The First Folios II

I’m a lifelong Shakespeare fan. When I met my sister Pam in London, I’d already gotten us tickets for two of his plays. And once I saw a First Folio of The Tempest at the National Maritime Museum, I was on a mission. In the next ten days, I wanted to track down as many Folio Editions as possible….

We didn’t know it, but it was ‘Folio Season’ (4th March to 8th November). The year 2023 was the 400th anniversary of the printing of the First Folio which brought together 23 of the Bard’s plays. Talk about perfect timing to visit London and go on a Shakespeare hunt!

We saw both Macbeth and As You Like It in London and the Globe Theater displayed the ‘Munro’ copy in their main foyer. It was a pleasure to see the anonymous owner had made the copy available for the public to view.

The V&A Museum owns three copies of the First Folio. The V&A’s obsession with collecting (the Victorian “I want!” compulsion, we called it) proved too much for us. Pam and I made it to the room with their folio editions, admired them, and fled.

Image courtesy of the British Library website. Link provided in the NOTES

But the British Library displays copies of all the Folios (First, Second, Third and Fourth) in their superb Treasures Room. The Library was down the street from our hotel; this meant we were able to visit twice and take our time examining the cases with their rare copies of Beowulf, Chaucer, Shakespeare, the Brontë sisters’ teeny tiny book (it fits in a palm), Mary Wollstonecraft’s Vindication of the Rights of Woman, original notebook pages of song texts by the Beatles, the Magna Carta, and so much more.

It’s free to visit! Go! The Bard and I would approve!

PROSPERO

Sir, I invite your highness and your train
To my poor cell, where you shall take your rest
For this one night; which, part of it, I’ll waste
With such discourse as, I not doubt, shall make it
Go quick away; the story of my life
And the particular accidents gone by
Since I came to this isle: and in the morn
I’ll bring you to your ship and so to Naples,
Where I have hope to see the nuptial
Of these our dear-beloved solemnized;
And thence retire me to my Milan, where
Every third thought shall be my grave.

NOTES: “On 25 March 1616, Shakespeare revised and signed his will. On 23 April, his presumed birthday, he died, aged 52. On 25 April, he was buried at Holy Trinity Church in Stratford.”The Royal Shakespeare Company.©2024 Jadi Campbell. Click here for more on British Library Treasures. For Uwe’s photos from our trips and his photography, go to viewpics.de.

My books are Broken In: A Novel in Stories, Tsunami Cowboys,  Grounded and The Trail Back Out.

Tsunami Cowboys was longlisted for the 2019 ScreenCraft Cinematic Book Award. Broken In: A Novel in Stories was semifinalist for the international 2020 Hawk Mountain Short Story Collection Award from Hidden River Arts and Finalist for Greece’s 2021 Eyelands Book of the Year Award (Short Stories).

The Trail Back Out was the 2023 San Francisco Book Festival Winner for General Fiction, American Book Fest 2020 Best Book Award Finalist: Fiction Anthologies, Runner-Up for the 2021 Top Shelf Award, 2021 IAN Book of the Year Award Short Story Collection Finalist, and awarded a 2021 Wishing Shelf Red Ribbon. The title story The Trail Back Out was longlisted for the 2021 ScreenCraft Cinematic Short Story Award.

Click here for my author page to learn more about me and purchase my books.

Family Myths

I wrote Family Myths after my father died. It’s the true story of one of the worst conversations in my life. Almost fifty years passed and neither of us ever mentioned that conversation again.

The University of Colorado Boulder’s Program for Writing and Rhetoric did me the incredible honor of accepting Family Myths for publication in Hindsight Journal, their annual publication.

Hindsight Journal has just come out. Click on this link to read the magazine on line for free. Hindsight Journal 4

For any readers out there who have words etched in your brains, this story is for you.

NOTES: ©2024 Jadi Campbell. For photos from our trips and Uwe’s photography, go to viewpics.de.

My books are Broken In: A Novel in Stories, Tsunami Cowboys,  Grounded and The Trail Back Out.

