"May your life be as cloudless as a summer day. Your friend, Maud Wright. January 24th, 1884."
I inherited the Saum family Bible after my sister and mother died 18 months ago. I haven't given it much thought, but in the writing of my new novel, Step Zero 2.0, I have good and bad Christians and I need a good King James Bible for research. So off to the musty storage locker I went.
What I found was an beautiful ancient book with the deaths, births and marriages of my mother's side of the family, from the 1860's to a couple decades ago. I had no idea those records were still in the book. I thought those pages had been missing for years. Instead, they were nestled between the Old and New Testament. I filled in the death dates that have occurred in the last few years that I knew: an uncle, an aunt, a father, a mother, a sister. Some questions were answered about my ancestors yet more questions arose, like the twins by Aunt Nan who died in 1941 after having lived only one day. No one's ever talked about those baby's deaths.
The Bible seemed to have been purchased by the great great grand parents after the birth of their second child in 1884. Thumbing through this huge tome I found the above note. I have no idea who Maud Wright was, but my best guess is she was a good friend of the Saums.
"May your life be as cloudless as a summer day," she wrote to her friends. I'm struck not only by the beautiful handwriting but mostly the lovely sentiment.
So did Earl and Nannie Saum have a cloudless life? Doubtful, even though they were wealthy landownders in Northern Virginia. They had sicknesses and successes, failures and weaknesses, births and deaths, most of the fine details lost in Time.
But the kind thought of a friend wishing them calm and peace lives on, in my hands, in my family bible, 129 years later, almost to the day.
I can only hope that a century from now, someone finds a handwritten note from me, wishing a friend love and light. I best get started.
"Easter, 1956, Richmond, Virginia" (c) 2013 Stuart Jenks, Sr., and Jr.
Me at 16 months. Nice photo, Dad. Nice bunny too.
(Author Photo by Jeff Smith at www.jeffsmithusa.com
Step Zero, the novel, has been launched.
So where can you buy it?
For those of you with tablets and digital devices, you can buy Step Zero as an iBook from the Apple store, for your iPad and iPhone, or you can obtain it as an ebook for your Amazon Kindle device, via this link. (The Nook version is pending.) You can also purchase the soft-cover first editions at the Barnes and Noble online store and at the Fezziwig Press online store. And locally, you can obtain the soft-cover book at Tucson Touch Therapies at Pima and Alvernon and at Betty Blue's Junk Shop on South Plumer. Lastly, on, Saturday, November 10th, 2012, from Noon to 5 p.m., I'll be at my studio at 549 N. 7th Avenue, for an imformal book signing, in conjunction with the Tucson Open Studio Tour.
And as a special free treat to those who buy Step Zero, I'll send you a pdf of The Lost Images of Step Zero, a hundred plus images that didn't make the final edit, but are a nice adjunct to the Step Zero experience, whatever that means. Just send me a Facebook message or an email at stujenks@gmail.com and I'll send the PDF right to you.
So push those buttons and buy those books, boys and girls, for baby needs a new pair of shoes.
From The Lost Images Of Steps Zero PDF:
Top to bottom, "A Rose For Chessie, California", "Matt Antone's Ginger, Arizona", "The 41 Nights, Arizona", and "Michael and Chessie's Moon, California".
Cover design by Gail Cross of Desert Isle Designs. Cover photograph by Stu Jenks.
Update of the release of Step Zero: A Sober Love Story by Stu Jenks
We will be uploading the ebook version of Step Zero tomorrow. I'll let you know when it had been processed for all the digital platforms. My guess, in a week.
And the analog editions of Step Zero, also known as a book, are arriving today at Studio BR-549 in Tucson.
The Fezziwig Press store will have Step Zero within a week, but if you wish to purchase the book directly from me now, just log into my Paypal account using stujenks@gmail.com and deposit $17.95 plus $6.95 for Priority Mail, shipping, and handling. $24.90 total. And make sure you put your mailing address in your order. And let me know if you want me to personalize the book to you.
That's all for now. Happy times here at Fezziwig Press.
"The Saum Children, Virginia" (c) 1930?, 2012, Earl Saum?, Stu Jenks
From left to right: Mary Saum Jenks, Courtney Saum, Nan Saum Haddad, Virginia Saum Edmonds.
Thanks to Becky Edmonds for find the photo and for her friend for image-capturing the original photograph. I desaturated, cropped, cleaned and fiddled with the file I recieved from my cousin.
This was taken at the Saum Farm outside of Alexandria, Virginia. From what my mother told me, this was not a happy time. Earl Saum, her father, was a violent alcoholic who would beat poor Courtney to an inch of his life in front of the entire family. Often. Very Often. The Saum kids were not happy or maybe just Mom wasn't, but I'm guessing everyone was scared.
