Neil Fein's Blog

Frannie's^[1] birthday party was great fun. We were at a Jewish-themed retreat in Accord, NY, up near the Catskill mountains. We pulled up in the car and saw Frannie by the pool; she suggested we take a swim before dinner. Shortly, we had checked in to "The House Of Love" (its name in Hebrew, as Daniel translated), and were shortly at the poolside in bathing suits. Frannie introduced us to a friend and client of hers, who was great fun to talk to. Ekiwah Adler Belendez is a young poet with a very slight accent (he's from Mexico), and I now have yet another of Frannie's clients on my to-read list.

I brought three books along but only read about 30 pages, and that was late at night.

The weekend was great fun. Frannie is a literary agent and political protestor, and her friends are similarly inclined. Martha called it a "hippie-crunchy" culture (I think she means hippie-granola) and the description is apt. There were lots of sing-alongs, as I was far from the only person with a guitar.

In-between conversations at Friday night's dinner, I got some writing done on the Yellow House song. At this dinner, we met, amongst many others, Kenneth Jackman, a friend of the birthday girl's and a photographer, he's remarkably easy to talk to; and Alison^[2] Rosa Clark, a massage therapist and a dancer. (She danced during a birthday skit slash speech slash roast performed on Saturday night.) Later on we met more family members that I can remember names; my name tag stated that "My name is Neil and I don't remember yours".

^[1] Or "Frances" as most seem to call her.

^[2] Spelled with one "L".