Tsunami Cowboys was longlisted for the 2019 ScreenCraft Cinematic Book Award. Broken In: A Novel in Stories was semifinalist for the international 2020 Hawk Mountain Short Story Collection Award from Hidden River Arts and Finalist for Greece’s 2021 Eyelands Book of the Year Award (Short Stories).

The Trail Back Out was the 2023 San Francisco Book Festival Winner for General Fiction, American Book Fest 2020 Best Book Award Finalist: Fiction Anthologies, Runner-Up for the 2021 Top Shelf Award, 2021 IAN Book of the Year Award Short Story Collection Finalist, and awarded a 2021 Wishing Shelf Red Ribbon. The title story The Trail Back Out was longlisted for the 2021 ScreenCraft Cinematic Short Story Award.

Click here for my author page to learn more about me and purchase my books.

The First Folios

Fanatical Fan of First Folios ?

That’s me….

I’m in love with Shakespeare. [1] It all began with going to a performance of A Midsummer Night’s Dream as children. The college show was sold-out, SRO. Or, in my sister Pam’s and my cases, sitting room only. The adults sat us on the edge of the stage and I remember watching spellbound. We were hit by the dew drops that Puck sprinkled on Titania and the hapless lovers, and I’ve been love with the Bard ever since.

Heading to London last September to meet Pam meant we were going to be busy. Pam’s wish list was long and broad. Mine was too, but the #1 item on my list was this: Make a pilgrimage to the National Maritime Museum and  the first folio of The Tempest they were exhibiting as part of the First Folio’s 400th birthday!

The exhibit The Tempest and the Thames: Shakespeare’s First Folio was closing a few days after our arrival, and my lovely sister agreed that we could head there before we did anything else in London…

Pammy snapped photos of me pointing in glee at the First Folio edition lent to the museum by Dulwich College. I made a point of leaning over the glass case and read aloud from the pages the curators had opened the folio to.  It begins with a terrible storm:

ACT I

SCENE II. The island. Before PROSPERO’S cell.

Enter PROSPERO and MIRANDA

MIRANDA

If by your art, my dearest father, you have
Put the wild waters in this roar, allay them.
The sky, it seems, would pour down stinking pitch,
But that the sea, mounting to the welkin’s cheek,
Dashes the fire out. O, I have suffered
With those that I saw suffer: a brave vessel,
Who had, no doubt, some noble creature in her,
Dash’d all to pieces. O, the cry did knock
Against my very heart. Poor souls, they perish’d.
Had I been any god of power, I would
Have sunk the sea within the earth or ere
It should the good ship so have swallow’d and
The fraughting souls within her.

PROSPERO

Be collected:
No more amazement: tell your piteous heart
There’s no harm done.

It was an emotional experience for me. I swear my eyes were filling with tears by the time I finished reading out loud from a manuscript of a play performed 400 years ago.

Reading from a First Folio went from being a thrill to an obsession. I decided to track down as many folios as time allowed.

Part II to follow!

NOTES: [1] I mentioned this fact in a post I titled Meet the One-Tracks. And today is William Shakespeare’s birthday. The Immortal Bard would be 459 years young today. He and his works haven’t aged a bit. ©2024 Jadi Campbell. For Uwe’s photos from our trips and his photography, go to viewpics.de.

My books are Broken In: A Novel in Stories, Tsunami Cowboys,  Grounded and The Trail Back Out.

Tsunami Cowboys was longlisted for the 2019 ScreenCraft Cinematic Book Award. Broken In: A Novel in Stories was semifinalist for the international 2020 Hawk Mountain Short Story Collection Award from Hidden River Arts and Finalist for Greece’s 2021 Eyelands Book of the Year Award (Short Stories).

