. She came to Okeechobee fresh out of college to take a nursery school teaching job sight unseen and she has stayed for 30 years. Six years ago, when I moved down to Miami for a job at a large state university, she was thrilled.
Just like I did for most of my adult life, Debbie lives alone with her cats, and she has an incredible network of friends in Okeechobee and they’re all happy to come around whenever she needs them. But the doctors said she had to have someone around 24 hours a day for the week after she got out of the hospital. Because I’m only teaching Monday through Wednesday mornings, I volunteered to come up to cover the Thursday-to-Sunday shift.
Thanks to my laptop, cell phone, and Debbie’s DSL hook up, I knew I could do my work in Okeechobee. But what about NPR? What about decent food and nights out on the town? What about theatre, art, culture? I know—It’s only four days. But I’m a big city girl.
To get there, I decided to take the back route. It takes a bit longer, but it’s much more interesting than I-95-turn-left-at-West-Palm-Beach. About a mile west of our house, I threaded my way through the interchange that braids three interstates together and headed off to the four-lane, straight as an arrow, Route 27. If your car has good alignment, you can take your hands off the wheel and just let the vehicle coast up the road. It’s flat, even, and almost empty, spread out under the clouds hanging low in our amazing Florida skies.
After an hour of that I came to the bottom tip of Lake Okeechobee and made a right to take the road marked as a scenic route on the AAA maps. I could smell a hint of sugar cane, but couldn’t see the lake because it’s on the other side of what passes for a hill here in South Florida. I went through small towns that didn’t even have fast food restaurants or gas stations. As I came out the other side of Pahokee, a sign said “Rough Road” and for the next few miles it was bumpity bumpity ta bump ta bump. I lost one NPR station but then quickly picked up another.
Entering downtown Okeechobee from the south, I had a rendezvous with my old friend, Cap’n D’s Seafood, which I knew from past trips was the best fast food in the area. Then past the Wal-Mart, past the Pizza Hut, past the Fat Boy’s Bar-B-Que, straight north, left at the stoplight in the middle of downtown, and on to Debbie’s house. When she first moved here that was just about the only stop light.
Debbie’s getting around fine, but she is still recovering so I drove her SUV on our errands. One of the older shops we went into sells a panoramic photo of the main intersection of Okeechobee taken about 100 hundred years ago. At that time there was a hotel, train station and a feed store. Now there’s a Motel 6, parking lot and an Italian family restaurant.
We spent most of our time in Debbie’s big rambling two-bedroom house. Her door is unlocked when she’s there during the day, and her friends come in and out all the time. At one point, Debbie called her neighbors and left a message on their answering machine asking to borrow a whisk. Before she was done leaving the message, her neighbor walked in the door with one. “How did you know I needed a whisk?” Debbie asked. “I heard you on the message, so I didn’t bother to pick up the phone.”
One afternoon when we came home, there was a pickup truck in the driveway. “Whose is that?” I asked. “Oh, probably somebody visiting the neighbor. Sometimes they park here.” It’s a fluid community.
I thought I’d have to give up my newspaper jones while I was there, but the Okeechobee News was delivered every morning. It ain’t the New York Times, but there was a great mix of local, national, and, because we’re at war, international news. I couldn’t pick up NPR at her house, but Debbie’s wide-screen TV has CNN and other news channels on most of the time.
We went to a couple of flea markets to see if she could track down a piece of family jewelry she had lost. The signs proclaiming “No sale of guns here” appeared to be honored more than the ones proclaiming “Absolutely no pets.” Most of the tables had standard yard sale fare; a Chinese family ran one concession stand and a snack bar was selling Perrier. Debbie chatted up each jewelry dealer and left her card in case they saw the ring she had lost. One large, well-stocked jewelry shop was run by the family of one of her former students. The parents sure remembered “Miss Debbie,” and she remembered the girl, even after 15 years.
Debbie and I met in Catholic grade school, and since then we have each become recovering Catholics in our own way. I’ve replaced Sunday Mass with a firm belief in the importance of creativity to living a full life, and Debbie has become an Evangelical Christian. We went to her church on Sunday and she was greeted with hugs from everyone she talked to in the large congregation. They all knew about her surgery and were thrilled to see how well she was doing. At the beginning of the service, the pastor asked everyone to pray for church members who were sick, and he said how pleased he was to see Debbie there. “Keep praying for me!” she shouted back as everyone in the church applauded.
Some of the high school students presented a video and music tribute to our troops serving overseas that they had produced. Everyone who had relatives serving in Iraq or Afghanistan stood up to be acknowledged by the whole church.
I left late on Sunday afternoon in order to make it back to Ft. Lauderdale-Miami before dark. The direct route back took me through downtown, onto a 2-lane highway and then, one hour later, onto the interstate. The smells were of horses and big diesel trucks. The farther away from Okeechobee I got, the stronger the NPR signal became.
When Tony and I got married here in South Florida last year, we were surrounded by our new Florida friends and others who came from all over the country. My brother tried, but had family problems at the last minute and wasn’t able to make it. Tony’s kids and granddaughter made it all the way from Ireland, but Debbie was the closest thing to family I had at the ceremony.
At certain times in your life, the most important family members you have are the ones you’re not related to.
See you next Wednesday.
Thanks for reading. You can e-mail me at kdonnellycom@aol.com.