My mother would occasionally exaggerate. Her unhappy childhood I don't believe was something she was hyperbolic about. Notice how all the children are standing at attention, how only one is smiling, how none are holdling hands. They were frightened of the photographer, their dad. A striking photograph of my family.
Mary Jenks died a year ago on July 7th, 2011. Rest in peace, Mom. Your ashes rest beside your husband's and behind your daughter's. And your son's ashes will be there someday.
"The Jenks in 1971" (c) ???, 1971 and Stu Jenks, 2012
Found this in my mother's wallet. Was taken at some photo studio in Raleigh, North Carolina in 1971. I was 16 or 17, Pamela was around 21, Dad was 49ish, and Mary was in her early 40's.
I put this up on the StuBlog primarily to show that my sister was once quite the pretty woman. Those horned-rimmed glasses though don't help my parents' looks, and sweet Jesus, did I have terrible teeth back then with the braces and such or what? Yikes. And my long hair just drove my Dad nuts. This was 1971 in the South, you know. And no, I don't know exactly why I decided to part my hair on the right, making a big blob of hairishness. My guess it was I knew if I parted it in the middle, my father and I would come to blows.
But wasn't Pamela a pretty girl?
And i did fiddle with this image a little, but I don't believe in photoshopping away the cracks and lost paper in old photos. They are the lovely scars of time in pictures. And yes, this once was a color photo. Guess it wasn't printed on archival paper (chuckles).
Been working on a backlog of images that may be chapter headers for the novel I'm writing. Images from Memphis, Pacifica, San Francisco, Picacho and Barstow.
I have been on the road a lot this year, haven't I? From North Carolina, Virginia, California, and parts inbetween.
It's good to be stationary for a while, working at my desk, with cool wet night air drifting in from outside, and the smell of lavender on my hands from a living plant I purchased today.
Happy Solstice everyone.
The Sun will return.
Been a long time coming for The Transpersonal Papers (1861-2010).
Three editors, two proofreaders, two designers, four printers, and hours, days, weeks, months, years, lifetimes, (I know I'm overstating), of writing, traveling, shooting, editing, remembering, hiking, and more writing, shooting, and editing, but I'm not complaining. No, no, no.
And apologies for not having the dough right now, to print The Transpersonal Papers as a coffee-table book as I had originally planned. ($10,000, it would have cost. Maybe someday.) But you now can buy it, for $14.95, as an Ebook on the Apple IPad, and I expect it to be available within a couple days on the Nook and the Kindle as well.
I just looked at it on my new IPad. The photos, text and design look grand.
And as an extra surprise, Bozo In Love is now up on IBooks too, ($9.95), as well as the rest of my catalog: Flame Spirals, Hoop Dancing, and Dementia Blues, on IBooks, Nook and Kindle.
Just in time for Christmas.
And don't worry. All but The Transpersonal Papers can still be bought as a book book through Fezziwig Press. I have plenty. Just go to www.fezziwigpressonline.com, for the hardbounds and paperbacks, but go to ITunes, today, (and Kindle and Nook, soon) for the ebooks.
Heavy sigh from my third story apartment balcony. I look out onto the Tucson city lights in the valley below. Cold, dry air embraces me. I inhale deeply. Exhale.
A very good night in the desert.
Think I'll make a cup of coffee with egg nog and play some Angry Birds on my new IPad.
Time to celebrate.
"Tucson's All Souls' Procession: 2011" (c) 2011 Stu Jenks
I didn't take that many photographs at this year's ASP (All Souls' Procession), but that was more than OK with me. I was helping managing the photographers backstage and around the Grand Finale site, and I walked with the Urn, as well, through much of downtown, just because. Then the bagpipes called like me they always do and I walked with the Seven Pipers until I got to the Finale site.
What makes the ASP so powerful to me, among other things, is it's both a very large public event and a very private personal one, all at the same time. I can be surrounded for tens of thousands of people, but a single tear may fall from my eye when I hear Amazing Grace on the pipes, or when I think of my dead mother and sister, all while drummers, dancers and celebrants in dead face walk through my hometown.
Anyway.
To see some amazing work by the MMOS (Many Mouths One Stomach)/ASP photographers that had special access, just go to my Facebook page and to the ASP FB pages and browse around. You'll be bedazzled. The photogs you'll see on my Facebook (and at other FB pages as well) break the stereotype of the obnoxious photographer. Talented, wonderful folk all, besides being great imagemakers, they are also some of the most respectful, kindest artists you'll find anywhere. Thanks, everyone who had a photo pass (and many of those who didn't have passes,) for being such wonderful photographic ladies and gentlemen.
And below of my images from All Souls' Procession. I was going for grainy yet sharpish. And I seem to have been drawn to the faces of those around the Urn, and the faces of those who worked so hard to make this all happen. Thanks, Alphonso, Jefe, Paul, Heather, Moises, Nadia, and on and on and on. Literally, too many to name.
And I had to take some pics of fire too. I am a Zippo man, after all.