The Trail Back Out was the 2023 San Francisco Book Festival Winner for General Fiction, American Book Fest 2020 Best Book Award Finalist: Fiction Anthologies, Runner-Up for the 2021 Top Shelf Award, 2021 IAN Book of the Year Award Short Story Collection Finalist, and awarded a 2021 Wishing Shelf Red Ribbon. The title story The Trail Back Out was longlisted for the 2021 ScreenCraft Cinematic Short Story Award.

Click here for my author page to learn more about me and purchase my books.

Mom’s Favorite Critter

Giraffe. 1,000 to 10,000 years old rock art Twyfelfontein, Namibia. UNESCO World Heritage site

The one negative during our trip to southern Africa was that we couldn’t go for hikes. Heck, we couldn’t even go on a stroll because there were too many wild animals running around. We went everywhere in our rental 4WD or a game drive jeep. Most of the lodges we stayed in were in the bush and each place we checked in, they warned us not to stray outside the grounds.

I had to give up the hope of swimming in anything but a pool. If hippos didn’t kill me, the crocodiles would.

Etosha National Park, Namibia

My mom’s favorite animal was the giraffe. Sandy loved them, their patterns, their grace, their impossible heights. I thought of her each time we spotted another giraffe.

Giraffe with hitchhikers, Moremi Game Reserve, Botswana

The only word I can use to describe this animal is, glorious. They fit all the definitions of the word: The giraffe is marked by great beauty and splendor. They are delightful. They are wonderful.

The pattern on each giraffe’s coat is as unique as a fingerprint. A giraffe moves at a regal pace. And their improbable tallness is suddenly funny when they have to splay their forelegs like a tripod in order to take a drink.

Etosha National Park, Namibia

Not being able to go for walks was a small price to pay to be able to see wildlife in their natural habitats. Some of the lodges were built on water holes, and we ate our meals along with the critters. We had the great pleasure of watching giraffes approach for a long drink of water.

time to spread the forelegs
the legs need to be splayed even wider
finally there

Our last lodge on the trip was back in Namibia, and for the one and only time we could actually go for long walks out on the property!

the road sign for the last lodge

Uwe and I were alone and out of sight of the lodge buildings and felt like we had the pampas to ourselves.

 

 

 

 

We spotted wildebeests, pavians (yuck, I do not like wild monkeys), antelopes, zebras,

and giraffes!

once they spotted us, they kept a wary watch

Later we surprised a lone giraffe crossing the path. When he ran off, there was nothing but the sounds of birds calling and his hooves thumping on the grassland.

My mom would have loved it. Sandy, this post about giraffes is for you.

NOTES: They are notoriously hard to track. Tracking Giraffes ©2024 Jadi Campbell. Photos ©2023 Uwe Hartmann. Uwe’s photography and his photos of our trips can be viewed at viewpics.de.

My books are Broken In: A Novel in Stories, Tsunami Cowboys,  Grounded and The Trail Back Out.

Tsunami Cowboys was longlisted for the 2019 ScreenCraft Cinematic Book Award. Broken In: A Novel in Stories was semifinalist for the international 2020 Hawk Mountain Short Story Collection Award from Hidden River Arts and Finalist for Greece’s 2021 Eyelands Book of the Year Award (Short Stories).

The Trail Back Out was the 2023 San Francisco Book Festival Winner for General Fiction, American Book Fest 2020 Best Book Award Finalist: Fiction Anthologies, Runner-Up for the 2021 Top Shelf Award, 2021 IAN Book of the Year Award Short Story Collection Finalist, and awarded a 2021 Wishing Shelf Red Ribbon. The title story The Trail Back Out was longlisted for the 2021 ScreenCraft Cinematic Short Story Award.

Click here for my author page to learn more about me and purchase my books.

Today’s Birthday: Valerie Jane Morris-Goodall

Dr. Jane Goodall was born on April 3, 1934 in Hamstead, London, England. She is a anthropologist and primatologist, acknowledged as the world’s expert on chimpanzees. In 1960 she went to the Gombe Stream National Park of Tanzania to study the Kasakela chimpanzee community. That study is still going, making it the the longest continuous study of animals in their natural habitat [1]. In her honor I give you the post I wrote after we visited the orangutan rehabilitation center on Borneo. – Jadi

In 2019 we saw our first free roaming orangutan.

We were at Semenggoh Nature Reserve, just south of Kuching in the Sarawak state on Borneo. Semenggoh is also a Wildlife Centre, established in 1975 as a rehabilitation sanctuary. They take in injured, orphaned, or rescued orangutans. The sole goal of the centre is the rehabilitation and gradual return of animals to fend for themselves in the wild.

Orangutans are endangered, rare, marvelous. They’re native to only two places on the entire planet: Borneo or Sumatra. Our chances of running across them in the wild were pretty much zero, but at Semenggoh maybe we could watch them feeding.

Our individually booked, guided visit conjoined with the larger international tourist groups. The centre gives educational lectures. We learned the rarity and habits of these giant primates. Orangutans spend at least 60% of their waking time looking for food. “Their diet consists of 300 different kinds of fruit such as barks, honey, young shoots, insects and occasional bird egg and small vertebrae. Fruits make up 60% of the orangutan’s diet.” Also (this fact surprised me), “a 1-mile square radius of rainforest can only support a low population density of about 2.5 orangutans.”  [2]

The centre maintains a feeding platform. Orangutans are called back for lunch if they want it. But the jungle vegetation fruited a second time last winter, and we were informed that if the orangutans didn’t show, this was a sign that they were fending successfully for themselves in the thick woods. And indeed, none of the creatures responded to the rangers’ calls. [3]

We waited patiently for the tardy luncheon guests. Then suddenly walkie talkies crackled. The seemingly relaxed park guides sprang into action, urging everyone back towards the entrance. A ranger had spotted an orangutan!

Seduku

The matriarch was in a tree near the parking lot and ironically closer and easier to observe than if she’d come to the feeding platform. It was Seduku. She’s nicknamed the ‘Grand Old Lady’, born in 1971.

The Grand Old Lady

Seduku could be aggressive towards tourists, our guide said. But the morning we ‘met’ her she was mellow (and almost seemed to be showing off). All I can say is that she had a conscious dignity. Kudos to the great work being done on behalf of orangutans at the Semenggoh Rehab Centre!

NOTES: [1] Kasakela chimpanzee community [2] Semenggoh Wildlife Centre [3] Not getting to see the endangered animals at a feeding station means that they’ve rehabilitated into their natural habitat. Not seeing them is a good thing. This is an ironic moment for any tourist. To learn more about the rehab center, go to their website at https://semenggoh.my/ ©2024 Jadi Campbell. Previously published as Borneo’s Wild Orangutans. All photos © Uwe Hartmann. To see more of Uwe’s animal photos and pics from our trips go to viewpics.de.

My books are Broken In: A Novel in Stories, Tsunami Cowboys,  Grounded and The Trail Back Out.

Tsunami Cowboys was longlisted for the 2019 ScreenCraft Cinematic Book Award. Broken In: A Novel in Stories was semifinalist for the international 2020 Hawk Mountain Short Story Collection Award from Hidden River Arts and Finalist for Greece’s 2021 Eyelands Book of the Year Award (Short Stories). The Trail Back Out was the 2023 San Francisco Book Festival Winner for General Fiction, American Book Fest 2020 Best Book Award Finalist: Fiction Anthologies, Runner-Up for the 2021 Top Shelf Award, 2021 IAN Book of the Year Award Short Story Collection Finalist, and awarded a 2021 Wishing Shelf Red Ribbon. The title story The Trail Back Out was longlisted for the 2021 ScreenCraft Cinematic Short Story Award.

Click here for my author page to learn more about me and purchase my books.

Southern African Birds with their Friends and Foes

“A heart without dreams is like a bird without feathers.” — Suzy Kassem

The bird life in Botswana and Namibia is fantastically entertaining. One of my favorite birding activities was watching them interact with other animals.

In Chobe, Botswana we spent breathless minutes watching a male African fish eagle try – and fail – to fly away with the huge fish he’d killed. A trio of monitor lizards kept on coming, and the eagle finally dragged his catch across the grasses. In the end, the lizard won.

that’s a monitor lizard in the lower right hand corner, determined to steal the fish

On our last night in Botswana, at dusk (alas, too dark for photos) we watched a pair of Verreaux’s giant eagle owls hunting until it became too dark to see them. They were hands-down the largest owls we’d ever seen and absolutely magnificent.

A Verreaux's Eagle-Owl at Tarangire National Park, Tanzania.
Eagle owl photo courtesy of Animalia. We saw a pair in Ghanzi, Botswana

We loved watching the giraffes with birds. They eat the insects that plague the giraffe, and pluck hairs from the mane for their nests. We spotted this group in Moremi Game Reserve.

5 red billed ox birds. Their giraffe host looked so serene

Even more daring are the red billed ox birds who catch the flies and bugs that land on a water buffalo’s nose and eyes.

bird and buffalo in Chobe National Park

As I said in my first post on them, This Life is for the Birds!

NOTES: For more on Verreaux’s  eagle-owl go to  https://animalia.bio ©2024 Jadi Campbell. Photos ©2023 Uwe Hartmann. Uwe’s photos of our trips and his photography may be viewed at viewpics.de.

My books are Broken In: A Novel in Stories, Tsunami Cowboys,  Grounded and The Trail Back Out.

Tsunami Cowboys was longlisted for the 2019 ScreenCraft Cinematic Book Award. Broken In: A Novel in Stories was semifinalist for the international 2020 Hawk Mountain Short Story Collection Award from Hidden River Arts and Finalist for Greece’s 2021 Eyelands Book of the Year Award (Short Stories).

The Trail Back Out was the 2023 San Francisco Book Festival Winner for General Fiction, American Book Fest 2020 Best Book Award Finalist: Fiction Anthologies, Runner-Up for the 2021 Top Shelf Award, 2021 IAN Book of the Year Award Short Story Collection Finalist, and awarded a 2021 Wishing Shelf Red Ribbon. The title story The Trail Back Out was longlisted for the 2021 ScreenCraft Cinematic Short Story Award.

Click here for my author page to learn more about me and purchase my books.

The Vernal Equinox + The Northern Lights + Lappland

The spring equinox arrives tomorrow. In honor of the turning of the seasons I give you the post I wrote after visiting the Arctic Circle. – Jadi

For 14 years my husband spent half of every winter up in northern Sweden, working on a frozen lake. The engineers flew up for 2-week stints, leaving home on Mondays and returning two weeks later on a Friday evening charter flight.

The very last year that Uwe did this stint, his company began to allow family members to take advantage of the flights. At the end of March 2001, on the vernal equinox, I flew up to meet Uwe in the region broadly known as Lappland.

Limited access roads

My flight was delayed while President Putin flew through European airspace back to Russia. By the time I arrived it was close to midnight, and we had to drive an hour further north to reach Arjeplog. It was a bitterly cold -22° and on either side of the deserted road the snow piles loomed. But we kept stopping the car to get out – the Northern Lights were dancing in the heavens! So far north, surrounded by nothing but woods and the glittering of stars, the aurora borealis played across the horizen.

I heard a weird background swishing noise underneath the sound of my heart beat. I was listening to the borealis. As I stood on the frigid road my optic nerves took pictures of the Northern Lights. It was so quiet that the part of my brain which processes sound picked up signals leaking out from the images. Early explorers in the Arctic Circle reported this experience. (They discovered when they put their hands over their eyes, the sounds went away.)

The Lights are caused by disturbance in the magnetic field of the earth’s poles. Energy generated by solar winds is hurled from the sun at incredibly high speeds. The solar winds get stopped when they hit the magnetic field. Electrons and atoms from the windstorms collide, and that creates the lights.

In some parts of Sweden and Norway, people earlier described the aurora borealis as the reflection of Silleblixt, millions of herring swimming in the sea. The Eskimos have a legend about the Northern Lights. They think the aurora borealis lights up the trail of the afterlife. This is a dangerous, narrow path that souls must take when they leave dead bodies and head to heaven.

Some cultures mention the lights as dancers in the heavens. Scotsmen call the Northern Lights ‘Merry Dancers’. In the Middle Ages, if people saw the Northern Lights and they contained red, it meant a war was starting somewhere in the world. The red color was death and the blood being spilled in battles. I just saw different shades of white lights and no other colors in the spectrum. And I definitely thought they were alive, like dancers.

The next day we drove north and officially crossed into the Arctic Circle. The trees ended altogether and the landscape beyond this point was a dome of snow meeting an azure sky.

It had warmed up to -6° and the day was clear and beautiful

The Swedes refer to this time of year as winter-spring, the 5thand most beautiful season of all. I made a snow angel

A snow angel for the Arctic Circle

and spotted a rare Arctic white ptarmigan. We drove past spots on the deserted roads where black garbage bags hung dark against the snow. These are a signal for drivers that a herd of reindeer is grazing somewhere nearby.

That weekend is the only time I have seen the Northern Lights. They have danced in my memories ever since.

NOTES: © Jadi Campbell 2024. Previously published as It Was a Bitterly Cold – 22°. To see Uwe’s photos from our trips go to viewpics.de.

My books are Broken In: A Novel in Stories, Tsunami Cowboys, Grounded, and The Trail Back Out

Tsunami Cowboys was longlisted for the 2019 ScreenCraft Cinematic Book Award. Broken In: A Novel in Stories was semifinalist for the international 2020 Hawk Mountain Short Story Collection Award from Hidden River Arts and Finalist for Greece’s 2021 Eyelands Book of the Year Award (Short Stories). The Trail Back Out was the 2023 San Francisco Book Festival Winner for General Fiction, American Book Fest 2020 Best Book Award Finalist: Fiction Anthologies, Runner-Up for the 2021 Top Shelf Award, 2021 IAN Book of the Year Award Short Story Collection Finalist, and awarded a 2021 Wishing Shelf Red Ribbon. The title story The Trail Back Out was longlisted for the 2021 ScreenCraft Cinematic Short Story Award.

Click here for my author page to learn more about me and purchase my books.

The Green Under the Snow

THEMA Literary Journal’s new issue Help From a Stranger features my short story The Green Under the Snow. This story is from my collection The Trail Back Out.

Here is their mission statement: “THEMA, the theme-related journal, has three goals. One is to provide a stimulating forum for established and emerging literary and visual artists. The second is to serve as source material and inspiration for teachers of creative writing. The third is to provide readers with a unique and entertaining collection of stories, poems, art and photography.”

THEMA was born in 1988 and is used by university writing programs across the USA.

To see more and order issues, here is a link to their website:  https://themaliterarysociety.com/

I’m one proud author and deeply honored THEMA accepted my story!

NOTES: ©2024 Jadi Campbell.

The Trail Back Out was the 2023 San Francisco Book Festival Winner for General Fiction, American Book Fest 2020 Best Book Award Finalist: Fiction Anthologies, Runner-Up for the 2021 Top Shelf Award, 2021 IAN Book of the Year Award Short Story Collection Finalist, and awarded a 2021 Wishing Shelf Red Ribbon. The title story The Trail Back Out was long listed for the 2021 ScreenCraft Cinematic Short Story Award.

Click here for my author page to learn more about me and purchase my books.

 

The Daily Briefing

My sisters were adamant. They know that when I’m traveling I prefer to go off-line. I don’t write emails, I don’t turn on the television set in hotel rooms, and I only respond to messages if they can’t wait.

Uwe sent occasional photos via What’s App to a small group of our friends, but I told my sisters I wanted to remain off-radar.

They insisted. If Uwe and I wanted to drive by ourselves around Namibia and Botswana, they wanted to know where we were staying and where we’d head next. “You can always reach me by cell phone,” I told them. But they wished to follow our trip on the map, and visualize where we were at any given time.

The request actually made a lot of sense to me the more I thought about it. The longer the trip lasted (we were gone for 5 weeks) the smarter it seemed. Uwe and I had talked excitedly about the trip as we planned it, but no one had a comprehensive list of lodge addresses and phone numbers where we could be reached if anyone needed to get in touch with us.

If for some weird reason we disappeared totally, nobody other than a travel agent knew where to find us….

Each evening I’d send a quick message to let Pam and Barb know we’d arrived safe and sound at our destination. Or, in the morning before driving off, I’d text them the name of the next national park and lodge we’d be heading to.

It turned into a rather glorious game. “Hey! Where’s our zebra of the day?” they’d text.

one of Uwe’s great photographs

I did my best to oblige. Uwe’s by far the superior photographer but I snapped shots of the animals crossing the roads and included a daily photo in my daily briefing.

Ghanzi, Botswana horses
cattle everywhere
another roadside attraction: Botswana elephants

I tried to give them an idea of what I was seeing each day. I took photos of the metal artwork, the room we stayed in, the sunset view at dinner.

 

 

 

Maybe once a week we chatted in a three-way phone call. Barb was in Oaxaca, Pam was in Hong Kong, I was in Africa. My sister listened to me crow about our adventures. They told me in no uncertain terms to get medical attention the morning I reported that an insect I could only identify as a black Botswana battery-acid blister beetle had released noxious fluids on my neck. [1]

I journal diligently on trips to record as accurately as possible what we are seeing in each new place, but there was something rapturous about making quick emotional reports. My two sisters were the friends to receive a running commentary of first impressions.

Only Barb and Pam heard from me about the trip as it was happening. There’s no one I’d rather have had as virtual companions. xoxoxoxoxo

I want to end with a postscript that it’s a good idea before heading out on a big adventure to leave the particulars with someone you trust. Sisters, you are now forever on the need-to-know basis!

NOTES: [1] Go to my posts about the black Botswana battery-acid blister beetle for that story. ©2024 Jadi Campbell. Some photos ©2023 Uwe Hartmann. For more of Uwe’s photos from our trips and his photography, go to viewpics.de.

My books are Broken In: A Novel in Stories, Tsunami Cowboys,  Grounded and The Trail Back Out.

Tsunami Cowboys was longlisted for the 2019 ScreenCraft Cinematic Book Award. Broken In: A Novel in Stories was semifinalist for the international 2020 Hawk Mountain Short Story Collection Award from Hidden River Arts and Finalist for Greece’s 2021 Eyelands Book of the Year Award (Short Stories).

The Trail Back Out was the 2023 San Francisco Book Festival Winner for General Fiction, American Book Fest 2020 Best Book Award Finalist: Fiction Anthologies, Runner-Up for the 2021 Top Shelf Award, 2021 IAN Book of the Year Award Short Story Collection Finalist, and awarded a 2021 Wishing Shelf Red Ribbon. The title story The Trail Back Out was long listed for the 2021 ScreenCraft Cinematic Short Story Award.

Click here for my author page to learn more about me and purchase my books.

 

A Boogie with George and the Boys

George Harrison was born on February 25, 1943 in Liverpool, England. The “quiet Beatle” helped bring Indian music to the West with his interest in the sitar and conversion to Hinduism. He hosted one of the very first benefit shows, 1971’s The Concert for Bangladesh. The guest line up included Bob Dylan, Ravi Shankar, Ringo Star, Leon Russell, Billy Preston, Eric Clapton, Ali Akbar Khan, and the members of Badfinger. In Harrison’s honor I give you reprinting the post I wrote after seeing the Bootleg Beatles. – Jadi

One year when Uwe and I took a vacation in Asia, I jumped at the chance to fly early and visit my sister Pam and my nephew Nikolai in Hong Kong. They lived in the city for a few years, and Pam had made a game out of finding as many cultural events as possible.

We attended a Japanese hip hop performance, fascinated to see how a form that began with black America was interpreted into Japanese. We got tickets for electrifying (and surprisingly political) Chinese modern dance. Not everything we saw was good; we had to suffer through an hour of really bad flamenco. We fled as soon as politely possible.

And Pam got us tickets for the Bootleg Beatles.

Asians retain a fierce love of the Beatles to this day, and the Bootleg Beatles aren’t your average cover band. The Bootlegs are the Beatles’ first and oldest tribute band. They have been playing for over 36 years! “George”, “Ringo”, “John” and “Paul” sing and play, complete with costume changes to track the evolution of the group. An eight-piece orchestra backs them up. They. Are. Terrific.

The Lyric Theatre of the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts is a classic amphitheater space. Our seats must have been the last three sold: Pam, Nikolai and I sat high, high up in the last row.

Once they started playing, it was clear why the concert was completely sold-out. It was like the Bootlegs were channeling the original band. My sister and I got up and danced.

But a strange thing happened: during the entire concert, we were the only people dancing. The amphitheater was filled to capacity with more than a thousand Hong Kong residents and visitors – and everyone was far too well-behaved to get on their feet.

We were surprised that no one else danced. Had we missed something? Was there some kind of Asian protocol about performances? We looked at one another, at Nikolai (sitting between us with his face covered, totally absorbed in listening to the band and not about to join us) and the proper people sitting all around. Like I say: we had seats in the final row up in nose-bleed territory. The only thing behind us was a cement wall. Who would it disturb if we danced?

So we did. From Please Please Me to Back in the USSR to All You Need is Love, we rocked out. Pam and I had a ball. There is something about giving yourself over to the ecstasy and joy of great music. These are the tunes of our childhoods and teenage years.

We grew up with the Beatles. The night in 1964 the band played on The Ed Sullivan Show, Mom came and got us out of bed. “Come see the Beatles!” she urged. I was a little kid at the time. I remember dashing to the black and white television set in excitement… only to watch bewildered as four men in black sang. Where were the insects? (Our dad Bobbo was an entomologist, so my confusion was genuine.)  Later the band and their music became – and remain – an integral part of the weave of my life.

These are just the albums I have in CD form. The others are records and downloads…

So. Fast-forward almost 50 years to an amphitheater in Hong Kong, and you’ll understand why we simply had to get up and boogie.

Before the first break, “George” said how nice it was everyone had come out for the show. He added, “Especially you at the back. We’re really glad you’re here. You’re great!”

“Hey!” I exclaimed. “Do you think he means us?” At the end of the show, “George” and the boys thanked the audience for coming, with “A special thank you to the two girls in the top row. You made the show.”

Some events remain live. In a parallel universe and all my dreams, I’m still dancing.

Love Me Do!

In memory of George Harrison, 25 February 1943 – 29 November 2001

NOTES: The Bootleg Beatles; Story and Photo ©2024/2017 Jadi Campbell. Previously published as A Boogie with the Bootlegs. To see Uwe’s animal photos and pics from our trips go to viewpics.de.

My books are Broken In: A Novel in Stories, Tsunami Cowboys,  Grounded and The Trail Back Out.

Tsunami Cowboys was longlisted for the 2019 ScreenCraft Cinematic Book Award. Broken In: A Novel in Stories was semifinalist for the international 2020 Hawk Mountain Short Story Collection Award from Hidden River Arts and Finalist for Greece’s 2021 Eyelands Book of the Year Award (Short Stories). The Trail Back Out was the 2023 San Francisco Book Festival Winner for General Fiction, American Book Fest 2020 Best Book Award Finalist: Fiction Anthologies, Runner-Up for the 2021 Top Shelf Award, 2021 IAN Book of the Year Award Short Story Collection Finalist, and awarded a 2021 Wishing Shelf Red Ribbon. The title story The Trail Back Out was longlisted for the 2021 ScreenCraft Cinematic Short Story Award.

Click here for my author page to learn more about me and purchase my books.

 

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